37 



" The greatest production in tlie shortest time and at the least 

 cost, the best markets and the quickest returns," 



The marvels of our country's progress have been, as we all 

 know, the theme of constant oratory ; but so unparalleled has 

 that progress been that even the language of wise and sagacious 

 statesmen has failed to portray the glorious and gorgeous des- 

 tiny of the States. I remember two instances in our national 

 history which conspicuously illustrate this failure to appreciate 

 the giant forces at work in our midst. In 1824, as sagacious 

 a statesman as President James Monroe, as much as he had 

 seen of the progress of the country in his day, proposed to col- 

 onize the Indians of Western ISTevv York in Wisconsin, under 

 the impression that it was a part of the country so remote 

 that they would not be disturbed for many years to come ; yet 

 in eighteen years, Wisconsin, no longer naked in the savage 

 aspect of her wilderness, but clad in the noble garments of a 

 refined and pure civilization, was knocking at the doors of 

 Congress for admittance as one of the free and sovereign States 

 of this Union. And in 1825, Thomas H. Benton, a distin- 

 guished Senator of the United States, who, like science, prided 

 himself on being " an expunger " in General Jackson's time — 

 you remember the resolution that he expunged in the Senate — 

 pointed to the ridge of the Eocky mountains as " the conve- 

 nient, natural and everlasting boundary of the Union ;" yet in 

 twenty-two years the eagle of the Union, like the true bird of 

 Jove, had winged its flight across those majestic ranges, over 

 boundless plains and endless forests, to rest his pinions upon 

 the golden sands of California and bathe his royal plumage in 

 the waters of the great Pacific. 



However much the men of America have differed in opin- 

 ion upon the issues of politics and questions of party ; however 

 much the New Englander condemned and disapproved the war 



