856 
PAEIS UNIVERSAL 
markable development since 1862 ; our manufacturing indus¬ 
try had made unprecedented strides ; our finances were settling 
down upon a fixed and healthy basis; the broad areas of the 
Southern States were open, for the first time in our history, to 
the free labor and free institutions which had always made 
the Northern States so attractive to the overcrowded populations 
of the old world; and from all parts of our great country there 
came a loud and urgent demand for an amount of labor and 
capital we could not of ourselves supply. 
And then there were other and higher reasons why America 
should have been prompt to place herself in the van of this 
grand industrial movement. Its conception was eminently in 
harmony with the spirit of our republican institutions. It 
was destined to liberalize the nations and mightily contribute 
to the democratization of all peoples throughout the world. 
Nor was it to be less potent as an agency for the diffusion of 
knov ledge and the blessings of civilization in the dark places 
of the earth. 
The Emperor Napoleon III issued his decree as early as 
1864, in order that the remotest and the slowest nations might 
have ample time for preparation. The governments of many 
countries caught up the welcome edict and made prompt re¬ 
sponse by legal enactments looking to a worthy national repre¬ 
sentation thereat. Not so the United States. With a tardi¬ 
ness which is in danger of becoming characteristic, nothing of 
importance was done until 1866; and ere the government 
agency was actually in communication with all parts of the 
country by means of preliminary documents, the time had 
come when goods intended for the Exposition should have 
been actually on their way to New York. 
Action in the individual states was correspondingly tardy. 
To this general torpor Wisconsin was no honorable excep¬ 
tion. Agents in number sufficient to represent an empire 
were appointed by legislative enactment, during the winter of 
1866, but apparently without the remotest idea of anything 
more than a personal representation. At all events no provi¬ 
sion of any sort was made by the State, for an illustration at 
