each or most of these ports proceed inland through important towns, to great dépôts on the St. Lawrence, the lakes, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, namely, Quebec, Montreal, Ogdensburgh, Oswego, Rochester, Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo, Monroe, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Cairo, and Memphis. Again-there are tributaries which search out agricultural and mineral productions and fabrics, accumulated at less notable points; and so a complete system is perfected, which leaves no inhabited region unexplored, while it has for its base the long line of seaboard. The aggregate length of these railroads is sixteen thousand miles, and the total cost is six hundred millions of dollars. Immediately after the purchase of Louisiana, President Jefferson having conceived the idea of a national establishment on the Pacific coast, an exploration of the intervening wastes was made. An American navigator, about the same time, visited the coast itself, and thus laid the foundation of a title by discovery. A commercial settlement, afterwards planted on the Columbia river by the late John Jacob Astor, perished in the war of 1812. Ten years ago, the great thought of Pacific colonization revived, under the influence of the commercial activity resulting from the successful progress of the system of internal improvements. Oregon was settled. Two years afterward, its boundaries were defined, and it was politically organized; and now it constitutes two prosperous territories. The social, military, and ecclesiastical institutions of Mexico proved unfavorable to an immediate success of the republican system. Rev. olution became a chronic disease there. Texas separated, and practically became independent, although Mexico refused to recognize her separation. After some years, Texas was admitted as a state into our Federal Union. A war which ensued resulted, not only in the relinquishment of Mexican claims upon Texas, but in the extension of her coast frontier to the Rio Grande, and also in the annexation of New Mexico and Upper California to the United States. Thus, in sixty-five years after the peace of Versailles, the United States advanced from the Mississippi, and occupied a line stretching through eighteen degrees of latitude on the Pacific coast, overlooking the Sandwich islands and Japan, and confronting China (the Cathay for which Columbus was in search when he encountered the bewildering vision of San Domingo). The new possession was divided into two territories and the state of California. The simultane ous discovery of native gold in the sands and rocks of that State resulted in the instantaneous establishment of an active commerce, not only with our Atlantic cities, but also with the ports of South America and with the maritime countries of Europe, with the Sandwich Islands, and even with China. Thus the United States ceased to be a mere Atlantic nation, and assumed the attitude of a great continental power, enjoying ocean navigation on either side, and bearing equal and similar relations to the eastern and to the western coast of the old world. The national connections between the Atlantic and Pacific regions are yet incomplete; but the same spirit which has brought them into political union is at work still, and no matter what the government may do or may leave undone, the neces-sary routes of commerce, altogether within and across our own domain, will be yet established. The number of states has increased, since this aggrandizement began, from seventeen to thirty-one; the population from five millions to twenty-four millions; the tonnage employed in commerce from one million to four and a half millions; and the national revenues from ten millions to sixty millions of dollars. Within that period, Spain has retired altogether from the continent, and two considerable islands in the Antilles are all that remains of the New World which, hardly four centuries ago, the generous and pious Genoese navigator, under the patronage of Isabella, gave to the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. Great Britain tenders us now the freedom of the fisheries and of the St. Lawrence, on conditions of favor to the commerce of her colonies, and even deliberates on the policy of releasing them from their allegiance. The influences of the United States on the American continent have resulted already in the establishment of the republican system everywhere, except in Brazil, and even there in limiting imperial power. In Europe they have awakened a war of opinion, that, after spreading desolation into the steppes of Russia, and to the base of the Carpathian mountains, has only been suppressed for a time by combination of the capital and of the political forces of that continent. In Africa, those influences, aided by the benevolent efforts of our citizens, have produced the establishment of a republic, which, beginning with the abolition of the traffic in slaves, is going steadily on toward the moral regen. eration of its savage races. In the Sandwich Islands, those influences have already effected, not only such a regeneration of the natives, but also a political organization, which is bringing that important commercial station directly under our protection. Those influences have opened the ports of Japan, and secured an intercourse of commerce and friendship with its extraordinary people-numbering forty millions—thus overcoming a policy of isolation which they had practised for a hundred and fifty years. The same influences have not only procured for us access to the five principal ports of China, but also have generated a revolution there, which promises to bring the three hundred millions living within that vast empire into the society of the western nations. How magnificent is the scene which the rising curtain discloses to - us here! and how sublime the pacific part assigned to us! "The eastern nations sink, their glory ends, But, restraining the imagination from its desire to follow the influences of the United States in their future progress through the Manillas, and along the Indian coast, and beyond the Persian gulf, to the far-off Mozambique, let us dwell for a moment on the visible results of the national aggrandizement at home. Wealth has everywhere increased, and has been equalized with much success in all the states, new as well as old. Industry has persevered in opening newly discovered resources, and bringing forth their treasures, as well as in the establishment of the productive arts. The capitol, which at first seemed too pretentious, is extending itself northward and southward upon its noble terrace, to receive the representatives of new incoming states. The departments of executive administration continually expand under their lofty arches and behind their lengthening colonnades. The federal city, so recently ridiculed for its ambitious solitudes, is extending its broad avenues in all directions, and, under the hands of native artists, is taking on the graces, as well as the fullness, of a capital. Where else will you find authority so august as in a council composed of the representatives of thirty states, attended by ambassadors from every free city, every republic, and every court, in the civilized world? In near proximity, and in intimate connection with that capital, a metropolis has arisen, which gathers, by the agency of canals, of railroads, and of coastwise navigation, the products of industry in every form throughout the North American states, as well those under foreign jurisdiction as those which consti tute the Union, and distributes them in exchange over the globe-a city whose wealth and credit supply or procure the capital employed in all the great financial movements within the republic, and whose press, in all its departments of science, literature, religion, philanthropy, and politics, is a national one. Thus, expansion and aggrandizement, whose natural tendency is to produce debility and dissolution, have operated here to create, what before was wanting, a social, political, and commercial centre. In considering the causes of this material growth, allowance must be made, liberally made, for great advantages of space, climate, and resources, as well as for the weakness of outward resistance, for the vices of foreign governments, and for the disturbed and painful condition of society under them-causes which have created and sus tained a tide of emigration towards the United States unparalleled, at least in modern times. But when all this allowance shall have been made, we shall still find that the phenomenon is chiefly due to the operation here of some great ideas, either unknown before, or not before rendered so effective. These ideas are, first, the equality of men in a state, that is to say, the equality of men constituting a state; secondly, the equality of states in a combination, or, in other words, the equality of states constituting a nation. By the constitution of every state in the American Union, each citizen is guaranteed his natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and he, at the same time, is guaranteed a share of the sovereign power, equal to that which can be assumed by any other citizen. This is the equality of men in the state. By the constitution of the United States, there are no subjects. Every citizen of any one state is a free and equal citizen of the United States. Again, by the constitution of the United States, there are no permanent provinces, or dependencies. The Union is constituted by states, and all of them stand upon the same level of political rights. This is the equality of states in the nation. The reduction of the two abstractions which I have mentioned into the concrete, in the constitution of the United States, was, like most other inventions, mainly due to accident. There were thirteen several states, in each of which, owing to fortunate circumstances attending their original colonization, each citizen was not only free, but also practically equal, in his exercise of political power, to every other citizen of that state. The freedom and equality of the citizen, and the inalienability of his natural rights, were solemnly reäffirmed in the Declaration of Independence. These thirteen states were severally free and independent of each other. They, therefore, were equal states. Each was a sovereign. They needed free and mutual commerce among themselves, and some regulations for securing to each equal facilities of commerce with foreign countries. A union was necessary to the attainment of these ends. But the citizens of each state were unwilling to surrender either their natural and inalienable rights, or the guardianship of them, to a common government over them all, even to attain the union which they needed so much. So a federal central government was established, which is sovereign only in commerce at home and abroad, and in the necessary communications with other nations; that is to say, sovereign only in regard to the mutual internal relations of the states themselves, and in regard to foreign affairs. In this government the states are practically equal constituents, although the equality was modified by some limitations found necessary to secure the assent of some of the states. The states were not dissolved, nor disorganized, but they remain really states, just as before, existing independently of each other and of the Union, and exercising sovereignty in all the municipal departments of society. The citizen of each state also retains all his natural rights equally in the Union and in the state to which he belongs, and the United States are constituted by the whole mass of such citizens throughout all the several states. There was an unoccupied common domain, which the several states surrendered to the federal authorities, to the end that it might be settled, colonized, and divided into other states, to be organized and to become members of the Union on an equal footing with the original states. When additions to this domain were made from foreign countries, the same principles seemed to be the only ones upon which the government could be extended over them, and so, with some qualifications unimportant on the present occasion, they became universal in their application. No other nation, pursuing a career of aggrandizement, has adopted the great ideas thus developed in the United States. The Macedonian conquered kingdoms for the mere gratification of conquest, and they threw off the sway he established over them as soon as the sword dropped from his hand. The Romans conquered, because the alien was a barbarian rival and enemy, and because Rome must fill the world alone. The empire, thus extended, fell under the blows |