The miners' express. (Dubuque, Iowa) 1849-1854, 1853-04-13
l416 md 1888.


!. speed. "a century Of life is crowded into year.
The last setenty years almost equal, in rapid
uevelopsn6N8 OF the race, any previous thous.
and years ct the world 3 history. A distn
guished writ6f in the cause of liberty in the
revolution, whpn surveying our country future,
then attelnptsa 10 be choked to death by the
red hand of british monarchy, said in effect,
.neser sinceehe time Of Noah hath people
been placed N our position. The future is ia
our bands, Az ne have TO begin the business Of
world anew. Nobly has our country fulfill
Cd tins sayi9I Of the prophetic writer Of the
revolution. Get ITS and 1853 stand face to
lace tor q moment, and the world will be struck
dumb by the miracle Of contrast which they
present. Or. tobring the matter home more
palpably, suppdyo Washington risen from his
grave for litleswhile, and enthroned on the
highest peak Of the Alleghanies, surveying
with supernatural scope of vision, THE LAND,
from ocean to ocean, from northern SHOWS to
the gem Of the Antilles. What a contrast to
the DAYS of 1776 would meet the gaze of the
great man! In l776, the Y. s. consisted Of
thifiecn colonies, pent up between the Allegha
MES and the Atlantic, with populatioy of
birely three millions, struggling for life itself
against the most powerful, the most brutal mon.
archy of the age. In 1853, the U. 8 consists
of thirty one great republics, cemented in indis
soluble union, with population of twenty i've
millions her vast territory fronts alike towards
the rising and the setting sun the Atlantic and
the Pacific are her eastern and western boanda
ries, and as to northern and southern boundaries,
they are not settled yet-by no means finished
Destiny will take care of them. Washington
risen from his tomb, and Surveying the land
from its topm,st height, need not let his vsi on
be checked by either Niagara Falls or the Gulf
OF Mexico: there il great deal of United
States yet to come, beyond guilt and cataract
Niagara Falls will yet sing the hymn of re-
publican continent. Call up franklin, and let
him contrast the industrial resources of 70
with SO. We can imagine the stare of wonder
which would light up his hearty, good humored
face. In his days one JOHN Fitch, amid the
unextinguishable laughter of crowd OF mer-
chants and other respectable people assembled
on Philadelphia wharf, tried the experiment of
propelling boat by the force Of steam. In his
day also Oliver Evens, another madman OF the |
Fitch stamp, aimed the pity or contempt Of all
men Of common sense, tried to propel wagon,
on the Lancaster pike, (near Philadelphia by
the force Of steam-succeed too-but was set
, down as mere theorst and dreamer by all
practical men. Well, Doctor, look over the
land noso. The continent is net worked with
iron ways. The scream Of the locomotive is
heard everywhere-it is never silent, from the
cataract to the gulf; and the Hudson, the Ohio,
the Mississippi, the ocean in the east, and the
ocean in the west, send up. night and day, the
smoke OF the steamboat to heaven-the very
steamboat Doctor, which John Fitch, in imper-
feet form, tried one day on the Delaware river,
aud in miniature upon the New Y ork Kolch-
From the Aroostook to the bay of San Francis
CO, Doctor, the steam engine-dumb matter
fired into strong, terrible life, at the command
Of science--never rests, not for an hour, nay,
not for q moment, out of the twenty four
Through the still night you hear its mighty
breathings; .its Tres rise through the darkness
from 10 ocean; its iron tramp is still
upon iron ways; and upon river and sea its
hoarse anthem never dies. But, as if this was
not enough, Doctor, as if steam was not fast
enough tor this hurrying age, here comes the
Ericsson, gliding up New York bay, with its
new motor, destined to dethrone steam even as
steam annihilated the stage coaches, numbering
wagons, and snail like moving hand lador Of
Is. Supposing that franklin had learned MOTH
ing since his transit to another sphere, land if
the rapping utterances which the mountebank
supernaturalists put in Franklin mouth, be true,
he has sadly gone back in every respect,) let us
imagine him risen from the grave, and confront.
ed with Nineteenth Century Ericsson. How
the great Doctor would open his eyes as he
found himself on board the Ericsson, gliding
down the bay of New York, and with the in
ventor Of the new motor by his side, explaining
in plain terms the features of his invention -
Put Franklin and Ericsson side bj side, and two
CentuTieS look WOnuet.StruCk on eacl Other
face.
Not the expansion of territory alone, nor the
increase of population, nor yet the miraculous
advance of all industrial interests, nor even vet
the wondrous lite given by science to dumb
machinery, wanid excite the surprise Of Wash
ington and franklin, could they come back in
10 our world. The greatest wonder of all would
be the great progress which the people-,he
masses-tave made since the era of the cross
ing Of the Delaware. Then the masses wore
distinctive dress, which set them apart from the
wealthy class; and wrote seridom on their very
externals; they were ridden down BY odious
laws, gathered from the charnel house Of the
Past, such as Imprisonment for debt, and other I
fragments of the legal Moioch Of the red and
black ages; now the masses are men and not
serfs or lnachints, and they have risen into full
manhood. with the fragments of many an in.
fernal law trampled firmly under foot. Now
the masses know no such word az $50. back !"
in their upward march (; their Future is in the !
care Of . benign Destiny and all paternal God
It il good thought, and full of consolation for
every lover of his kind, that despite all the c
clouds that have lowered upon our country
through the last seventy years-despite the :
thousand obstacles which have from time TO :
Lime blocked the pathway Of the people-ye,
still sslhe world does novel, and the Destiny
of the country and the people cannot 60 back,
but must inevitably march Onward. The next
seventy years will tell the story.