not attempt to lift the veil from a future so stupendous, inevitably destined to repeat, on a yet grander scale, that immense agricultural development around the lakes which has now become historical. The rich cereals of Missouri, and Iowa, and Minnesota, and Kansas, States just creeping from their cradles, are already numbered by hundreds of millions of bushels, much of it perishing, or wastefully consumed for fuel, merely for want of this new avenue to the Atlantic.

The prediction in 1838 that our great interior States must eventually "become the common granary of the Union, and discharge the duty of supplying subsistence to the surrounding communities," though seriously questioned at the time, is already nearly if not entirely verified. The fundamental law of demand and supply, necessarily causing the most advantageous distribution of labor, especially in a continental nation united like ours under a common government, is now at least partially obeyed. The wheat crop of New York, whose principal and proper office is commerce, has already fallen to 8,681,000 bushels, hardly enough to feed her population for one-third of the year. The bushels produced in 1860 by all New England were but 1,077,000, sufficient only for three weeks' consumption. Surely, if any portion of our whole republic is especially interested in securing the food-bearing vessels of the lakes from the possibility of capture or interruption, it is the three millions of sagacious, loyal, and thrifty people who inhabit the granite ranges and rocky promontories of that ancient and noble family of States who, finding it easier and better to spin than to plough, compel their numerous and sparkling waterfalls, so richly scattered over their rugged country, to purchase from the fertile west the bread which they require. The magic power of the Union so entirely abolishes east and west, that the fabrics of the east are practically only the food of the west, reappearing in another shape, and in that more portable and convenient form increasing the sum of our foreign exports.

It was a fortunate if not a providential coincidence which led in 1846 to the removal of the artificial and arbitrary restraints on the freedom of commerce created by the British corn laws, just as the vast agricultural power of our lake States began to dawn on the civilized world. The imports of cereals into the British islands instantly rose from 37,916,000 bushels in 1846 to 115,959,000 bushels in 1860; and it may be safely affirmed that the year will never again arrive when those islands will yield food enough for their own consumption. Despite any and every struggle, the stern necessities of hunger will bind them at last with bands stronger than iron to the nation that can feed them.

Our tables of exports of domestic produce for the last forty years are replete with instruction as to the commercial and fiscal value, for national purposes, of the commerce of the lakes. The total value of breadstuffs and provisions yearly exported to foreign countries, as exhibited by those tables, was $12,341,901 in 1821; and in 1836 had actually diminished to $10,624,130; and again in 1838 to $9,636,650. Up to 1845 it had increased only to $16,743,421, but in 1847, when the agricultural products of the great interior States began to pour in heavily from the lakes, (as shown by that unerring barometer, the Erie canal,) it rose at once to $68,701,921.

Since that time it has fluctuated more or less with the varying necessities of the nations of Europe; but in 1856 the amount had reached $77,187,301, which was again increased in the year ending the 30th of June, 1861, to $93,969,682, exclusive of $4,245,410 in cattle, hides, and tallow, which for the present inquiry might fairly be included. It is a fact of much significance that in the year last mentioned the total value of the cotton exported was but $34,051,482, and during the current year little or nothing, conclusively showing that we shall be compelled, at least for a season, mainly to rely on our exports of food and our manufactures, which are its direct or indirect derivative, for the means of importing the duty-paying foreign commodities from which the treasury must

derive its revenues apart from taxation. The value of the manufactures exported in the year last mentioned (excluding those of cotton, which were $7,957,038) was $25,149,037, which, added to the $93,969,682 of food, makes a total export of $119,118,689. This sum will purchase its equivalent in foreign commodities, on which an average import duty of 25 per cent. would be $29,779,471; conclusively demonstrating that the commerce of the lakes, for which these national canals furnish the necessary outlets to the seaboard, has become eminently and emphatically national in its character and consequences; that it constitutes a fundamental and vital element of our national strength, political, commercial, and fiscal; and that in all these respects it has now attained a national importance that American statesmen will not willingly and cannot safely disregard.

With the view thus presented of the direct influence of these agricultural exports in securing duty-paying imports in return, it is really difficult to prescribe a proper limit of expenditure for securing the completion of cheap and capacious navigable channels, by which to augment the quantity brought to the seaboard; but it is certain that, if the due enlargement of the New York and Illinois canals were to cost even $20,000,000, and should increase the yearly quantity but 10,000,000 of bushels, the import duties on the foreign commodities which that increase would purchase would very shortly reimburse the whole

amount.

In conclusion, it remains only to notice an objection, which possibly may be urged by individuals of timid temperament, that the great national work of uniting the Hudson through the canals and lakes with the Mississippi, by an unbroken water communication, affording ample means, not only of public defence but of rapidly increasing the national commerce, and its consequent contributions to the common treasury, is a measure to be considered only during a period of peace, and should not be undertaken or encouraged at the present time, nor until the pending effort to dismember the Union shall be finally terminated.

This objection has no real force. On the contrary, if the nation has temporarily lost a portion of its resources, it needs all the more to foster and replenish the residue. If one-half of the body politic be paralyzed, it is surely wise to strengthen the other. Nor is the real ability of the government to discharge all its duties impaired to any serious extent. Despite the sneers of open enemies or treacherous friends on either side of the Atlantic, our country, in substantial credit, in agricultural wealth, in manufacturing power, and, above all, in every element of moral force, never stood higher.

Nor would any national adversity, however severe, justify the abandonment or disregard of a distinct constitutional obligation, or the neglect of measures plainly calculated to increase our fiscal power, and encourage the industry and commerce of our loyal people. The hour of adversity is the time to try both men and nations. It is the opportunity kindly accorded to them by Provi dence to show to the surrounding world their steady courage, their calm consciousness of strength, their indomitable, self-sustaining power.

Such has been the example of every nation truly great. The British government bravely contending, all but single-handed, for nearly twenty years against the colossal power of the first Napoleon, did not, for a moment, neglect to foster the commerce which enabled it to maintain that very struggle. The sturdy old Hollanders, after inundating all their land to resist their haughty enemy, fitted out a fleet to sweep the channel. It was amid the long and wasting wars of Louis the Fourteenth that his great canal of Languedoc was constructed, under the consummate statesmanship of Colbert, to connect the Atlantic with the Mediterranean. Its triumphant completion, immortalized by the historian and the poet, was solemnly celebrated amid the benedictions of the church, and the acclamations of assembled France.

The American lakes, with the enlarged canals of New York and Illinois as their chief accessories, if laid down on the map of Europe, would reach from the Atlantic to the Volga, and open an unbroken navigation through a majestic line of principalities, monarchies, and empires, for ages disunited, and widely differing in language, laws, and race. By a beneficent Providence this splendid series of connecting waters has been committed to the American Union for its highest purposes, both in war and peace. It is for the honored head of the government now to show that, fully recognizing this solemn trust, he is ready, with the co-operation of Congress, to go vigorously forward and complete a work so important to the American people for all coming ages.

Respectfully submitted, in behalf of the State of New York, by SAMUEL B. RUGGLES.

WASHINGTON, June 9, 1862.