The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-16
DIX

What He says oil tue nut"re OF the Ohi'ed
The banquet to General Dix took place on
June l. in Paris. In replying to the toast of
the evening, General Dix, after some personal
acknowledgements, spoke of the future of the
United States, and said;-
believe there are few intelligent persons
on either side of the Atlantic who do not ex-
pect to see our jurisdiction still further en-
larged If this expectation is realized, it will
be through amicable arrangements with other
States. We have gained nothing heretofore
by violence or injustice; we desire to gain no.
thing by unworthy schemes of territorial
acquisihon-those dangerous instruments of
ambition by which nations are nearly certain
to work out, soon or late, their own downfall.
If future accessions of territory come to us,
it will be, as in the past, through causes pre-
pared beyond the circle of our own influences,
and by agencies higher than our own. 1t is on
this condition only that such accessions will
prove a blessing to ourselves or a benefit to
mankind Such is the spirit of the popular
movement across the continent of North
America. Nearly all the great migrations
which history has recorded from the Christian
era TO the present time, consist Of the exodus
of barbarous nations from the inhospitable
regions in which they were bred, transferring
themselves to more genial latitudes, and gain
sures of civilization; or of fiery incur
sions the offspring of religious frenzy,
seeking to propagate creeds of faith
by fire and sword. Ours is the majestic,
but the calm and bloodless, march of the hosts
of civilization, in the ranks of which every
nation in Christendom has its representatives.
going forth to subdue wilderness, and to ex-
tract from its woods, its soil, and its caverns,
by the patient hand of industry, the treasures
1 L l.
ming of time. In regard to the relations of
the great States of the Eastern Hemisphere to
each other, we may be said to have been in
the past, as l trust we may be in the future,
an unarmed neutrality, standing aloof
from their rivalries and their conflicts,
asserting within our own limits, and with
out any of the insignia of military force or
preparation, but maintaining through the
more powerful agencies of opinion, the
principles which we believe to be best calcu-
lated to secure our own happiness and pros
perity, and to promote the welfare of the
human race. In the spirit of peace, and not
of war-of improvement, and not of devasta-
tion-of fraternity, and not of aggression
"Across the widespread continent our fathers flag
we bear,
Each hill and vale from sea to sea the sacred sign
And unseen hands shall strengthen ours to hold it
| high in air,
AS we go marching on"
What may be our condition and our destiny
hundred years hence, when the vacant
| spaces between the two oceans shall be filled
up, and the reaction of population shall be
| felt, as it inevitably must be, from the shores
| of the Pacific no human sagacity can foresee.
We can only hope that there may be nothing
in our history during the intervening years to
render us unworthy of the prosperity which
has been vouchsafed to us; that we may go
on quietly and steadily to the completion of
our great task; preserving our good faith i'll
all things with scrupulous fidelity; respect
ing the laws and institutions of other
countries, as we call on them to respect our
own; abstaining from all interference in their
| domestic concerns; nay, more, abstaining
from all propagandism, excepting through
the peaceful example of good government
within our own limits, leaving to Providence
to determine in what manner and to what
extent the principles of our political system
shall, in other quarters of the globe, exert an
influence friendly to the advancement and
diffusion of knowledge, the progress of inn
| provement in industry and the arts, and the
best good of the human race.