New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1895-08-25
BUILDING A NATION.
THE PROCESS BY WHICH A LEAGUE BE-
CAME AN INDIvIsIBIE UNION

THE MAKING OF THE NATION. i7ss;,n7 by
sssn a. wa Institute re Of reshnoosy %h
Maps and Appendices. PIP. XIV. sii Charles
Present Condition and Resources OF the United
states. with Forecast Of the Future sy Henry sr
ysy and Of the Tenth and Eleventh Censases
Pp Xxx. sa " CThe Henry r Thomas Company
General Walker holds the middle way between
what he calls the lawyers view Of the United
States as nation and the opinion Of those who
look no further back than the Civil War for the
real beginnings Of the Union. He goes too far'
ptrhaps when ne says that all real students OF po-
ltlcal history must renounce the purely lawyer
like theory OF the formation Of the Constitution
held by Story. Webster and Curtis. There mas
never since the Constitution was adopted peen
any possibility OF a dissolution or the Union oy
peaceable legal methods and so WEBSTER must
have been right in the use OF that resounoins
nhrsse with which he ended his speech in reply to
Hayne On the other hand. the error that there
was a right Of separation under the Constitution
was only dispelled by the failure OF the slave
holders rebellion. There were minds TO whom the
Principle Of nationality appealed at the outset
there were others that needed to have 1T ham
mered into them with a musket years ana years
after II was first propounded. But If one cannot
assertion that 1.-The United States became
true and virtual nation during the first three OF
four decades Of its history" one may still admit
that II gives a good enough reason for American
political evolution up to 1920.
To Mr. Garnett the question Of building up the
Nation has little nothing to do with the bring
ing out Of any inner controlling principle. poiiti-
cal or other. He the nation In what 1t has ac-
complished-in the metals 1T has dug out OF the
ground in the means of transportation 1t has ere
ated in the grain II produces In the races OF peo-
pie which 1t endeavors to assimilate in the natu-
raj features of the country which 1t has to deal
with in the farms and cities where its people
dwell. In the whole reslsess tide Of Its material
prosperity There is significant aptness. then, IN
the use by him of the phrase. Building Nation.
because he talks much more of the house In which
the nation lives than of the inhabtant. The dis
tinction is worth remembering. A time may yet
come when some other nation will raise more
wheat more cotton. more hogs. build longer rail-
roads and higher houses than the United States
and when this country can do no greater material
things than 1t has done it will need to fall back
on the thought that the nation itself must be
greater than all its achievements that poor little
Athens was greater than all Persia on the field OF
Marathon, and that England may be grander i
power when the coal has all been raised from her
mines than she is now. with good share of 1t
still in the ground. Besides 1t has not been
ascertained yei how the credit for the growth and
productveness Of the United States is to be d.
vided between the country and its inhabitants.
One Of the boasts of the country is the amount of
wheat 1t raised-in 1891. for example, about 6l2.-
600 900 bushels But the area Of the United States
is SO vast that 1t may almost be compared to that
Of all Europe, a little corner of which, namely,
France produced in the same year 2Sl,OOO,OOO
bushels. The comparatively sparse population of
the United States is only Swimming the surface
Of the Continent. 1t has yet to learn what 1t can
do with numbers as dense those Of the Old
World