American Republican and Baltimore daily clipper. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1844-1846, 1846-03-18
WEDNESDAY MORNING, MARCH

forests, and let in upon the solitude the light
oil day: to clear the swamps and morasses, and
redeem them to the plough and the sckle to
spread over hill and dale the echoes of human
labor and human happiness and contentment:
TO fill the land with cities, and towns, and vii
lagos: to unite its opposite extremites by turn
pixies and railroads: to scoop out canals for the
transmission of it's products, and open rivers
for its internal trade War can only impede
the fulfillment of this high mission of Heaven;
it absorbs the wealth, and diverts the energy
which might be so much better devoted to the
Improvement OF our country. All we want is
peace-establshed peace; and then time, I'M
der the guidance of a wise and cautious policy,
will soon effect for us all the rest. | say time
will do IT, under the influence of a wise and
mastery nactvity-a phrase than which none
other has been less understood or more grossly
msrepresented. by some, who should have
known better, it has been construed to mean
inacton. But more inertness, and what is
meant by a wise inactivity, are things wide
apart as the poles. The one is the offspring
OF ignorance and Incidence; the other is the
result of the protoundest WISDOM wisdom
which looks into the nature and bearing of
| things; which sees how conspirng causes work
| out their effects, and shape and change the
condition of man. Where we find that natu-
raj causes will of themselves work out our
good, our wisdom is to let them work; and all
our task is to remove impediments. In the
present case, one of the greatest of these i'm
pedlments is found in our Impotence.
He who cannot understand the difference
between an inactivity like this, and mere stupid
inaction, and the doing of nothing, is as yet
but in the horn-bock Of political science. Yes,
time--ever-l aborng time-will effect every
thing for US. Our population is now increas-
ing at the annual average of SIN hundred thou
sand. Let the next twenty-five years elapse,
and our increase will have reached million
year, and at the end of that period we shall
count population of forty-fve millions. Be-
fore that day, it will have spread from ocean
to ocean. The coasts of the Pacific will then
be as densey populated and as thickly settled
with villages and towns as the coast of the
Atlantic ls now. In another generation we
shall have reached eighty millions of people,
and, IT we can preserve peace, who shall set
bounds to our prosperity or our success? With
one foot planted on the Atlantic and the other
on the Pacific, we shall occupy position be-
tween the two old continents Of the world--a
position emnently calculated to secure TO us
the commerce and the influence of both. If
we abide by the counses Of common sense-if
we succeed in preserving our constitutional Ii
berry, we shall then exhibit a spectacle such as
the world never saw | know that this one
great mission is enCumpassed with difficulties;
but such is the inherent energy Of our political
system, and such its extensive capahilitY, that
! it may he made TO govern the widest space
! II by war We become great, we cannot be free;
if we will be both great and free, our policy is
peace.