Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1847-09-10

the noblest achievements OF mind.
The value of this nurture and of this stimu-
lus is best attested by the great results which
they have already accomplished and thus
measured by the standard OF results, our whole
Republic is but a monument 10 their praise
Under their influence, constantly cherished
and constantly in turn eXerted, it has not only
maintained successfully its freedom and it's
power, but it has pursued a career of progress
and improvement, which is without parallel
in the history of the world. Fifty eight years
ago it elected its first President 1t then en-
braced a population of little more than three
millions, occupying thirteen States, on the At
| lantic coast, and covering an area of less than
| five hundred thousand square miles. Its popu-
lation has now sweled TO more than twenty
millions, and it has added nearly million of
square miles to its represented territory. 1t
has more than doubled the number of States,
and new sovereignties still form themselves in
the wilderness TO claim its confederate honors.
With this astonishing increase Of its numbers,
and OF its peopled and cultivated territory, has
grown up, also i'll a ratio equally rapid, every
important interest which can possibly add ell
ther to national wealth or national glory. In
agriculture it has invented new implements
of industry, and applied them to fresh fields Of
toll and from the rich abundance of its gath
cred harvests, it not only fills each avenue of
want at home, but freights its storeships with
a peoples tribute to the famine-stricken chill
| dren of kingdoms abroad In commerce, it
whitens the very ocean with its enterprise, and
exchanges products with every climate under
the sun; while in the rapid advancement of
its manufactures, it bids fair, at no distant day,
to rival even the skill of English industry, and
to transfer to this side of the Atlantic the
GO workshop of the world.''
Pursuing with boundless, because unfetter-
ed, zeal each opening of foreign traffics, it at
the same time untes its own territory by con-
stantIy extending and improving its means OF
internal intercourse and trade. The remotest
inhabitant of the Confederacy is not beyond
travels not only with the marvellous power OF
wind and steam, bat with the speed OF electrl-
city, subdued by the arr ofman along the lines
Of its Magnetic Telegraph.
Scarcely more than twenty years ago, il
was without single mile of railroad in 1886
its iron engines traversed completed track OF
sixteen hundred miles, and it has now more
miles of railroad than, in the time of Wash
ington, it had of post routes In proportion
to its population, it has more than three times
as many as France; and the canal connecting
the Hudson with the Lakes, is the longest oil
these artificial rivers which has been construc-
ted in the world.
In the year 1907, Robert Fulton attracted
ridicu'e by building It's fist steamboat. and
ten years after, ii had no regular line OF steam
boats in all its western waters. They now
crowd in hundreds upon its ocean rivers and
its inland seas, gathering the rich products o.
the most remote and land locked regions of ou
country, ana pouring them into the lap Of com.
merce they defy every form of danger upon
its Atlantic coast; they keep company with It's
navy against the northers OF the Gulf of Mex
leo AM, under the fostering care of Con
gress, they will soon cross the Ocean with its
mails, and minister to the wants of our ship:
of war, and protect our merchant marine IT
every quarter Of the globe. A single one Of
It's Western States possesses more steamboats,
than the whole kingdom of France, and there
are said to be as many steamers on Lake Erlt
as in the Mediterranean sea.
Its increasing means OF communication thus
keep peace with its extending settlements, anC
its whole Union is bound together in the strong
embraces of mutual intercourse, mutual knOwl
elge, and mutual interest. In this way it ad
ministers with facility one Government fol-
twenty eight sovereigntes, and from single
central heart dIIuses the healthy life-blood o
law and justice through all portions OF the
body polite. Yet, with us, Paris is no
France, and that heart would soon become cor
rupt and the stream Of sanitary circulation tor
pd, but for the purifying application of tht
Federative principle, and the Christening anC
correcting Influences OF the subdivisions o
power amongst the States and the people, tc
, whom so large share in the duty OF self-gov
eminent is wisely confiled.
The same influences, too, which have thu
developed, with almost startling rapidity, thu
| various sources of its physical power, have
adorned it at the same time with cheering
, monuments Of It's active beneyolence, its sci
entific ingenuity, and its improving taste. III
charities partake at once, of the vigor of it
enterprise and the abundance of its means, anl
no worthy object ever yet appealed to it IL
vain Shrewd and unyieIding as it doubtless
is in the concerns of trade, it is character
lied by the warmest sympathy for human SUI
fering, and the most generous disposition II
give it adequate relief. Its capacous heart
sharing something of its broad nationality, ha
gathered around it none of the iron of avaric
or the numbness of exhausted feeling, but new
er fails to respond with warmth and feelln!
to the voice of misfortune, no matter from
5 what cline it comes, or what disaste
may have produced it. In our own countr,
t attests the magnitude of its henefcence by it
charitable institutions, which attrack respect
: not only on account of the purposes 10 which
! they are devoted, but from their eegan
construction and convenient arrangements
Its care of its poor has been censured by for
t eign writers as so extravagant as to invite pau
4 purism and with equal bounty it embraces i
its ministrations the aged and the sick, the dea
J, and the dumb, the blind and the lunatlc.
e These institutions, so numerous and so we
t adapted to their ends, excite our admiration
: not so much at their number, as that IN s
/ new a country time has been found to estab
: fish them. Firm in the maintenance Of law
: its system of punishments is characterized b
e christian benevolence, and the pecuniary fine
r imposed on numerous classes of crimes are dc
: voted to the promotion of education-beaut
fully taxing vice 10 support virtue.
t If America has not yet equalized older M
: tons by her advances in literature and ar
: she hat least laid firm foundation for them
n and bright examples OF generous attalnmel
i and lofty intellect are not even now wantln
j. among her cultivated citizens. Her states
manship has been proved in the strlcte
J. school of diplomacy; and her public speaking
y in true eoquence, will not suffer from con
is parison with that of any other country.
e history, in painting, and in sculpture, in po
Of try, in the eloquence of the pulpit, IN the S
is were reasoning of the bench, and in the imp