The Kansas herald of freedom., 1855-02-17

which cover our country-their ample
list of members and well filled libraries,
and laudable spirit of improvement give
earnest of future eminence, and of useful
and honorable careers, rivaling their ia,
theirs, and justifying the axiom of Pliny
They will not let the road flag, they will
not lose the East India trade All they
want is information about the road, and
have endeavored to give it. / have
brought the facts, carefully assured, to
show that there is good way for good
road, and good country to sustain peo-
pie to protect and support it-and law
and government to guard it-and settle
ments nearly all the way already began
and to multiply with magic rapidity.-
Then let US begin-take the first step,
which is always the most difficult. My
plan is, to get this substitute bill passed,
which Congress may pass without con-
stitutional scruple, confined as it is to
territorial domain, giving to the citizens
whose names itcontains, their successors,
associates, and assigns, right of way in
one mile wide through the public lands
in Kansas and Utah, on each side of the
road, and a years delay to obtain that
practical information which business men
always have before they undertake any
great tenterprise--bu building the road at their
own expense, and without other aid from
the Federal Government than that of its
custom, paying for its accommodation by
an arrangement not yet matured. | re-
peat, l am willing to vote the same priv
ilege to any other company, but have no
idea of squandering the public lands up
on spectators, either to make a bubble
stock upon the exchange of New York
and London, or to build private road
for themselves at the national expense,
and then tax the nation for travelling upon
it.
do not expatiate upon the home ad-
vantages of railway to the Pacific; it
has become necessity, the urgency of
which is universally admitted. I en-
force another advantage, not so immedi-
ate, but obvious to the thinking mind,
and important to America, Europe, and
Asia; and which, in changing channel
of rich commerce, may have its effect up
on the wealth and power of nations, and
operate a change in the maritime branch
of national wars: Iallude to the East In
dia trade, (already incidentally touched
upon, and the change ofitschannel from
the water to the land and the effect of
that change in multiplying the maritime
supremacy of naval powers by making
continents, instead of oceans, the great
theaters of international commerce No
events in the history of nations have had
a greater effect on the relative wealth and
power of nations, than the changes which
have been going on for near three thous-
and years in the channels of Asiatic COM
meree. During that time nations have
risen and fallen, as they possessed or lost
that commerce. Events announce the
forthcoming of a new change. The land
becoming facility, and the ocean an OBJ
stacle to foreign trade, must have an eff
feet upon Europe, coterminous upon Asia,
and upon America separated from 1t by
western sea overwhichno European pow
er can dominate. Iconfne myself to the
American branch of the question, and
glance at the past to get an insight into
the future. look to former channels of
this Asiatic commeree-their changes
the effects of the changes; and infer from
what has been, what may be-from what
is, to what will be.
/. PHENICIAN RoUTE.-Tyre, queen
of cities, was its first emporium. The
commerce of the East centered there be-
fore the captivity of the Jews in Babylon,
upwards of six hundred years before the
coming of Christ Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Babylon, conquered Tyre and
RACED it to its foundations but he was no
statesman-merely destrover-and did
not found rival city; and the continu-
ance of the India trade quickly restored
the queen of cities to all her former de-
grees of pre-eminence and power. Alex
ander the Great conquered her again.
He was statesman, and knew how to
build up, as well as how to pull down,
and looked to commerce for exalting and
eniiching that magnificent empire which
his war genius was conquering. He
founded a rival city on the coast of Egypt,
better adapted to the trade; and the
prophecy of Ezekiel became fulfilled on
Tyre! She became a. place for fishermen
to dry their nets.
g. THE JEWISH RoUTE.-In the time
of Solomon and David, the Jews sue
ceeded to the East India trade, made it
the leading subject of their policy, and
became rich and powerful upon it. Je-
rusalem rivalled Nineveh and Babylon; !;
and Palmyra, mere thoroughfare in
their trade, in the midst of desert, be-
came the seat of power and opulence, of
oriental magni6cence, and the center of
the arts and sciences. The Jews lost
that trade, and Jerusalem became as a
widow in the wilderness, and Palmyra
den for foxes and Arabs.
8. The ALEXANDRIA, RouTE.-This
was opened BY Alexander the Great-its
course along the canal of Alexandria to
the Nile-up that river to Coptus-thence
across the desert with camels to the Red
Sea-and down that sea to the neighbor
ing coasts of Asia and Africa route
chosen with so much judgment that it
made Alexandra and Egypt the seats of
wealth, power, learning, the arts and
sciences, and continued to be the channel
of trade for period of eighteen hundred
years-from three hundred years before
Christ to the close of the fifteenth centu-
ry-when the Portuguese discovery of
the passage by the Cape of Good Hope
annihilated the Egyptian route, and trans
ferred TO Lisbon the glories of Alexan-
dria. But not without a contest Soly-
man. the Magnificent, then Sultan of the
Turkish Empire, fought the Portuguese
for the dominion of routes-earried on
long ana bloody wars to break up the
Cape of Good Hope route, assisted by the
Venitians, because of their interest in the
Egyptian route and menaeing Christen-
dom (this alliance Of Christian and Sar-
acen against Christians, according to the
kbhe Raynal indorsad hv the phiIosoph-