Year: 1866

HcCt our HdlueS WltH no SucQ DILL
liant acts as have given widespread
reputation for high craftsmanship
to the succession Of State officers
who have preceded us during these
troubled times; but in the humber
duties which will fall to us we may
rejoice that these quiet days are, in
some sense, our best days, because
they are, as we hope, the beginning
of an era Of purer and more rapid
advancement in everything which
tends to the highest civilization.


The habit of grasping greet
thoughts and of daring to do great
deeds has apparently begotten in
our people disposition which.
makes all business enterprise IKE
wider scope than heretofore, and
the keen insight with which ali our
resources are scanned, and the ad-
venturous energy with which their
development is pushed, leave moth
ing to be desired in business
point of view, unless it be an in
crease of that sagacious caution
which may save us from the danger
of those commercial reYulsions
which have, with considerable regu-
larity, followed great expansions of
the currency. The late change in
the.banking system of the country
has transferred the control of the
circulating medium to Congress,
and comparatively little can be
done by us directly to provide
against the threatened evils to
which | have alluded, except to
exhort our lellow-citizens to pre-.
pare in season for every contin-
gency. =


The large tracts of valuable lands
within the States which are still
uncultivated reminds us of the
desirability of encouraging immi-
grafton, and of the evident policy
Of seeking to attract the most
thrifty and valuable classes of I'M
migrants within our borders. Wise
foresight and prompt action may
unquestionably do much to induce
the best class Of foreigners who are
Hooking to our shores to settlt
amongst us, where they will find in
the highest degree, the advantages
which have allured them to this
country, with many of those pleas
ures Of society and of an older
civilization which they must forego
in the sparsely settled regions of
the far West, to which the great
current Of migration is tending. 1t
will also be our duty to promote
the most rapid assimilation of the
foreign element with our native
population. The events through
which we have just passed have
proven how rapidly the foreign
settler has become American in
interest, in thought and in patriot
ism; but the good results we have
seen should only encourage us to
more systematic use Of the means
which tend to so desirable a result.
A nation is strong in proportion to
the homogeneity of its people. To
be countrymen should in itself he
a pledge of brotherhood wherever
we meet, and brotherhood implies
community Of language and SINH
larity of habit and thought. To
encourage and stimulate our natur-
allied fellow-citizens, and the new
comers who purpose becoming
such, to adopt our language, to
educate their children with ours,
and to identify themselves with us
as rapidly as possible, is the dictate
of true patriotism in US, and, at the
same time, is the best welcome we
can give to them, since there can
be no question that they will thus
become most quickly acquainted
with their rights as citizens, will
be least likely to be overreached
and made dupes of in business or
in politics, and will find the road
to pecuniary profit and personal
advancement most rapidly open
before them.


Our common school system is to
be fostered and improved, and there
is nothing in which our people have
deeper interest than this. If there
be any one thing to which, under
Providence, more than to another
we owe our safe passage through
our recent perils, l believe it is the
intelligence which our common
schools have universally diffused.
1t has not been simply the power
to.read, but that larger and wider
culture which has made the Ameri-
can people capable of weighing
and deciding upon grave arguments
| of ripht and of nolicv in the midst