Introduction

In the early 1870s, Yankton County embarked on a plan to build Dakota Territory’s first railroad. Though visionary in its scope, this plan soon faced an array of hostile forces, including corruption in the territorial system, a sudden congressional cessation of railroad funding, and the post-Civil War politics of statehood. Even though Yankton’s railroad experience may not have fulfilled the initial dreams underlying that experience, the story of those efforts does succeed in bringing to life the timeless theories and observations of two of America’s foremost commentators. The Yankton railroad saga indeed might be viewed as the meeting of Madison and Tocqueville: a story of bold, determined enterprise, conducted by a small county of pioneers with grand dreams for their new home, forced to encounter the truth of Madison’s warnings about the oppressive force of governmental corruption brought about by excessive power.