POSITION OF THE BARMER. 89 



peopling the banks of our rivers from the Connecticut to the 

 Merrimack. 



To look no farther for illustration, it is land which has made 

 these United States a permanent, prosperous, and thriving 

 people. Our tenure of land gives a distinctive character to 

 our government ; our fortunate geographical location and our 

 agricultural resources give it a firm and unshaken foundation. 

 It is not- our lineage alone which makes us great ; for here in 

 the early settlement of our country the Puritan, the Cavalier, 

 the Huguenot, combined to plant along our shores from Maine 

 to Florida, those principles of freedom which are inherent in 

 all breasts, and whicli found new opportunity for growth in the 

 amplitude of a virgin soil. In our own day, under the equal- 

 izing influences of our government the Teuton and Celt alike 

 rise to the elevation of free citizenship. For all possess the 

 land. It would seem to be a part of our national destiny, to 

 bring every kindred, and nation, and tongue under heaven into 

 the full understanding and enjoyment of a free government. 

 It is the abundance of land here which has infused into the 

 national mind a desire to possess, and which scattered our 

 people in our early days from the shores of the Atlantic to the 

 slopes of the Alleghanies, and inspired them to dislodge all 

 previous occupants, with relentless determination. And as the 

 natural consequence of such an origin, we have proceeded to 

 occupy and improve a belt of land across this continent, whose 

 extent and resources cannot be considered without wonder and 

 admiration. 



Had our people swarmed along the Atlantic coast, and 

 become the carriers of the products of others, and the manu- 

 facturers of 'their raw material, our colonial existence might 

 have continued to this day. It was the untamed and untamable 

 spirit cultivated by the occupation of new soil, and by the 

 promises held out by an untrodden wilderness, which gave us a 

 national existence, and national characteristics. The gradual 

 progress of our emigration along the valleys of the Mohawk 

 and the Susquehanna, along the great chain of lakes and 

 through the delicious lands watered by the Ohio and its tribu- 

 taries, opened to us a country which constantly furnished new 

 and vigorous materials for the foundation of our republic. We 

 indeed possess " a goodly land and large." And as from time 



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