16 MR. cushing's address. 



surface of the earth is a confused mass of mountains. Of 

 course, navigable rivers, canals, and railways, either to connect 

 together the interior parts of the country, or to connect them 

 with the sea, are impossible. Of course, also, the relative pro- 

 portion of arable land is much less than it is in this country. 

 Moreover, as the climate is dry, and the running streams few 

 and small, therefore, of the land in general only those portions 

 can be cultivated profitably, which arc susceptible of irrigation. 

 If God had cast the lot of our fathers in that part of America, 

 not ours would be the mighty ships, v/hich now bear our flag, 

 and the fame of our greatness, and the rich productions of our 

 soil, our fisheries, our work-shops, and our looms, to the utter- 

 most bounds of the earth ; — not ours, the floating palaces of the 

 Hudson, the Delaware, the Ohio, and the Mississippi ; — not ours 

 the wonders of mechanic art in the use of the steam engine : — 

 not ours, the iron bands of so many railroads, which seem as 

 if intended to bind together indissolubly the East and the 

 West, the North and the South ; — not ours the great forests and 

 vast prairies of the West, which invite and satisfy the expan- 

 sive energies of our race, which draw off" the superfluity of our 

 population, which constitute the safety-valve for all the pent- 

 up passions and explosive or subversive tendencies of an ad- 

 vanced society, and which in the asylum and aliment they af- 

 ford to the discontented or unhappy of other lands, are serving 

 to hurry us on to the very pinnacle of earthly power. 



As, therefore, we are great, wealthy, prosperous, and pow- 

 erful, so are we, despite of transitory conflicts of interest, peace- 

 ful and secure in our political relations, because of land, more 

 land, exuberance of land. The Anglo-Saxon must have room 

 in space, and his own way in opinion. The colonists of Mas- 

 sachusetts-Bay had spread themselves over half the surface of 

 the State, at a time, when their aggregate number did not ex- 

 ceed the present population of one of our smaller cities ; and 

 how little of dissent, either religious or political, they tolerated, 

 we know well here in Salem. The i^eople of the English 

 Colonies felt crowded on the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, 

 and, though most of the land was yet untrodden wilderness, 

 they could not find space among them in which to suffer the 



