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LIBRARY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

OR Ss UIBRARYS.
~ “UNIVERSITY. OF ILLINOIS
URBANA

erie NOLS. —

ADDRESS

BEFORE THE

AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION

OF THE

FIRTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS,

AT

Woodstock, September 22, 1887,
ay

Hon. A. BE. STEVENSON.

WASHINGTON, D.C.:
Press of Thomas MeGill &: Co., 1107 E street.
1887.

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ANY
UINIVEROUY OF ILLINOIS
URBANA

Ait BSS. .

FELLOW-CITIzENS: I desire to return my sincere
thanks to the officers of your Association for their
courteous invitation to share your generous hospitality,
and address you upon this occasion.

Notwithstanding the fact that for more than a third:
of a century I have been a resident of Illinois, this is
the first time I have had the honor of meeting and

.§ mingling with the people who, by a kind Providence,
-» have been permitted to find peaceable homes in this, the
= fairest portion of our great State.
‘<I bear to you to-day the greetings and congratulations
of your fellow-citizens of that great county lying one
Fini and fifty miles to the southward—the good
<.county of McLean. Its history, stretching over but
little more than half a century, savors more of romance
Ythan of reality. The log cabin has given way to the
5 commodious farm-house and the elegant mansion. ‘The
iS rude appliances of a pioneer civilization have been
' ¥ succeeded by comforts and conveniences to which the
f- wealthy and noble of former generations were strangers. .
Its school-houses and churches, colleges and universi-
“ties, its institutions erected by the hand of charity
Yand of patriotism, declare more eloquently than can
any poor words of mine that the county in which I
© dwell has not lagged behind in the great march of
Christian civilization.

And yet, what is true of the one county I have named
is true of almost every portion of Illinois. It is in a
marked degree true of that splendid tier of counties
lying to the extreme northward of the great Prairie

71 7S

2

State. The counties represented in your Association
constitute a Congressional district which, in fertility,
wealth, and beauty, is second to none in this broad Re- |
public.

All Europe is arming to-day for a great conflict,
which the diplomacy of her ablest statesmen cannot
longer postpone. ‘The inevitable result to the people
will be still heavier burdens, taxation to the limit of
endurance, national bankruptcy, and ruin.

In this favored land we have peace. No rumors of
threatening conflict disturb our slumbers. Our great
workshops are engaged in the manufacture of imple-
ments of husbandry, and not of war. The century
now drawing to its close will, asI humbly believe, wit-
ness in its expiring hours the American people follow-.
ing the peaceful avocations which are the sure forerun-
ners of prosperity and contentment.

I know of no people who have greater cause for grati-
tude to the Dispenser of all Good than those I now ad-
dress. ‘‘Truly your lines have fallen unto you in
pleasant places.”’’

Fellow-citizens, my address to-day is, in the main, to
the tillers of the soil. Your occupation is as old as
the human race. In all ages the cultivation of the
earth has been the only condition upon which human

life could be sustained. ‘‘In the sweat of thy face
shalt thou eat bread ’’ is the great law which knows no
change.

In the early dawn of history we find our race en-
gaged in rude husbandry, in the valleys of the Euphra-
tes and the Nile. From Egypt, the cradle of human
learning, the knowledge of husbandry extended to
Greece and to Rome. A few of the maxims of the an-
cients concerning the cultivation of the earth may not
be wholly without value, even at thisday. The poet
Virgil says: ‘‘ The farmer may praise large estates, but

3

let him cultivate a small one.’’? Cato, the philosopher,
said : ‘‘Our ancestors regarded it as a grand point of
husbandry not to have too much land, for they consid-
ered that more profit came by holding little and tilling
it well.”’

Agricultural progress has kept pace with civilization.
It is not strange that during the dark ages there was
but little advance in this, the most needful of human
pursuits. The sixteenth century closed upon our race
arousing itself from the death-like slumber of ages.
With the human mind unshackled, the triumphal march
began, which has continued unto this hour. ‘The era
I have mentioned, marks the earliest attempts of the
people toarouse themselves from the torpor of centuries;
and from this awakening of the humbler classes of
Europe sprang the earliest attempts to improve the
methods of tilling the earth.

The first Board of Agriculture was organized in Eng-
land in 1793, and by the comparison of methods and
interchange of thought which it produced a new im-
petus was given to agricultural pursuits. This was an
humble beginning, but it was the earnest of better things.
The publication of books and pamphlets on agriculture;
the discussion as to the methods of fertilizing ; the ad-
justment of certain crops to different soils ; the applica-
tion of chemistry ; the improvement of implements of
husbandry,—are the inevitable results of the causes I
have mentioned.

The meeting of the first Board of Agriculture in Eng-
land in 1793 was the forerunner of the grand result
we witness in the great valley of the Mississippi to-day;
of that still grander culmination witnessed in Philadel-
phia a few days ago, when each State of the Republic
presented a moiety of its treasures, that the world might
know what wonders the tillers of the soil had wrought
upon this continent in a single century.

+

It must not be forgotten that one-half of the people
of the United States are either engaged in, or directly
dependent upon, agricultural pursuits for support. All.
other avocations depend upon this. The success of the
farmer is the sure measure of success in all other fields.
of human endeavor. Let the timely rains and genial
sunshine but bring abundant harvests, and the coun-
tenances of all the people are lighted with joy; the hearts
of all are overflowing with gratitude.

It is estimated that the wheat crop of Dakota will, the
present year, reach the enormous yield of sixty million
bushels. Froin the South, data of the most gratifying
character has been obtained, indicating a measure of
prosperity to the farmers of that section unknown since
the war. While the yield of cotton will be large, that
of corn, to which more attention is being given by the
Southern farmer than ever before, will exceed the crop —
produced three years ago by more than one hundred
million bushels. You need not be told that the pros-
perity which has fallen to the West and Northwest has
in some degree been the good fortune of the farmer and
planter of the Southwest and of the South.

In a recent address before the Inter-State Convention
of Farmers, Mr. Grady, the eloquent champion of the
New South, said :

‘’There are two hundred and thirty thousand artisans
at work in the South to-day that were not here in 1880,
and this does not include the thousands that are build-
ing new enterprises. We manufactured last year two
hundred and thirteen million dollars worth of articles
that six years ago we bought from the North or West.
In the six years following the Cotton Exposition, one
hundred and seventy-three new cotton mills have been
built in the South, starting one million new spindles.
The South is witnessing to-day an industrial revolution
for which history has no precedent. Figures do not
measure it, and amazement is simply limited by com-
prehension.’’

5

With but few exceptions the States have established
boards of agriculture, so that every possible facility may
be afforded for the dissemination of useful information,
beneficial to the farmer. A quarter of a century ago
the Congress of the United States created the Depart-
ment of Agriculture. Its chief officer, as I have no
doubt, will in the near future take rank as a member of
' the Cabinet. Splendid results have followed the estab- |
lishment of this great Department. It is, however, as
yet on the very threshold of its usefulness. What may
it not accomplish in the future?

With the wonderful improvement in agricultural im-
plements, the life of the farmer is no longer that ofa
drudge. Much of the hard labor once performed by
human hands is now supplied by machinery. The
home of the farmer has, moreover, to a large extent,
lost its character of isolation. The accessibility of mar-
kets, with the methods and appliances I have mentioned,
render his position in life, as compared with that of a
former generation, one of comparative ease.

Let the farmer magnify his calling. Let him not
forget that his responsibilities keep even pace with his
great opportunities. At your firesides let your sons be
taught that there are higher aims in life than mere
money-getting. From the country home, from the
country school-house, a power will spring that will, I
believe, place our free institutions upon a firmer basis
than ever before, that will, as we enter upon a new
century, give a loftier impulse to the aspirations of this
great people.

From the farm-house to the great cities moves an
unending procession of brave, energetic, young men,
physically and morally equipped for the battle of life.
From their ranks will be taken those whose voices will
be potent in every department of human affairs.

Fellow-citizens, I address you to-day at a point within

6

a few miles of the great sister State which forms our
northern boundary. Following a southerly course, you
reach the waters of the Ohio, having for four hundred
miles traversed farm lands, groves, and meadows but
little inferior in fertility to your own. Let me speak,
then, of—

ILLINOIS.

Standing, as it does, in the very van of agricultural
States, I know of no theme better suited to such an
occasion. It may not be amiss if I recur briefly to its
early history, and attempt to trace its wonderful prog-
ress. :

The first white settlements were made but little more
than two centuries ago. ‘The daring French explorers
and missionaries, Marquette, LaSalle, Hennepin and
their comrades, planted colonies of their nationality
and faith at Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and Peoria. The
Valley of the Mississippi, including the present State
of Illinois, remained under French domination until
1759, when the inevitable conflict between France and
England for supremacy upon the North American Con-
tinent was settled by the arbitrament of war. The de-
feat of the French by British arms, led by the gallant
Wolfe, at Quebec, closed the struggle between Saxon
and Celt for supremacy over the vast territory east of
the Mississippi.

British domination over this realm was doomed, how-
ever, to sudden overthrow. Even at the period of which
I speak, events were hastening, which, resulting in a
series of victories as brilliant as that at Quebec, were to
wrest from England her colonial possessions. While the
Revolutionary struggle was yet undetermined, General
George Rogers Clark, by authority of Patrick Henry,
Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, with a few
hundred brave men crossed the Ohio, and penetrating

7

the wilderness to the Mississippi, captured the British
forts at Cahokia and Kaskaskia.

Would time permit, it could but interest an Illinois
audience to dwell upon the history of the privations
and daring of the men who wrested from the British
Crown this fair domain, and replaced the symbol of
British authority with that of the great Commonwealth
which projected the expedition. All honor to the mem-
ory of the daring George Rogers Clark and his brave
comrades, who on the 4th day of July, 1778, wrested
this great territory from foreign domination, in the
name of the Commonwealth which, six years later, by
an act of generosity that has become historic, ceded it
to the young Republic then struggling for existence
among the nations.

The act of cession by the Virginia Legislature to the
General Government of the Northwest Territory out of
which Illinois and other States have since been carved
was in 1784, the first year after the acknowledgment of
our Independence by Great Britain, and while we were
yet under the Articles of Confederation. Three years
later, by act of Congress, the entire domain north of the
Ohio river was erected into the Northwest Territory.

One important feature of the organization, as appears
by the report of the Committee of Congress to whom
was referred the subject of the cession by Virginia to
the General Government, was that the States to be
‘ carved out of its boundaries should forever remain
parts of the United States. The bravery of her sons in
the late struggle for the maintenance of the Union
attests the fidelity with which [Illinois has observed the
sacred compact.

In 1809 Illinois, with its present limits, was organ-
ized by act of Congress into a separate territory. Its
entire area was then embraced within the limits of the
counties of Randolph and St. Clair. Ninian Edwards

8

was, by President Madison, appointed Governor of the
new Territory, and ably discharged the duties of his im-
portant office. _

Our history as a State dates from December 3d, 1818.
Shadrick Bond was the first Governor elected by the
people, and under his authority and that of the Legisla-
ture which soon after assembléd Illinois took its place
amongst the States of the American Union.

The village of Kaskaskia was the ancient seat of Gov-
ernment. It was the capital from the territorial organ-
ization in 1809 until 1820, two years after the admis-
sion of the State into the Union. . It witnessed events
fraught with deep import to the Commonwealth. Here
assembled the convention which formulated our first -
. Constitution, a Constitution which remained for thirty
years the organic law of the State, and will to future
generations bear testimony to the wisdom of its framers.
Here convened the first General Assembly under whose
auspices the machinery of the new State Government
was put in motion.

The streets of Kaskaskia are now deserted. Its glory
has departed ; but it was the home of the men who,
in a large measure, established lawful authority and
moulded the destiny of the State. It was of this village,
his early home, that the late Judge Breese, with deep
pathos, said: ‘‘It was there I passed some of the
happiest moments of my life ; and in her withered for-
tunes and waning glory she wove a spell about my
heart which, it is no shame to say, separation has not
broken and coming age has but added to the potency of
the enchantment !”’

The rapid immigration which immediately followed
its admission soon rendered the selection of a capital
nearer the center of population a necessity. ‘The com-
missioners designated by the Legislature for this purpose,
having in view the possible flow of emigration northward,

9

chose a spot for the new location one hundred and forty
miles north of the Ohio river, to which was given the
name of Vandalia, then a wilderness, but now a beauti-
ful and prosperous city and the home of a people who
in public spirit and enterprise take high rank in the
Commonwealth.

Here transpired events which left a lasting impression
upon the State. From this place, after a bitter and pro-
tracted struggle, went forth the popular fiat that [li-
nois should remain forever free. Here was projected
the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, an
enterprise which was the file-leader of the many which
have in later years so signally aided in the development
and in the commercial prosperity of the State. Here,
at the bar and in the halls of legislation, met the intel-
lectual giants of the infant Commonwealth—Breese,
Caton, Trumbull, Stuart, Browning, Logan, McDougal,
McClernand, Shields, Baker, Hardin, Douglas, Lin-
coln—men whose memories are cherished not by Illi-
noisans alone, but whose names and fame have become ~
a part of our Nation’s heritage.

During the two decades which followed the location
of the capital at Vandalia the population of the State
increased to four hundred and seventy-six thousand.
The drift of emigration was to the Wabash, to the San-
gamon, to the Vermilion, to the Military Tract, to the
rich lands drained by the Kankakee and the Fox, and
to the grand prairies stretching northward and west-
ward to Wisconsin and the Mississippi.

This was, indeed, the promised land, which the travel-
stained immigrant might not only view, but enter.
These blooming prairies, untouched by plow, untrod
by human foot, were now to become the abiding places
of men. From New England, from the banks of the
Mohawk and the Hudson, from the Susquehanna and
the Schuylkill, from the beautiful valley of the Shenan-

10

doah, and the States lying to its west and southward,
from Ireland and the ‘‘Fatherland,’’ came the men
and the women whose hands and brains were to be
such wonderful factors in moulding the destiny of the
State.

In 1840 Springfield became the seat of Government.
Then a village of but a few hundred, it is now a splendid
city, and an honor tothe Commonwealth. Its influence,
political and commercial, is not confined to State limits.
Its nearness to the geographical center of the State; its
accessibility, and the erection of a superb State House,
render the present location, for our day at least, per-
manent. a

Fellow citizens, possibly I may weary you with de-
tails, and yet I can hardly conceive of a subject fraught
with deeper interest to Illinoisans than the history of
the unparalleled development, of the matchless progress,
of this great Commonwealth.

Sixty-nine years ago, with a population of but forty

thousand souls, it became a State of the American Re-
public. At the time of its admission to the Union its
sparse settlements were mainly in the Mississippi bot-
tom. A single county, stretching three hundred miles
to the northward, included what is now the city of
Chicago, and in fact the entire central and northern
portions of the State.
. The habits of the people were simple, their wants
few. Barter, in a large measure, supplied the place of
a medium of exchange. . Commerce, in so far as it had
an existence with the outer world, was by wagons
across the Alleghanies, and by flat-boats down the Ohio
and the Mississippi. ‘The log cabin furnished protec-
tion to the pioneer from the winter’sstorm. With rude
implements of his own construction he cultivated his
fields, and with his rifle defended his loved ones from
the incursions of the savage.

11

At the time of its admission there were but twenty-
three post offices within the limits of the entire State;
and it is interesting to note that but eight of the original
number are now in existence. There was not a post
office within two hundred and fifty miles of the spot
upon which we are assembled. At the period isidicated,
and for years afterwards, the frontiersman regarded him-
self as especially favored if located within twenty-five
miles of a post-office. ‘The mails reached the settle-
ments weekly or monthly upon horseback and by stage
coach. ‘'wenty-five cents was the postage upon a single
letter. The log cabin, with its puncheon floor, supplied
the double purpose of a temple of learning and a place
for public worship. Articles of apparel for both sexes,
with but few exceptions, were of home manufacture.
Railroads, colleges, and universities were unknown.
Less than ten thousand persons within the entire State
were engaged in agricultural pursuits. Chicago had no
place upon the map. As late even as 1822 it is referred
to in Morse’s Gazetteer as ‘‘a village of Pike county,
situated upon Lake Michigan, and containing a dozen
houses.”’ |

I have given but a feeble sketch of the Common-
wealth, as it emerged from its territorial existence and
took its place among the States. It must not be for-
gotten that its career began under the guidance of men
of no ordinary type. ‘The framers of its organic law
and establishers of its civil polity builded wiser than
they knew. The foundations, both for the present and
future, were laid broad and deep. ‘To Edwards, Bond,
Thomas, McLean, Cook, Coles, Kane, and their associ-
ates is due a debt of lasting gratitude from millions who
‘to-day are the beneficiaries of their patriotism and fore-
sight.

Fellow-citizens, less than three-score years and ten—
the period of a single life—have passed since Illinois
became a State. What has been accomplished ?

12

Eighty-seven additional counties have been created.
From the southern line of Wisconsin to the Ohio river;
from Indiana, stretching westward to the Mississippi,
the prairies have been made to blossom as the rose.
From forty thousand the population has increased to
nearly four million souls. Within a fraction of fifteen
million acres are in actual cultivation. The products
of Illinois farms for the year 1886 were twenty-seven
million five hundred and sixty thousand bushels of
wheat. Eight and a half million acres produced for
the year 1886 near two hundred and seventy million
bushels of corn. ‘The railroads that traverse our State
and the vessels that whiten our waters carry our pro-
duce to the markets of the world. The merchant
princes of the nation dwell by the lake where, a single
lifetime ago, stood the hamlet with but a handful of
population—now the wonderful city—in population
and wealth ranking third upon the continent. The
business exchanges of our people with each other and
with the world are effected by means of more than six
hundred banks, with an aggregate capital of more than
sixty millions of dollars. Within the limits of the
State are ten thousand miles of railroads, an excess of two
thousand miles over the great Stateof New York. The
weekly mails by horseback and stagecoach are things
of the past. There are now two thousand and eighty
post offices within the borders of our State, and five
hundred postal clerks traverse it with railroad speed
to meet the requirements of the commercial and social
life of its people. The fiscal year just closed shows an
excess of more than three hundred thousand dollars of
receipts over expenditures of the postal business of this
State. The contribution of Illinois under our internal
revenue system for asingle year is twenty-three millions
eight hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars to the
Treasury of the General Government.

13

From the data I have given, a faint idea can be ob-
tained of the wonderful material progress of Illinois
since its organization.

But this is not all. Let it be viewed now from a
higher standpoint. What has seventy years contrib-
uted to the intellectual and moral development of our
people? In the struggle for wealth, have the claims
of education, of charity, and of religion been forgotten?

In 1884 there were in the State one million forty-six
thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven children of
school age; seven hundred and sixteen thousand nine
hundred and thirty-five in actual attendance at school,
being seventy per cent. of the whole number. ‘There
were eleven thousand nine hundred and eighty public
schools and seven hundred and thirty-one private
schools in operation, in which were employed nineteen
thousand seven hundred and eighty-one teachers, of
whom twelve thousand eight hundred and seventy-six |
were women. In addition to this vast number of
schools, the State maintains three high-grade institu-
tions, the two Normal schools, the Industrial Univer-
sity, and the Illinois Soldiers’ college. Add to these
the twenty-five colleges which derive no aid from the
State, and what Commonwealth offers better opportuni-
ties to its children for education than Hlinois? It is
the glory of our State that the erection of school houses,
academies, and universities has kept pace with the
wants and aspirations of our people. The cousumma-
_tion our eyes have beheld is the result of the generous
policy of the early legislators in providing a fund for
the support of common schools.

But little less than four thousand unfortunates are
daily provided for and ministered unto in the different
charitable institutions of our State. The munificent
appropriations annually made by the Legislature for the
maintenance of our educational and charitable insti-

14

tutions are sure indications that the loftier impulses
of our people have not been blunted by material pros-
perity. Nor have the claims of patriotism been for-
gotten. To her imperishable honor be it said, that
Illinois, has with a generous hand provided homes for
the sons and daughters of her fallen heroes.

Time will not permit me to speak of the wonderful
influence Illinois has exerted upon the affairs of the
nation. The heroism of her sons, the tender devotion
and the gentle ministrations of her daughters, during
the struggle for the Union have become a part of the
nation’s history.

To the Supreme Court of the United States Illinois
has given the able and spotless jurist, David Davis; to
the Senate, the matchless debater, Douglas; to the cap-
taincy of her armies, in the greatest struggle known to
history, the incomparable soldier, Grant; to the presi-
dency of the United States, the liberator and martyr,
Lincoln.

Fellow-citizens, I have spoken of Illinois, of its won-
derful progress, of its matchless achievements, and
have endeavored dimly to foreshadow its splendid fu-
ture. But the occasion is auspicious for some allusion
to the great Republic of which Illinois is but a compo-
nent part.

But five days have elapsed since the commemoration
of the first centennial of the Government of the United
States. Buta single century has passed since the con-
vention of the Colonies; at Philadelphia, promulgated
the Constitution, which, after ratification, became the
bond of Union of the States and of the American people.
In 1787 our fathers established the Government of the
United States, and gave it a place amongst the nations
of the earth. To-day our eyes behold what a single
century has accomplished.

What a commentary upon the work of the sages who

15

founded this Government is the fact that fourteen Cen-
tral and South American Republics have modeled their
Constitutions after that of the United States. The rep-
resentatives of these foreign Governments, a few days
ago, at our Centennial.Commemoration at Philadelphia,
bore earnest testimony to the value of our Federal Con-
stitution, and to the prosperity and happiness it had
brought to millions of freemen beyond our domain.

The population of Illinois to-day exceeds that of the
United States at the time of the adoption of the Federal
Constitution. :

Twenty-five States have been added to the American
Union. Eighty-four years ago President Jefferson, for
fifteen millions of dollars, purchased from France the
Louisiana Territory—now the great Valley of the Mis-
sissippi, dotted over with beautiful cities, and teeming
with a busy population—itself a mighty empire. ‘The
purchase of the Louisiana Territory will remain forever
the imperishable monument to the far-seeing statesman-
ship of Livingston, Monroe and Jefferson.

The century just closed has witnessed the population
of three millions swollen into sixty millions of souls.
Noting as we do this marvelous increase, we ‘are con-
fronted with the serious inquiry, How are the teeming
millions of the coming centuries to be sustained?
Exclusive of Alaska, the area of the United States is
two million nine hundred and seventy thousand square
miles. Of this area it is estimated that there are one
million seven hundred and fifty thousand square miles
of arable land.

Eight years ago, after feeding over fifty millions of
population, two hundred and eighty million bushels of
grain were exported. ‘The food crops of that year were
produced on less than one-ninth of our arable lands.
Edward Atkinson, than whom there is no better au-
thority, says: ‘‘ Where we now support fifty million peo-

16

ple one hundred million could be sustained, without
increasing the area of a single farm or adding one to
their number, by merely bringing our product up to
our average standard of reasonably good agriculture;
and there might remain for export twice the quantity
we now send abroad to feed the hungry in foreign
lands.’’ Both Mr. Atkinson and Rev. Dr. Strong, to
whom I am indebted for these estimates, concur in the
conclusion that the mighty generations of the future
can, to almost an unlimited extent, be maintained upon
this generous soil. |

During the decade immediately preceding our last
national census seven hundred and thirty-two million |
dollars of the precious metals were produced in the
United States. In mineral products ours take the
lead of all the nations of the earth. Thousands of
square miles of mineral wealth are yet wholly untouched.
Dr. Strong has beautifully said: ‘‘When storing away
the fuel for the ages God. knew the place and the work
to which He had appointed us, and gave us twenty
times as much of this concrete power as to all of the
nations of Europe. Among the nations ours is the
youngest, the Benjamin, and, Benjamin-like, we have
received a five-fold portion. Surely He hath not dealt
so with any people.”’

In 1807 the first steamboat ascended the Hudson
River; and now, at the end of a single lifetime from
this first experiment, our rivers and lakes whiten with
our commerce. But fifty-five years have passed since
the construction of the first mile of railroad upon this
continent and the close of the first century since the
promulgation of our Federal compact witnesses in the
United States over one hundred and thirty-one thou-
sand miles of railroad. And thus by this, the grandest
achievement of the century, not only are the energies
of our people aroused and quickened, large additions

17

made to the aggregate of our individual and national
wealth, but this mighty brotherhood of States, stretch-
ing from ocean to ocean, from the lakes to the gulf,
are bound together, as I trust in God, by indissoluble
bands of iron.

In 1804, by direction of President Jefferson, Lewis
and Clark, with a small detachment of soldiers and
guides, started overland for the Pacific Ocean. So far
as is known they were the first white men who crossed
the plains. The greater portion of the journey was
made upon mules; and when returning, by descending a
tributary of the Missouri and the latter river to the
border. Some idea may be formed of the hardships
and perils of this expedition when it is remembered.
that almost three years elapsed from its beginning to
its close. No tidings came from the little band, and
they had long been given up for dead, when they re-
turned with stirring accounts of hairbreadth escapes
and of the wonderful countries they had discovered.

Now, when eighty-three years have passed, the trav-
eler from the same starting point, with but little danger
or fatigue, can, by means of the great trans-continental ~
railways, reach the Pacific coast and return home in
safety, having traveled as far and beheld greater won-
ders in a single month than did Lewis and Clark in the
famous expedition which has made their names im-
mortal. .

At the first inauguration of President Washington
there were but seventy-five post offices in the United .
States. Now there are more than fifty-five thousand.
The revenues of this Department alone for the last fiscal
year were forty-eight and a half million dollars; and I
am gratified to be able to state to you that, notwithstand-
ing the recent acts of Congress deducting one-third from
the rate of postage, the postal branch of the Govern-
ment will by the close of the fiscal year be again self-
sustaining,

18

Within the twenty-two years immediately preceding
the close of the last fiscal year the enormous sum of
fifteen hundred millions of dollars of our public debt
has been paid. ‘The receipts from all sources into the
Federal Treasury for the last fiscal year were three
hundred and seventy-one million four hundred thou-
sand dollars. f

The population of Dakota is twelve times as great as
was that of Illinois when admitted into the Union.

From the Patent Office at Washington thirty-nine
thousand patents were issued during the past year.

The data I have hurriedly given, furnishes but a faint
idea of the marvelous progress and development of our
country during the first century of its existence.

The first line of telegraph was constructed in 1844,
but even now what a revolution has it wrought in the
social and commercial relations of the nations of the
earth.

Fellow citizens, what has been accomplished in the
century now closed, is before us. But our Republic, as
compared with the nations of Europe, is as yet in its
infancy. What may not be its future? As the genera-
tions of men come and go, as new light dawns upon the
human intellect, as new discoveries are made in science,
new inventions in mechanics, our resources fully devel-
oped, our mineral treasures brought from their hiding-
places and added to the aggregate wealth of the world ;
as the vast plains and forests and prairies of the West
are utilized by man, what visions of beauty will meet
the eyes of those who witness the close of the second
century of the life of this Republic ! As it was permitted
the great leader of Israel to view, but not enter, the
promised land, so may we, with the eye of faith and in
the light of past history, see this favored land, as it shall
appear when another century shall have added to its
population, its treasures and its beauty. State after
State will have sprung into being; cities yet unborn

19

will be the marts of busy trade ; vessels laden with the
commerce of the world will cover our majestic waters ;
plains and forests will have been made to bloom as the
rose ; the railroads and the telegraph will have wrought
wonders in the development of wealth, and in the social
elevation of this great people. From ocean toocean, from
lake to gulf, from field and city, everywhere, will be heard
the busy hum of industry, everywhere be seen the highest
evidences of civilized life. This favored land will, in-
deed, be a gardenof beauty. ‘The realization will have
been more glorious than prophet could have predicted
or the wildest fancy portrayed.

Fellow citizens, the traveler from the Old World, en- —
tering New York. harbor, finds a city of a million and a
half of population—the metropolis of the New World.
Passing westward, along the beautiful valleys of the
Hudson and the Mohawk, over the Alleghanies, within
hailing distance of the great Northern chain of lakes,
through the forests of Michigan, and across the prairies
of Illinois and Iowa, he reaches the great Father of
Waters—within a short lifetime the boundary of civiliza-
tion. Following still the pathway of empire, he crosses
the Missouri river, passes along the fertile valley of the
Platte, and old buffalo ranges of Wyoming, jascend-
ing by easy gradations the Rocky Mountains, to an ele-
vation of nine thousand feet above sea level, then
descending its western slope, he traverses the great
Laramie Plains to the Wahsatch Mountains, thence
through the wonderful cafions of Utah, within view of
the great Salt Lake, through the Palisades of the Hum-
boldt river, over the Sierra Nevada mountains, and then
across the garden-like valley of the Sacramento—he
reaches at length the great ocean whose waves kiss the
farther shore of the Continent. From the Atlantic sea-
board to the Pacific Ocean, -over river, plain and moun-
tain, along a pathway marked by the loftiest evidence

20

of civilization and the lowest depths of barbarism,
amidst gardens of unsurpassed beauty and deserts as
desolate as Sahara, now above the clouds and again hid
deep in the mountain, for four thousand miles he has
held on his way towards the setting sun, and yet never
fora moment passing from the domain of that nationality
of which the stars and stripes are the symbol.

For such a country, what possibilities lie in the future!
A nation yet in its infancy, with one hundred and thirty-
one thousand miles of railroads ; with sixty millions of |:
people, and an area far greater than that of Rome when:
she was mistress of the world !

From the early morning of history, the pathway of
civilization has been Westward.

‘“ Westward the star of empire takes its way—
The first four acts already passed ;

The fifth shall close the drama of the day—
Time’s noblest and the last !”’

One thought more. I believe that the settlement of
our controversies with England, by arbitration at Geneva,
is the beginning of anewera in the world. Long before
another century shall have elapsed, international courts
will have been established for the adjustment of con-
troversies amongst the nations ; and war will be known
only asa relic of the barbarism of the ages gone by.
The laws that govern nations, as well as those that gov-
ern men, will be founded upon the principles of eternal
justice. Intellect and conscience will rule, and the
reign of brute force shall forever have ceased.

Then, indeed, will the prediction be fulfilled, that the
sword should be turned into the plowshare, the spear
into the pruning-hook, and the nations of the earth learn
war no more forever. ‘Then, indeed, will the grand
consummation have been reached, and the motto of all
nations will be, ‘‘ Peace on-earth, good will to men !”’