Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-01-07
Daily Nennebrt Sourml.
MIR. BOUTWELL'S LECTURE.

in Boston, OH the 2Sth. upon THE Trans
ition Period of the United States" W,
copy part which seems to have peculia
interest for our readers.
The events through which we have
passed in these ten years have lett some
thing of difficulty, and they indicate mucf
of encouragement for the future. They
have left something of difficulty in the loss
of our commerce. They have left some
thing of difficulty in the creation of vast
national debt, and in system of taxation
deemed by the people burdenSome. Plac-
ing Whatever estimate you please upon
those discouraging circumstances winch
attend us now-estimate your burden OF
taxation at whatever you may, estimate
the public debt as you will. estimate the
loss OF your commerce at the largest
amount named by anybody, and still upon
the ledger there is a large balance to the
credit Of the country.
1t may not be Inappropriate for me to
make a suggestion upon one of these points
the debt-with reference to the future,
whether it be of peace or war We antlc-
ipate period of peace, and there Is moth
ing in the present aspect of affairs, so far
as | know, indicating the contrary; If OF
peace, then how important it is that the
public debt should be considerably re-
duced, and that at a period not very re-
mote. Applause
1t has often been said that the American
people are grasping people with refer
ence to territory and the acquisition of the
adjoining lands. The contrary is histori-
cally the truth. The Government of this
country for the last quarter of century
has been rejecting acquisitions of territory.
When we had possession of Mexico in
1917, when it was all within our power,
we accepted from her two or three out
living States, for which we compensated
her literally and the rest we abandoned to
the people of that country. The Sandwich
Islands were rendered to this country, I'M
doubtedly, many years ago-this speak
from knowledge received many years ago
There have been other tenders of islands
of the sea from time to time, and they have
been declined. We make no advances by
power; we take nothing from anybody by
aggression. Other nations and other coun-
tries have extended their domains by force
and by military power. If we are extend
ing our possessions, it is by the force of
ideas, presenting our form OF government
our institutions, and furnishing to the
world an example of a people. capable of
governing themselves; and if by the force
of these ideas, nations or States desire to
become an integral part of the American
Union, il is then question for us to con-
slider whether we will accept them or not.
But if there he anything settled by the
history of America from the first. it is that
there shall be no extension of territory by
mere force of arms.
But nobody can be Indifferent to the
prospect before us, which is that there will
be acquisitions of territory by the force of
our ideas, by the popular acceptation in
adjacent States of the ideas and institu-
tions of the United States. If then by
peace there is to be an extension of terri
tory, dissemination If our ideas, how
important it is that there should be nothing
in the fact of the vast public debt to pre-
vent or to delay the natural course of af-
fairs in this particular. But if, which may
often be averred in the future, we are to
be involved in hostilities with any Power,
how important it is that before any crises
shall arise, we shall have materially re-
duced the public debt, in order that the
credit of the country may be strengthened
and made equal to any emergency.
[Applause.l
Taxation is an evil. 1t ought to be di-
minished as rapidly as possible. But
there are greater evils in country even
than taxation; and debt which in any
sensible degree affects the capacity of a
great nation like this to work out its own
destiny to extend its policy, to advance
its ideas, to diffuse its power among the
nations of the earth--a debt which does,
or even threatens to do, all or any of these
things, is national evil which ought to be
speedily diminished Applause.
Another of the evil results consequent
upon the events of these ten years has been
the destruction, we may say, of American
commerce. No man who regards the true
interests of our country can doubt as to
what our course should be in reference to
this matter No pains should be spared
by the Government or the people by which
its restoration can be accomplished. How
this is to be done cannot be set forth upon
a platform But this we know-if the
Government and the people Of this country
are united and determined to secure the
restoration of American commerce upon
the ocean, that result can be effected.
GApplause.l
The events of these ten years open to
us the future, so that we can better I'M
derstand what it has in stora for this coun-
try and for the world than we could have
comprehended previous to 1860. Macau-
lev estimates that in 1855 there were about
five million of people in En-, land speak
ing the English language. Probably at
that time there were not more than ten
millions of people upon the globe who
spoke the English language. To-day a
tenth or an eighth of Of the people on the
surface of the earth speak the English lam
guage. Children now living will see the
middle of the next century, eighty years
from this, when quarter and possibly q
third of the people on the globe will speak
the English language, and that chiefly
through the power of the United States.
For, what ever may be our respect fol-
the mother country, whatever our indebt
edness to her for the institutions which
she has transmitted to US, she is insular
Her colonial possessions must one by ONT
disappear; though they may speak the Ian
guage of the mother country, they are t.
accept, one after another, the ideas o
America. We have already spanned thi
continent with a railway. The islands o
the Pacific, and the continents beyond The
Pacific, are open to American commerce
10 American ideas to American pnfernrisp