The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-01-16
THE MARCH OF CONSOLIDATION.

Under these startling headlines, the En-
quirer notices with alarm the bill ''To Es-
tablish National System of Education,o
and another, "To Regulate Commerce be-
tween the States, y recently introduced into
Congress-. 1t thus casts our horoscope in
the National sky:
So we advance towards q Consolidated EN-
pire. Step by step the functions of the States
are being gradually absorbed by the Federal
Congress. The United States will presently be
great plain, with no interior boundary lines =
Our magistrates and our constabes will be made
in Washington.
Sad picture that, indeed, with all our
grand mountains leveled, and our beautiful
valleys filled up into a vast plain. The
globe has passed through many revolutions
from the stormy chaos Of its birthtime, to
its present comparatively quiet and well or
\ dered condition. But this transformation
lwould be quite equal to any of them. The
faction of dynamical causes, long since
silent, would be required to melt, dissolve,
grind down, triturate and distribute in level
layers the lofty Appalachans and the
prodigeous masses of the Rocky Mountain
Range. 1t would spoil our fine scenery,
but then what study fer biologists!
1t would take away much of the best
stock from our rhetoric, when ''grand
mountains lifted up to milk the clouds"
should be no more, but it would make rail-
reading easy then there would beno interior
boundary lines, and our pet project of unit
ing the two Yirgnias again will surely be
achieved. So we feel rather reconciled
after all, with this view. We hope the ge-
ologist of the Enquirer will inform us when
this great change is to take place, who has
taken the job, and what forces, igncous,
aqueous, magnetic and chemical, are to be
principally engaged in its production. We
have taste for natural history, and don't
mind mixing an earthquake or a cataclysm
with our politics, if not too expensive
We don't doubt that this thing is to
happen as tue Eaqairer says but then the
geological periods are SO immensely long,
we don't feel much afraid get, and propose
to work our farm in the Piedmont region
every year, just as if the Blue Ridge
wasn't going to come down on top of it..
We will risk new hat, and our profess
sional reputation as a geologlst, that it will
take ten million years to level the noun
tains and achieve such plain as it has
pictured. Then it will be several days
after that, before the magistrates and con-
stables will be made in Washington. So
cheer up, good friend, and look at the stars
again.
There are farer omens than at first appear
The first revolutions of the Globe were but
upward steps in its progressive life, leading
it out of inferior conditions, into order and
beauty. So these changes in the politica
forms, though sometimes violent and
Threatening, mark new eras in the life o
the Nation.
The centralizing tendency which alarms
is but the c5ystaiiaiag force. Of coarse
and amorphous matter, it constructs tho
priceless gem, deathless and indestructible
whose light shall flash through all the ages
upon the pathway of Humanity, as il
marches grandly forward to its high des-
tiny.