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Our Country

Our Country image
Parent Issue
Day
7
Month
November
Year
1846
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The lerritory of the Uniied States is eoual to that of the wliole of Europe, with the exception of Russia. It is ten times as large as England, "Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, united. The most rigid calculation assures us that in twentv-five years the population of this country will be forty millions j in serenty-five years more than one hundrcd and fifty millions ; in one hundred years, nearly three liundred millions will be clustered along the rivers and spread over the values and hills of these Uniied States ; and many of our grand-chüdren will see nearly six hundrcd millions of inhabitants crowding the cities and cultivating the fields of this vast territory, whitening every sea with their fleets, and penetrating in a thousanc nrxmeless ways every island and every continent. And all causes now tend to national consolidation. Speed is conquerinor, nay, absolntely annihilating space. When ihe locomotivc leaps the remote tributa ries of the Missouri, and rushes down the western declivities of the Rocky Mountnins, a journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific will be less arduous than in the days of the Revoluüon was one from the Penobscot to the Hudson. Our form of government presente the utmost stimulus which can bo imagined to mental energies. Our frequently recurring elections rouso the intellectual might of the nation. Evory school-house becomes a lecturoroom for the study of political economy, and svery man who ha a torgo to speak. a political partissn. The wisestmen in the nation gather the multitude JO city and country, to discuss the highest themes of national economy. Every pen is active. Every man is almosf compelled to form an opinión, and to defend that opinión. This politica] excitement penet ratea the remotest hamlet on our forestbound frontier. Since creation's dawn, sui-h a spcctacle tías never been witnessed, of the intellectual energies of a whole nation rousod to their utmost intensity. There is, probably, more mental advance mado each ycar by the mass of the people in the United States, than is made in a dozen years by tho populace of Italy, or France, or Rmsia, or Spain. Who can compute the result, when this teeming opulation of roused and invigoratod minds shall spread over all our green and fertile glens, and cluster along tho declivities of our noble mountains. For it s mind that shall rule the world ; not the mind of a few polished scholars rejoicing n the finish of an epigram, or the claasical beauties of a sonnet, but mind drU ring the ploughshare, hammering at tha invil, guiding the majestic ship on her stormy pathway, giving instinct to lightling and steam, and nerves, and tendons, ind living muscles to iron and brasa. -