The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-04-06
Russia ana the uuited states.

l0cquevllle remarks: khere are AZ the present
time two nations, which, starting from different
points, seem to advance towards the same end;
they are the Russians and the Anglo Americans.
Both have grown in obscurity, and whilst men
were looking elsewhere, they have suddenly taken
place in the first rank of nations, and the world
has heard at the same time Of their birth and of
their greatness. All other people appear to have
reached the limits imposed by nature and to be en-
gagged only in preserving; they increase while
others have stopped or advance with great effort;
they only march with an easy and rapid step in a
career to which the eye sees no limits"
Striking as these sentences were when they were
published, some twelve or fifteen years ago, they
seem more remarkable still when we read them at
the present time Within the last year the discov-
cry of the gold in California has made the parallel
which the French writer draws doubly impressive.
Since the Ural mines were first worked, in 1928,
the amount of gold in circulation has been vastly
notwithstanding to some statements they fur
nish more than one half of the annual produce of
gold al the present time and it is only by the in
crease in general production that the price of gold
has been maintained. Now the United States have
found large deposits of gold in their new terrific
ries, and will hereafter cooperate with Russia in
circulating medium more abundant Russia has
got the start of lis in furnishing the world with
gold and it is probable that the Ural mines will
prove richer and more inexhaustible than those of
the Sierra Nevada. But in securing the Eastern
trade, which will enable us to command the COM
merce of the world more effectuay than by dig
ging and coming gold, we think that we are little
ahead of the Russian Empire. We have secured
California, and hold San Francisco in peaceable
possession. We are even talking about a railroad
from that port to the Mississippi. But Russia has
not yet got to Constantnople; and it may cost her
some time and considerable trouble to reach that
Golden Horn which she expects to make the Horn
of Plenty that is to pour out on Europe all the
treasures of China and India. She must get Con-
stantinople or else she cannot get the trade of the
East; for railroad over the Ural Mountains is
impracticable, and Nicholas, in all his gigantic
schemes of Improvement, has never thought of
such project.
In our article of yesterday on the Russians in
Pennsylvania, we endeavored to make it appear
that through all the troubles and difficulties of
European politics, Russia is steadily pursuing the
great prize of Constantinople. And if the Gar
can succeed in gaining possession of that port, he
may raise its fallen fortunes and make it what it
was in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the
chief European emporium of Asiatic trade. A
railroad across the isthmus Of Suez would be but
child's play to him who planned the road from
Odessa to St. Petersburg.
In other things, too, besides time, we have the
advantage of Russia. We have more commercial
enterprise, more maritime experience, more self
relying habits. We have history, also, in our ia
1. IL L. ;lxv
travelling westward-if we may be permitted to use
something of a bull. First, it was the Tadmor of
the Desert, then Tyre, then Constantinople Venice
and Genoa that commanded the Chinese and In
dian commerce. Afterwards Portugal, and lastly
England, got the rich prize into her hands. Now
we are struggling forit and we may depend upon
it that if the Gar ever annexes Constantinope to
his possessions, it is with the Russian and not the
British Empire that we will have to contend for
the Eastern trade.
The recent events in Pennsylvania, and the de-
mand lately made for the passage of Russian fleet
through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles into the
ModitArra no.,, aho,v lis that the Gear is not dis
posed to wait long for Constantinople. The pear
has been long time ripening he is becoming
anxious to pluck it. If we are wise we will make no
unnecessary delay in getting connection with Cali
fornia. If we wait ten years for the road that is
connect the Pacific with the Mississippi, we may
find out that we have been too late. And double
will be the shame if we are forestalled by such a
people and such a government as the Russian
double ought to be our disappointment if we find out
that we have been beaten in the race by govern
ment founded on despotism and utterly subversve Of
all human liberty. For the sake of the whole human
race, as well as for our own sake, we ought to
hasten our movements and speedily build up port
on the Pacific that will make us the neighbors of
Canton and Calcutta. With a city at San Fran
cisco, we will be nearer to China and Japan than
the Russian Emperor is, though he hold all the
wastes of Siberia, and tear down the Great Wall
that has resisted storm and tempest and mans -sge
for so many centuries.