344 Presidential Addresses 



pose we had embarked on a career of expansion, 

 that we had taken our place among those daring 

 and hardy nations who risk much with the hope and 

 desire of winning high position among the great 

 powers of the earth. As is so often the case in 

 nature, the law of development of a living organ 

 ism showed itself in its actual workings to be wiser 

 than the wisdom of the wisest. 



This work of expansion was by far the greatest 

 work of our people during the years that intervened 

 between the adoption of the Constitution and the 

 outbreak of the Civil War. There were other ques 

 tions of real moment and importance, and there 

 were many which at the time seemed such to those 

 engaged in answering them; but the greatest feat 

 of our forefathers of those generations was the deed 

 of the men who, with pack train or wagon train, 

 on horseback, on foot, or by boat, pushed the fron 

 tier ever westward across the continent. 



Never before had the world seen the kind of na 

 tional expansion which gave our people all that part 

 of the American continent lying west of the thirteen 

 original States ; the greatest landmark in which was 

 the Louisiana Purchase. Our triumph in this proc 

 ess of expansion was indissolubly bound up with 

 the success of our peculiar kind of federal gov 

 ernment; and this success has been so complete that 

 because of its very completeness we now sometimes 

 fail to appreciate not only the all-importance but 

 the tremendous difficulty of the problem with which 

 our Nation was originally faced. 



