Page images
PDF
EPUB

channels which the Fellah has diverted from commemoration. To witness the union of the lakes and of the Mississippi. To survey one of the noblest works of man in the improvement of that great highway of nature, extending from New York to New Orleans, whose full moral and physical effects it were vain to seek even to conjecture.

the great river at their base, and which spreads verdure and fertility over the valley, that owes so much to God, and so little to is far dearer to the oppressed population, than these useless and mighty struc

man,

tures.

And fitly chosen is the day of this celebration. This work is another ligament, which binds together this great confederated Republic. Providence has given us union, and many motives to preserve it. The sun never shone upon a country abounding more than ours does, in all the elements of prosperity. It were needless to enumerate the advantages we enjoy, and which give us so distinguished a position among the nations of the world. They are seen and felt in all those evidences of prosperity and improvement, which greet the traveller wherever he passes through our country. And still more striking are they when we contrast our situation with that of the older regions of the world. I shall not enter into the comparison. I could speak of it from personal knowledge, but the task would not be a pleasant one, for it would recall many a cause of discontent, and many a scene of misery, which meet the eye of the most careless observer, who exchanges the new hemisphere for the old. An American, who does not return to his own country a wiser man and a better citizen, and prouder, and more contended, for all he has seen abroad, may well doubt his own head or heart, and may well be doubted by his countrymen.

Our eastern brethren, with the characteristic liberality and patriotism, which make the descendants of the pilgrims proud of the land of their ancestors, have just completed and dedicated a monument to mark the site of the battle, which opened the greatest contest between a powerful empire and her young and distant provinces, and whose influence, if it did not give to the Revolution its fortunate issue, impressed its character upon the whole struggle. We have no such place to hallow; but we have the people to do the deeds by which places are sanctified, and where the pilgrims of liberty come, not to worship but to reflect. We have not the wealth nor those „appliances", by which the long and imposing procession, and the gorgeous pageantry, which a great city can arrange and display, affect, and almost subdue, the imagination. We have not the chief magistrate of the republic, with his official counsellors, to mark, as it were, with a national character, the occasion of our assemblage. Nor have we constructed an obelisk, simple and severe in its style, but lasting as the deeds it commemorates, whose foundation is laid in the graves of martyred patriots, but whose summit rises towards the heavens, telling the story of their fall, and proclaiming the gratitude of Still, it is not to be disguised that, from their countrymen. But there are here stout the very constitution of human nature causes hearts and strong hands; thousands, who may occasionally exist, tending to weaken, would devote themselves, as did the men though they cannot sever, the bonds which of Bunker Hill, to the cause of freedom, unite us; and happy is it that these causes and who would fight as they fought, and may be counteracted, and ultimately, we may die as they died, should their country de- hope, rendered powerless, by measures now mand the sacrifice. On the face of the globe, in progress, which will add the ties of inliberty has no more zealous defenders, nor terest to the dictates of patriotism. Our patriotism more ardent votaries, than is this railroads and canals are penetrating every great assembly, the convocation of a people, section of our territory. They are annihilatwho have made this region their own by ing time and space. They are embracing in all the ties that bind a man to his home, their folds the ocean and the lake frontiers, and who will defend it, and the institutions and the great region extending from the which belong to it, by all the means that Alleghany to the Rocky Mountains, through energy and intelligence and devotedness which the mighty Mississippi and its counthave ever brought to the great day of trial, less tributaries find their way to the Gulf and by which they have made it a day of of Mexico. Once let this work be comtriumph. pleted, and we are bound together by cords We have come here to join in another which no strength can sunder. The moral

and political effect, therefore, of the great work before us, is even more important than the physical advantages it promises. It will bear upon its bosom the products of a thousand fertile valleys, and it will spread gladness and prosperity over regions which have just been rescued from the Indians, and from the animals, his co-tenants of the forest, which minister to his wants. But it will do more than this. It will make glad the heart of the patriot. As he sails along it, he will see, not merely the evidences and the cause of wealth and prosperity, but one of the ties which knit us together. By a process more fortunate than alchymist ever imagined, the feeblest element will be converted into the strongest bond. It will bear the boat and its freight to a market, where products may be interchanged and wealth acquired. But it will interchange interests and feelings which no wealth can purchase, and for which no price can pay. Well, then, may we rejoice upon this day. The occasion and the time are in unison together. And while we thank God for the services and sacrifices which he enabled our fathers to make in the acquisition of freedom and independence, let us thank him, also, that we are able to strengthen their work, and to transmit to our children, as they transmitted to theirs, the noblest inheritance that belongs to man. The ark of the Constitution is yet untouched. Withered be the hand that would pollute it.

[After a graphic and eloquent sketch of what had transpired on that spot within less than two centuries, he proceeds with some statements which are interesting from their autobiographical, as well as historical character. Says he:]

It is now forty-three years since I landed upon the northern shore of Ohio, a young adventurer seeking the land of promise; which has been to him, as to many others, the land of performance. At that time, the Territory of Indiana was not organized, and the States of Ohio, of Indiana, of Illinois, and of Michigan, and the Territory of Wisconsin, formed one government, under the name of the North-Western Territory.

[Passing over a vivid description of the horrors of Indian warfare, we come to the following description:]

Nature has been prodigal of her favors to the valley of the Maumee. I can never forget the first time it met my eye. It was at the commencement of the late war, when Herrig, American. Literatur. II.

the troops, destined for the defence of Detroit, had passed through the forest from Urbanna, to the Rapids. The season had been wet, and much of the country was low, and the whole of it unbroken by a single settlement, and we had cut our road, and transported our provisions and baggage, with great labor and difficulty. We were heartily tired of the march, and were longing for its termination, when we attained the brow of the table land, through which the Maumee has made a passage for itself, and a fertile region for those who have the good fortune to occupy it. Like the mariner, we felt that we had reached a port; like the wanderer, a home. I have since visited the three other quarters of the globe, and passed over many lands and seas. But my memory still clings to the prospect which burst upon us, in a bright day in June, from the valley of the Maumee; to the river, winding away beyond our view; to the rapids, presenting every form of the most picturesque objects; to the banks, clothed with deep verdure; and to the rich bottoms, denuded of timber, as though inviting the labor and enterprise of the settler.

[He proceeds to give interesting details of the weary modes of travelling to which the early inhabitants were subjected, passes a fine encomium on the enterprise which had opened such improved facilities through the new canal, and forcibly illustrates the feasibility and importance of such improvements. The progress of great American enterprises, and the impressions they produce on European nations, are well stated in the following extract:]

It is but a few years since our attention was systematically turned to the improvement of our means of internal communication. The first impulse was given by the State of New York, in the projection and commencement of her great work, an evidence alike of her energy and wisdom, and an enduring monument of her perseverance, and of which the whole country is now gathering the fruits. Since then, many other States, unwilling to be left behind in the career of advancement, have followed the same route, and everywhere canals and railroads have sprung into existence, facilitating the communication between the most distant parts of the country, and ministering to those wants of intercourse, which are at once the cause and the effect of active exertion and of commercial prosperity. Our social and political institutions and our national character, alternately operating upon each other,

11

have never achieved a prouder triumph, nor furnished a more irrefragable proof of their tendency to promote human happiness, than in this peaceful victory over the natural impediments which divided, though they could not separate us, and which has increased our capacity for defence, as much as it has added to our stock of wealth. The fate of republican institutions is in our hands. If the great experiment, as it is elsewhere and tauntingly called, but which every American knows is no longer an experiment, that is in progress among us, of the power of man to govern himself should fail, ages may pass away before the rights and safety of all are again committed to the custody of all. Fortunate it is, therefore, when the operation of our system can be presented to the old world in a point of view, in which it can be examined and appreciated, by being brought into comparison with the effects of the institutions that prevailed there. No effort of this country, in its onward march, has awakened more attention, or excited more admiration, than the successful progress we have made in this great enterprise this greatest of enterprises in the history of internal improvement. The geographical maps make known the gigantic features of our confederation, and the statistical tables and the reports of travellers made known the communications, natural and artifical, by which it is knit together.

The works, both of nature and of man, are on a scale of proportion unknown in that part of the world. Rivers traversing the earth from the arctic to the tropical regions; lakes, or rather seas, where navies have rode, and victories been gained; railroads extending from the Atlantic to Lake Erie, a distance of five hundred miles, and intersecting the country in all important directions; and canals penetrating our valleys, and ascending our mountains, and forming one after another, great lines of communication which would circumscribe many a European kingdom. And before these works the forest gives way. They are not confined to the more densely peopled portions of our country, but like the hardy settler, they are marching with giant strides towards the remote frontier. Already they have passed the cabin of the pioneer of improvement, and the hut of the Indian. They remove from their path the lofty and primeval trees, the relics of a former age, and the contem

poraries, perhaps, and witnesses of strange events forever lost to the knowledge of the world; and before them our primitive people are receding, and seeking a new home, where the approach of the white man may be delayed, but cannot be prevented. It is a popular remark with the Indians, that when the bee comes among them, it is soon followed by the big knives. But there is now another precursor, which announces to the secluded village that the civilized stranger is at hand, propelled by some monster, whose fearful sound precedes him, and which, ascending the solitary stream, penetrates the recesses of the forest, and proclaims to its tenants, that ere long their council houses will become desolate, and the plough will pass over the graves of their fathers.

In Europe this is a rate of progress utterly unknown, and comprehended with difficulty. There they deliberate, while here we act If more caution would give more certainty of success, it would take from the energy of purpose, and of action, which has carried us forward in our career, both physically and morally, with a rapidity unknown in the history of the world, and which opens to a future, cheering to the heart of the patriot, and encouraging to the lover of humanity. It is that energy which, if it commit faults, can repair them which always operating, is never discomfitted; accomplishing its projects when practicable, and turning to others with equal confidence and perseverance, when checked by insuperable difficulties.

[blocks in formation]

*

We come here to rejoice together. Memorable deeds make memorable days. There is a power of association given to man, which binds together the past and the present, and connects both with the future. Great events hallow the sites where they pass. Then returning anniversaries, so long as these are remembered, are kept with sorrow or joy, as they were prosperous or adverse. To-day a new work is born a work of peace and not of war. We are celebrating the triumph of art, and not of arms. Centuries hence, we may hope that the river you have made, will still flow east and west, bearing upon its bosom the riches of a prosperous people, and that our descendants will come to keep the day, which we have come to mark, and that as it returns they will remember the exertions of

99

their ancestors while they gather the harvest. of Solomon. The Assyrian, the Egyptian, Associations are powerful in the older regions the Greek, the Roman, the Arab, the Turk, of the eastern continent, and strongly affect and the Crusader, have passed over this the imagination. They belong, however, to chief place of Israel, and have reft it of its the past. Here, they are strong and vigorous, power and beauty. Well has the denunciaand belong to the future. There, hope is tion of the prophet of misfortunes been fulextinct, and history has closed its record. filled, when he declared that the Lord had Time has done its work. Here we have no set his face against this city for evil and not past; all has been done within the memory for good"; when he pronounced the words of man. Our province of action is the pre- of the Most High, „I will cause to cease sent, of contemplation, the future. No man from the city of Judah, and from the streets can stand upon the scene of one of those of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the occurrences which has produced a decisive voice of gladness, the voice of the brideeffect upon the fate of nations, and which groom, and the voice of the bride; for the history has rendered familiar to us from land shall be desolate." youth, without being withdrawn from the influence of the present, and carried back to the period of conflict, of doubt, and of success, which attend some mighty struggle. All this is the triumph of mind, the exertion of intellect, which elevates us in the scale of being, and furnishes us with another and pure source of enjoyment. Even recent events, around which time has not gathered its shadows, sanctify the places of their origin. What American can survey the field of battle at Bunker Hill, or at New Orleans, without recalling the deeds which will render these names imperishable? Who can pass the islands of Lake Erie, without thinking upon those who sleep in the waters below, and upon the victory which broke the power of the enemy, and led to the security of an extensive frontier? There no monument can be erected, for the waves roll, and will roll over them. But he who met the enemy and made them ours, and his devoted companions, will live in the recollections of the American people, while there is virtue to admire, patriotism or gratitude to reward it. I have stood upon the plain of Marathon, the battlefield of liberty. It is silent and desolate. Neither Greek nor Persian is there, to give life and animation to the scene. It is bounded by sterile hills on one side, and lashed by the eternal waves of the Egean Sea on the other. But Greek and Persian were once there, and that dreary spot was alive with hostile armies, who fought the great fight which rescued Greece from the yoke of Persia.

And I have stood also upon the hill of Zion, the city of Jerusalem, the scene of our Redeemer's sufferings and crucifixion, and ascension. But the sceptre has departed from Judah, and its glory from the capital

[ocr errors]

In those regions of the east where society passed its infancy, it seems to have reached decrepitude. If the associations, which the memory of the past glory excites, are powerful, they are melancholy. They are without joy for the present, and without hope for the future. But here we are in the freshness of youth, and can look forward, with national confidence, to ages of progress in all that gives power and pride to man, and dignity to human nature. No deeds of glory hallow this region. But nature has been bountiful to it in its best gifts, and art and industry are at work to extend and improve them. You cannot pierce the barrier which shuts in the past, and separates you from the great highway of nations. You have opened a vista to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. From this elevated point, two seas are before us, which your energy and perseverance have brought within reach. It is better to look forward to prosperity than back to glory. To the mental eye no prospect can be more magnificent than here meets the vision. I need not stop to describe it. It is before us in the long regions of fertile land, which stretch off to the east and west, to the north and south, in all the advantages that Providence has liberally bestowed upon them, and in the changes and improvements which man is making. The forest is fading and falling, and towns and villages are rising and flourishing. And better still, a moral, intelligent, and industrious people are spreading themselves over the whole face of the country, and making it their own and their home. And what changes and chances await us? Shall we go on increasing and improving, and united? or shall we add another to the list of republics, which have preceded us, and which

have fallen the victims of their own follies and dissensions? My faith in the stability of our institutions is enduring, my hope is strong; for they rest upon public virtue and intelligence. There is no portion of our country more interested in their preservation than this, and no one more able and willing

to maintain them. We may here claim to occupy the citadel of freedom. No foreign foe can approach us; and while the west is true to itself and its country, its example will exert a powerful influence upon the whole confederation, and its strength, if need be, will defend it.

THOMAS H. BENTON. Born 1785.

ON THE OREGON QUESTION. (1846.)

THE value of the country, I mean the Columbian River and its valley, (I must repeat the limitation every time, lest I be carried up to 54o 40) has been questioned on this floor and elsewhere. It has been supposed to be of little value, hardly worth the possession, much less the acquisition, and treated rather as a burden to be got rid of, than as a benefit to be preserved. This is a great error, and one that only prevails on this side of the water; the British know better, and if they held the tithe of our title they would fight the world for what we depreciate. It is not a worthless country, but one of immense value, and that under many aspects, and will be occupied by others, to our injury and annoyance, if not by ourselves for our own benefit and protection. Forty years ago it was written by Humboldt that the banks of the Columbia presented the only situation on the northwest coast of America fit for the residence of a civilized people. Experience has confirmed the truth of this wise remark.

It is valuable, both as a country to be inhabited and as a position to be held and defended. I speak of it, first, as a position, commanding the North Pacific Ocean, and overlooking the eastern coast of Asia. The North Pacific is a rich sea, and is already the seat of a great commerce; British, French, American, Russian, and ships of other nation frequent it. Our whaling ships cover it, our ships of war go there to protect our interest, and, great as that interest now is, it is only the beginning. Futurity will develop an immense and various commerce on that sea, of which the far greater part

will be American. That commerce, neither in the merchant ships which carry it on, nor in the military marine which protects it, can find a port to call its own, within twenty thousand miles of the field of its operations. The double length of the two Americas has to be run, a stormy and tempestuous cape to be doubled, to find itself in a port of its own country, while here lies one in the very edge of its field, ours by right, ready for use, and ample for every purpose of refuge and repair, protection and domination. Can we turn our back upon it? and, in turning the back, deliver it up to the British? Insane and suicidal would be the fatal act!

To say nothing of the daily want of such a port in time of peace, its want in time of war becomes ruinous. If we abandon, England will retain! And her wooden walls, bristling with cannon, and issuing from the mouth of the Columbia, will give the law to the North Pacific, permitting our ships to sneak about in time of peace sinking, seizing, or chasing them away in time of war. As a position, then, and if nothing but a rock or desert point, the possession of Columbia is invaluable to us; and it becomes our duty to maintain it at all hazards.

Agriculturally the value of the country is great; and, to understand it in all its extent, this large country should be contemplated under its different divisions the threefold natural geographical divisions under which it presents itself: the maritime, the middle, and the mountain districts.

Commercially, the advantages of Oregon will be great far greater than any equal

« PreviousContinue »