The pilot and transcript. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1840-1841, 1840-06-04

foremost Of our contemporaries
With respect to ancient times, one may be al
lowed to wonder or to smile at those stuPendous
monuments which our childhood was drilled to
admire.-Take for instance the pyramids oil
Egypt. Within space of one hundred miles,
there are in Egypt about two hundred masses OF
rocks, brought from distance and piled into
what are called pyramids. single one of these
is estimated to contain sixty millions of tons OF
stone-and to build one of them required the la
borof one hundred thousand men for twenty years
Look then at the immense waste of human labor
upon these huge absurdities in stone.-For no
man can tell who built them-no man cass-tell
what they are built for-and the only important
discovery which has rewarded the labors OF our
day is a parcel of relies which proved to be, not
as was fondIy hoped the remains of at least a
sovereign-but the mere thigh bone of COW!
Alongside of these pyramids is 4 low sandy desert
| about sixty miles long, where canal from the
| Red SEE to the Mediterranean would cut oil the
circumnavigation of the whole continent of Afri-
ca This canal, not requiring one fourth of the
labor of that which we this day visited, was at
last made by the efforts of a succession of ESyp-
tan Kings-but afterwards closed, and now no
longer exists Why, there is little strip of land
about five miles across from Corinth, where a
| canal would save the circuit of the Morea. Half
a dozen emperors, and the greatest of them all,
| Julius Cesar among the number, tried in vain
to make this canal, which was abandoned because
it is said they did not understand how to make
| locks, such as we see before Contrast with
these the gigantic utilities of this country.
remember, for 1t seems but yesterday, when
few of US sent an engineer to Europe to in
quire about these strange novelties which rumor
had announced under the name of Railroads.
While they have made little progress in Europe
| out of England-there are in this country, ac-
| cording to the report of the Austrian Commits
sioner sent to examine them, more than four thou.
sand miles of railroads; and in return for the
mission of our engineer, there have been Com
missioners sent bv the Governments of France,
and Russia, and Austria, to examine and to take
models of these improvements. The American
/ locomotives are USED both in England and on the
/ Continent. 1t is probably true that there
more canals and railroads in the United States
than in the whole of Europe put together. And
shall we not feel proud of these Distinction The
first to invent and to use the steamboat-the fore
most in canals and railroads-the great tests of
civilization-are not these worth Woney-are
they not worth infinitely more than money? Does
not every of us feel better because he belongs
to an active and distinguished community? And
shall we be dissuaded from these high pursuits
! by small calculations and smaller calculators-
as if great nation could be ciphered out OF its
renown
| But these honors stand by the side of great re-
| spensibilities-and we are now called upon to
prove that we are worthy Of them. You all re-
member that three years ago, when the great
commercial endorsements fell upon us, our
merchants were largely indebted to Europe, and
there arose abroad intense alarms about these
! debts But true to themselves and to their coun-
| try, the American merchants made the most ex-
traordinary efforts to paw their debts and all Eu-
rope rang with applauses of the energy and up
Brightness of the commercial character of this ma
ton. And now, when the States themselves have
become in turn the debtors, the same alarms are
| renewed, sharpened by the violence of political
antipathes. 1t is favorite theme with those
who wish to degrade all free institutions, that
these Democratic Governments of may do
well enough i'll the sunshine, but wholly I'M
fit for storms that our Democratic assemblies
are prompt to borrow but impotent to pay;--and
that in the loose and feeble structure of polit
zeal system, the representatives afraid to ask
and the people unwilling to give the supplies ne
cessary to sustain their credit.
Now it's duty to stand up for the governments
OF our own choice-to prove that democracy is
just as honest as the most seryile despotism-that
as all the people have voted to borrow, and all
shared in its benefits, all are, for that reason, the
more ready to pay. That truth we must demon
stratc at all hazards and at every sacrifice. And
fortunately it can be done without any sacrifice
at all
For, after all, what is this debt of ours2 Take
| the most indebted of all the States-our own
Pennsylvania. She owes a debt of thirty-five
millions of dollars-payable through a long Sc
ries OF years-during which her improvements
are growing in productiveness, and all that is
now wanted IS the mere interest on it. Thirty
nVe miliohs why the present debt OF France
Is one Thousand million OF dollars, all of which
IS absolutely gone without leaving single par
ticle Of benefit Spent at Moscow-spent at
Waterloo-spent in first conquering the Allies
and then in paying indemnities to these same
Allies, when they in turn became conquerors.
1'hirty-ive millions Why the debt of England
is four thousand millions of Enthusiastically
sunk like that of France-invested in profitless
victories and irreparable losses,-so many mil
lions for losing America-so many millions for
substituting the Continental Powers-so MANY
more for invading France-but all gone for ever.
While for the whole of our debt we have actu-
ally in our possession the improvements pur-