The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1857-07-11
The Great West.

The Baltimore American of the 18th has a
good statesmanlike article ON the above sub
iect. The forecast shown in the following
extract is proof that it partakes largely Of
that quality:
''The West is a great world, perhaps
scarcely comprehendcd even by the keenest
of the men of forecast and energy who have
grown up in its midst, and partake of the
amazing energy that is u natural characteris-
tic of its atmosphere, and certainly to the
great bulk of the people of the Atlantic slope,
an enigma which fois their astuteness by
vastness that allows of no standpoint from
which they may graspit colossal proportions
and subject them to the specific examination
necessary to right estimation Of the whole.
But in the West itself, the mind has the aid
of actual impressions and its conclusions are
enlarged by the verfication Of personal ex-
animation, and it then learns to give due sig
nlfcance to the impressive facts that there
in the Vests concentrated the producing
capacity of the country; that there will soon
be located the ma ority of our population,
and that there will be the seat of the political
power and the business supremacy Of the
nation. There the true Empire of the Re-
public.
We may not now recognize the fact, but it
is nevertheless a truth that the next twenty
years will dev elop, with all the impressiveness
of an important reality, that beyond the Ohio,
and in the great central basin through which
the Mississippi rolls, and into which are pour
ed the streams that gather East in the Ale
ghanies, and West in the Rocky Mountains,
is concentrating and increasing, fed by
mighty volume of emigration, with rapid
ty that in any other country would appear
miraculous, the population which is to gov
ern this country; under whose control, tenn
pered by the sovereign rights belonging to
all portions of a free people, will disappear
our present sectional distinctions of North
and South, and we will learn to look to the
West as the central and sustaining power of
the country, unlimited in its capacity, and
unshackled in its benefcent influences upon
the Republic and the world.
The people of the West seem to under
stand how great is the prospect which the fu-
ture holds out as the sure accomplishment
of their destiny.
Amid so much that tempts to extravaganza
both of thought and action, we may expect
to find something of unsound speculation and
ul llt-ulFeCbeu euort THAT goes Dey OHu anu ue-
feats its own purpose, but these are the mere
froth and foam of the surface, the steady
current runs on, powerful in its unobstruct-
ed strength, gaining weight and momentum
as it advances, and reaching surely and rap
idly to the ultimate accomplishment of It's
object. The western man, with the sub
stantial evidences of this astonishing pro-
grcss constantly before him, talks assuredly
of the grand destiny of the West, and pre-
sents his views in what appears the mere
vauntlngs Of asectional and social egotism,
until better information forces upon you the
true relative position which he and yourself
occupy, and his boastings become verltles,
authenticated by past knowledge, and more
than verified in each days progressive ex-
perience. 1t is we'll for US that this unllmit-
ed growth of the West brings with 1t no In
feriority or decadence for the East-that
though we cannot found new States nor re.
claim from their non-productive ruggedness
vast territories, that yet, as the factors OF
the West, and, to large extent, the manu-
facturers Of its raw material, We must share
the results of its greatness and grow more
and more prosperous in an enjoyment OF
the wealth and progress which belongs with
il and US to common country