canal enlargement, which ought to have been constructed for about the latter sum, is prosecuted with timidity and even distrust, increasing its cost twofold, and postponing its benefits till those who must pay for it shall have gone down to their graves.

Even now they tell us New York must hold in her breath, and forbear from speaking aloud for truth and justice, for fear of losing her trade and commerce. Her trade and commerce came to her, by no suppression of her principles and her sentiments, but were drawn to her by her Atlantic position, and by her rivers, and her canals and railroads. They came not from favor, but because she of all others could pay most for what others had to sell, and could sell cheaper what others wished to buy. Her trade and commerce are held now on this tenure and condition, and in that lies the secret of the commercial supremacy of New York.

What is that secret? Statesmen and citizens of other states, here it is! Here is Lake Erie. Stretching away for thousands of miles to the west lies the continent. Then almost at your feet is the Atlantic, the key of that continent. Far away in the east is the Old World, famishing for the supplies which that new country can supply. Here on the lakes which receive these supplies, and bear them in sloops, schooners, brigs, ships, and steam-vessels, and deposite them here on this isthmus, some three or four hundred miles wide, over which or through which they must be carried to the banks of the Atlantic coast, where other sloops, schooners, brigs, ships, and steamships, are waiting to waft them to Liverpool and London, and bring back the compensation to the cultivator. New York has only to cut a canal across this narrow isthmus, which is almost one continuous plain-a channel broad enough and deep enough to carry across the freight of the west which is to be transported to the east. A channel how large? Manifestly a ship-canal, because the commerce on the lakes and on the sea employs fleets, and nothing less than shipchannels from Lake Erie and Lake Ontario would be adequate.

The Erie canal, the Central railroad, the Northern railroad, and last, but by no means least, this great Southern railroad, all together contribute to that one great channel which New York has opened across the isthmus, enlarging it continually with the growing exactions of commerce, adopting at the same time the improvements suggested by art.

This command of the commerce of this continent is the dowry

of New York. All our merchants who were merchants have always understood it; all our statesmen who were statesmen have always labored to realize it. Those merchants who were not merchants have built their enterprises on it unknowingly, and those statesmen who were not statesmen have labored to build the power and greatness of the state on other and unsubstantial foundations. This secret, however, was not the discovery of our own statesmen. It preceded them all. It revealed itself to Washington, in 1783, when he had made his way, at the close of the war of the Revolution, up the Hudson and the Mohawk, and along Wood creek, and Oneida lake, and the Mad river, to the shore of Lake Ontario at Oswego. The sea was behind him, the lakes stretched away before him; his feet were on the isthmus. The secret broke upon him, and he gave utterance to it at once in a letter to the marquis of Chastellux, which has long since gone into history. How came the secret to break itself to the Father of our country? I will tell you how. He was seeking security for the union of the states which was so soon to cover this continent. He found that guaranty in commercial union, and he saw that commercial union rising out of the canals and roads which New York might construct across the isthmus on which he stood. Thus it is seen that we have only been executing the plans which wise and patriotic men designed for us long ago. We have only been too timid and too slow. In 1800, Gouverneur Morris predicted that in fifty years ships would sail out of Lake Erie, through the Hudson, to Liverpool. The half century is up, and the prediction is unfulfilled. Shame upon us! It might have been fulfilled, and ought to have been fulfilled in 1845, and would have been, if the public works had not been unnecessarily and unduly abandoned. Gouverneur Morris promised only a revenue of one and a quarter millions of dollars from the whole navigation across the isthmus. One boat-canal and our railroads, which are only the imperfect fulfilment of his plan of navigation, are yielding already nearly five millions.

It is due to the truth of history to confess that the city of New York was slow to comprehend this great policy and her own great destiny. The state forced the Erie canal upon the city in spite of herself. The city of New York never gave a vote for the Erie canal until twelve years after its original construction. But it is equally true that the state then faltered and fell away,

leaving the system to fall into ruins; and its wrecks still present themselves to our view along all the routes of the canals and along the route of this great railroad. But then it was that the merchants of New York, who were merchants, came to the rescue. Their city had trebled in population and quadrupled in wealth within twenty-five years by the operation of the Erie canal. They then made returns to the state for this great boon, by the construction of the New York and Erie railroad, which will serve to supply the deficiency of facilities for the commerce which grows faster than we can enlarge its channel.

The suspension of this work in their hands on former occasions was the result of causes beyond their control. The commercial embarrassments of 1837 resulted in the suspension, not of this enterprise alone, but in the suspension of every enterprise of the sort in this state and in all other states, except that indomitable and noble state, Massachusetts. The resumption and completion of it, after it had lost the public confidence and the favor of the state, are worthy to be held in respect and admiration by all men. All honor, then, to the merchants of New York! I, whom they do not flatter, and who do not hesitate to say what I think to be the truth to them, am free to confess and to own before the world that they are the builders of the power and greatness of the state, and the saviors of the union of the states. But they do all this, not by going down to Castle Garden to resolve in favor of the Union, but by building canals and railroads, to increase the freedom of inland trade, and swell to its utmost limits foreign commerce.

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For my part, I have faith and trust in the wisdom and adaptation of this noble system of union established by our fathers. I have faith unbroken in the loyalty of the people of all the states, in any hour of trial. I repose the fullest confidence in their triotism. Let these bonds of union remain, and let me see this isthmus on which we stand channelled and furrowed by a river wide enough and deep enough to convey the products of the west with the least cost to the vessels which wait for them on the Atlantic. Let me never fail to see these iron chains forged and' cast upon the territory within the several states, binding it together with new and durable links as it grows broader and broader, and I shall care not who may agitate, nor shall I fear the utmost extension. The Union will be safe, for its security will be anchored in the necessities and affections of the states and of the people.

EXECUTIVE SPEECHES.

THE ONONDAGAS.

ALBANY, MARCH 6, 1840.

ABRAHAM LE FORT TO GOVERNOR SEWARD.

GREAT FATHER: Your children, the Onondagas, have sent me to you, and they ask you to open your ears to me, and hear the talk which they have sent by me to you. FATHER: Your red children, the Onondagas, are in great trouble. They feel that you can scatter the dark clouds that are collecting and thickening around them, and can cause the bright sun of peace again to shine upon them, and their minds again to be possessed in peace.

FATHER: Will you now listen to your children, the Onondagas? Our white fathers that were before you, were good men, and gave good counsels to us. We have lain down in their shade, and have been safe. We have listened to their advice, and been happy. They told us no longer to drink strong water—to sell no more of our lands -to keep and cultivate them, to raise food for ourselves, our wives, and our little ones-to leave hunting and fishing-to live as our white brethren did, and like them to be happy and comfortable. We have considered this advice. We have watched our white brethren. We believe this advice, of our white fathers, to be good. We hunt no more. We have gotten oxen and horses. We cultivate our lands, and are following the advice of our white fathers, and are fast getting into the ways and comforts of our white brethren.

FATHER: You are young in years: we hope you are old in counsel -so our white brethren tell us, and we believe it. And your red children would like to know what is your mind, and whether it is like our other white fathers, who have sat in council before you at the great council fire in Albany, and who are now dead.

FATHER: Will you listen again? Our Oneida brothers have been in trouble, and have been often to you in council. But they would not listen to you, and now agree that they have listened to bad men, who did not counsel them, like their white fathers, for their good. They have sold their lands, received their whole pay, and spent it for strong water; become a poor, and wretched, a scattered, and wandering people.

NOTE.-Speech of Abraham Le Fort to Governor Seward.-Abraham Le Fort was the last Onondaga chief, the last of a race of savage kings. The Onondagas were merged in the Six Nations, or Senecas, and left at the old seat of the tribe, only a small remnant, which was still allowed during Governor Seward's time, to retain their qualified sovereignty and nationality.-Ed.

Many have gone beyond the great waters of the west. Some of them have come among your red children of the Onondagas, and with the little white foxes would persuade our young warriors to sell their homes-to leave their fathers and mothers— their brothers and sisters-to go with them to possess the west-to be led back to hunting and drunkenness.

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FATHER: Your red children desire to know your mind. We wish to keep together -to possess the land which the Great Spirit in goodness has given us- -to stay by the bones of our fathers, and watch the ashes here of those we loved- -to of those we know, whom we have tried, and who are our friends. white brethren who surround us: we know not those in the far west. white fathers here: we know not the white fathers in the west. Our white fathers here have taken us by the hand-and have been wise to us in counsel here. Who will be our fathers in the west? Will they be kind to us, or will they strike us down? We do not desire to sell. We do not desire to receive the principal for what we have sold. We only want the interest annually. We could not keep the principal. Our white brethren understand this matter much better than your red children. They have been honest with our nation, and always paid every year. We can do no better than to go on as we have done with them, and not do as the Oneidas have done.

FATHER: Listen once more. The chiefs, and warriors, and women, of the Onondagas have had a long council-a talk of three days—and their request to their father is, that he will shut his ears, shake his head, and turn his face away from all talk to him about the sale of the lands of the Onondagas. We know he can do it, and drive them away preserve the nation in peace-keep them together in friendship—and not scatter them like the Oneidas.

We now make our last request. Will our father think of the talk which his red children have now sent him? Will he send them his mind? Will he remember his children of the Onondagas, as our white fathers have done, and let them continue to lie under his shade, as they have done under the shade of their white fathers before him? Will he also be a father to them, and send them his mind? This is all that is sent by me, and I have done.

GOVERNOR SEWARD TO ABRAHAM LE FORT.

I HAVE Considered the talk you have made to me in behalf of the sachems, chiefs, and warriors, of the Onondagas. I am sorry to hear that the avarice of white men and the discontent of red men, have excited alarms among your people. I rejoice, and all good white men rejoice, to hear that the Onondagas have determined to banish the use of strong water, that they assume the habits and customs of civilized life, cultivate their lands, possess oxen and horses, and desire to remain in the land of their brave and generous, though unfortunate forefathers.

Why should the Onondagas exchange their homes among us for the privations of the wilderness in the far west? They are a quiet, inoffensive, and improving people. The public welfare