Mariposa Democrat., 1857-07-30

piled the taste of the times, confined their linn
tied circulation to the immediate vicinity in
which they were published. The institutions
of learning were few, and the Common School
system, the benefits Of which we are all proud
of having shared, and which scarcely less than
the liberal nature of our Government, serves
10 distinguish us from other nations, was then
without existence.
The long and arduous struggle for freedom
exhausted the feeble resources Of the Repub-
/ lie, and when at last she had succeeded in
conquering the assent of England to the Treaty
of 1888, and emerged from the frowning DESC
lation of war into the benignant sunshine of
peace and independence, she was without union
or stability at home, without character or res
pect abroad, without money, without credit,
and encumbcred with an overwhelming ma
tonal debt, superior in proportion to her pop
ulation to that under which England now
groans,-and from which she can discover no
path of escape but the dishonorable ono Of re-
pudation.
Such is a faint, hasty, and imperfect glance
at the condition of the Republic at the close Of
the Revolution, nor was 1t until after the adop-
ton Of the Federal Constitution on the 18th day
of September, 1887, that her progress became
visible From that time to this, period Of
three score years and ten, the allotted exist
apca of man ,vbot otunondona wondara baya
been wrought Eighteen new States and sew
en- Territories have been added to the Union,
her limits have swelled to over three millions
of square miles, equaling that of Continental
Europe, and thirty millions of people hail the
Anniversary of her Independence. More than
two hundred million acres of land have been
reduced to the purposes Of agriculture, and
countless towns and villages, and vast cities
filled with wealth and alive with industry,
have arisen on the ruins of her revolutionary
forests and churches and school-houses, and
institutions of learning have displaced the tent
of the savage. The placid bosom Of the rivers,
the great lakes, and the vast ocean itself, are
furrowod by her steamers or whitened by her
sails and the restive steam horse champs his
iron bit along those roads where through mud
and mire the weary teamster hauled the unde-
yeloped produce Of earlier times
Harbors have been built, moles reared, and
canals dug to add to the commercial convent
enccs Of Nature, and highways have been con
structed whose continuous line would stretch
from the earth far out into space thousands of
miles beyond the moon. Her agricultural pro-
ductions feed and clothe the paupers of every
land her manufactures, which at the close of
the Revolution, were merely nominal, can now
boast capital of three hundred millions of
dollars giving employment to nearly four hun
dred thousands persons, and yielding an ag-
gregate annual product of three hundred and
fifty millions of dollars, which find their way
into every market of the civilized world
The press, that foe Of tyrants and friend of
man; that powerful engine Of civilization, and
ndestructibe bulwark of freedom, pours its
vast annual circulation Of 750,000,000 copies
of papers and periodicals all over the Union,
giving union of sentiment, and enlightening
the public mind. England, that commercial
colossus that for the last two centuries has des-
olated every land with arms and crimsoned
every sea with her blood, to win and wear the
proud title of Mistress of the Main, is COM
PEELED to submit to the humiliation of behold
ing the sceptre Of maratimc sovereignty silent
" depart, and one of her own liberated colo
nes rising to rival the magnitude of her COM
merce and surpass the extent Of her tonnage
The National debt has been paid, and bound
less credit has been established. That respect
which springs from fear has been wrung from
foreign States, and the Union cemented by SO
many ties, that the fierce strife Of sectional in
terest, and the wilder workings Of fanaticism,
have not yet endangered it. And all this has
been accomplished in the short space of seven
ty years. 1t has been said "a thousand years
scarce serve to build State, but ours presents
the example of a people rising from colonial
vassalage to become the most powerful and
prosperous nation of any age, in the brief pc
riod of single human life
And gazing upon this gorgeous display, this
pleasing spectacle of individual progress, and
National attainment, the men of little faith may
say all which the wisdom of man can devise,
all what the eye of Science can discover, and
all that the hand of Art can perform, are ac-
accomplished already We have attained the
summit of national greatness. We possess
wisdom, and wealth, and power, and freedom
nothing new lies hid in the future, and let us
only busy ourselves how best to enjoy the pres
ent, Indifferent to others, and careless of the fu-
lult. ipul suCn ~ tlic iullSuabo VI oldSpHtihy,
of ignorance and of impotence. Who so bold
as to assume that the feeble intellect of man is
yet able to grasp all the mysterious wonders
of Nature, or the Pickering rays ofhs wisdom
iuminc the darkness of her night? Who dare
accuse the Author of human existence with
having created man with mind emincntly
capable of eternal progress; yet placing him in
field unadapted to its development; with
having given him thoughts and feelings, and
passions and propensities, with endless thirst
and burning desire to accomplish something
new and great and useful, yetrestrainng their
qualification by the inexorable hand of fate
leaving mind like Prometheus chained to the
rock-the birds of the air preying upon his
quiverlng but deathless heart--unable to break
his chain, yet forbidden to die We may be
unable to conceive what new channels for in
dividual and National enterprise may be here
after opened; we may not know what new
shrine in which the secrets Of Nature repose,
may be invaded by the investigations OF
Science, or laid open by the hand of Art: We
may not devise what new element of power
will displace the Steam Engine, or add an i'm
provement to the conveniences Of the Tele-
graph; yet we can easily understand that the
next age viii laugh at the simplicity of this, as
we do at the good natured ignorance OF the