The weekly Butte record. [volume] (Oroville [Calif.]) 1866-1887, 1866-10-27
A Splendid Dream.

and yet it is all within the limits of the
possible, SO far within them that its re-
alization is more than Its failure. Judg-
ing as human beings are alone entitled
to Judge, on the evidence, it is much
more likely than not that in 1866 the
American people viii be one hundred
and fifty millions, speaking one Ian
guage, and that English, and possessed
Of all the knowledge that language con-
tains, with a country Of all climates
and all scenes, resources scarcely ex-
plored, and an almost total freedom
from physical distress. Every race,
cultivation, and capacity will be repre-
sented in its borders, and nearly every
civilization compatible with Republi-
canism and very elastic Christianity.
The number of the States will be at
least fifty, and in each marked and
peculiar society will have formed under
the gradual operation Of law as differ
ent as the marriage laws of Wisconsin
and Vermont now are, and of social
systems as separate as those of Mary
land and Massachusetts. Expert
ments of the most gigantic character
will have been tried to the full, expert
ments as wild as the Western one of
nearly unlimited right Of divorce, or as
ene.idea, so precocious to every Demo-
cratic mind, of dispensing with every
control saAe that Of the parish consta-
BILE. A hundred and fifty millions of
men all races and all instincts will be
Lying together on one soil under all
climates and possessed of every re-
source, coal, and iron, and corn, and
wine, coal fields so endless that even
American lavishness cannot waste them,
iron fields so vast that they will con-
sumo forests covering a continent, corn
fields which will feed the world, and
vineyards which even now send their
products to the owners of Hermitage
and Johannisberg. There is no science
such race may not prosecute in peace
for ages, no form of literature it may
not develop, no discovery possible to
man it may not hope to make. 1t will,
without an effort, raise $1,500,O0O,-
900 of revenue by taxation lower than
that of England now is, and employ
the whole, or nearly the whole Of it in
works of peace. Distress, or tumult,
or resistance to authority, or dread of
freedom in its most unrestrained forms,
will, says the American, be as unknown
in that land as ignorant and violent
crime. Every man will be secure in
his home, every man equal, every man
free to do whatsoever of good his hand
can find, or his brain invent, or bis
heart conceive. So great will be the
love of the people for these institutions,
that the idea of attack will fade away,
for what nation could dream of attack
ing nation in which thirty millions of
armed males, capable of becoming SOL
diers in six weeks, will perish rather
than suffer menace and will own ships
greater in number than those of the
rest of the earth! Yet so great will
be the content of this people that Eu-
rope will pass on its way unframed,
unimpeded, and uncontrolled, save in
deed, it may be, by an extorted agree
ment that America shall always be left
open, secure harbor of refuge, the
SHADOW Of a great rock" to the poor,
and the miserable and oppressed. To
South and North alike the land will be
open, and while the Dane, eaten out of
his home may find in Maine a climate
as rough and manner as kindly as his
own, the italian unable to prosper may
grow Lacrima Christi on the slopes of
Virginia, or renew the myrtles of Sicily
by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
There is room for all and to spare, and
when the tale is complete, and Ameri-
cans outnumber every white race, there
will stretch before them other terrific
ries to possess, lands more vast, noun
tains more various, plains more rich,
rivers still broader, civilizations and
possibilities Of social life yet more null
tiform and great for they may cross the
lsthmus, FIX capital greater than
Rome at spot where the President can
look from the White House upon two
oceans, and stretch away, pressing on
in innummerable hordes over the glori-
GUS wilderness of Brazil and the rich
alluvium of the Amazon, and mine the
Andes, and fill those wonderful plateaus
where, as in Bogota, the apple and the
pineapple grow side by side, and SO
spread slowly down away to the An
tarctic zone. The half of earth will
then be American, and the curse of d.
vided language done away; and the hu-
man race, rid at last of physical mise
ry, of war Of inequality, and of the
paralysis Of powers produced by fears
OF each other, may commence a career
as new as that which began when man
hrst Instituted marriage and discovered
fire. 1t is pleasant dream, one which
makes New England farmers better
and softer, and nobler amidst their sor-
did care; and it is all possible, or at
least conceivable.
Some descendant of Solomon has
wisely remarked, that those who 90 to
law for damage are sure to get them.