INTRODUCTION. 11 



masterly ability with which the leading minds of the 

 nation, during the last half-century, have moulded 

 and developed the prodigious resources of the people 

 for whom they were called to legislate. 



But physical interests and wants are not the only 

 ones which have stirred within the breasts of the 

 twenty millions of freemen who inhabit the land. 

 There is a better department of man's nature than 

 that appropriated to the mere acquisition of wealth, 

 or the development of material resources. The 

 whole history of civilization during past ages proves, 

 that its progress has always been associated first 

 with the practical and necessary, afterward with the 

 ornate and the superfluous, wants and gratifications 

 of the community. Arts and sciences, literature and 

 refinement, inevitably follow in the train of wealth, 

 liberty, and power; and to gratify these more ele- 

 vated and cultivated impulses of humanity, abilities 

 are necessary which are different in character from 

 those exhibited by the chief actors in the practical 

 and necessary departments of mental labor. 



Here again the Republic displayed the creative 

 richness and abundance of her resources; for she 

 now boasts many immortal names in the various 

 departments of science, literature, artistic skill, and 

 mechanical invention. She may point to such rare 

 men as Benjamin West, "Washington Irving, Bry- 



