J. F. Tallant wrote from Burlington, Iowa to Eli Thayer in Worcester, Massachusetts, seeking Thayer's endorsement of a plan to build a railroad across southern Iowa from Burlington, on the Mississippi River, to a point on the Missouri River. He observed that the federal government recently passed an Iowa land bill donating alternate sections of land to four railroad routes from the Mississippi River to the Missouri River. Tallant maintained that the proposed southern Iowa route would provide an easier route to Kansas for antislavery supporters.