The native American., 1837-09-09
THE NATIVE AMERICAN.
OUR OWN COUNTRY.

with SO many varied interests, and yet moving so har-
moniously go within the walls Of the capitol al
Washington, and there under the starspangled BAN
ners that wave amid Its domes find the rep, p,csenta-
tives of three territories, and of twenty four nations
in many senses they may be called, that have within
them all the germ and sinew to raise greater people
than many of the proud prncpalities Of Europe all
speaking language-alI acting with one heart and
all burning with the same enthusasn-the love and
glory of our common country-even If parties do exist
and bitter domestic quarres and then arise.
take my map, and mark from whence they come
What breadth of latitude, and of longitude, too-in
the fairest por IN Of North America. What variety
of climate and then what variety of production -
What stretch of sea-coast, two oceans-wth har-
bors ,h for all The of the world What
immense national domain, surveyed, and unsurvey-
ed of extingushed and unextinguished Indian titles
within the States and Territories and without, esmat
ed, in the aggregate to be 753 acres and to
be worth the immense sum Of $l 363,5S9 69-seven
hundred and fifty millions of Of which are without
the bounds Of the States and the Territories and are
yet to make new Siates and to be admitted into the
URon Our revenue, now, from the sales, is over five
millions Of dollars. Our national debt, too, is already
more than extinguished-and yet within ffy-eghl
years. starting with population of about three mil
lions, have fought the War of Independence aoain
not inglorously struggled with the greatest Snaval
power in the world, fresh with laures on sea- and
land ,-and we have population Of over thirteen
millions souls. One cannot feel tho grandeur of our
Republic unless he surveys in detail For EXAMPLE
"a Senator in Congress- om louisiana has just arrived
in Washington. Twenty days Of his journey he pas
.sed in steamboat inland waters, moving not so
,Tapdly, perhaps other steamboats, move, deeper
waters, but constantly movlng quick pace too day
and night never shall forget the rapture of ira
weller, who left the green parks of New Orleans early
lin March, that land of the orange and olive then eem-
ing with verdure freshness and lle and it were,
mockng him with the midsummer of his northern
home He ourneyed lesurey toward the region of ice
and snow, watch the budding of the young flowers,
and catch the breeze Of the spring He crossed the
Lakes Pontcharrain and Boryne; he ascended the big
Tombeckbee in comfortable steamboat. From Tus-
caloosa, he shot athwart the wds of Alabama, over
Indian grounds, that bloody battles have rendered
memorable. He traversed Georgia, the Caolinas,
ranged along the base OF the mountains Of Virginia; and
for three months and ho enjoyed perpetual,
one unvarying overcoming spring; that most delicious
season Of the years t by the middle Of June, he found
himself in the ogs of the Passamaquoddy where ardy
summer was even then hesitating whether it time
10 come And yet he had not been off the soil Of his
own country! The flag that he saw on the summit Of
the fortress on the lakes New Orleans was the
like of that which foaed from the staff the hills Of
Fort Sullivan, the easernmost extremity of Maine;
and the morning gun that startled his s1umbers among
the rocky baements that defy the wild tides of the
BAY of Fundy, was not answered till many minutes
after, OH the shores Of the Gulf of Mexico. The
swamps, the embankments, the cane-brakes Of the
Father Of Waters on whose muddy banks the croakng
alligator displayed his ponderous jaws; the cotton
fields, the rice-glounds OF the low southern country,
the mountains, far far behind him: and he was
now in Hyperborean land-where nature wore rough
and surly aspect, and a cold soil and cold clime
drove launch his bark upon the ocean, to dare
wind and wave and to seek from the deep, in fisheries
and from freghts the treasures his own home will
give him. Indeed, such journey as This, in ones own
country, nqnisitive mind is worth all s'the
of Europe" If young Americana then, wishes to feel
the full importance Of an American Congress, let him
make such journey. Let him stand on the levee at
New Orleans and count the number and the tiers of
American vessels that there lie, tour five and six thick
on its long embankment. Let him hear the puff, puff
of the pressure steamboats, that come sweeping in
every hour perhaps from port thousand miles off
from the then frozen winter of the North, to the full
burning summer of the South--all inland navigation ;
fleets of them under his eyespendid boats, too, many
Of them, as the world can show, with elegant rooms
neat berths spacious saloons, and costly piano, it
may be-so that travellers Of both sexes dance
sing their way TO Louisville If they wee on party
of pleasure. Let him survey all these as they come
with products from the Red river, twelve hundred miles
in one direction. Fl ON Pittsburgh Pennsy ylvania
thousand miles in another direction, from the western
tributaries of the vast mississippi the thckes of the
Arkansas, White River from the muddy, far-reach
ing Missouri and its hundreds Of branches and then in
the East from Illinois, the Ohio, and its numerous r
butaries-such the Tennessee, the Cumberland, or
the meanest of which, such the Sandy river the
borders of Kentucky-that will in freshet fret and
roar, and DASH if it the Father Of Floods, TIL
t sinks into nothing, when embosomed in the greater
stream, and there acknowledges its own nsgnllcance.
let him see .the Broad orns," the adventurous flat
boas Of western waters on which--fra bark!-the
daring backwoodsman sallies forth from the Wabash,
or rivers hundleds of miles above voyage of Allan
tic distance with hogs, horses, oxen and cattle Of all
kinds on board corn, flour wheatall the products of
rich western lands; and let him them, too he
rides the srong current Of the Mississippi; as if the
wood on which he oaed realizing the fable of the
Nymphs Of Ida-goddesses, instead Of pines. Take
the Young traveller where the clear, sivery waters of
the Ohio become tinged with the mud from the Mis-
souri,; and where the currents of the mighty rivers
apart for miles, as if indignant at the strange embrace
Ascend with him farther, to st. Lcuis, where, it he
looks upon the map, he will find chat he is about as
near the east as the west and that soon the emigran,
whois borne on the wave Of population that now beats
at the base OF The Rocky Mountains, and anon will
Il overleap its summits--w speak Of him as ne now
speaks of New England, as far in the east And then
tell him that far west as he is, he is but at the begin
ming Of steam navigation: that the Mississippi itself is
navgabe six or seven hundred miles upward; and that
steamboats, have actually gone on the Missouri two
thousand one hundred miles above IFS mouth, and that
they can go five hundred miles farther still! Take him,
then, from this land where the woodsman is evcling