ico, Utah, and Nebraska. Do you doubt the tendency of expansion beyond your present borders? Only sixty years ago, all our settlements clustered between Cape Ann and St. Mary's river on the Atlantic coast. Where are they now? On the east and north, they overhang the Bay of Fundy and Lake Superior; southward, they stretch away quite round the peninsula of Florida to the banks of the Rio Grande; on the west, their setting sun extinguishes his fires in the waters of the Pacific. By purchase and conquest, the boundaries of the republic have been made to advance equally with this gigantic but voluntary expansion of population. And are we now content? Not at all. On every side there are signs of the chafing of the people against the rigid and unyielding frontier. What do these controversies with the maritime British North American provinces about the fisheries, and with the inland provinces about restraints on trade indicate, but discontent? What these ill-suppressed and desperate expeditions from Louisiana and Florida against Cuba, but covetousness of the sugar-plantations, and coffee-grounds of that beautiful island. What this new and ominous diplomatic controversy with Mexico, about a route for a railroad across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, but a further dismemberment, if not a complete absorption, of that prematurely-declining republic? And lastly, whet these explorations and expeditions about Japan, and the Sandwich islands, but the necessity of naval stations in the Pacific ocean? Mark, also, that in nearly all these coveted countries, not only have the principles of American republicanism worked out practically institutions substantially similar to our own, but there are already organized in the native populations, parties strong enough when seconded by efforts on our part, to deliver them into our hands. How significant, indeed, are the facts that Great Britain has practically relinquished government in the provinces adjacent to us, to their inhabitants, and that simultaneously with the fixed establishment of society in Australia, indications of the rise of a republic appear? It is happily true that, these desires for immediate annexation of adjacent regions are local, and in some measure what we call sectional, and so counteract and balance each other; and that the expanding forces are also further modified by conservative apprehensions widely prevailing in the country. Nevertheless, these are only checks-not absolute restraints. All such restraints have ultimately given way, heretofore, and must do so sooner or later hereafter. Nor may it be believed that any American colony, planted beyond our borders, will contentedly remain without, or will, with the national consent, be left to remain independent of the republic. Experience has taught us nothing well, if it has not taught us that, wherever the American people go, they will draw the American government over them; wherever an American colony establishes itself, there the American people will extend the constitutional roof over them. Indeed, there is nothing new in all these movements, neither those within nor those across the national borders. Expansion and incorporation were laws impressed on the American people two hundred years ago, and they yield to those laws now just as they have hitherto done, because they have arisen out of circumstances above national control, and are inevitable. Let me not, however, be misunderstood. I advocate no headlong progress, counsel no precipitant movement, much less any one involving war, violence, or injustice. I would not seize with haste, and force the fruit, which ripening in time, will fall of itself into our hands. But I know, nevertheless, that the stars will come out, even if the moon delay its rising. I have shown you then that a continent is to be peopled, and even distant islands to be colonized by us. These grand movements will draw largely on the moral, social, intellectual, and political resources of the existing states. Other countries and other continents will, as they have done hitherto, contribute great and rapid emigrations; but the elements of American society, the two elements of the federative republican system of government, will be derived from the agricultural population of the established states already within the Union. Such supplies can not be adequately furnished, unless the residuary forces be perpetually renewed and invigorated. If they be not adequately supplied, so as to sustain not merely a pervading community of interests, but even a thorough homogeneousness of national character, sentiments, and sympathies, political, moral, social, and religious, then expansion, instead of proving a means of union and aggrandizement, will prove the cause of disunion and decline. Confessedly we have signs, though not alarming ones, of disunion now. They appear in southern states; iu the organization of an isolated, peculiar, hostile colony in the valley of the Salt lake; and they appear, also, in the res tiveness of a state on the Pacific, only three years old, under the supposed neglect, or disregard of her interests, by the federal government, which is now no longer a central one. In every case you see that the cause is the same-the absence of entire and perfect assimilation. How shall such assimilation be effected and maintained? The answer is simple, obvious, and practical. The tree, whose branches thus continually multiply and spread, and which, even now, covers nearly all of the regions of the continent lying within the temperate zone, and casts its shadow over distant islands, stands here, and we tread upon the very earth out of which the majestic trunk has risen. If we would cherish and preserve it, we must continually loosen the soil, and supply new streams of its native and accustomed moisture. While it is thus manifest that the responsibility for the preservation of our own necessary power and influence, and even of the preservation of the republic itself, rests chiefly on the agricultural population of the established states, and that responsibility involves a demand for improvement, progress, and elevation on their part, it is scarcely less apparent that, indirectly, by the influence of our tone and example, and directly by our growing connections with other nations, we must either check or accelerate, the movement of universal human society. We hear the almost stifled utterance of its aspirations; we see its often convulsive struggles; we sigh over its frequent reactions and disappointments, and so we learn and know that its tendency is toward freedom, self-government, peace, and ultimate brotherhood. How necessary is it that every action of our government should be such as at least to encourage, if it do not aid, the attainment of desires and hopes so natural, so necessary, so just, and so beneficent. But how can the corporate action of a nation —especially of a republic-be wiser, better, or more beneficent, than the temper and dispositions of the people who constitute the republic? The flowing stream always declines from the level of the fountain. Did you experience disappointment, mortification, and shame, when the great and good Kossuth, whom the nation welcomed as the overborne champion of liberty in Europe, was dismissed with coldness, neglect, and contumely, because he avowed that he had resolved to renew the lost conflict? I know you did; but where was the fault, the crime? It was the fault and the crime of the people, that they had not, with sufficient earnestness and unanimity, adopted the principles of the unity of the human family and the indivisibility of their destiny. So unwavering are the laws of Providence which punish human vices, and reward human virtues, that every vice indulged, and every crime committed, not only brings danger and suffering upon the delinquent, but works an injury to his country and his race; while every virtue practised, and every generous effort made for even self-improvement and elevation, is followed by personal advantages not only, but by benefits, to society, and to mankind. Farmers, friends, citizens, we are young in the old age of time; green amid the sere and falling leaves of ancient civilization. Let us cultivate and improve ourselves, and so save and impart to the world the elements of a new and happy renovation. |