The daily union. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1845-1857, 1845-05-01
From the N o. Jeaersonian Republica,

MORSE'S MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH.
THE COMMERCIAL, LITERARY, AND INTELLECT
UAL CHANGE TO BE EFFECTED BY THIS GREAT
INVENTION
The adoption of Professor Morse's invention as
facility in the transportation of mail intelligence,
and placing section of this electrical line Of COM
munication under the sole, supervision and control
of the General Post Office Department, invests the
telegraph with an importance which belttles and
distances almost every philosophic discovery made
within hundred years. A moments reflection
will convince any one of this fact
The incipent proposition with which we start is,
that this telegraph communication must, of neces-
sity, be governmental organ, the uses of which
are but Swallowed forth in the post Office regulations
which govern the line Of communication from the
city of Washington TO Baltimore. The power
which the sole ownership of such line Of instan-
taneous communication would give to individuals
and associations would be a dangerous monopoly,
and, therefore, must be finally under the control Of
department of the government pledged to diffuse
its benefits with impartial hand, reserving to the
government the first right to it as an organ OF
official command and instruction.
Let the entire chain of communication be CON-
pleted, as it doubtless will be in four or FIVE years
from Boston to New Orleans, and the most vivid
imagination can hardly keep pace with its opera
tons, the most utopian Of utlitarians with the
time saving and immense changes it will effect in
the nature and modes of every description of bust
ness, diplomatic, monetary, and commercial. II
will bring New Orleans, destined to be the Memphis
of the earh's noblest and broadcast vale, nine days
nearer TO Europe in intelligence. Before the steam
packets from Europe shall cool off their painting
energies in the harbor of Boston, the merchants and
politicians, the producers and spectators of New
Orleans will be in possession of the leading nelli-
gence which has been brought across the Atlantic.
Guided by European advices, the government at the
city OF Washington may communicate an inn
portant order, as far as New Orleans, to the
squadron in the Gulf Of Mexico in half an hour;
or that squadron, by communication with our
city, would be able to put the Secretary of the
Navy in possession of an important demonstration
what part of the gulf it should take place. The
great facts of peace war, of trade or production,
of national policy individual enterprise of "star-
eyed SCIENCE" and soul-purifying morals would be
transmitted over the entire length of the country
like the fight of thought, or an electric flash.
would be known and felt by kindred sympathy
within an hour, from Bunker's Hill to the battle
ground of New Orleans Prices would be regulated
at meridian for every exchange in the United States
--on sea-board oftwo thousand miles. The sick
ness or death of friend would be known before the
arrival of physician the melancholy call of the
undertaken to friends far distant the sold thir-
teen" from their more numerous sister States in the
West and South. The astronomers of Cambridge
College would announce TO the sara,,s Of Louisiana
the coming on, the greatest observation, and the
passing away, OF solar eclipse; and the southern
| astronomers in turn would send back to the East
their reports Of its progress. Espy would be able
to note the temperature the meteorology, the course
| of storm, sunshine, wind, or cloud, in fourteen
States Of this Union, hour by hour, without wait.
ing the slow and often uncertain result of scattered
correspondence.
If Napoleon, in the palmy days of his military
power, had been in command of such an agency, he
| ad IN he n IL.
dreadful battles Of Wagram and Austerl:tz, in Civ.
ing orders for battle to his generals and armies hun
dreds Of miles distant in other countries. Such ex.
IRENE probabilities only to arrest reflection to
| the stupendous results that must follow this, the
most wonderful climax of American inventive ge-
| MUS.
| Like steamships and railways, this rapdity Of
| INSTRUMENTATION must strengthen the bonds OF
national union, by making us more and more one
people in knowledge, action, sentiment and feeling.
| What one knows all must know; and the sentiment
| or feeling, correspondent to fact known to all
must be felt simultaneously by the majority of an
entire nation within the same hour, or segment OF
| time nearly cotemporaneous. National resolves
the result of exciting public feeling will not as here
tofore, rise like wave in section Of country,
and roll on TO another, until when the extreme
| boundary is reached the impulse may be forgotten
where it originated. On the contrary, opinion and
action will be simultaneous over the country.
With regard to the organs of intelligence, an en-
tire change must ensue in regard TO their local and
relative importance. Of what will Boston
journal be to the citizens of New Orleans received
ten days after publication, when the New Orleans
papers Of the same date will contain the CONNER
cia items, the details of trade the arrival ofships
in Boston harbor, the verdies Of the Boston jures
and the acts Of their State legislature The sdvan-
tage will be clearly in favor Of the southern press
as establishing its paramount value at home, where
ever ssnce the introduction Of printing in the south
west, the immense circulation Of the cheaply-print-
ed and often disparaging and disorganzing northern
and eastern Journal, has operated most injuriousy
upon southern newspaper establishments and unset
tied popular opinion by the diffusion of dogmatic
and fanatical opinions. Newspaper circulation and
| influence must Of course be confined more to the
scene Of their local establishment; and opinions not
manufactured for home consumption, when connect
when found at distance from the factory. This
single consideration will have moaf inannrtanf in