The true Democrat., 1855-06-12
From the N. Y. Geographical and Commercial c... The Junction of the Ohio .na .,y l.
 Mississippi, and its Relations c,oD s-e Sidered. VII

NO Amercan Seographer can look m |. map ot his country without astonishmant sne trace It's expanding outlines without admra.;no nof Before the old States have authortiveIv nnarL; out thelr boundaries, before, with a sinoIo ~, ception, they have dehneated their topogranb,. or trlangllated their areas, except for haeasy' along the Atlantic coast, new states. of vo tent and territory, with boundaries reacbir, ha yond actual settlements for thousands nc rsn rise up in the distance with celeritv that 'a'0s' ' strips calculation. New centres of trado ou', 1 commerce are discovered; new plainS oe "uu haustless fertility are thrown open to tbo "A of man; new rivers are explored witbont r"% orrapids or waterfalls to interrupt their nay;.A ton; and new mines are opened of metals 5 ol coal, so rich so measurcless in their o"I "nu tents, that they may be considered as the stor houses established by Providence to meet tS- necessities of civilization among the fr.. .aI0 throngs who are destined to live beneath o'. western skies 0'
 And added to this we find new cT,,o.. adapted to every variety of healthful vegptato~ and that serenity of temperature which maIn, existence blessing and gives to social Tro ;t, best forms its highest powers; and to our noI; tical compact the largest constitutional freedora and its most energetic and grateful defenaerl In this aspect it is, in which physical geocra phy delights to contemplate the corditon 9rd advancement of the great west, and by wbch it learns to value and properly to estimate its great destinies, and more than this to discovor by natural laws, by the structure and direction of mountain ranges, the source and course of rivers, toewhich even the most skilful eDoinoor, ing must give attention, where the comino oo- nerations of our countrymen must fix their 6o bitations and where emigration may best direct its footsteps now.
 Not hundred years ago, (and what con- trest does this fact exhbit) the American colo. nists were better known in Europe by the name of "Bostonians" than any other; for the inter- course of the city of Boston with the Mother Country was more distinct and regular than at any other point making it, in fact, the centre of the British trade
 The city of New York was, for long time rather the port of a private Dutch commercial company, and her commerce was under licenses and closed one to the world at large New port, in Rhode Island, between the two, was for d long time, thoug h at later period, point of extreme interest in our then commercial world, and its fine harbOr seemed formed to shelter the largest merchant fepts It is a en- rious fact that, at one time the French govern ment entertained the serious design of purchas- ing Rhode Island as naval station for its North American squadr6ns! So, too Philadelphia, at the close of the revolution became the centre of large trade and suffered more from it's vicisstudes than any other city in the United States. Matthew Carey, in an early edition of the l Olive Branch, describes an almost entire cessa ton of business, and the sale of hundreds of hous,s for debts due foreigners, who. directly on the cessation of hostilites, threw large SUD- plies of goods into Philadelphia to be sold at any price.
 It also a curious fact that this oyer-impor. tation, a part of which was actually hundreds of packages of second hand clothes from Mon mouth street, was attributed to the existence of free ports on the Delaware, and ports with light duties of about , per cent; each State until the adoption of the constitution, having the right to adjust its own tariff.
 When cotton and rice were cultivated as sta. ples at the south Charleston and Savannah be- came cities of more than their former impor. tance; and when Louisiana was purchased from Frame, New Orleans rose into consequence as the port of the Mississippi and finally, on the successful introduction of steam upon its waters, became beyond all comparison, the greatest southern commercial city of the Union Here have continued to be received the vast pro- | gulf, among the Antilles, and exported to every commercial port in Europe Then upon this development, others followed; and with the for nation and growth of the States of Ohio Ms. souri and Illinois, new local centres began to be discovered. St. Louis Cincinnati and Chicago emerged from the nebula of population around them, orbs of commerce, with their own spheres and systems all becoming bri2 hter, larger and To, of ,,,b; ,,h hut another form of the laws of nature
 So astonishing and so rapid have been these developments, one would suppose that even American progress would sometimes pause to rest itself and to take breath before resumns its march. Not so. What has been done is nothing to what will be done. What we have beheld with astonishment we see infinitely sur passed.
 The Mississippi, the Ohio, the Missouri, with their numberleSs continents and aff1uentS. are found to lave the very gardens of the world virgin lands of extraordinary fertility, offered freely by governmental law and liberal policy, on the easiest terms by which land can be pur- chased any where in the civilized world and of the easiest access even to those of the Smal. lest means. Millions of acres are reached through these great water courses where the plough has but to make its furrow and the first season of cultivation gives back generous re- ward to the husbandman.
 It is indeed no wonder that the west ern prai res and the western hill-sides attract such throngs of human beings from the sterile fields and barren mountains of Europe, where life is a toll, and bread is black and hard to be obtain ed, or that the Anglo-Sa should seek here to find broad fields and acres, pecunary inIe. pendence, a house that is castle, and harvest home whose merry gatherings are competence and peace.
 The finest lands in Kansas and Nebraska, be- yond the Mississippi may be reached in eight days from New York-less time, indeed, than 1t once took to navigate sloop between New York and Albany when the tides were more relied upon than even the winds.
 These circumstances alone must lead to the most prodigious results not only in our ownd day. but for centuries to come. The future IS no' distant when empires in space and populatoA will reach from the valleys of the NJ sSSsippl" . the shores of the Pacific; and unless we lose sight of our own true interests, under the @SS of constitutional freedom, with one interest, on' destiny. The future balance of power tn8 latitude and longitude of its seat, we leave TOT