ORATIONS AND DISCOURSES.

THE TRUE GREATNESS OF OUR COUNTRY.

PATRIOTISM is allied to philosophy, and inseparable from benevolence. A virtuous citizen is not satisfied with knowing that his country is great, and free, and happy; he desires to understand why it is so, what are the elements of its empire, how long they will endure, and what will be their perfect development; because he knows that his country and his race are immortal, and he feels assured that, although mortal himself, he shall not altogether perish.

We have the authority of Lord Bacon to the effect that "the true greatness of kingdoms and estates, and the means thereof, is an argument fit for great and mighty princes to have in their hands, to the end that neither by overmeasuring their forces they lose themselves in vain enterprises, nor, on the other side, by undervaluing them, they descend to fearful and pusillanimous counsels."

The same profound philosopher remarked that "the greatness of an estate in bulk and territory doth fall under measure, and the greatness of finances and revenue doth fall under computation. The population may appear by numbers, and the number and greatness of cities and towns by cards and maps. But yet

NOTE. This discourse was delivered in Baltimore, on the 22d of December, 1848, before the "Young Catholic Friends' Society" of that city. The same discourse was also substantially delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Union College, and before the Literary Society of Amherst College, in 1844.-Ed.

*

*

there is not anything among civil affairs more subject to error than the right valuation and true judgment concerning the power and forces of an estate. * There are states great in territory, and yet not apt to command; and some that bear but a small dimension of stem, and yet apt to be the foundation of great monarchies."

Let us attempt to make such a valuation of "the power and forces" of our country; not merely to "blazon and amplify" a theme pleasing to national pride, but to obtain its necessary and useful instructions.

Comprehensive national greatness requires ample space, in a suitable region, a large population possessing mental activity and resolution, and a government well adapted to the character and condition of the people, and conducted with wisdom.

Our territory is a belt across the continent, approaching on either side the limit of the temperate zone. It is not broken into separate and distinct fragments, divided from each other by impassable mountain-barriers, by intervening states or provinces, or by seas subject to hostile intrusion; but it is one whole dominion, continuous, compact, and inseparable. We need scarcely say that its climate is salubrious, and that its land and waters are rich in stores for the supply of human wants in every stage and condition of social life. Nowhere does man find more abundantly than here the rocks of endless variety and the trees of numberless kinds with which he builds and adorns his dwellings, his defences, his temples, his roads, his wharves, and his ships; the plants and animals which supply him with subsistence and minister to his health, his comfort, and his pride; the minerals from which he forges his implements of peaceful toil and of mortal strife, and the precious metals by which, in the ever-enlarging circle of exchange, he compares the values of all appreciable things.

Long-branching rivers with deep channels, and broadly-expanding lakes with spacious bays, all connected or capable of connection, offer necessary and convenient facilities for free intercourse, mutual traffic, and public defence; and these natural bonds, multiplied by artificial ligaments-roads, canals, railroads, and telegraphs, continually extending and fastening upon every part of this comprehensive region - hold it together in union as indissoluble as it was inevitable.

The American continent, with its adjacent islands-a continent

extending southward beyond the equatorial line, and northward to the arctic circle-will, at no distant period, have on our Atlantic and Pacific coasts necessary and naturally reciprocating markets for the productions of all its various latitudes. The same markets, situated midway between the ancient continents, and very soon to be connected with direct highways which will supersede a costly and dangerous navigation, will invite equally, and with irresistible attraction on the one side, the commerce of Europe and Africa, and on the other that of the rising insular communities in the Southern ocean, as well as the trade of the populous regions of China and the eastern Indies. An intellectual and active people, holding a position so favorable and possessing resources so boundless, could not fail to secure the freedom of the seas, without which no nation in modern times can be great; while they would furnish a political alembic which, receiving the exhausted civilization of Asia and the ripening civilization of western Europe, and commingling them together after their long separation, would disclose the secret of the ultimate regeneration and reunion of human society throughout the world.

Population, not disturbed by arbitrary interference, increases and declines with the abundance and scarceness of subsistence; but abundance and scarceness depend not on the relative fertility of the earth only, but also on the comparative temperance and vigor of the cultivators. The soil of the eastern and middle states is less fruitful than that of most of the western regions. Indeed, only the intelligent hands of freemen could have tilled the rugged hillsides of New England, and drawn forth wealth from its oreless rocks and treacherous seas. The population of the United States, if it should expand on the same ratio to the square mile which is maintained in New England, would be one hundred and twenty-six millions. It may increase above twice that number, and yet be less dense than the population of Italy, or of France, or of Austria, or of Spain, or of the British islands. When we consider the certainty of immigration from Asia, in addition to the torrent pouring in from Europe, and the constant flow into the western states and territories from our eastern communities -and when we consider also the permanence of these several sources of increase-we have no room to doubt that it may be estimated for the future on the basis of calculation established by past experience. That basis demands a population of thirty mil

lions in 1860, of fifty millions in 1880, of eighty millions in 1900, and of more than double that number in less than one hundred years.

The Americans are a homogeneous people, and must remain so; because, however widely they expand, they swell in one great and unbroken flood. All exotic elements are rapidly absorbed and completely assimilated. The remnants of the aboriginal and African tribes, seeming incapable of such assimilation, have hitherto, in different ways, affected and modified the force of the superior and controlling race. Without speculating on the ultimate destiny of either of those unfortunate classes, we may assume that the feeble resistance they offer to the aggrandizement of the Caucasian family is becoming less and less continually, and will finally altogether disappear. Most other empires were composed, not of one homogeneous people, but of various tribes, races, or nations; discordant in language, religion, habits, and laws; reduced, after long conflicts, into more or less perfect combination, but seldom into entire unity. How inconceivably great must have been the waste of mental activity and energy, not to speak of numbers and treasure, resulting from such conflicts! The American people, on the other hand, are practically one family. The Roman people, like the Americans, were liberal in naturalization. Like the Americans, they granted all the rights of citizenship to strangers, and not only to individuals, but to families, to cities, and sometimes to nations. The Romans also planted colonies, as we do, in contiguous territories. Hence it has been well said, in view of those customs of naturalization and colonization, that it seemed as if it was not the Romans that spread upon the world, but it was the world that spread upon the Ro

mans.

But mere numbers, independently of moral elements, do not constitute strength; nor do population and resources combined. When Croesus ostentatiously showed his treasures to Solon, the Athenian replied, "If any other come that hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold." The Spaniard proved this in the halls of Montezuma, and the Anglo-American has proved it against the effeminate descendant of the Castilian, in the very scene of his primary extortion.

The American people are free-not merely free, like a nation recently emancipated, but they always were free. Their political independence or nationality does indeed date from 1776; but