\. r 1 1 \ !j Wi 1 NATIONAL EMPIKE: ua.UMii^'r^ 'A r.wuH of Tiir " f. 4 ^. - -^ + ■*- ^^ ^ * f > f + ■'*■ -^^ ^^ ,,^- , _^-, ^ r- f f ^ ' ^ ■■" ■•#^''- .4 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 'f' ^ +- ^ Tf^ , ,4!^^^ ,+_ ,,;^ -^ -I" 4 "t #" ■• ■*- -^ "f f f •• ^4- -^ ^ ^ \ \ ■ ■/ , .''V. .': ■ ., '',> =-:/;^^lfc^. =;*ifc-- \-aB»K=^' P^^»6& ^?-^«t^^ ^^■^■ - /""•^""" " f h + UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY ' ^^ sLLiNOIS HiSTORlCAi SURV^ ^ r '^ Class ^Book Volume 9\13 ^KX3ci -4 -^ MrlO-20M -f H^ *- ^ f -^ 4. -f ^ ^ ^ *■ •,!*'' '^^ +V*Uil¥*..---^ -f- *♦- ^ ^^ 'f •^- -^ ^1 ^^= -*. *► J»'- .l. 4 4. ^ ^«> l^f>l.---"^* -f- "»• -f -%---:r^-^^- »^ + -^ + 4« 1^ ^ f T^ f + f' f- -/ ^■4 ^ -4. ^ 4r'''^ :^^ 4<-- 4. 4» .*- -<■■ ■,([. -}♦»■ 4 ^ t 4 4 ^ ^ ^ 4. ^ f ' ^S' ' ~ ^ ^ i- 4- 4 4. 4^ Ji 4- ir -^ ^ -^ 4 ^ 4 * 4 ^ 4 -► 4- 4 4 4 •f i- ^ T ^ ■■* ♦- ^ -f 4 . f -^ ^ ^ >■ f 4 -f f ^ ^ ^ ^ -^ 4 *<- t- 4^ *#- -f •#► -^ ■*• t 4 + 4. 4 •f ^ if 4 -t ^ 4 4 4 4 4 4 I -I- t 4^ 4 ■f A CHANG-E OP . i.l . 7^ -i ndvurixiiii ; OB ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF THE REMOVAL OF TIIK NATIONAL CAPITAL FROM WASHINGTON CITY TO THE 49 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. • '' (Illustrated with Maps.) ^^ 63 '1 BY L. U. EEAYIS. ^^^ .... 169 Fair St. Lo-uU, the future Capital of the United !>tale>, and of the Civilizatit of the Western Continent.— J auks Pabtox. There it th* East, and there is India.— Bz^Torf. ST. LOUIS : PUBLISHED AND FOR 8ALK BY J. P. TOUBEY, BOOK AXD XEW9 DEALER. 1809. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S6S, BY L. U. RE AVIS, the Clerk's Office of the United States District Court for the Eastern Disti-Ict of Missouri. MISSOUUI DEMOCRAT PRINT. m /V) TABLE OF CONTENTS The Old Govjlk>,jie>t, Statement akd Map of 9 The New Kepublic, Statement and Map of 16 The National Growth and Material Power of the Continent 20 A DEMAND FOK A CHANGE OF THE SeAT OF GOVERNMENT, AND ITS Location at St. Louis 44 Thk Geographical Argument 47 The Population Argument > 49 The Commercial Argument 53 The Political Argument 61 The Conclusive Argument 63 Special and Local Considerations 165 What Time 169 '4- ^ 136832 o NOTICE. While in Washington City, la^t June and July, I talked with many persons in favor of the removal of the seat of government from that place to the Mississippi Valley. Before I left I was often met by citizens and visitors and questioned upon the subject. I made no disguise of my senti- ments, but gave as my firm conviction that the seat of government would be moved, and that, too, at an early daj'. Talking with the Hon. Horace Greeley, on one occasion, upon the subject, he said that there was not a heathen city in the world as corrupt as Washington City, and that he was in f\ivor of the Capital going anywhere to get it away from there. He jokingly added that he would never forgive the rebels for not taking Wa>^hington. One day 1 was met by an old gentleman of ministerial proclivities, with whom I had conversed several times upon the subject. He said that many persons were making light of my project to move the Capital away from" Washington; "but," said he, "I told them to not deceive them- selves, that Noah preached one hundred and twenty years and the people would not believe him, but the flood did come as he had told them it would." Then said the old gentleman to me, "You keep at work, for a gimlet-hole will after a while sink a ship." I answered him that I most certainly should contend for the removal of the seat of government to that locality which was destined to hold the balance of power in the Kepublic. Senator Sumner also expressed his belief that the Capital would be moved West, and that its removal was only a question ot time. One morning, while passing up Pennsylvania avenue, I was halted by an old gentleman who resides in Washington, and told that he under- stood I was there trying to move the Capital; 1 told him tliat he had been wrongly informed; that I was not there trying to move it, but was in favor of its being moved, and that I believed it would be moved. He asked me when; I told him in the course of five years. " Well," said he, I have lived here for thirty years, have studied the subject all over, and have never been able to see a single argument in favor of moving it." I said: "Sir, can you give me an argument to prove that the earth turns over?" He answered that he did not believe the earth did turn over; that it was all humbug to say that it did. I replied to him, saying that I could prove by astronomical argument that the earth did turn over, and that 1 could also give good reasons for the removal of the seat of government from Washington City to the Great West, but that I would not then give any arguments on either proposition. I herein propose to give the arguments as intelligibly as I can in favor of the removal of the seat of government; nor shall I, in the attempt to "Now, sir, when I sec this country, when I see its vastness and its almost illimitable extent; when I see the keen eye of capital and business fastened vvith stead)', interested gaze upon the trade of the West, and all our Eastern cities in hot rivalry are reaching out their iron arras to secure our trade; when I see the railroads that are centering here in St. Louis; when I see this city with GO, 090 miles of railroad communication and 100,000 miles of telegraphic communication; when I see that she stands at the head waters of navigation, extending to the north 3,000 miles and to the south 2,000 miles, and when I see that she stands in the center of the continent as it were; when I see the population moving to tlie West in vast numbers; when I see emigration rolling toward the Pacific, and all through these temperate climes I hear the tramp of the iron horse on his waj' to the Pacific Ocean; when I see towns and villages springing up in every direction ; when I see States forming into existence, luntil the city of St. Louis becomes the center as it were of a hundred Srates, the center of the population and the commerce of this country — when I see all this, sir, I feel convinced that the seat of empire is to come this side of the Alleghanies; and why may not St. Louis be the future capital of the United States of America?" — Extract from a speech of Senator Yates, of lUitiois, ' 'In whatever lands bej^ond the sea the American citizen may sojourn, he carries VvMth him the glowing sentiment of his country's greatness and capacity for mighty deeds. He carries with him its vast dimensions, as one would cany in his pocket a two-foot rule. He sometimes puts all the great rivers of Europe together between two banks, and measures against their united volume the giant Mississippi. He sketches_the line of his country's length across the European continent, from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, and from the straits of Dover to the Bosphorus. and bids the by-statiders note the results of the comparison. Now and then he demonstrates to the patriotic Briton how the whole of England might be put in Lake Michigan, leaving ample room for navigation on either side. Is the Frenchman or German proud of his native land, he suggests that both France and Prussia might be set down in the single State of Texas, and still leave territory enough within its boundaries to make a kingdom as large as Belgium. ' ' — EUhu Burritt. THE SANGUINE. " If it were asked whose anticipations of what has been done to advance civilization for the past fifty years have come nearest the truth— those of the sanguine and hopeful, or those of the cautious and fearful — must it not be answered that no one of the former class had been sanguine and hopeful enough to anticipate the fidl measure of human progress since the open- ing of the present century? May it not be the most sanguine and hopeful only, who, in anticipation, can attain a due estimation of the measure of future change and improvement in the grand march of socifety and civili- zation westward over the continent?" — /. W. Scott. 2 w ^^^l^mmmm ?i f^i THE OLD GOVERNMENT. But little more than the a,i;-e of man, a^ assigned by the Psalmist, has passed away since the adoption of the Federal Constitution by our fi\thers, and the consequent creation of the infant government upon the Atlantic shore of the continent ; and yet, in contrast with the living facts of the present, what we are to-day in power and greatness, the story of our national birth and growth seems but a romance — a mystic tale, told of the dim and shadoAvy past. History opens to our view back at our colonial period the most remarkable civil epoch in the career of mankind. We see by its light a strange people in a strange land struggling in a wilderness to found a new nation — they "builded wiser than they knew." When we contemplate that period, and know the newness of its history, it almost seems as if Washington had lived in the present generation ; that Franklin, Jefferson, Paine,- the Adamses, and Hamilton, had just ceased contending for human liberty, and had just founded "out of feebly-connected federal associations one people — an American nation." Venerable fathers and government- makers that they were, they have passed from mortal sight into everlasting history and heaven. That the argument may be made stronger in favor of the removal of the National Capital from its present place to the Mississippi Yalley, two maps of the country are submitted, with accompanyiiig statements. The first map represents the territorial extent of the. Ujiited States Government at the time of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and when the first Congress, sitting at Xew York, located the seat of government at its present place. In addi- tion to the first map showing the territorial extent of the government at that period, it also shows the vast extent of wild 10 CHANCJE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE, country which has, since the incoming of the present century, been acquired by our government. The first map represents the Old Government. The second map represents the 'New Eepublic, or the terri- torial extent of the United States government as it now is^ and in contrast with the Old Government we behold the growth of the American nation. Let us turn back in our history eighty years, and briefly con- sider, in the interest of the subject of this pamphlet, what the Old Government was. The following act locating the seat of government at its present place was passed by the first Congress, July 16, 1790, while in session at Xew York : " An Act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States." — [1st Congress, Sess. II, Ch. 28, U. S. Statutes at Large. Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Bepre- ■sentatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a district of territory, not exceeding ten miles square, to be located as hereafter directed on the Paver Potomac, at some place between the mouths of the Eastern Branch and Connogo- chegue, be and the same is hereby accepted for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States : provided, never- theless, that the operation of the laws of the State within such district shall not be affected by this acceptance until the time fixed for the removal of the government thereto, and until Con- gress shall otherwise by law provide. Sec. 2. Ayid be it further enacted, That the President of the United States be authorized to appoint, and, by suppljang vacan- cies happening from refusals to act or other causes, to keep in appointment as long as may be necessary, three commis- sioners, who, or any two of them, shall, under direction of the President, survey, and, by proper metes and bounds, define and limit a district of territory under the limitations above men- tioned; and the district so defined, limited, and located shall be deemed the district accepted by this act for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States. Sec. 3. And be it [/wrfAer] enacted, That the said comui ■sioners, or any two of them, shall have power to pui'chase Ol accept such quantity of land on the eastern side of the said CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 11 river, within the said district, as the President shall deem proper for the use of the United States ; and, according to such plans as the President shall approve, the said comiuissioners, or anv two of them, shall, prior to the iirst Monday in December, in the year one thousand eight hundred, provide suitable buildings for the accommodation of Congress and of the President, and for the public offices of the Government of the Uiuted States. Sec. 4. jind be it [further'] enacted, That for defraying the expense of such purchases and buildings the President of the United States shall be authorized and requested to accept grants of money. Sec. 5. And he it ^farther'] enacted, That prior to the tirst Monday in December next all offices attached to the seat of Government of the United States shall be removed to, and until the said first Monday in December, in the year one thousand eight hundred, shall remain at, the city of Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania, at which place the session of Congress next ensuing the present shall be held. Sec. 6. And be it [furtherl enacted, That on the said first Monday in December, in the year one thousand eight hundred, the seat of the Government of the United States shall, by virtue of this act, be transferred to the district and place aforesaid, and all offices attached to the said seat of government shall ac- cordingly be removed thereto by their respective holders, and fehall, after the said day, cease to be exercised elsewhere; and that the necessary expense of such removal shall be defrayed out of the duties on imports and tonnage, of which a sufficient sum is hereby appropriated. Approved July 16, 1790. The following amendatory act was also passed by the first Congress, March 3, 1791, after the temporary removal of the seat of government to Philadelphia : "An Act to amend an act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States." Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That so much of the act entitled " An act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States " as requires that the w^hole of the district of territory, not exceed- ing ten miles square, to be located on the Eiver Potomac for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States, shall 12 CIIANdE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE, be located above the mouth of the Eastern Branch, be and w hereby repealed, and that it shall be lawful for the President to make any part of the territory below the said limit and above the mouth of Hunting Creek a part of the said district, so as to include a convenient part of the Eastern Branch and of the lands lying on the lower side thei-eof, and also the town of Alexandria ; and the territory so to be included shall form a part of the district, not exceeding ten miles square, for the perma- nent seat of the Government of the United States, in like man- ner and to all intents and purposes as if the same had been within the purview of the above recited act : provided, that nothing herein contained shall authorize the erection of the pub- lic buildings otherwise than on the Maryland side of the Eiver Potomac, as required by the aforesaid act. Approved March 3, 1701. At the time of the passage of these acts there Avas not even a village where Washington City now stands, and, as will be seen by the act of July 16, 1790, the seat of government was not to be removed to its present place for ten years after the passage of the act, that time being given to prepare suitable accommo- dations, buildings, etc., for the transaction of business. ^ The following act, passed May 6, 1796, by the fourth Congress, while sitting at Philadelphia, provides for the public expense necessary to the permanent establishment of the seat of gov- ernment at Washington City : "An Act authorizing a loan for the use of the City of Washing- ton, in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes therein mentioned." Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and Souse of Represen- tatives of the United States of America in Coyigress assembled, That the commissioners under the act entitled "An act for esta))- lishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States," be and they are hereb}' authorized, under the direction of the President of the United States, to borrow, from time to time, such sum or sums of money as the said President shall direct, not exceeding three hundred thousand dollars in the whole, and not exceeding two hundred thousand dollars in any one year, at an interest not exceeding six per centum per annum, and reimbursable at any time after the year one thousand eight hundred and three, b}' installments not exceeding one-fifth of the CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 13 whole sum borrowed in any one year; which said loan or loans shall be appropriated and applied by the said commissioners, in carrying into effect the above recited act, under the control of the President of the United States. Sec. 2. Atul be it further enacted, That all the lots, except those BOW appropriated to public use in the said city, vested in the commissioners aforesaid, or in trustees, in any manner, for the r.se of the United States, now holden and remaining unsold, shall be and are hereby declared and made chargeable with the repayment of all and every sum and sums of money, and in- terest thereupon, which shall be borrowed in pursuance of this act; and to the end that the same may be fully and punctually repaid, the said lots, or so many of them as shall be necessary, r-hall be sold and conveyed at such times, and in such manner, and on such terms, as the President of the United States for the time being shall direct ; and the moneys arising from the said sales shalfbe applied and appropriated, under his direction, to the discharge of the said loans, after first paying the original proprietors any balances due to them respectively, according to their several conveyance to the said commissioners or trustees. And if the product of the sales of all the said lots shall prove inadequate to the payment of the principal and interest of the sum borrowed under this act, then the deficiencies shall be paid by the United States, agreeably to the terms of the said loans ; for it is expressly hereby declared and provided that the United States shall be liable only for the repayment of the balance of the moneys to be borrowed under this act, which shall remain unsatisfied by the sales of all the lots aforesaid, if any such balance shall thereafter happen. Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That every purchaser or pur- chasers, his or their heirs or assigns, from the said commission- ers or trustees, under the direction of the said President, of any of the lots herein before mentioned, after paying the price and fulfilling the terms stipulated and agreed to be paid and fulfilled, shall have, hold, and enjoy the said lot or lots so bought, free, clear, and exonerated from the charge and incumbrance hereby laid upon the same. Sec. 4. And be it further enacted. That the commissioners afore- said shall semi-annually render to the Secretary of the Treasury .-i particular account of the receipts and expenditures of all moneys intrusted to them, and also the progress and state of the business, and of the funds under their administration ; and that the said secretary lay the same before Congress at every eession after the receipt thereof. Approved May 6, 1796. 14 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. The District of Columbia, in which the seat of government is located, and which was defined in the act of July 16, 1790, was ceded by the States of Maryland and Virginia to the General Government. It consisted of a tract of country ten miles square until 18-16, when by act of Congress (July 9 of that year) that portion ceded by Yirginia was restored to her. The restoration was completed by a proclamation of President Polk, bearing date of September 7, 1846. This left the Government in control of the portion ceded by Maryland, consisting of sixty square miles. The City of Wash- ington was founded in 1793, and in 1800 the seat of government was moved from its temporary location at Philadelphia to its present place. At that time the entire territorial area of the United States was only 610,512 square miles, which was less than one-fourth its present size, exclusive of the Eussian possessions ; and by reference to the map of the country at that time it will be seen that the American nation, which our venerable fathers founded after years of toil and bloodshed, onh' consisted of a little strip of uninviting country stretching along the Atlantic shore from New Hampshire to Georgia, and the wild and unknown Northwestern Territory, reaching beyond the AUegha- nies to the Mississippi river and the lakes. In other words, the United States at that time consisted of the following States and one Territory: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Ehode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and the Northwestern Territory-. The population of the country at that time was 3,929,827, which was but little more than the present population of the State of New York. Our sea-coast was large, but our commerce of little value. We had not more than 1,000 miles of river navigation on the Atlantic slope, and the great lakes were far out in the West and of no use at the time. The Mississippi river was but little known, and even the Spaniards had navigated the Gulf of Mexico for two hundred years before its discovery. At that time there were no railroads, no steamboats, no telegraphs, but little education, and the conti- nent still almost a wilderness, and our ancestors struggling against nature in her rudest form and the wild savages of the forests, CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 15 The debates upon the bill locating the seat of government at its present place show three considerations involved in the discussion : First, that common selfishness which is everywhere seen in the acts of men. Many desired its location where it would build up local and personal interests. Another argument was in favor of putting the Capital where it could be easily defended in time of war. But the most important consideration was that which required its location in a central-position, so as to accommodate the States as they wei'e situated along the shore of the Atlantic. This, I repeat, as the debates upon the removal of the seat of govern- ment from Xew York to its present place show, was the most important consideration. The Constitution had just been adopted and the new Government took its place among the nations of the earth, and the representatives of the people at once sought to permanently locate the seat of government at such a place as would be most central to the States and the business interests of the people. Such was the wisdom of the representatives of the people at the foundation of the Old Government, and such ought to be the wisdom of the representatives of the people at the foundation of the Xew Eepublic. THE NEW EEPITBLIC. Passing from a consideration of the Old Government, let us now turn to a consideration of the New Eepublic, or of our country as it is now, in all its broad extent. Little did our ancestors dream, when struggling for independence iipon the narrow slope of the Atlantic, that they were founding a nation that would yet grow to be the greatest in mankind's history. Little did they know that they were organizing for a civil conquest of the continent — that from the parent home colonial columns would go out across the continent in ever}^ direction, seeking new homes and greater fortunes. No warrior ever pi'osecuted a conquest against any nation that conformed to more exact military rule than that of the civil conquest of this continent. While the central column was moving to the heart of the continent and onward to the great mountains, the right and left columns were flanking the great Lakes on the North and the Gulf on the South. Nothing retarded the movement or changed the direction of the pioneers and explorers but the arbitrary policy of the Government in establishing Indian reser- vations. While the central and right and left columns were marching in the front, a new^ movement was projected, and a force was sent around Cape Horn which entered by the Pacific Ocean, in the rear of the continent, on the golden shores of California; and thus the conquest goes on, and soon the columns will all meet and the continent be carved into one constellation of great States. By reference to the map it will bo seen that the New Eepublic, or the territorial extent of the Government as it now is, spans the continent in extent from ocean to ocean, and in breadth reaches from the lakes to the Gulf. Instead of the old thirteen States and one Territory, which constituted the Old Government, 1^ CFIA:»(iE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 17 the following new States aud Territories have beon added, which, in their broad extent and union with the old States, con- stitute the New Kepublic : Kentucky, Vermont, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississij^pi, Illinois, NEW STATES. Alabama, Maine, Missouri, Colorado, Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, Iowa, Texas, TVisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, Nevada, Nebraska. New Mexico, Utah, Washington, TERRITORIES. Dakota, Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, N, W. America. These added States and Territories in themselves combine all the elements of a great nation, far greater than that of our fathers. Whereas the area of the Old Government was 610,512 square miles, the New Eepublic has an area of 2,950,264 square miles, being more than four times greater in extent than the Old Government, exclusive of Alaska, which contains 577,390 square miles. With the expansion of the territorial extent of the Kepublic has also been added immense river, lake and ocean facilities for water transportation. It is estimated that over two-fifths of our national territory is now drained by the Mississippi river and its tributaries, and more than one-half is embraced by what may be called its middle region, one-fourth of its total area belongs to the Pacific, aud one-sixth to the Atlantic proper, one twenty-sixth to the Lakes, one-ninth to the Gulf, or one-third to U\g Atlantic, including the I^akes and the Gulf. In reference to the facilities for water transportation, a cal- culation was made at the office of the Coast Survey, for 1853, which gives for the total main shore line of the I^'nited States, 18 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. exclusive of sounds, islands, etc., twelve thousand miles, of •which fifty-four per cent, belongs to the Atlantic coast, eighteen to the Pacific, and twenty-eight to the Gulf coast ; and that if all these be followed, and the rivers entered to the head of tide water, the total line would be extended to 33,069 miles. Instead of 1,000 miles of available river navigation belonging to the Old Government, we now have in our broad extent about 20,000 miles, as follows : Miles . Mississippi, from the Gulf of Mexico to Fort Snellinor 2,131 Missouri, from mouth to Boseman .3,525 Ohio to Pittsburg 1,030 Illinois to LaSallc 300 Ouacliita to Arkadelphia 601 Ked Eiver to Jefterson 720 Yazoo to Le Flore 257 Little Red to Searcey Landing 45 Arkansas to Fort Gibson SOO "White to Forsyth 092 Black to Pocahontas 1.30 Currant to Doniphan 60 Tennessee to Florence 289 Cumberland to Nashville 193 Osage to Osceola , 200 Kansas 200 Big Sioux 75 Yellow Stone 800 Minnesota 295 St. Croix GO Chippewa — Monongahela to Geneva (slack-water, 4 locks) 91 Muskingum to Dresden, do 8 do 100 GreenKiver to Bowling Green,do 5 do lSt'> Kentucky to Brooklyn, do 5 do 117 Kanawha to Gauley "Bridge 100 Wabash to Lafayette 3.35 Salt to Shepherdsville 30 Sondey to l^ouisa 25 Eio Grande 2.000 Colorado 1.000 Sacramento 500 Columbia 500 Snake Fork 310 Clark's Fork 225 Willamette 200 Rivers of Atlantic Slope 1.000 NOTK. — Steamboats have ascended the Des Moines to Des Moines Citj-, Iowa Eiv-ei- to Iowa City, Cedar Kiver to Cedar Kapids, and the Maquoketa to Magaketa City, but only during temporary floods. Boats have gone up many other small rivers in past years, but as the country becomes more cultivated the wash and drift are greater, and the smaller streams fiU up and are thus rendered useless for navigable puj-posee. CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 19 In addition to the immense increase of available river naviga- tion, -we have also acquired vast mineral fields of wealth in almost every part of our domain. So, too, have we added immense forests of valuable timber of all kinds necessary to supply the wants of the industrious and growing people. Taking the continent as a whole, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from our northern boundary to the Gulf, it is not equaled in natural advantages by an}- country on the globe, and none other is more calculated to facilitate the advancement of civilization. Its immense navigable advantages, its dense forests of every variety of valuable timber, its outstretching expanse of fertile lands, and its inexhaustible and incalculable minerals, combine to make it the greatest nation of the earth in commerce, agriculture, mechanics, and wealth. In support of this statement, let us appeal to facts, and then see, after a care- ful examination, if we can judge anything of the future by the past. Besides the immense acquirement of natural wealth, to us are given the wonderful creations of genius. "We have the railroad traversing our lands everywhere; we have the steamboat upon all our navigable rivers ; we have the telegraph connecting our cities, and the steam-engine doing our bidding in almost every phase of industrial enterprise. Thus we are, Avith all our conti- nental growth, a new nation, requiring new laws, new advan- tages, and more appropriate uses in governmental affairs. Our unlimited sea-coast uniting us with all the commerce of the world, and our vast domain putting us within reach of every climate on the globe, and all our natural advantages combined, point to our future imperial greatness ; and at every step we take forward wisdom tells us that the conditions and regulations of the Old Government ai-e not adapted to the wants of the New Republic, for they were onl}- the regulations and conditions of childhood, and not suited to the growth and maturity of man- hood. It will be found, on examination, that we are met every- where with evidence demanding a change of the National Capi- tal from the Old Government to the New Eepublic. THE NATIONAL GROWTH MATERIAL POWER OF THE CONTINENT. Man everywhere and in all ages has ever sought for power and dominion. He has traversed the oceans, seas, continents, and islands; ascended the rivers and scaled the mountains; defied the climates and the great depths ; and everywhere untiringly moves on after dominion and profit. Before our independence was achieved, the thought of continental empire had already entered the minds of many far-seeing persons in this and other lands. '^Prophetic Yoices about America" were not wanting in numbers to foretell the triumphs of that spirit of adventure which, in the fifteenth centurj', carried Yasco di Gama around the Cape of Good Hope, and Columbus to America. Even the age seemed to be instinctive w ith a better life, and prophets of one land and heroes of another were unqualified!}'' pointing to America as the place for the future empire of the world. As early as 1755, John Adams, but twenty years old, and the future statesman of Massachusetts, wrote to a friend in the fol- lowing words: "Soon after the reformation a few people came over into this new world for conscience' sake. Perhaps this apparently trivial incident may transfer the great seat of empire into America. It looks likely to me; for if we can remove the turbulent Gallics, our people, according to the most exact com- putations, will in another century become more numerous than in England itself. Should this be the case, siuee we have, I may say, all the naval stores of the nation in our hands, it will be easy to obtain a mastery of the seas, and the united force of all Europe will not be able to subdue^s." CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 21 This was the expression of a young school-teacher twenty-oue years before the Declaration of Independence was made by the colonies. John Adams lived to see a system of government founded which, with broad and comprehensive policies, was des- tined to bring forth upon the American continent a nation of gi'ander proportions and greater triumphs in civilization than his most enlarged understanding could comprehend. His son, John Quincy Adams, at a later day, remarked of his father's letter : " Had the political part of it been written by the minister of state of a European monarchy, at the close of a long- life spent in the government of nations, it would have been pro- nounced worth}^ of the united wisdom of a Burleigh, a Sully, or an Oxenstiern. In one hold outline he has exhibited by anticipa- tion a long succession of prophetic history, the fulfillment of ichich is barely yet in progress, responding exactly hitlierto to his foresight, but the full accomplishment of which is reserved for after ages." Next to John Adams stands Mr. Jefferson, with clear concep- tions of the future of the American nation. Soon after the treatj' with the Kaskaskia Indians, by which was acquired a broad belt of territory extending from the mouth of the Illinois river to and up the Ohio, Mr. Jefferson tirst began to look with serious considerations to the future greatness of the nation ; and the treaty with the Louisiana purchase led him to say that he '• would not give one inch of the waters of the Mississippi river to any nation." And with prophetic conception he was again led to say, " When we shall be full on this side the Mississippi river we may lay off a range of States on the western bank, irom the head to the mouth, and so, range after range, ad- vancing compactly as we multiply." Thus it is, each succeeding generation does its work in fulfillment of the great prophecies of those wise men. Before our independence was acknowledged, French Catholic missionaries had descended the Mississippi river, and by the. right of discovery , claimed the country along its shores for France, and named it Louisiana, after King Louis. In 1762 France ceded it to Spain. In 1800 Bonaparte became First Consul, and induced Spain to cede it back to France. Soon after the cession France became fearful of England on account of national difficulties, and sold the country to the United States 22 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. for $15,000,000. This territory was known as the Louisiana Purchase, and included all the country of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and part of 3Iinnesota, Nebraska, and Kansas, besides a protended claim to the whole territory extending to the Pacific Ocean. It must be kept in mind that all these vast possessions did not belong to the United States at the time of the location of the seat of government at its present place. In addition to the Louisiana purchase, Texas was annexed in 1845, ]S"ew Mexico, California, and all the territory between the Mississippi river and the Pacific ocean has been added within the present century; and in rapid succession has State after State come into the Union, and the telegraph, the rail- road,- the steamboat, the printing-press, and the schoolhouse, have followed on in this great march of empire, and taken the place of the Indian trail, the wigwam, the hunting-ground, and the home of the buffalo. Turn which way 'we will, upon this " vast, wide continent," and wo see the chain of empire being made complete under one all-embracing Constitution. Climates of every character, minerals of every quality and value, rivers stretching in great lengths and uniting every zone, all combine to give greatness and destiny to this nation, made of the wisdom and excellences of all nations, and this people, made of the commingled and reo-enerated blood of all people. Sublime thought I Grandest and broadest of our age ; that which energizes the individual and regales the future with royal promise. Thus step by step has the Eepublic advanced in greatness, as predicted by the fathers, until with clear vision John Bright^ the great English statesman and eommoner, sees beyond the present the fulfilment of the prophecies of the fathers, and with conscious certainty speaks as follows of the future nationality of the New Eepublic : "I see one vast confederation stretching from the frozen North in one unbroken line to the glowing South, and from the wild billows of the Atlantic westward to the calmer waters of the Pacific, and I see one people, and one law, and one language, and one faith, and over all that vast continent, the home of freedom and refuge for the oppressed of every race and of every clime." CHANGE OF NATIOXAL EMPIRE. 23 CO^DIERCE OF THE OCEAN. Turning from our national growth to a consideration of tiie material power of the continent, the first interest to be eon- bidered is the growth of our commerce upon the ocean. This element of our progress comes first, as the legitimate conse- quence of the infant nation having its existence along the Atlantic shore of the continent, which was akin to the com- mercial shores of Western Europe. Besides the immense territorial expansion of our Government, its material growth and power is of infinite concern. Tbe fol- lowing tables show what our commerce was at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and hoAv it has grown until the present time. But the growth of our ocean commerce has not been confined to our Eastern sea-board, nor to the development of the Atlantic slope, by any means. Already the Yalley States furnish the greater part of the foreign commerce of the country, and the Pacific slope is also rapidly adding to its value and its tonnage. 24 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 53 ji 5S !»- ?0 <:o "^ « i^ -^ ■^ s « !:d ts e^ a «3 ^ r^ s^ -^ •« «o 60 ^^ <» . ^ CO M 0> CO cc s-q i- =f ^ r- 6 -M X -r X i^ •— t- i^ X I- OCiO.- 1— i~- c; ur; rt! -t in ^ "5 ^ S t^ X -r c; 10 t- 'M ot-r: X C^ M 15 i.-t l» — :^ 1^ X l^ X L^ 01^ -r ^ i-H -ri 1- ?£ «D -* ^1 I- ■?! '^ I;; •ri X CO ~ l^ -? :5 -M CO rf r-l I— 1 I-H>. -:?l CO I-- ir: -i- u- i-o r^ in XCC X »o •* X ?5 i>; 55 tj -M X X « t>. 'N 10 t^ (M -M in T-H J? ^ ci CO ici- X c^ :o >o t>. •>*Tfi'*ia»cisia»o i C5t-t5(nx)GCCoc:si xxoroioOi-Hcc-* ClClr-tXt^COOr-llSr^ i^ c; cr m c; i-H rci^ cc -^ r-c«tOr-o~x»n~t^?n — -*i— iioco t- m o r: t^ -r 1— 1 w i^ lC' ic I?! 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(M cT r-T ^ -J" rs" -t is' co" t-" CO CO?0 cs cs X X X X X -H 1— 1 I—I I— I r-1 x' 01 o ^' c-i cs' -t isi co' t-' x ci o cocs-»<-f-t-'#-^'l--t<-r-r-ris X X X X X X X X X X X X X I-"' (m' ?o' •v is' CO* t^' x' c: O* i-i IM eo' Tj< >d co' »0 'S IS IS lO IS IS IS IS CO CO CO CO CO CO o xxxoxxxxxxxxxxxx 26 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. • nSpaoj JO 3SB;U3D-J3tI Oi-IC0»0CCC0Ot^CC^-I<'— fM00rHCCOr-(|>.i— lO oO'^oo-t-^coocii—ieouo-*!— IC5 ICCOO-JiClrHOT-HCO COOCOOCOCCt— IIOO I— l(MlOl^0501t>.C0r-l OJ T-H Ci O CC' 00 00 •sno} 'uSia.xoj -tO-^lOCOff-lXt-i— ICCMitO-^OOOSUS OOOOt^Oi— lOCiCflOi— 'C^CD'-lCilOi-i t^ OQ 0 CO l^ O -^ I— I ni lO c^ o •snoj 'nBOj.Taiuv ocoiooowcot^caot- r-ICOOO'*OCOO• ai t-- Ot^00CiOr-i(Mf0rtil0eCit^0005Or-i OOOO"— li— (1— li— (I— Ir-lr-HrHi-Cr-ICNC^ cca)cotx)oocoa)«)a5a)oocooot»ooco • nSi9J0j J0 32'B4a80-.T8J lo Tti 00 Tt Tt< CO O b- CO o Tjiocoooco-^iMCieo "■rjIc4oo •saoi 'i«50X COCOOt^OMCJiMiraiOC-l-^IMTliCOCOO QOi— (r-llO(M(7flOC5CO<0(Mt>.t^(ri<^50T7< C5»0C^CiC0OrHaDC»O-^.OCOl-OOOC5OTCiO •suo; 'aoiajo^ Tj.OCOCOOO-^ i:oi>.iO(nioooooot-i>.ia-^. i-l C^ (N CI 1— I •sao} ' aBOuaury O »>• (M O Tt< 05 t^ (M O CO I--. >0 -^ !>• JO l^ CD CD 1-- CO (M C0G0»O0Sr-l.-^C0t-.OOacoc-:i-*.i-H(M (MOOt^O(r^(MCO-T<000oco«OGoi>>t>-ooc5 o c: c a- 1 c; t-- rr c- c^ er -t >» 00 n- 1-- r- T— t^ t- I- t~- t> I— t- a: o. I— V, a. 1-1 cc I— CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 27 COMMEECE OF THE LAKES. From the commerce of the ocean we pass to a consideration of the commerce of the great lakes. The following tables show their statistics of measurement and the tonnage of their carrying fleet : TABLE OF MEASUREMENT OF THE LAKES. Lakes. Greatest length. Greatest breadth. Mean depth. Elevation. Area. Superior Miles . 355 320 260 240 180 Miles . 160 100 160 80 35 Feet. 900 000 900 84 500 Feet. G27 578 574 565 232 Sq . miZes . 32,000 Michigan 22,000 Huron 20,400 Erie 9,600 Ontario 6.300 Total 1,555 90,000 TABLE SHOWING THE CARRYING FLEET ON THE LAKES. Steamers .. P*ropellers Barks Briofs Schooners.. Sloops Barges Totals No. 143 254 74 85 1,068 16 3 1.643 Tonnage. 53,522 70,253 33,203 24,831 227,831 667 3,719 413,026 Value. ^2,190,300 3,573,300 982,900 526,200 5,955,550 12,770 17,000 $13,257,020 The above statement shows only the carrying fleet of the United States on the lakes. The Canadians also have a largo fleet. These lakes are estimated to drain an entire area of 333,515 square miles, and discharge their waters into the ocean through the Eiver St. Lawrence, which is navigable from Lake Erie downward to all .vessels not exceeding 130 feet keel, 26 feet beam and 10 feet draft. Previous to 1800 there was scarcely a craft above the size of an Indian canoe in what was then called a pathless wilderness. The first American schooner launched upon Lake Erie was built at Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1797, but was soon lost. The shipping employed on these groat lakes has had various alternations of fortune. The development of steam and sailing 28 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. vessels began to be conspicuous in 1833, and vapidly rose in the succeeding five j^ears to 50,000 tons. In 1843 another great im- pulse was given to that trade, and, with the exception of a slight reverse in 1857, it has steadily increased to the present time. The present commerce of these lakes has an annual value of $450,000,000, or more than twice the external commerce of the whole countiy, and, as will be seen by the preceding table, is carried on by a fleet of 1,643 vessels. COMMEECE OF THE RIYEES. From the lakes and their commerce let us turn to the rivers and their commerce. I have already stated that the rivers of the Atlantic slope, the Mississippi and her tributaries, together with the rivers of Texas and the Pacific slope, would make 20,000 miles of navigable water. Upon these inland waters floats the greatest commerce of the countiy. The following table exhibits the carrying fleet of the Missis- sippi and her tributaries : TABLE SHOWING THE CONVEYING FLEET OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. Ports. *Cairo Cincinnati Dubuque Evansville Galena Keokuk Louisville Memphis , *New Albany Nashville *Natchez New Orleans Paducah Pittsburg (81 tugs). *Quincy St. Paul St. Louis *Vicksburg Wheeling Totals. -Si 1" m c a> 0^ iso 20 25 20 15 66 70 "12 "so 10 159 "39 210 "44 30,497.16 3,204.37 3,043 51 2,297.77 1,173.86 14,100.64 9,849.62 42,983 5,137 5.019 3,305 2,192 25,425 15,121 $4,134,000 459,500 402,600 435,000 178,500 1,994,500 1,011,200 1,183.06 2,i56 168,666 15,800.07 1,100.80 33,598.00 21,625 2,893 42,471 1,292,000 205,000 3,920,800 3,088.52 86,532.34 4,973 110,769 607.500 8,830,000 9,538.11 8,075 918,600 910 216.067.83 292,144 $24,556,600 * No registration at these ports, for ■want of local inspectors. CHANGE OB' NATIONAL EMPIRE. 29 Touching tho commerce of the Mississippi Valley, I herehy submit a paper by Professor S. Waterhouse, of this city, which Avas read before the Eiver Improvement Convention held in St. Louis, February 12th and 13th, 1867. Although the letter has some parts not specially adapted to my purpose in this connec- tion, on account of discussing outside interests, yet it contains that which bears with force directly upon this discussion, and will be found interesting to the reader : Ilr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: The right of a government to institute internal improvements is one of the essential incidents of sovereignty. Under all forms of polity, this power is justly vested in the central authority. Even despotic governments, which reverse the republican idea and administer' aifairs of state in the interest of a titled minor- ity, have exercised this power for the benefit of the nation. Austria has expended large sums for the improvement of the navigation of the Danube. But a democracy rests upon the fundamental principle that the interests of the people are supreme. Our republican Government, in which is vested the exclusive control of internal improvements, is then bound by the most solemn obligations to consult the general welfare of the nation. But if it neglects this trust, then momentous interests which have been confided to its sole guardianship and fostering care must suffer, and popular rights, which can appeal only to constitutional processes of enforcement, will be ignored. In the present instance, our duty is not arduous. The unmis- takable jurisdiction of Congress, the frequent precedents and liberal policy of the Government, leave us only the easy task of showing that the proposed improvement of the Mississippi Eap- ids is a work of national importance. The Mississippi and its affluents, draining an area of more than 1,000,000 square miles, and affording a water-carriage of more than 15,000 miles, form a system of river navigation unequaled in the civilized world. The entire coast line of the United States is less than 13,000 miles long ; but the river line of the Mississippi and its tributaries, including both banks, is more than 30,000 miles long. The trade which now floats on these waters is immense. Its magnitude startles the imagina- tion. In 1860 the total foreign commerce of the United States was 8760,000,000. In 1865 "the trade of nine cities on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers amounted to §747,000,000. The annual commerce of the Mississippi valley is now estimated at §2,000,000,000. The yearly traffic of the vpper Mississippi, which would be ihrecthj affected by tho obstructions in the river, 30 CHANGE OP NATIONAL EMPIRE. is S150,000;000. The amount of commerce which is annually deflected from the Mississippi by the difficulties of navigation is computed at §100,000,000. The yearly damage which the rapids inflict upon navigation is appraised at $10,000,000. In 1865 the direct loss occasioned by the impediments at Keokuk amounted to more than $500,000. The eight miles of obstructed naviga- tion sometimes delay a steamer five daj-s. This detention is a gource of great expense. A steamer with a carrying capacity of 18,000 bushels of sacked grain would require a force of sixty hands. The daily cost of so large a crew is heavy. A delay of three or four days entails a great expense. After the improve- ment of the rapids, a tow-boat with the same motive power and a crew of twenty hands would transport 225,000 bushels of grain. The Ajax once towed fi^om Louisville to New Orleans 460,000 bushels of coal. For more than half of the boating- season navigation is embarrassed by low water on the rapids. During the period of shallow water no boat can carry freight enough for a profitable trip without lighting over the rapids. But the employment of barges involves a serious expense. In the absence of elevators it has necessitated the use of sacks. Wheat sacks now cost from seventy to eighty cents apiece; or, if hired, two and a half cents per bushel for each shipment. The expense of the four transfers at the Eock Island and Keokuk rapids is twelve cents a bushel, and the loss from waste is seven cents more. During the season of 1866 the Northern Line Packet Company paid §21,100 for lighting over the rapids. The packages received by this company numbered, in 1865 1,243,000 1866 2 1837 1,421 1838 1,843 1839 1,'.>20 1840 3,197 1841 3,319 Table showing the Railways of the United States by States. United States. Miles. Cost. Cost per Mile. Area of Country. Maine New Hampshire Vermont Massachusetts Rhode Island Connecticut New York New Jersey Pennsylvania Delaware Maryland and D. C. West Virginia Kentucky Ohio Michigan Indiana Illinois Wisconsin Minnesota Iowa Missouri Kansas Nebraska California Oregon Virginia North Carolina South Carolina Georgia Florida Alabama Misssissippi Tennessee Arkansas Louisiana Texas Territorie s Total 36,896.26 502.. 37 659. :«{ 594.59 ,330 96 119.24 637.54 ,025.. 30 J»04.-ll ,0.37.15 l.-)7.40 522.60 364.75 625. iK) ,402.98 966.12 ,211.80 ,2.'i0.05 ,045.41 392.00 ,1.54.10 937.75 240.. 50 275.00 321.50 19.. 50 ,416.70 977.30 988.93 ,4.37.22 407.50 891.16 867.12 ,317.78 191.00 3,35.75 479.50 18,242,2.35 22,0.52,063 24,892,234 79,466,774 4,a58,799 24.370,018 152,. 570, 769 55,994,403 210,080,309 5,606,864 30,. 573, 275 24,978,843 22,392,122 1.15,231,975 41,675,724 79,186,767 1,39,084,414 40,081,360 12,4,50,000 45,480,000 51,3.57,07 9,7.50,000 12,, 500, 000 24,2(K),0()(» ,5(10,000 49,974,4.57 20,020,310 25,207,977 29,177,663 8,8ti8,000 21,010,982 25, 41 6,. 394 34,185,210 4,400,000 13,627,^54 17,280,000 $30 31,' 33,446 41,864 59,704 40,737 38,22.- 50,431 61,91o 52,03: 37,27!i 58,501 68,498 35,776 39,739 43,133 35,802 42,791 38,343 31,760 39,40" 54,995 40,. 540 45,4.51 2r)|r;4l 35,275 20,4,85 25,491 20,. 301 21,762 25,154 29,315 25,937 43,. 562 40, .577 36,044 iSq , Mile. 31,766 9,280 10,212 7,800 1,306 4,674 47,000 8,320 46,000 2,120 11,184 20,. 541 37,680 39,964 56,243 33,809 .55,405 53,924 83,, 531 ,55,045 67,380 78,418 76,928 lss,982 95,274 (;l,.3.5'.; .50,704 29,. 38; .52,0(19 .59,269 .50,722 47,1,56 45,600 52, 198 46,431 2,37,, 504 243,416 Popnlat'n' I860. 6 = m 5* $1,517,510,765 $41,129 3,001,002] 31,747,514 38 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. By the preceding tables it will be seen we have in the United States 36,896 miles of railway, built at an expense of $1,517,510,- 765. All this has been done since the adoption of the Federal Constitution and since the location of the seat of government at its present place. But this is not all ; their construction over the country, and especially Westward, is being pushed forward at the rate of 15 miles per day, and next year the two great oceans bounding the RepubUc will be united by the completion of a great railway across the continent ; and with our frontier line advancing 15 miles every year, the civil conquest of the continent will soon be complete. But, in justice to the cause of the subject of this pamphlet, let it be said in truth that these mighty works are being done in the Mississippi Yalley and west- ward of the Father of Waters. Since the invention of the steam-engine, the railway system may be regarded as the greatest aid to civilization the arts have afforded, on account of the rapid intercommunion of men and ideas, and the exchange of products. Every additional investi- gation by the political economist and the socialist proves the influence of the railway upon the industry and intelligence of man to be the most potential of all his works. And it does really appear that the use of the railroads is destined to make all the agricultural interests of men subserve their highest uses, by enabling the producer to get the highest possible price for his produce, and the consumer at the least cost. The influence of railroads upon agriculture has been ably discussed by Mr. Joseph C. G. Kennedy, Superintendent of the United States Census for 1860, in the Agricultural Department of the Eighth Census. Speaking of their great value, Mr. Kennedy says : "So great are their benefits, that if the entire cost of railroads between the Atlantic and Western States had been levied on the farmers of the central West, they could have paid it and been immensely the gainers. This proposition will become evident if we look at the modes in which railroads have been beneficial, especially in the grain-growing States. These modes are — first, in doing what could not have been effected without them; second, in securing to the producer very nearly the prices of the Atlantic markets, which are greatly in advance of what could have been got on his farm; and third, by thus enabling the pro- ducer to dispose of his products at the best prices at all times. CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 39 and to increase rapidly both the settlement and the annual pro- duction of the interior States." Mr. Kennedy gives the following table, showing the cash value of farms in five States, with their increase in ten years : 1850. 1860. Ohio $358,758,002 $G66,5G4,171 Illinois 96,133,290 432,531,072 Indiana 130,385,173 344,902,776 Michigan 51,872,440 163,279,087 Wisconsin 28,528,503 131,117,082 Aggregate $071,678,075 $1,738,394,188 Increase in ten years $1,066,716,113 Mr. Kennedy says it is not too much to say that one-half of this increase has been caused by railroads. But the beneficial influence of the railroads cannot be con- fined to agriculture alone. Their influence is immeasurable upon the development of every commercial and industrial movement of our people, and consequently aids vastly the increase of population ; and with the unequaled advantages for their con- struction and their use in the Mississippi Yalley, they must be accounted a great auxiliary to the internal development of mate- rial power on the continent, and consequently of establishing the supremacy of the States of the Mississippi Valley over those of both oceans, thus giving to them that supremacy in civiliza- tion which is theirs by nature. No new field of art or industry now engages so much capital, and is pushed forward with so much enterprise, as that of the railroad interest of the country. "Where they ai-e not, stagna- tion in business and conservatism in public spirit prevail; where they are, commerce and industry are vitalized. To show the preponderance of material power and wealth in the Mississippi Yalley, the following table is submitted. It exhibits the growth of our people, their genius, their wealth, and their wonderful industry. 40 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. be o a> CO i2 CC O -* o lO :c c: CO T-i c^ :o o Ci ,— 1 t-, t^ CO o c; 'M CO o V3- -* o »c t- t- T-H O ID r— 1— lO-fiXO -*<-t! Vj C: CO t — CO r— I r^ iVD CO CO t>- CO (>1 I— I— l'X>r-l'-iOCO (M 1--CO ; iC •— I CO :• CO CO o 1 oco o i^co'co" c; T-i -f CC l^ o Tl -t< CO -t< 1— I lO =■-:$ (M ^ Ci i» CO -* X I— I iffl 'f; t~- 1-~ o •rt< c5 1— t o-foi^ciioooit-cooeo C") C: CO CO m ■C^l X X oi 1-- JM CO -rtTc-Tl--. oOOOO'MCO'OMGi lO ^- O O IC lO CO CO O O O -+I c.i— I CI QOCO ,-(,-. t^ -t 25 r— I CO -^ CS O C5C0< COt^f o o ' I -+ IM CO CO ; C-1 CO I lr-l>-l-tX0 13 li ^ cj xco S X 00 X t- '-^ ; O t^ ' ) X CO < COt-llOt^'^'t.CO CO O O C5 vO o o CO rH X -^ 'O CO CO (CI o rii o o-T X r^ 5£ o ■>* X o ''^ CSCil CO ;s ( X O I .-^OOiCCflCSt^iOCOTtilOCtCO'^OCO ixcD>oxcoc5C3!r>c-ixi3-fireoi>- >OC0C0i— lOXi-iOCOOOCDi— l-#rt< Il>.«0l^l~-0:COc t^ ' Ci CO . lO •— I :S Ol ISIO X X Ci5 lO I— I O CO lO Ct CO T-l nX^ (^Cr- '0>OCOClCOt— CiO'OOlOCS'MCSf-H^^'^ l>^f^100<^ Cq-H(55COi-l^OOt^COO'>JCOCOOC;'X010 5^1 ■^O'O'*'^ X-^t-'^XCOOr-I^OXOX'^'-HX CZ3_5D 0_ X^i-H m' -^^"0 O O t^ x55^ ^= rHi— IX-^i— IXXOCi' X) CO .r.ll (t} an ^ ^ 1^.2 ^ cs a> S .': C5 TO o ■n I Tf^^^O'^^c^*f'^^-fC5^-(-tl— ( s*j ■* (M ■^^ (M lO lO OS ' -r c^ o CO CO ro cc-^ la Vi •-^ 00 -+ O iS CO 1-- ■* "M C^l 'J' CI CO ift o'-h" o CO ^ c; t- -i' ■^ ^O I— I o --I iM — lO -^ X cc ^ o ■^'^ 00 «D ^ CO I - lO y; i^ -M ^ c0 00 t-- t-H r- IS •» n ;3 1—1 00 CO : CO ; : -v^ - — . CO -ti : 00 CO — — _^ -rt< 1« ._» -f t- -t -M X l> ^ t^-fcixoioxoacio o o c; t^ o ; o CC -*< -+ c; rH -HI CO 1^ o X 1^ X 3£ X CO O) — t~ X :; IS CC t^ C5 rH CC r^ c: "M CO coccciccr^-tt^co l-O i~ O 1-^ 1.0 ^1 O C^ t— ^ CO CC I- CC C5 CO t- C5 X CO ■* CO IS X X t^ 1— o 00 (X ^ 05 — '-fh-C'MOCO'MOlCOC- CO -t< o c; t^ X t^ CO -H — . o X CO rH t^ -H in CO 00 lO CC l^ ^^Z-!!.' "" - Tl X _ ^ O r-. Ci fM rH X r-i CC t- O M -P CO — X IS X CC rH rH ■>!)< CJ '—^ o O ic: (M C5 X r-i IS (M o_-ti 0_!M O 04 O l^ "-0 b- X X X Ci CO oui' -*'o6 i-i-iTi-x' ;d c-'^i.o-rm, ^^ ^^* CO — ' _, _, CI O -+< X GO t^ CO C? -J ^ •-( t--. X 'N ^ c- ; ! • ! • CC C5 -+I 1^ CC Ol IS rH • c; 1- o o CC XO'T -M 'M X (M CO -M -r CC X CO -P 1-- X 'M I- CC CC Ol O -^ 00 1-. r« i^ CO IS s^ c; o o i-o '^ CI o o o O »S rH X Ci ■M^O t^ O Ci "S O C^riC o »o c; lO X -t X Ol :C IS f^] rH CO C5 CC iSi CO C X >S -t"M I^Tl^r^^p^" •O CO CO X X C^ "M O IS r- OCO -+-f I- CO ;"!; O d CC o is CO r^ ■>*c;o ■T< Ol CJ.— COi— r-ie rH f/i rH mm'mm" ei o o J- lo ooio 0-l< -t O— 'O-t OSS 01 CC -N Oxoicoo -o^iMiffco.ccisinK. t r- o ^ ->■ r- ^ OJ -rf *< O t- I^ X CO 1^ O r- O 1^ t^ CO l>- CO Ol rH rH t^ rH -fl C5 CJrfCO'MOiMClCOCXN 1— i^ CO ir. ■T^ r—i rHl, O ■coco coco Ci_ CCXXiMCSOCOCO I— 1 c; Ol t;;- -^ — oi c: ■J i-O OT X ec 01 ^M rH O CO is'-r is' cTcT f X co'cc'of-f is'oT o c^ X ~r (M -^ CO O X t- CO >s — l^ O C: UO X rH eO ri o — CO (M X 0 t- I— 1 f— * CI r-t (■^Ciff^r-l ^Ttt Ol s » -m-^m^ lO CO _ _^ — ^ '*',!; X lO "^ ^ '^1 1^ ■s o ,r,_M^ : : ! : i-tcoo-txcso-ix • cr--^ l" Ci CJ -t 'M -r CO o X ■* IS o i- ot C2 oi o -r o -r — -ti c^t-. «-M -r X => -t- X CO Ci (M lO C^ -tIrH X CiCC t~-_^rH 'Tt* X Ct -f O C5 •iS CO Tf l^ CO -T O cf c{ rH jr o' Co' ec F-* t-o " -f O 'CI iS rH 00 (M •■^ f^\ Xr— o C-l CO CO ^1 CO 5^1 IS t^ ci^-X p: i5 U ;-; CO CI ■'1' t-- lO cooo o CO CO (M IS X o -t X h-T in" r-t <^ <^qx T—t •M ^ CCfaX CO rH Pi o ■a to 1. c Kentucky Feb. 4,1791 Feb. 18, 1791 June 1,1796 April 30, 1802 .April 8,1812 Dec. 11,1816 Doc. 10,1817 Dec. 3, 1818 Dec, 14, 1819 March 3, 18-20 Slarch 2, 1821 June 15, 1836 Jan. -Hi, 1837 March 3, 1845 do Dec. 29, 1845 March 3, 1847 Sept. 9, 1850 Feb.. 26, 18.57 Feb. 14, 1859 .Ian. 29, 186l! 1 1 1 2 •2 3 3 3 3 3 3 5 5 5 5 9 9 9 11 11 12 12 13 13 13 189 191 491 173 701 399 472 536 608 544 615 50 144 742 742 108 178 452 166 383 1-26 633 30 32 47 37,6801,1.55,084 *10 212i 315 098 Vermont 1 ...j ... 45 600 1,109 801 Ohio Ord'ceof 1787 March 3, 1805 May 7, 1800 Api-il 7, 1798 Feb. 3,1809 March 3, 1817 39,904 2, 239,. 502 *4 1,3461 708,002 33,8091,350,428 47,1.56i 791,, -305 *.55, 410 1,711, 951 50,722j 964 -'01 Louisiana Indiana Mississippi Illinois Alabama.. . 2 2 1 2 3 331 58 549 514 371 Maine *35,000 6'J8 -270 Missouri Arkansas Michiy:an Florida June 4, 1812 March 2, 1819 .Jan. 11, 1805 March 30, 18-22 June 12, is:i8 2 3 2 3 5 743 493 309 654 235 *65,3.50 52,198 *.56,451 .59,268 55,045 *-274,356 .53,924 *188,981 83,531 95,-274 81,318 23,000 1,182,012 435,4,50 749,113 140,4-25 674,948 604,215 Texas Wisconsin April 20, 1836 5 10 ' 775,881 305,439 173,855 March 3, 1849 Aug. 14, 1848 May 30, 1854 9 9 10 403 323 277 Oregon .52,465 Kansas 107,206 West Virginia. . j Dec. 31,1862 Jfevada Colorado March 2, 1861 Feb. 28, 1861 May 30, 1854 12 12 10 209 172 277 March 21, 1864 1112,090 §6,8.57 II 10, 507 *104,,500 §,!4,277 Nebraska 1 March 1,1867| ||J,-2(il 75,995 28,841 CHANOE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 65 Territories . Acts organ- izing 'I'er- ritories. \ew Mexico Sept . 0, ISoO Utah I ilo Wasliin^ton ! March 2, 1853 Dakota IMarch 2, 1801 Arizona !Fel). Zi, 186;{ March 3, 18G3 May 2G, 18W Idaho Montana Indian Territory District of Columbia. ***N. Western America, piirchaseil by treaty of May 28, 18G7 July 16, March 3, 1790 1791 U.S. statutes. 44() 4.-)3 17-2 239 G(!4 t>08 85 130 214 121,201 ir88,(tri(; (i9,!l9t 240,.-);)7 »«ii3,9i(; 90,932 143,770 08,991 10 miles square. 577,390 *roijuhition. The estimated ))(>)iuhition of the.se Terri- tories on Jan. 1st, 1805, as above indica- ted, was 300,- 000. 70,000 *The total population of the United States in 18()0 was, in round numbers, 31, .500, 000. In 18(>5 it is estimated that the population was 35, .590,000, including the inhabitants of the Territories, estimated at 300,000 persons on January 1, 1S05. At the present time, November 1, 1807, according to the most s.itisfactory estimate, it is about 38, .500, 000. In 1870, according to existing ratios, the population of tliis country will be over 42,2,50,000. At the end of the i)resent century, 107,000,(K)0. tThe area of those States marked with a star is derived from geograpliical authori- ties, the public surveys not liaviiig been completely extended over them. I rile present area of Nevada is 112,09l» scjuare miles, enlarged by adding one degree of longitude, lying between the ;i7th and 42d degrees of north latitude, which was detached fromtht west part of Utah and also northwestern part of Arizona Territory, per act of Congress, approved May 5, 1800; U. S. Laws 1805 and 1800, page 43, and as assented to by the legislature of the State of Nevada, January 18, 1867. § White persons. II Indians. ir The present area of Utah is 88,0.50 square miles, reduced from the former area of 100, 38i square miles by incorporating one degree of longitude on the west side, between the 37th and 42d degrees of north latitude, with the State of Nevada, per act of Con- gress, approved May 5, 1860, and as acceiited liy the legislature of Nevada, Jan. 18, 1807. **The present area of Arizona is 113,910 square miles, reduced from the former area of 120,141 square miles by an act of Congrer^s, approved Jlay 5, 1806, detaching from the northwestern part of Arizona a tract of land eqiial to 12,225 sijuare miles, and adding it to the State of Nevada U. S. Laws 1805 and 1806, page 43. Nkv.vd.\— Enabling act approved Alai-ch 21, 1804; Statutes, volume 13, page 30. Duly admitted into the Union. President's proclamation No. 22, dated October 31, 1804. Statutes, Volume 13, jjage 749. CoLOit.vDo.— Enabling act approved March 21, 18G4; Statutes, volume 13, page 32. Not yet admitted. NEBii.i.sK v.— Enabling act approved April 19, 1804; Statutes, volume 13, page 47. Duly admitted into the Union. See President's proclamation No. 9, dateil Maich 1, 1807. U S. Laws 1800 and 1867, page 4. That portion of the District of Columbia south of the Potomac river was retroceded to Vii-ginia Julv 9, 181t;. Statutes, volume 9, ))age 35. *»*BouNDAHiEs.— Commencing at 5P4o', north latitude, ascending Portland channel to the mountains, following their summits to the 141° west longitude; thence north, on this line, to the Arctic ocean, farming the eastern bouudary. Starting from the Arctic ocean west, the line descends iiehring's strait, b«-t\veen the two islands of Krusenstern and Uatmanolf, to the parallel of 6.5'^ 30', and proceeds due north without limitation into the same Arctic ocean, i; ginning again at the same initial i)oint, on. the parallel of 05'^ 3J', thence in a course southwest through Uehring's strait, between the island of St. Lawrence ami Cape Choukotski, to tin-, 172^ degree west longitude: and then(;e southwesterly through Iiehrin,g's sea, between the i.sland ol Attou ami Copper, to the meridian of I9:{^ west longitude; leaving the prolonged group of the Aleutian islands in the possessions now transferred to the United States, and m;iking the western boundary of our country the dividing line between Asia and America. The above table shows but a small portion of the present domain to have been represented in the first Congress of the United S'ates. G6 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. ^ 0 •^ o ~ CO ■« 5 Co — I Tt — o -t CC' -r I— I ^ ir; o ic IS t^ i>. I— I X X IS 'imi '0?. ^nnf Stiipus juoA iGOStj: am uuujav po.fr»A -ans spuT^i ojiqucl jo saaou jo .laquin^ o I--, r-i CO ^- lO ir: I- t— -T'm'^c; o o -^ -jTo (M OCiOCtl— (r-.i— ic:rHr-i;:;{M(M ^ X IS ^T-To x^s'orN i» CC M (M r-i 1— I (N -t lO rH X IS !— O 't -+ o o s iri -T l^ t- X CO If o TL o s S c r: ce E.= ii C/. ^ ^ r- ^ 03 3;= s^ ^ ;= -* o; n r-^ c3 o ci - - ►i. C *^ CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 67 -f ift o o o : . = :=>:: o o Ol O GC 'M GO -f • o . o : ■T o 01 CO o -t -r o : =■ : o : 0^ C3 o .~ O tC "X ^ ^ o : o : -f O o CI '^ c; Vj^rc ;^ o^ : o fco : lO o ClirT— 'x'-M CO : ^ : "f< o o t- i- ui o ;:^ -ri o CO CO - . . • • . . • r^ :lr^o ; tcjosooooooo •X) o -^ : o X -r -h ->] -M i3 --r -T o lO IS c: o X -f i^ "C ri I- o -* I- Ol CO -T< Ol — r-i O — C; 1^ X CI »— < CI " 1 - O O CO 1 - CO oi o •— ^ CO 3 X -* t— Ta" T -^ i.o o r-^ -f CO iM o« ^MC0?NCOOJ0^(MC0CO UO X) -t< r-i t-- .— * ^ O CO C5CO X CO o 00 X o ■•••"■ I— 1 CO n 01 CO ; ^2 o o<_» XTr-^-T^ti'-0-Or--f< I— 1 0?!-^ ^cocoo-icos^oi^coco cr -- 1- -M i: o -M -^ — x X -r C5 .-' o .- o 1C5 I— o n -rci--. i-^ -M '': -' c; — — s o r- c- C5 X O !M ..-I Ci t- CC t^ r^ CC r- !M Ct X f# - CO I-l t^ l-~ 1^ o r-.i-i ■r4 rH LO X cf -*ooc;oooooooooooc o o O -T" X X -r C: X -H -f -M oi O -O -f O -* o C5 cooc;-r--ic:ox)-. : ? : : ~ : ; *^ : ^ : • 1:^ ^1^. I Ti ; -*— ^ 4^ I— '7" J-- \ lllll : £■ : M fe ^ ^ H '^ -- ■ "7. ^ '^' c : c : .§/-- :h ■{ ^ 7^ Eh •r- < — ~ ~ •/ — •/. — -i ^ o < ;^ HI— • ^ 1 s '7^ \sew Orleans and New York, as Paris and Vienna use those of Ilavre and Trieste ; and it will surely one day come to pass that steamers from Europe will enter our great lakes, and be seen booming up the Mississippi. To add strength and conclusiveness to the above facts and deductions, do our readers ask for examples? They are at hand. The first fity of which we have any record is Nineveh, situated on the Tigris, not less than 700 miles from its mouth. Baby- lon, built not long after, was also situated fixr in the interioi', on the river Euphrates. Most of the great cities of antiquity, some of which were of immense extent, wei-e situated in the interior, and chiefly in the vallies of large rivers, meandering through rich aUuvial territories. Such were Thebes, Memphis, Ptole- mais. Of the cities now known as leading centers of commerce, a large majority have been built almost exclusively by domestic trade. VVhat counliy has so many great cities as China, a countr}', until lately, nearly destitute of foreign commei'ce? To bring the comparison home to our readers, we have put down, side by side, the outports and interior towns of the world having each a population of 50,000 and upwards. It should, however, be kept in mind that many of the great seaports have been built, and are now sustained, mainly by the trade of the nations respectively in which they are situated. Even London, the greatest mart in the world, is believed to derive much tho gieatest part of the support of its vast population from its trade with the United Kingdom. OUTPORTS. Population. London 2.000,000 Ji-d.io (?) i,;!no,ooo Calcutta GoO,000 Cons'tinoplt'.. (J0C>.0(K) St.refsburgh 500.000 C;i!iton (?) 500. 0(M) Madras 4r.0.000 Naples ;^r)0.000 Dublin oiiO.OOO New York.. • :)20,000 Lisbon i'.O.OUO Glasnrow 2^0,000 Liverpool 2r)0.000 PhilaiU-lphia.. 250. 000 Kio .JaiiiMro... 200. OOU Amstcnlam ... 200. 0(K) Bombay 200,000 Palermo 170.000 Surut 100,000 INTERIOR CITIES. Population Pekin 1,300,000 Paris 1.000. 000 P.onares ()Olt,000 Han«r-tcheon.. 6O0,0CiO Su-tclieou GOO.OOO Macao 50'',0(HJ Nankin 500,000 Kinof-tchin .... 500 000 Wo'o-tchant]:... 400,000 Vienna 370,000 Cairo 350,000 Patna .320,000 Nan -tciian <,'... 300.000 Kliai-fui)«r 300,000 Fu tcliu 300,000 Liickiiow 300,000 .Moscow 300,000 Berlin 300.000 Manchester.... 250,000 INTERIOR CITIES. Population. Florence 80,000 Uallipolis 80,000 Bucharest 80,000 Munich 80 000 Granada 80,000 Ghent 8'.i.(t(iO La.s.sa 80,000 Cologne 7.5.000 Morocco 75,000 Ferruckabad... 70,000 Peshawen 70.000 Quito 70,000 Barreillv 70,000 Guadahixara.... 70,000 Koenijfsburg.. 70,000 Tur If it be said that the discoveries of the polarit}' of the mag- netic needle, tlie continent of America, and a water passage to India, around the Cape of Good Hope, have changed the char- acter of foreign commerce, and greatl}^ augmented the advan- tages of the cities engaged in it, it may be replied that the inti'oduction of steam in coast and river navigation, and of canals, and railroads, and McAdam roads, all tending to bring into rapid and cheap communication the distant parts of the most extended continent, is a still more potent cause in favor of internal trade and interior towns. The introduction, as instru- ments of commerce, of steamboats, canals, rail, and McAdam roads, being of recent date, thej" have not had time to produce the great results that must inevitablj'flow from them. The last 20 years have been devoted mainl}- to the construction of these labor-saving instruments of commerce; during which time more has been done to focilitate internal trade than had been effected for the thou'^ands of years since the creation of man These machines are but just being brought into use; and he is a bold man who, casting his eye 100 3'ears into the future, shall undertake to tell the pres^ent generation what will bo their effect on our North American valley when their energies shall be brought to bear over all its. broad surface. Let it not be forgotten that, while many other countries have territories bordering the ocean, greatly superior to our Atlantic slope, no one government lias an interior at all worthy a com- l^arison wiih ours. It will be observed that, in speaking of the natural facilities for trade in the North American valley, we have left out of view the 4,000 or 5,000 miles of rich and accessible coasts of our great lakes and their connecting straits. The trade of these inland seas, and its connection vrith that of the Mississippi Yallc}^, are subjects too important to be treated inci- dentally in an article of so general a nature as this. Thej Avell merit a separate notice at our hand:^. Number II.— 1S43. Providence ha-^ evidently designed the tempei'ate regions of the interior of North America lor the residence of a dense population of highly civilized men. Throughout its southern and middle regions, which are elevated but a few hundred feet above the level of the Gulf of j\[exico, the deflected trade wind bears from that sea the vapors which, falling in showers, give fertility to the soil, and swell to navigable size their numerous and almost interminable rivers. Towards the North he has spi'ead out, and connected by navigable straits, great seas of 80 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE, pure water, to equalize and soften the temperature of that com- puratively high latituue, and to aid in irrigating the surrounding countries. And he has so placed these seas as to give them the utmost availability^ for purposes of trade ; for, while they reach to the highest latitude to which profitable cultivation can be carried, they stretch away South almost to the ver}^ heart of the great valle3\ Towards the East they approach the Atlantic, and extend Westward towards the Pacific, more than a third of the distance across the continent. To give the lake and river countries easy access to each other, he has placed them nearly on the same level, and strongly pointed out, and, indeed, in some places, almost finished, the great channels of intercourse between them. To invite and facilitate migration from Europe and the old States, he has provided the St. Lawrence and Missis- sippi rivers, and cut a passage through the Appalachian chain, where flow the turbulent Mohawk and the majestic Hudson. His munificence ends not here. He has diversified its surface with hills, vales, and plains, and clothed them alternately with fine groves of timber and beautiful meadows of grass and flowers. Beneath the soil, the minerals of nearly every geo- logical era, and of every kind which has been made tributary to man's comfort and civilization, are properly distributed. On the north, the waters of the great lakes begin their expansion in a region of primitive formation. Descending thence by the river St. Mary's into, and expanding over, a portion of that great transition limestone bed which forms the basis of the richest soil of the country, and after entering, by their southern- most reach, the coal measures of northern Ohio, they are pre- cipitated over the eastern margin of this great limestone basin at Niagai-a. A few miles distant they again spread out, 330 feet below, in a region of salt-bearing sandstone and shales, and finally pass off to the ocean through a primitive countr3% Thus a great variety of minerals, useful to man, are placed where transportation and exchange are easy and cheap. Kor, in this connection, should be overlooked, among the muliiplied evi- dences of Providential bounties to this favored region, the immense power to move machinery laid up for us at the outlet of Lake Erie. Here is a head of 330 feet, with an inexhaustible supply of pure water, easily and cheaply brought under control, in a healthy and pleasant country, and at the door of the great West. Nor should we omit to mention the harbors for the ship- ping, which abound in the primitive shores to the North, and which are also found at the mouths of all large streams of the transition and secondary region below. Such is the broad patrimony which we are invited to enter upon and improve. Our people have begun to enter into posses- iion. Along the line of the 5,000 or 0,000 miles of habitable CnANQE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 81 shore which is offered to the mariner of these hikes, he may now and then see a cluster of houses, a nascent city; and anon ho may espy small indentations of their forest borders, where farmers have begun to hew their way to independence. The southern shore of Lake Erie, and both shores of Ontario, are so far advanced in settlement that it is easy to anticipate the speedy triumph of the art and industry of man. Alread}', in many places, he has achieved his victory ; for his farms and villages have nearly driven his forest enemy from his sight. Here he has alreadj^ built himself spacious barns and comfort- able dwellings. lie has also made roads on which to carry the produce of his industry to market. More than this : he has built towns, canals, and railroads, constructed and improved numerous harbors, and created a commercial marine that, three centuries ago, would have been a source of pride if possessed by the greatest maritime power in Europe. In anticipation of the early settlement of the fine country bordering these waters, and its capacity to furnish the basis of a large commerce, the Erie Canal was projected and opened. But its banks had hardly become solid, its business been got into train and reduced to system, before the discovery was made that its capacity M'ould little more than suffice for the business of the country through which it runs, and, of course, that it would soon be inadequate to the passage of the trade then just springing up, with imlicalions of a vigorous growth, on the upper lakes. Wild as were thought the virions of Morris and Ciiiiton by the strictly practical men of their day, it turns out that what were considerc^d visions were but practical deductions, falling short of the truth instead of exceeding it. Ten years after the chimerical giand canal was completed, men, having the reputation of being eminently practical, thought they saw the necessity of making it about three times as large, and forth- with entered upon such enlargement. Practical men in other States have believed, perhaps prematurel}-, that such portion of the lake trade as the}' could divert from this New York route would pay them for the outlay of so man}' millions as will be necessary to construct two more canals, and the same number of railroads, from the Alantic to the lake waters. iS'ot only are cities and States entering upon a competition for this trade, but there are indications that a few j'ears will witness an active emulation between the United States and Great Britain, in endeavors, on the one hand, to retain, and, on the other, to acquire it. On all sides it is admitted that the cit}' of the Atlantic coast which receives the bulk of our Easten business will be the leading city of that border; and if it is not now admitted, it will soon be, that the emporium of the Mississippi Valley which commands the best channel of intercourse with 82 eHANOE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. the lakes must bo, and remain, the queen city of the valley. But what is it that makes this lake country of such command- ing importance ? In the first place, it is of great extent. Its navigable shores, including bays and straits, measure more than 5,000 miles. Not only do these command a large countrj- l^'ing back, in many placess, much beyond the head waters of the streams which flow into them, but, by means of valleys, canals, and other artificial aids, no inconsiderable portion of the Missis- sippi Yalley is made tributary to their commerce. This is owing to their affording the cheapest and best route to New York and Canada. Even with the small canal between Buffalo and Albany, levj'ing tolls high enough to have already paid for its construc- tion, we find a strong inclination to that route, not only for the foreign and Eastern manufactures that are purchased in the great Atlantic emporium, and brought into the lake and Mississippi vallej's, but for the farming produce of sections of country that formerly floated it down to' New Oi'leans. This is strongly exemplified on the Ohio Canal, the lake end of which receives of the agricultural productions transported oa it more than twelve times as much in value as the Ohio river termination. We have examined the receipts by canal, at Cleveland and Portsmouth, for the six past years — the only 3-ears for which the board of public works have given full returns — and the result shows the above proportion. For those six years, Cleveland received of wheat 8,325,022 bushels. Portsmouth " " 4,193 " Cleveland " flour 2,199,542 barrels. Portsmouth " " 149,645 " When the Erie Canal shall be made three times its original size, through its whole length, to Buffalo, or from Albany to Syracuse, with, an equivalent enlargement of the Oswego Canal, the cost of transportation on it will be materially diminished, so as to draw trade to the lakes from a still more extended por- tion of the great valley. This tendency will be increased by the facilities which the Canadian improvements will give the lake ports, to make shipments direct to foreign ports ; and it will, in like manner, be greatly strengthened by the completion of the AV abash and Erie Canal, which comes first into operation the present season ; and by the Miami Canal, which will connect Cincinnati with the lake, by a direct communication of only 235 miles in length, and which will be in operation in the summer of 1844:. Until the cities and towns of the central valley become numerous and largo enough to consume most of its agricultural surplus, the main exertions of her people will be properly directed to the construction and improvement of channels for its transport, by way of the lakes, to Quebec, New York, and Boston. CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 83 The country lying north and northwest of the lake;^, to an almost infinite extent, must carry on its main exchanges through these waters. This, though new and little improved, will, at no very distant da}-, become populous and powerful. Before the late troubles, the migration to Upper Canada from the United King- dom was unexampled in the history of colonization, being, some seasons, upwards of 50,000 annually. Quiet being again restoi-ed, the current in that direction is becoming stronger than ever. The soil of the countries bordering the lakes is, in general, of the most fertile character; and the climate, for health and pleasantness, equal to that of any part of the continent, except, perhaps, the table lands of Mexico. They join, and are in the same latitude, with those Atlantic States having the densest population and the greatest wealth; and the expenditure of time and money to change a residence from these to the lake borders is now small, and is every j'car becoming less. The main cur- rent of surplus population has for several years flowed from those States into the lake region ; and that current will grow wider, and deeper, and stronger, in proportion to the removal of obstacles impeding its progress. Now let us sec what means are in course of preparation for making easy and cheap the intercourse between the lakes and the Atlantic States. First in importance is the enlarged Erie Canal. This work is now in progress, and it will probably be finished, as far as its connection with the Oswego Canal at Sj'ra- cuse, in- two years. By that time, it is hoped, the Oswego branch will also be enlarged to the same size. Its dimensions are 70 feet in width, 7 feet in depth, with double locks through- out, large enough to pass vessels of 150 tons. Next in importance, when finished, will be the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, with its continuation from Pittsburgh to Cleve- laiul. This Avill be a continuous line of canal, about 520 miles in length, connecting tide water at Baltimore, and Georgetown with Lake Erie, at Cleveland. Its dimensions vary from 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep to 60 feet wide by 6 feet deep; averaging, say 50 feet wide and 5 feet deep. The Pennsylvania line of canal and railroad will unite with the foregoing at Pittsburgh, and from tide water at Philadelphia to Cleveland will be aljout 570 miles long. These are the rival canal routes in the States for the trade of the lakes. Let them stand together, that we ma}- see how the}' compare ; Length. Size. Lockage. Tr'shipm. Mik-s. Feet. Feet. No. 1. Erie Canal, from 151111:110 to Allcniy... 363 70 by 7 GS8 None. 2. Cliesapoake and Oliio. ;iih1 Malioning and Oliio Ciinal. to ('l.'vrlniKl 520 50 by 5 4,500 3 3. Pesinsvjvania Works, and Maliouiiig and Ohio Canal, to Cleveland 570 40 by 4 5,000 3 Distance. Size of Canal. Size of Locks . Milea. Feet. Feet. 508 70 by 7 120 hy 24 84 CHANGE OP NATIONAL EMPIRE. It is a contrast rather than a comparison. If, however, the other routes were to afford equal facilities for business, that to New Tork would have a decided preference, because it leads to that established and controlling mart. But the Erie Canal is to have a formidable foreif;;n rival. Canals are in process of con- struction around the rapids of St. Lawrence, of a size, and with locks, large enough to admit large steamboats; and the Welland Canal and locks are also being made capable of passing small steam vessels, and sailing vessels of 300 tons. These, when completed, will give entrance at once to foreign vessels of 1,000 tons burden to Lake Ontario, and of 300 tons to the ports of Lake Erie. These works are vigorouslj' going forward to com- pletion, the money necessary for that purpose being pledged under a guarantee of the home government. Many expect them to be finished in about two years; but we fear this expecta- tion is over-sanguine. A comparison of the Now York and Canada routes would stand thus : From Lake Erie to Xew York, by canal and Hudson River — Length Lake No of of Canal, and River. L'kage. Tr'shipm. Miles. Miles. Feet. 360 145 688 1 From entrance of NYelland Canal on Lake Erie, to Montreal— 407 100 by 10 200 by 50 GO^^ 346 517 None. The locks of the "Welland Canal are being constructed 122 feet long in the chamber and 26 feet wide. It will be seen that we have set down the size of the Erie Canal as if enlarged all the way to Lake Erie ; and the size of the Canadian locks, on tho St. Lawrence, as if continued to the same lake. We have ect down but one transhipment against the New York route by Buffalo; whereas, in regard to all freights coming from other ports of the upper lakes, there will, ot course, bo a reshipment at Buffalo, as well as at Troy or Albany. Let us see how the New York route, by Oswego, will compare with that of the St. Lawrence : From exit of Welland Canal, in Lake Ontario, to New Yorli — Size of Size of Length Lake and Rcship- Distance. Canal. Locks. of Canal. River. Lockage, ments. 504miles. 70by7feet. 120by24feet. 209 miles. 295mile5. 551 feet. 2 From exit of Welland Canal, in Lake Ontario, to Montreal — 379 miles. llObylOft. 200 by 50 feet. 32^ miles. 347 miles. IBS J ft. None, In a report of the Board of Directors of the "Welland Canal, in 183'), it is stated that "mex'chandiso from London would be conveyed to Cleveland for £2 10s. per ton," when the St. Law- CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 85 rence should be ronderod navigable to the lakes b}' the works now in process of construction. This would be 54 cents per 100 lbs., not above two-thirds its present cost from New York. If this statement be not greatly erroneous, European goods will be delivei'ed at the ports of Lake Erie, on the completion of the Canadian canals, cheaper than at the port of New Orleans. The railroads made, and in progress, to connect the ocean and the lakes, are: 1st, tliat from Buffalo to Albany-, and thence by brandies to Boston, New York, and all the largo towns of New England and the State of Now York; 2d, the Hudson and Erie, from Dunkirk to the Hudson; 3d, the Sunburj-, from Erie to Philadelphia, and 4th, the Baltimore and Ohio, which, beginning at Baltimore and Washington, will, one day, terminate on Lake Erie, at Cleveland and Maumee; the former branch passing through Pittsburgh, the latter through Wheeling. Of these routes, that passing along near the line of the Erie Canal pos- sesses nearly the same advantage over the others, as that canal has been shown to attbrd over her would-be rivals of Pennsyl- vania and Maryland. It avoids the ascent and descent of the Alleghany Mountains, and, passing along a level country, is much Btraighter, is made and kept in repair at much less expense, and, of course, will allow a greater speed to the locomotives that fly along its track. Such are the great works made and making; and for whom? Surelv nob for the two or three millionH that, within a few years past, have fixed their home in the lake countries. No! but for the anticipated tens of millions of intelligent and industrious freemen, who will, as a moderate forecast enables men to nee, in no long course of years, spread over and clear and cultivate and beautify ther-e pleasant and fertile shores. Whatever other error may arise from making the past a basis of calculation for the future, that of a too sanguine estimate could hardly be com- mitted, in treating of any civilized country of the present day, much less of ours, the most rapidly ])rogressive of the whole family of nations. To exhibit the growth of the principal upper lake towns, from 1830 to 1840, we here give their population at those periods : 1830. Buffalo 8,653 Erie 1,329 Cleveland* I,(i76 Sandusky Ciiy 400 Lower Sandusky.... 3.51 Kerrvsburjj 1S2 Mauinve City 200 Toledo 30 1840. 18,213 3.412 7,(548 1,433 1,117 1,005 1,290 2,053 1830. Detroit 2,222 Monroe 500 Chicago 100 Milwaukee 20 Huron 75 12,221 3G,231 2,917 12,221 1840. 9,102 1,703 4.470 1,712 1.488 18 476 36.231 • Including Ohio City. Total 15,138 54,706 86 CHANGE OP NATIONAL EMPIRE. Showing an increase which, if the numerous villages that have commenced their existence since 1830 were added, would more than quadruple their numbers in ten years. The increase of business oa the upper lakes has been in a greater ratio than even ten to one. Indeed, it has nearly all grown up since 1830. If the reader doubt this, let him examine and compare the account of the collector of canal tolls at Buffalo for that year wiih that for the past season, and add to the last the produce passing through the TVelland Canal. But it should not bo forgotten that, while the relative amount of produce of the soil, in proportion to the population, is rapidly augmenting, our cities and towns are beginning to receive a large accession of mechanics, manufacturers, and other business men, which will more and more tend by its increase to keep down exports to the East. The intercourse between the agri- cultural and manufacturing regions of our country will doubtless increase as fast, and be productive of as much mutual benefit, as any friend of both sections now anticipates ; but the home trade within the limits of our North American valley will grow much faster, and possess a vigor as superior to the former as do the great arteries near the heart of those of the lin bs of the human system. Western commerce with the Atlantic border is anal- ogous to that of the Eastern and Middle States with Europe. This trade has had a rapid development, but by no means in proportion to the augmentation of that with their own coast and interior. The foreign commerce of Philadelphia, for instance, is no greater than it was in 1787, when the popula- tion of the city and liberties did not exceed 40,000, while its home trade has increased tenfold, and its population become more than five times 40,000. It will probably suprise many of our readers to be informed that the exports and imports of our upper lake region, the past season, have probably exceeded in value those of all ihe colonies on an average of six yeai's pre- ceding 1775. According to Pitkin, the annual exports from the colonies, of those six years, amounted to £1,752,142, and the imports to £2,732,036. The average annual amount of the exports and imports of this upper lake country for the last three years Avould be estimated low at ^20,000,000. Such are the results of the infantile labors of the young Hercules of the lakes. The basins of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi constitute neai'ly all the great interior valley. Each of these basins, when settled to a fair extent, will have a vast commerce of its own ; and it will be interesting to ascertain through what channels and through what towns the great intercourse that will naturally grow up between them will be carried on. The time will come, within the present century, when the trade between the northern CHANGE OP NATIONAL EMPIRE, 87 and southern portions of the Korth American valley will become more important than that of the whole valley, with the Eastern States and Europe. Until that period arrives, the channels which command most of the Eastern business will be of para- mount importance. Let us examine the relative claims of those now used and soon to be prepared for use. Coming from the East, the first improved communication con- necting lake and river trade is the Genesee Vallej' and Olean Canal. This will compete with the canal from Erie, for the supply of Eastern and European manufjxctures to much of Western Pennsylvania. In the intercourse between Pittsburgh and the upper lakes, which must soon be of great importance, the channels terminating at Erie and Cleveland will be rivals. To determine which of these is best, requires a more minute knowledge of them than wo possess. Supposing them equal, Cleveland being the largest town, and the best mart for such manufactures as Pittsburgh exports, will be sure to attract the greatest portion of this trade. The Ohio Canal, from Cleveland to Portsmouth, on the Ohio, with its arms to Pittsburgh, to Marietta, and to Athens on the Hocking, furnishes an ample highway for the interchange of productions between the lake regions, and the East and the river regions, embracing Southeastern Ohio, Southwestern Pennsyl- vania, and Western Virginia. This it holds without having or fearing a rival, IIow far down in Ohio can its exports from the lakes be carried? This can be ascertained, with some degree of certainty, by comparing it with the Miami Canal route. The Miami Canal, connecting the lake at Maumee with the Ohio at Cincinnati, embraces at its north end 60 miles of what is known as the Wabash and Erie Canal. It is completed, with the exception of 85 miles, which is to bo constructed within the next year. The Eastern trade, by way of the Ohio and Miami Canals, will probably meet on the Ohio, above Maysville. Lot us see : Miles. TT-rM,, T.iL-,. TT-;,. of r^i>„^io„.i / By Oliio Canal to Portsmouth 30G From Lake Ene, at Cleveland. | jjj, ^j^j^ ^.^^^ ^^^^ ^^ Maysville 47 Total 353 From Lake Erie, at Maumee, jg>' AV-^J.^''"^^ to Cincinnati.. ^, «., .uxauvi^v^., | jjy qjhq Kivcr up to Maysvillc. 235 G6 Total 301 DiflFerence in favor ot Miami route 53 Sixty miles of the Miami Canal (the Wabash and Erie portion) is more than twice as large as the Ohio Canal. The lockage on the Miami Canal is (several hundred feet less than it is on the 68 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. Ohio Canal. The conclusion seems unavoidable that the Miami route will send its lake productions and Eastern business as far up the Ohio as Maysville. V/hat will be the limit of its control of this business, South and Southwest? Following the shores of the lakes Westward from Maumee Ba}-, one will look in vain for any rival channel between the lakes and the Mississippi waters, before reaching the Illinois Canal, at Chicago. Iho Miami Canal can have no rival in the Eastern business of at least 10,000 square miles of Ohio, the southeastern portion, or 9,000 square miles of Indiana, and nearlj' the whole of Ken- tucky. It remains to show where the trade from Lake Erie, by way of the Miami Canal, will probably meet, on equal terms, the eame trade by wa}'^ of the Illinois Canal, on the Mississippi waters; in other words, what portion of the great river valley will be likely to use the one or the other in the transaction of its Eastern business ? Will the place at which they may meet on equal terms be at the mouth of the Cumberland river? The Cumberland waters a large extent of fertile country, affords good navigation, and has upon its banks., besides many other thriving towns, the important commercial city of JSIashville. We will place the distances by the two routes side by side. Lake Erie is the common starting point j for upon her waters must merchandise first come, whether the Erie Canal or St. Lawrence be the channel through which it has been transported: JjciUe Efie fo the mouth of Cumberland River ^ hy way of Miami Canal. Miles. From Manmee harbor to Cincinnati, by canal 285 " Cincinnati to the mouth of Cumberland, by river.. 449 Total 684 By way of Illi-nois Canal. From Lake Erie to Chicajro, by tlie lakes 750 " Chicago to lower end of Illinois ('anal 300 " thence to mouth of Illinois River 267 " thence down the Missiissippi to mouth of Ohio 209 " thence up the Ohio to the mouth of Cumberland 57 Total V 1,383 Diflerence in favor of Miami route 699 It will be observed that the Illinois route has an excess of 86 miles of river navigation over the ^Miami channel, some of which is inferior to that of the lower Ohio. This will, in part, go to balance the excess of canal on the Miami route. The Cumber- land Yalley, then, clearly belongs to the Eastern rival. But here comes the more important Tennessee, a river longer than the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Tagus, and navigable into the rich cotton regions of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. CHANGE OP NATIONAL EMPIRE. 89 This is a prize worth contondin' its fertile and extensive valley Avith the large amount of luorchandiso which its ample moans and civilized wants will require? There are but 13 miles separating the mouths of the Cumberland and the Tennessee, so that the Illi- nois channel gains but 26 miles in comparison with the route just detailed. Still will this route have a balance against it of 673 miles, as compared with its rival, which the following figures will show : Miles. From Lake Erie to mouth of Tennessee, by Chicapfo 1,370 " " » >• " Miami and Cincinnati.. 697 Difference in favor of Miami route 673 We now descend to where the Ohio joins the Father of Waters. Will the trade of the East, through Lake Erie, reach this point? It has already, to some extent, passed out of the Ohio, both up and down the Mississippi, and by a course more circuitous and expensive than either of those I am now comparing, to-wit : that by the Ohio Canal. Let the comparison, then, be made at this point between our rivals. From the mouth of the Ten- nessee to the Mississippi the distance is 44 miles : Miles. From Lake Erie to mouth of Ohio, by Cliicago and St. Louis 1,326 " '* " " Maumee and Cincinnati 741 Difference in favor of the latter route 5S5 In going up the Mississippi, we must, of course, come to the point where the advantages of the two routes will be equal. la that point at St. Louis ? Miles From Lake Erie to St. Louis, by f'hioaofo 1,150 " " " Miami Canal and Ohio and Miss.... 917 Difference 233 Thus it appears that St. Louis will have a choice of two nearly equally desiralde routes of communication with New York, by way of Lake Erie. Another route from Lake Erie to St. Louis, by way of the Wabash and Erie Canal, would be much bettor. Miles. From ^faumpp to Covington, on WabaRh, by canal 270 " Covington by proposed rail to St. Louis 196 Whole distance 460 On the whole, it seems to us quite plain that of all the chan- nels of trade now open and being opened in our extensive 6 90 CUANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. countiy, no one of the same extent is destined to be the medium of such extensive commercial operations as the canal which con- nects, by the shortest route, Lake Erie with Cincinnati. When the day shall arrive that witnesses the predominance of the home trade of the North American valley over that which is carried on with the Eastern States and with Eui'ope, and the intercourse between the northern and southern portions of it takes the place of that which now is carried on with the old States ; and when, also, the shores of the upper lakes shall be- brought under cultivation, and become densel}^ settled, the just claims of the Chicago route to participate largely in the trade between the lakes and the central and lower Mississippi Yalley will be greatly enlarged. Then she will be the port from which supplies of Southern productions will bo drawn for all the borders of the great Lakes Michigan and Superior, and the northern shores of Lakes Huron and L'oquois, and through which will be sent southward most of the surplus productions of those extensive regions. But the Miami Canal, as soon as completed, will fall into possession of a well-peopled and highly-cultivated region of great extent, whose productions will rush through, from both extremes, the moment it is rendered navigable, is^ot less than two millions of people, living in the southwestern part of Ohio, the southeastern part of Indiana, and almost throughout the entire States of Kentucky and Tennessee, will mal:e it the medium through which their imports from Xew York will be received; and not less than one million, living on the borders of the lakes, will depend on it for the introduction of sugar, cotton, rice, and other peculiar productions of the South. If the agri- cultural productions put afloat upon it incline as strongly for a market to the lake end of this as of the Ohio Canal (and we cannot doubt that they will still more so, for it is a better and more direct canal, being 71 miles shorter), then will they pass along its whole line, from south to north, embracing the vast surplus gathered in at Cincinnati. From the lake there will be sent up this canal, besides merchandise, great quantities of pine lumber, building stone ( which abounds near its northern termi- nation), mineral coal, salt, gypsum, lake-fish^ and doubtless many other articles. It seems clear, then, that, of all the thoroughfares provided for the promotion of trade between the lake aiiu the river valleys of tLo "West, the ^lanii Cr.rUil is to be by far the most important. But there are rivals in the New York trade with the river valley, which nowhere touch the lakes or the Erie Canal. These are, first, the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, by canals and rail- roads; and, second, the Ocean, Gulf, and Piver route, hy way of New Oi'leans. It remains to compare these with the Miami channel. CHAXGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. ' 91 The present leading emporium of river commerce, Cincinnati, will be the assumed point of receipt and shipment. For expense of the carriage of oroods (TOO pounds) at present rate«, from New \oik to Mauuiee, 800 miles SO Insurance of 100 pounds at one-half ot one per cent, on estimated average value of $10 OS From iluumee to Cincinnati, by ilianai Caual, 2;J5 miles 45 Amount $1 2i By Philadelphia and Pittsburgh from New York, the freight and •barges will be — To Philadelphia, per 100 pounds 13 "Pittsburgh, '• " $110 " Cincinnati, '• " 20 " Insurance of 100 pounds at 1^ per cent, on SIO.. 20 Amount $1 62 The time required by each will be nearly the same when the Ohio is in good navigable condition. It is, however, well known that the river between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati is not to be telied on for any considerable portion of the season, when the Pennsylvania canals are navigable; and the merchant, who, above all things, desires certainty and expedition in his opera- tions, will hardly decline the reliable and safe route by the lake, in favor of the more uncertain and hazardous one by the Ohio river. For his earliest spring supplies, be will doubtless receive a small stock by the Pennsylvania and Baltimore routes; but for his main supply, he will as certainly adopt the safest and cheapest channel. Which of these routes will be the best for the ■urplus of agriculture shipped to 'Nevf York ? Contracts by responsible lines have been made for the transportation of flour, from Lafayette, on the Wabash, to J^ew York, for from §1 45 to SI 50 per barrel. The distance from Lafayette to Maumee is 215 miles, 20 miles less than from Cincinnati. Wc will, thero- fore, put the co:st of sending a barrel of flour — From Cincinnati to New York, at $1 55 rUp the Ohio to Pittsburgh 4Z Pittsburgh route-! Canal and railroad to Phdadelphia $1 10 (.Thence to New York 13 Total per barrel $1 67 The difi'erence in the cost of insurance would ordinarily be 6 or 8 cents in favor of the lake route. On pork and other artielas, the proportion of expense would bo about the came. 92 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. Let a comparison now bo instituted between the lake and ocean routes; and, first, in the transport of goods Westward: From New York by Lake Erie, as before detailed, cost per 100 lbs... $1 33 f New York to New Orleans 25 T> onri T-NrnT. J Ncw Orlcaus to Cj iioiuiiaM 63 By ocean ana river ^ insurance to New Orleans, 2 per cent, on $16... 33 Insurance to Cincinnati " "... 32 I Total $1 53 As most of the goods bought in New York for the Cincinnati market would greatly exceed in value our estimate of $16 per 100 pounds, the interior route will have, in I'egard to all such, a still greater advantage over that by the ocean, and in propor- tion to the excess of cost above that sum. Productions sent for theWest, having greater weight and bulk in proportion to their value than merchandise coming the other ■wa_y, can better afford to pay insurance ; and, other things being equal, would incline to the iNew Orleans outlet as the cheapest. The cost of taking flour to the New York market, from all places on the Ohio below Cincinnati ( at which point it will be about equal), will be less this way than by the Miami Canal. But flour taken from the West, through New Orleans, brings less in the great Northern markets than that which goes by ihe lakes, by more than the ordinary cost of carriage from the mouth of the Ohio to Cincinnati. This is well known to be owing to the great liability to damage in going through a hot climate. As a final mai'ket, New Orleans is, in general, very fluctuating and uncertain. These facts assure us that nearly all the surplus flour, within reach of the canals leading from the lakes into the Mississippi Yalle}', will take the northern road to market. For safety from the bursting of boilers, there is no Bteam navigation in the States, and perhaps not in the world, equal to that of the lakes. On the ocean the use of salt watex-, and on the Western rivers the use of muddy water, for the boilers, has probably occasioned a large proportion of the explo- sions that have so greatly augmented the risk of navigation on the Mississippi waters. The pure water of the lakes has proved eminently favorable to safe steam navigation; and the numerous harbors along the American shore of Lake Erie have lessened the risk, and given it an advantage in that respect over the others — Ontario, perhaps, excepted. But it may bo said that, at no distant day, a large portion of the producticms of foreign countries brought into the great Western marts for sale will bo imported directl}^ from the regions in which they are produced, and that the assuming of CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 93 New York as the great center of supply will fail in regard to these, and thus atfect the conclusions heretofore drawn. An examination of the various inlets to this foreign trade will not, however, much vary the results on the routes we have con- trasted and compared. Is the St. Lawrence, the route for the European supplies, adopted ? The Miami and Illinois Canals will still be the channels for its transport to a great part of the Mississippi Valle3\ Is the Mississippi the chosen channel for the introduction of what are usually called West India and South American products to the upper lakes? Still are these the only rivals in their transportation. 'Will the Mississippi challenge a comparison with the St. Lawrence, in our anticipated European trade? Such comparison can only result in the triumph of her northern rival. It would not beditRcult to prove that, when the canals now being made around the obstructions to navigation from Montreal to the upper lakes shall be finished, so as to admit sea-going vessels to their ports, freight and insurance between Liverpool and the ports of Cleveland, Maumee, and perhaps Chicago, will be lower than to the port of Now Orleans. The distance from England or France, by the St. Lawrence, to the ports of Lake Erie, is less, by more than 1,100 miles, than to New Orleans by the Gulf of Mexico. Of the St. Lawrence route, the distance by river and canal, requiring the aid of Bteam or horse power, may be about 200 miles; and by the Mis- sissippi, from its mouth to New Orleans, upwards of 100 miles. The advantage possessed by the latter of the saving of tolls can hai'dly be an offset against the 1,100 miles additional length of vo3'ago. Each route will have some peculiar advantage. The northern will build, man, and own, the shipping employed on it; whereas the southern will depend on ships foreign to her port. The southern will be open all the year; whereas th« northern will be barred by ice half the year. The favorable effect upon a trade, of being carried on by a maritime people in their own vessels, from their own ports, is made manifest by contrasting the trade of I3oston and Portland with that of Charleston and New Orleans. As New Orleans depends mainly on Northern and European vessels to carry on her coastwise and foreign commerce, the lakes can furnish her with their vessels from the middle of November to the middle of April, a ■easou most favorable for the trade of that port, but of entire idleness to lake vessels that do not seek employment on the open seas of more sunny climes. 94 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. Number III.— 1S43. Tho increasing tendency to reside in towns and cities which is manifested by tho inhabitants of all countries, as they make progress in the arts and refinements of civilization, is sufficiently obvious to most men who think on the subject. But it is not so apparent, to those whose attention has not been particularly turned to tho matter, that tho improvements of the last century have so much strengthened that tendency as almost to make it seem like a new principle of society, growing out of the com- bined agency of steam power and machinor3^ Mr, Hume, who had as clear apprehension of the relations of tho vari- ous conditions of societ}^, and the operation of the causes modifjdng them, as any man of his time, expresses the opinion that no city of antiquity probably ever contained more inhabitants than London, which at the time he wrote, near one hundred j'cars ago, was estimated at 800,000. He thought thoro were internal and inherent causes to check and stop the growth of the most favorably situated cities ■when they reached that size. Taking the then existing con- dition of society as the basis of his reasoning, it seems probable that he judged correctly. Neither the spinning jenny, nor the power loom, nor the steam engine, nor the canal, nor the McAdam road, nor the railway, had then been brought into use; nor had tho productive power of the soil, aided by science and art, been, at that time, tasked to its utmost to bring forth human sustenance. Mr. Hume looked with the eye of a philosopher on the past and the present; but, in predicting of the future, his mistakes were nearly as numerous as his vaticinations. To judge of the future b}^ the past may seem safe and philosophie to those who believe not in the certain advance of mankind towards a more perfect condition of nature. So to judge wat in accordance with the skeptical mind of Mr. Hume. Let us avoid, so far as wo may, his mistake ; though to us it seems not practicable to avoid falling into some degree of error of tho same sort when we undertake to foretell future conditions and events in a rapidly progressive community. What has been the effect of the improvements, phj'sical and moral, of the past century, on the growth of towns? and what is likely to be their future effect, aided by other and probably greater improvements, on the growth of towns, during the hun- dred years to come? Wo define town to mean any place numbering 2,000 or more inhabitants. It is to Great Britain we are to look for the main evidences of tho effects of tho labor- saving improvements of the last century. The first canal was commenced in that country by the Duke of Bridgewater, no longer ago than 1760. The invention of the spinning jenny, CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 95 by Hargrcavcs, followed seven years after. Not long after this, the spinning frame was contrived by the ingenuity of Arkwright. In 1775, Mr. Crompton produced the machine culled the mule, a combination of the two preceding. Some time afterwards, Mr. Cartwright invented the power loom, but it was not until after 1820 that it was brought into general use. The steam engine, the moving power of all this machiner}-, was so improved by Watt, in 1785, as to entitle him to claim, for all important prac- tical purposes, being its inventor. At the same time that these great inventions were being brought into use, the nation was making rapid progress in the construction of canals and roads, and in the duplication of her agricultural products. Indeed, great part of her works to cheapen and facilitate internal trade, including her canals, her McAdani roads, and her railwa3'S, have been constructed within the last thirty years. The effect of these, in building up towns, is exemplified by the following facts: Mr. Slaney,"M. P., stated in the House of Commons, in Maj-, 1830, that, 't receive 16,500,000 in addition to the 100 CHANGE OP NATIONAL EMPIRE. 10,000,000 it now has. The towns, in the same time, will have an increase of 26,000,000, in addition to the 500,000 now in them. Where will these towns be, and in what proportion will they possess the 26,500,000 inhabitants ? These are interesting questions, and not so impracticable of an approximately correct solution as, at first blush, they may seem. One of them will be either St. Louis or Alton. Everybody will be ready to admit that. Still more beyond the reach of doubt or cavil is Cincinnati. We might name also Pitti^burgh and Louisville ; but we trust that our readers, who havt^ followed us through our former articles, are ready to concur in the opinion that the greatest cily of the Mississippi basin w^ill be either Cincinnati or the town near the mouth of the Missouri, be it Alton or St. Louis. Within our period of forty-seven years, we have no doubt it will be Cincinnati. She is now in the midst of a population so great and so thriving, and, on the completion of the Miami canal, which will be within two j'ears, she will so monopolize the exchange commerce at that end of the canal between the river and lake regions, that it is not reasona- ble to expect that she can be overtaken by her Western rival lor half a century. But such has been the influx of settlers within the last few years to the lake region, and so decided has become the tendency of the production of the upper and middle regions of the great valley to seek a market at and through the lakes, that we can no longer withstand the conviction that, even within the short period of forty-seven years, a town will grow up on the lake border greater than Cincinnati. The following facts, it is believed, will force the same conviction to our readers : The States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, are bordered by both lake and river. All have large river accommodation, but Illinois has it to an unrivaled extent, whereas it has but one lake port. Now let us see what has been the relative and positive growth of the river region and lake region of those States, from 1830 to 1S40. Southern Ohio, including all south of the National road, and the counties north of that road which touch the Ohio river, had, in 1830, 550,000 inhabitants, and in 1840 730,000; showing an increase of 180,000 — equal to 333 per cent. North- ern Ohio, in 1830, numbered but 390,000, which in 1840 had increased to 805,000; exhibiting an inci-ease of 415,000, or 105 per cent. In 1830, Southern Ohio had 160,000 more than Northern Ohio; whereas, in 1840, the latter excelled the former 75,000. The preponderance of the lake region has not been owing to the superiority of its soil, or the beauty of its surface ; for, iu these respects, it is inferior to its Southern rival. CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 101 Let us now see how the river and lake regions of Indiana com- pare, in 1830 and 1840. The National road is the dividing line : Southern Indiana had in 1S30 252,000 NortluM-n Indiana liad in 1830.... S >,000 Southern Indiana had in 1840 3!J7,0U0 Northern Indiana had in 1840 278,000 Southern Indiana, in 1S30 ;;;;;;;; j;J^;g;;j;| Gain 145,000, or 5S per cent. Nortliern Indiana had in 1S;{|» S!).Oi)U\ Showinjr a or;ihi of 189,000, or " "1840 278,000/ 212 per cent. Such has been the rapidity of settlement of the northern counties of Indiana, for the three years since the census was taken, that we cannot doubt that the north has nearly over- taken, in positive numbers, the south half. Illinois exhibits the preference given for the lake region in a still more striking manner. A line drawn along the north boundaries of Edgar and Coles counties, and thence direct to the town of Quincy, on the Mississippi, will divide the State into two nearly equal parts. The three counties of Morgan, Sangamon, and j\[acon, we divide equally, and give tvvo-thirds of Adams to the north and one-third to the south. Southern Illinois had in 1S30 122,7.32 Northern Illinois had in 1830 33,8j2 Southern lilinoi> iiad in 1840 242,873 Northern Illinois liad in 1S40 232,222 Southern Illinois, in 1830 122.732 \ Showing a ofain of 120,141, equal ISIO 242,873 r to 97 per cent. Northern Illinois had in 18::0 33,852 iSho\vin Cleveland " '• 4,431,731> The other articles of breadstuffs and provisions received at New Oi'leans during that year from the interior arc of small amount, and obviously not sufficient for the consumption of the city. Not so with Cleveland. The other articles of grain and provisions, shipped last year from this port, added to the above, Avill throw the balance decidedly in her favor. If we suppose,, what can not but be true, that all the other ports of the upper lakes sent eastward as much as Cleveland, wo have the startling fact that the lake country, but yesterday brought under our notice, already sends abroail more than twice the amount of human food that is shipped from the great exporting city of New Orleans, the once-vaunted sole outlet of the Mississippi valle}'. Another striking fact, in favor of the position that on the lakes are to be the leading commercial cities of our valley, is the growth of Cleveland, compared with Portsmouth. Whoa 104 GRANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. the Ohio canal was completed, that portion of the State traversed by it, lying nearest to Portsmouth, was superior in popuhition and productiveness to that which was nearest Cleveland. Portsmouth is at the river end of the canal, and Cleveland at the lake end : Portsmouth, including the township in which it is situated, num- bered, in 1830 1,464 In 1S4U 1'844 Increase of Portsmouth, including the township, in ten j'ears 380 Cleveland village numbered, in 1830 1,076 city, including Ohio* City, in 1840 7,64S Increase of Cleveland in ten years 7,572 The case of Alton and Chicago is calculated to illustrate the same position. The former is eo finely situated on the Missis- sippi, just above the entrance of the turbulent Missouri, at the best point for concentrating the river trade on all sides, and doing the business of one ot the finest and best settled portions of LlTinois, that we have thought it might yet excel St. Louis, and perhaps rival Cincinnati. The country in its rear was set- tled long before that Ij-ing back of Chicago, and Alton, in consequence, sooner became an important commercial point. How many inhabitants it had in 1830, we have at hand no means of ascertaining. Certain it is that, at that time, it was far more populous than Chicago : In 1840, Alton numbered '---^-lO Cliicago " 4,4<0 Two short canals — one of about one hundred miles, connect- ing the Illinois canal with the Mississipin, at or near the mouth of^Rock river; and the other of about one hundred and seventj^-five miles, connecting the southern termination of the Wabash and Erie canal, at Terre Haute, with the Missis- sippi at Alton — would, with the canals already finished or in progress, secure to the lakes not less, probably, than three- fou^ths of all the external trade of the river valley With the Wabash and Kfie, and the Miami canal brought fairly into ope- ration, the lakes will make a heavy draft on the trade of the river valley; and every canal, and railroad, and good highway, carried from the lakes, or lake improvements, into that valley, will apolize all the trade of that region, but they will have at •Ohio City is separated from Cleveland only by a rarrow stream, and has grown since 1830. CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 105 least half Iho trade of the river region. They will be nearer and more accessible to the great marts of trade and commerce of the old States and the old world, and this advantage will be o-rowing, in consequence of the progressive removal of impedi- ments to navigation between the lakes and the ocean. The facts we have adduced, taken altogether, seem conclusive in favor of the lake towns. As a body, they come out of the investigation decidedly triumphant. But how shall wo decide on their relative merits? There are several whose citizens would claim pre-eminence for each — Oswego, Buffalo, Cleveland, the Maumee town (be it Maumee City or Toledo), Detroit, and Chicago. Unless we have failed in our opening article. New Orleans, Montreal, and Quebec, although destined greatly to increase in size and wealth, may be left out of the contest. Oswego has a fine position as a point of shipment between the lakes and the Eastern States ; and, on the completion of the enlarged Welland canal, she will pi'obably gain rapidly on Buffalo in amount of goods for wanted ^Yest and produce of the lakes sent to the Hudson. Her water-power will enable her to com- pete successfully with Eochester in the manufacture of flour, and it must, before many years, be used extensively^ in other manu- factures. As a point for the wholesale or jobbing of goods, she will be infoi'ior to Buffalo. But both towns are too near and too convenient to New York and Boston to become great marts for the sale of European and Eastern manufactures. Buffalo, in her suburb of Black Eock, has an almost exhaustless water-power, which, long within the period of forty-seven years, will make her a considerable manufacturing town. If the Erie canal enlarge- ment should be delayed many yeai's after the completion of the AVelland canal, it would not surprise us to see Oswego overtake Buffalo in size and business. Buffalo has a cramped harbor, and, like Oswego, she has but a small country in her rear to sustain her trade. Her position for carrying on "foreign trade, after the enlargement of the Welland canal, will be less favorable than Cleveland, Maumee, Detroit, or Chicago. But, before entering on the compai'ison of Buffalo and Cleveland, it will be well to lay down some principles that may be reasonably supposed to control or influence their future growth. And first, it may be asserted that a position favorable to an interchange of productions of a large country lying about it, is more advantageous than a situation wliich merely favors the passage of a great amount of productions through it. Bos- ton and Charleston will illustrate this principle. The former exchanges, in her own market, the productions gathered into it from the coast, from the interior, and from foreign countries. Charleston is far less a gathering point of commodities, but has a much larger value passing through the hands of her merchants : 7 106 CIIANQE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. Boston, between 1830 and ISiO, increased 33,011 Charleston, " '* " decreased 1,62S Other onuses, no donbt, aided in this result; !)ut tlmt under consideration we believe to have been the chief. Second. While a country is new, the first exchanges will be of agricultural ])roducts of one climate for those of a different climate, and of agricultural products for manufactured articles of fii'st necessity. As society progresses in weaUh, in addition to these articles, finer Aibrics and of greater variety become the subject of exchange; so that when its condition approximates that of England, much of its exchangeable capital comes to be composed of the highly wrought productions of the various cities — each mainl}^ engaged in its own peculiar production, and therefore dependent on all the others for all its articles of con- sumption, except the one article of its own fabrication. Let us apply these principles. Buffalo has the advantage of a greater transit of produce and goods. In the former, however, she is not very much in advance, and Cleveland is rapidly gain- ing upon her. In proportion to her population, Cleveland is ah'eady far ahead. As to goods passing to the upper lakes from the old States and Europe, Buffalo will divide chietl}' with Oswego the advantages of their receipt and shipment up the lakes. Hers, for some time to come, v>'i!l be the lion's share— at least until the completion of the Canadian improvements. But these goods, though of great value, will employ no great amount of tonnage, especiall}' when sugar, molasses, cotton, rice, and tobacco, shall be sent to the lakes by the Miami and Illinois canals, as will soon be the ease. Long within the period under consideration, the position of Cleveland avIU be much more favorable for concentrating the business of the surrounding country than that of Buffalo. Canada will, before that time, form a part of our commercial community, whether she be associated with us in the government or not. She will then have about five millions of people. The American shores of the lakes lying above the latitude of Cleve- land wnll be still more populous. Cleveland is the lake port for the great manufacturitjg hive at the head of the Ohio river — so made by the Mahoning canal, which connects her with Pittsburgh. She commands, and she will long command, by means of her five hundred miles of canal and slack-water navigation, the trade of a part of Western Pennsylvania, most of Western Virginia, and nearly all the east half of the State of Ohio, in the intercourse of their inhabitants Avith the lake coasts, the Eastern Slates, Canada, and Europe. Her position is handsome; and, although her water-power is small, the low price of coal will enable her to sustain herself as CHANGE OP NATIONAL EMPIRE. 107 a respectable manufacturinii; town. Her harbor, like that of Buffalo, thnuiih ea^y of cutranco, is not sufiicicntly capacious. If coal should not be found on Lake Huron, more accessible to navigation than the beds on the canal south of Cleveland, this article vrill trrcatly increase her trade with the other lake ports. It is now sold on her wharves at eight cents per bu^hel. A glance at a map of the country will suffice to show that Buffalo is not well situated to be a place for the exchange of agricultural productions of the cold regions for those of the warm regions of the valley. In that respect Cleveland, though not unrivaled, is clearly" in a better position than Buffalo. As a point for exchanging the products of the field for manufactured goods, Buffalo will not probably for any long time have the advantage of Cleveland. Such traders as live within the influ- ence of the canals and rivers that pour their surplus products into Cleveland, and stop short of ISew York and Boston, will, it seems to us, be more likely to purchase in Cleveland than in Buffalo, Xot every man"^ Avho supplies a neighborhood with store-goods relishes a voyage on the sometimes tempest-tossed Avaters of the lake ; and, as we before remarked, Buffalo now being but a few hours' ride from New York and Boston, by a pleasant and safe conveyance, will hardly stop many purchasers of goods from those great markets. On the completion of the Canadian canals, Cleveland will have the advantage of Buffalo^ in foreign trade, for the following reasons : Her articles of export will bo cheaper, and by that time, as we believe, more abundant. By means of her canals and roads Cleveland is a primary gathering-point of these articles. Not so Buffalo. To arrive at her storehouses, these products must be shipped from the storehouses of other ports up the lakes, where the}-- must be presumed to bcir nearly the same price as at Cleveland. The cost of this sbinmeut, together with a profit on it, will then be added; and, by so much, enhance their price in Buffalo. A ves- sel entering Luke Erie by the Welland canal, seeking a cargo for a foreign port, v,-ould therefore clearly ]n'cfer going to the head of the market, where it could be bought at the cheapest rate. If the difteren-v! in price of exportable products, between the market at Buffalo and the maket at Cleveland, is such as to war- rant the payment of a freight to Buffalo, and the cost of a transhipment there to the foreign vessel, there can be no doubt of its being the interest of the foreign vessel to proceed directly to Cleveland for her cargo ; and so to any other considerable market on Lake Erie, and probably the lakes above. It seems likely, therefore, that within our allotted period of forty-seven years Cleveland will be larger than Buffalo or Oswego. Is it probable that, within the period under consideration, Cleveland will have a successful rival in Maumee, Detroit, or 108 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. Chicago? It will be proper, on account of its comparative obscurity and the peculiarity of its position, for us to explain in regard to Maumee. The estuary of the Maumee river receives the tide of Lake Erie, and the waters of the river, at a point thirteen miles above its mouth. This estuary forms a harbor of Lake Erie, thirteen miles long, with a navigable channel of about one hundred rods. Its depth, in a low stage of the lake, is from six and a half to twenty-four feet. It is entered by a wide channel through the bay, having in its shoalest part 8.25 feet when the lake is in its lowest stage. On the southwest end of this harbor Maumee City and Perry sburg are situated, the former on the north and the latter on the south bank. Both are on the same plane, sixty-three feet above the harbor. Eight miles below, on the north bank, is Toledo, most of it on a plane about forty-five feet high ; and three or four miles below Toledo is Manhattan, elevated in its highest part about twenty-five feet above the water. Their population, respectively, including the civil township, was, according to the census of 1840 — Maumee City, 1,290; Perrys- burg, 1,065; Toledo, 2,053; Manhattan, 282. Each of these places has access to the canal by a side-cut and flight of locks. It is not our purpose to decide on their relative merits ; but for convenience, and because it is the name of the harbor, we will call the successful point Maumee. The contest is now fairly narrowed down to Cleveland, Mau- mee, Detroit, and Chicago. Which of these will be greatest in 1890? We have shown in a previous article (No. 2 of this series) that the Miami canal route will command the Eastern and European trade of Kentucky, most of Tennessee, large portions of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and small portions of Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. So long, then, as this East- ern and European trade shall continue of paramount importance to the great country embraced by the description above, as con- trolled by the Miami canal, so long must the point most favoi'ably situated at its lake termination have the advantage of the other lake towns. We have also shown, in the same article, that tho interior exchanges, the exclusive home-trade of the JSTorth American valley, between the lake regions of the north and the river regions of the south, will be chiefly carried on through the same Miami canal. Of the towns now under comparison, Maumee is the smallest and Detroit the largest. This, in the minds of the superficial, will be taken as conclusive in favor of the latter. The claim, in favor of a town just emerging from tho forest to rival, at a future time, an already populous city, is usually met by ridicule from such pei'sons; and, in general, is treated with little attention or respect by any class. We dare sa}'' that when the people of the city of old and renowned York were informed CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 109 that, in the "wilds of America; some settlers had named their col- lection of rude houses Now York, they felt no otheV emotion than contempt, and treated the presumptuous ambition of the settlers with derision. It is probable that the settlers of old Bos-' ton held in like contempt the assumption of the name of their town by those who planted the capital of JSTew England. Who, forty-seven years ago, would not have ridiculed the opinion, if any one had been visionary enough to express it, that, within that time, there would grow up in the valley of the Ohio a city containing fiftj' thousand inhabitants; and that, within the same period, that part of the Northwestern territorj-, now com- posing the vState of Ohio, would contain nearly two millions of people ? We then had, as a basis of increase, but four millions; whereas it is now over eighteen millions — and, including Canada, near twenty millions. For the past forty-seven years, our growth has been from four millions to near twent}- millions. During the next forty-seven years it will be, according to our estimate, from near twenty millions to seventy-seven millions j or, according to the more elaborate and probably more correct estimate of Professor Tucker, fifty-five millions. This increase will certainly make it necessary that many towns, now small, should become great; and sensible men, when contemplating their probable destiny for half a century in advance, will look at the natural and artificial advantages of our lake towns, rather than at the few thousands, more or less, of the present popula- tion. The towns under consideration are all destined to be large. The leading advantages of Cleveland have been already stated. Detroit has a pleasant site and a noble harbor. A few Mcxldam roads, leading north, northwest, and west, into the interior, would give her the direct trade of a large and fertile portion of Michigan. Until such roads, or a reasonaldy good substitute, are made, the railwa3's leading north and west will, at least while they are new and in good order, make the chief gathering points of trade at their interior terminations and at convenient, points on their line. Pontiac, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, and other towns Avest, will cut off from Detroit, and center in themselves the direct trade with the farmers, which, with good wagon roads, without the railwaj-s, would have centered in Detroit. One train of cars will now bring to her warehouses what would have been brought to her stores by one hundred wagons. These wagons would have carried back store-goods and the products of Detroit mechanics, whereas these will now be bought in the inte- rior towns, iiost of the money borrowed by Michigan, and for which she is so largely in debt, has been expended with a view to center the trade of the State mainly in Detroit and Monroe; but we much doubt whether the effect of the railways constructed for that purpose will not be the reverse of what was anticipated 110 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. by their projectors. The effect of the Erie and Kalamazoo rail- way, from Toledo to Adrian, has been to convert a small clustei' of houses at the latter place into a flourishincr town of near two thousand inhabitants; Avhilc at Toledo its effect has been mainly perceptible in the tilling a few warehouses v.-ith produce and goods, and leaving its business street nearly deserted of wagons^ and its hotels almost destitute of auy but minute-men travelers. Wo do not believe that machines so expensive and so compli- cated in their construction and operation as railways can be sustained in an agricultural country so new and sparsely settled as Michigan. But whether this is a correct view or not matters little to Detroit, if, as we suppose, her railways will but substi- tute trains of cars, passing through to her warehouses, for the throng of wagons that, but for her raihvays, would have crowded her broad avenue. The extent of country that will find in Detroit its most convenient point of exchanges is not very great, yet suuicient when well settled and improved to sustain her in a considerable advance beyond her present size and business. If we now narrow down our comparison by leaving out Detroit, we trust we shall be justified by our impartial readers. Cleveland, Maumeo, and Chicago, only remain to contest the prize. Of these, Maumee alone has a harbor capacious enough to accommodate the commerce of a great city. Good harbors may be made, without a very heavy cost, at Cleveland and Chicago, either by excavating the low grounds bordering their present harbors, or by break-waters and piers in the lakes out- side. Some expenditure will also be needed to deepen the entrance into Maumee harbor and to remove obstructions within it. In water-power Maumee has grealh' the advantage over her rivals. Chicago has and she can have none. Cleveland has but a small amount; whereas Maumee has it to an extent unrivaled by any town on the lake borders, above Bufl^'alo — and it is so placed as to possess the utmost availability. Along her harbor for thirteen miles the canal passes on the margin of the high bank that overlooks it. This canal — a magnificent mill-raee, averaging near seven feet deep, and seventy feet wide at the water line — is fed from the Maumee river, seventeen miles above the head of the harboi', and is carried down on the level of low water in the river above, for twenty-two miles, to a point two miles below the head of the harbor, where it stands on a table land, sixty-three feet above the harbor. Descending, then, by a lock, seven feet, the next level is two males long, and stands fifty-six feet above the harbor. Descending again, by a lock, seven feet, the level below is three and a half miles long, and stands forty- nine feet above the harbor. Again descending, within the city of Toledo, b}'- four locks, thirty-four feet, the next and last level is nearly five miles long, and stands fifteen feet above the harbor CnANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIUE. Ill At many i)oint3 of these thirteen miles, tho water may be used conveniently from the canal to the harbor; and, at most of these points, it may be used directly on the harbor. The Board of Public AVorks, in their last report, say: ''From the experience the Board have had as to the quantity of water required to pro- pel one pair of four and a half feet mill-stones, with all the labor-saving machinery necessary for the manufacture of super- fine Hour, they are fully of opinion that there will be power sufficient, that can be used on these levels, to propel two hundred and twentj^-five pairs of stone." The lowest estimate for the dryest season allows it this amount of povrer. At other times, the amount is so great that, for all practicable purposes for man}' years to come, it may be set down as without limit. The current occasioned by the use of the great power estimated by the Board would not be one mile an hour. If more should be used, so as to occasion a current of one mile and a half an houi', the obstruction to navigation would be rather nominal than real. The down-freights for man}' years will be three or four times as heav}' as the up-freights. The current, then, would aid the movement of three or four tons where it would hinder the more- ment of one ton. If, at some future day, the water furnished during the dry seasons should not be sufficient for the machinery then needed at this point, steam may be used temporarily during the lowest stage of water. Coal Avill be afforded at ten cents per bushel; and wood, for many years, will not cost more than SI 50 to §2 00 per cord. Will this be a good point for the use of water-power? This will depend on its facilities for procur- ing raw materials and distributing the manufactured articles to consumers. As to facilities for procuring wheat for the manu- facture of flour, there can be, as all will admit who know the country within reach of the canals, no better point in the States. Sheep are so rapidly multiplying in Indiana and Illinois, and are already so abundant in the iJiami country- of Ohio, that a sup- ply of wool to an extent beyond any probable demand for its manufacture may be safely anticipated. As to cotton, it has been proved that the Miami canal is the best channel for its import to ihe lakes. From Florence, in Alabama, it may be brought to the factory on the Maumce by a course three hundred miles shorter than its usual route to New Orleans. Should the Tennessee river fail to furnish enough cotton, the Arkansas, and the Mississippi above the mouth of the Arkansas, will be able to supply any additional demand. For the distribution of the manufactured goods, the whole West is easily accessible by means of lakes, canals, and rivers. As a point for manufacturers and mechanics, the aids and facilities above mentioned give Maumee an incontestable supe- riority over Cleveland and Chicago. Let us now compare their 112 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. coinraercial advantages. Those of Cleveland htivo been droady set forth to some extent, comparing her claims with tiioae of Buffalo. In the exchange of ag;"iculLural products of a warm and of a cold climate, Cleveland, by her canals and her connec- tion with the Ohio, can claim south, as against the Miami canal, no forther than Western Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. Maumee will supply the towns on the Lakes Erie, Huron, and probably Ontaiio, with cotton, sugar, molasses, rum (may its quantity be small), rice, tobacco, hemp (perhaps), oranges, lemons, figs, and, at some future day, such naval stores as come from the pitch-pine regions of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Chicago will furnish a supply of the same articles to Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, when that lake becomes accessible to her navigation, and perhaps the northern portion of Lake Huron. How important these commodities are in modern commerce need not be enlarged on in a magazine whose readers are mostly intelligent merchants. During the forty- seven years under consideration, the countries to be supplied with these articles from Maumee will continue to be more popu- lous than those depending on Chicago for their supply. This position seems too obvious to need proof. It is clear, then, that as a point of exchange of agricultural products of different cli- mates, Maumee has advantages over Chicago — the only place on the lakes that can set up any pretensions of rivalry in this branch of trade. What are the relative merits of these towns for the exchange of agricultural products for the manufactures of Europe and the Eastern States? The claims of Cleveland, in this respect, have already been considered; and to some extent, also, those of Maumee. The control of Cleveland, south and southeast, embfaces a country of about 40,000 square miles; being a quar- ter larger than Ireland. For early spring supplies, and light goods, this domain may be invaded from Philadelphia and Balti- more; but for the shipment east, and the bulk of goods from New York and Europe, it belongs legitimately to Cleveland. Maumee will have in this trade the chief control of not less than 100,000 square miles— say 12,000 in Ohio, 30,000 in Ken- tucky, 30,000 in Indiana, 10,000 in Illinois, 13,000 in Tennessee, 5,000 in Mississippi and Alabama, and 5,000 in Michigan — to say nothing of her claims on small portions of Missouri and vVrkan- sas. This domain is half as large as the kingdom of France and twice as fertile. The Miami canal, connecting Maumee with Cincinnati, will, with that part of the Wabash and Erie which forms the common trunk after their junction, be two hundred and thirty-five miles long. The Wabash and Erie canal, from Muamee to Terre Haute, will bo three hundred miles long. Of this, all but thirty-six miles, at its northern extremity, will be in CUANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 113 operation the present penson. By raoanfl of those oannls, and the rivers with which thoy communicate, .great part of this extensive region will enjoy the advantage of a cheap water transport Jor its rapidly increasing sui-plus. Chicago, on the completion of the Illinois canal, may com- mand, in its exchange of agricultural for manufactured pro- ducts, an extent of territory as large as that controlled by Maumee. Admitting it to be larger, and of this our readers must judge for themselves, it does not seem to us probable that within the forty-seven years it can even approximate in population or wealth to the comparatively old and well-peopled territory that comes within the range of the commercial influence of Maumee. We have not sufficient data on which to calculate the extent of country that will come under the future commercial power of Chicago. That it is to be very great seems probable from the fine position of that port in reference to the lake, and an almost interminable country southwest, west, and northwest of it. An extension of the Illinois canal to the mouth of Eock river seems destined to give her the control of the Eastern trade throughout the whole extent of the upper Mississippi, except what she now has by means of the Illinois river. She will also probably par- ticipate with Maumee in the lake trade with the Missouri river and St. Louis. On the whole, wc deem Chicago alone, of all the lake towns, entitled to dispute future pi-e-eminence with Mau- mee. The time may come, after the period under consideration, when the extent and high improvement of the country making Chicago its mart for commercial operations, may enable it at least to sustain the second place among the great towns of the North American valle}', if not to dispute pre-eminence with the first.- When we jiroperly consider the future populousncss of our great valley, ihe tendency of modern improvements 1o build up large towns, the great and increasing inclination of population and trade to and through the lakes, and the decided advantages which Maumee possesses over any other lake port, we need not fear being over sanguine in anticipating for the leading town on that porta growth unrivaled by any city whose history has been recorded. The conclusions to which we have come, in this and the pre- ceding articles on internal trade, are not expected to bo universall}' or general!}' acceptable. Many of them run counter to the hopes and preconceived opinions of too many persons for us to expect that they will be considered with candor, or judged with impartiality. The facts therein contained will be encoun- tered with less alacrit}-. On these we rely. For these we ask a dispassionate and Ihir examination. If other and different conclusions are deduciblo from them than those wo have drawn, 114 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. it would give us pleasure to acknowledge our error and correct it. But if, after a thorough examination of the subject, we have gone beyond the anticipations of men who, with more ability, have bestowed much less thought on it, let them not condemn •merely because our conclusions seem to them extravagant; but let them examine for themselves, or, if they will not do that, let them hesitate before they pass a hasty judgment on what wo have investigated with the utmost care, and with an earnest desire to arrive at the truth. J. W. S. Number IV. — 1S48. €OMMEECTAL CITIES AND TO^YNS OF THE UNITED STATES. OUR CITIES — ATLANTIC AND INTERIOR. All people take piide in their cities. In them naturally con- centrate the great minds and the wealth of the nation. There the arts that adorn life are cultivated, a^id from them flows out the knowledge that gives its current of thought to the national mind. The United States, until recently, have had large cities in the hope rather than in the reality. It is but a few years since our largest city reached a population of one hundred thousand. Long before that period sagacious men saw, in the rapid growth of the countr}' and the aptitude of our people for commerce, that such positions as those occupied by Philadelphia and New York must rapidly grow up to be great cities. This, however, ^as by no means the common belief in this country; and our transatlantic brothi-en treated with undisguised ridicule the idea that those places could even rival in magnitude the leading cities of their own countries. New York is now sometimes called the London of America. Not that those calling her so suppose she will over come up to that mammoth in size and importance, but because she holds in the Now World the relative rank which London holds on the Old Continent. It is believed that few persons, at this time, have a sufficiently high appreciation of the future grandeur of New York ; and yet fewercan be found who doubt that she will always continue to be the commercial capital of America. If this should be her destiny, the imagination could hardly set a limit to her future ■growth and grandeur. It would be presumptuous to say that her population might not reach five millions within the next CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 115 centiirj' and a half. Of the few persons who have doubted her continual supremacy, most have given the benefit of the doubt to Kew Orleans. This outport of the great central vallej' of North America was believed to command a destin}', when this valley should become well peopled, that might eclipse the island city of the Hudson. Some twenty j-ears ago, the writer, then living in a southeastern State, was convinced that the greatest city must, in the nature of things, at a not very distant daj', grow up in the interior of the continent. Of this opinion he thinks he v\'as the inventor, and, for many j'ears, the sole proprietor. If it had been the subject of a patent, no one would have been found to dispute his claim to the exclusive right to make and vend (if that could bo said to be vendible Avhich no one would be prevailed on to take as a gift). That such an opinion should appear absurd and ridiculous n\a,j \qyj well 1)6 credited by most people, who con- sider it not much less so now. The largest citj' of the intsrior was then Cincinnati, having scarcely 20,000 inhabitants; and the sum total of all the towns in the great valley scarcely exceeded 50,000. St. Louis at that time had but 5,000, and Buffalo about the same number. Hero, then, was a basis very small for so largo an anticipation. Who could believe that St. Louis, with 5,000 people, could possibly, within the short period of 150 years, become greater than J»I^ew York, with a population of near 200,000 ? But what seemed most ridiculous of all was that the future rival of the great commercial emporium should bo placed a thousand miles from the ocean, where neither a ship of war nor a Liverpool packet could ever be expected to arrive. Since 1828, some changes of magnitude have taken place; and the writer's exclusive right \mg\\i now be questioned. There are now other men, considered sane men, who believe the great city of the nation is to be west of the mountains, and quite away from the salt sea. Governor Bebb, in a late address before the Young Men's Library Association of Cincinnati, expressed his decided belief that Cincinnati would, in the course of a cen- tury, become "the greatest agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial emporium on the continent." Thero are other men now, not much less distinguished for knowledge and forecast than Governor Bebb, who entertain the same belief. What has wrought this change of opiiiion? Time, whose business is to unfold truth and expose error, has given proofs which can no longer be blinked. The interior towns have commenced a growth 80 gigantic that men must believe there is a power of corresponding magnitude urging them forv/ard — a power yet in its infancy, but unfolding its energies with astonishing rapidit}'. 116 CHANaE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. Let US inako some C0InJv^^i^30n3 of the leading Eastern and Western cities. Xew York was commenced nearly 200 years before it increased to 100^000 people. Cincinnati, according to Governor Bebb, has no\v, fifty years from its commencement, 100,000 inhabitants. Boston was 200 years in acquiring its first 50,000. New York, since 1790, when it numbered 33,131, has had an average duplication every fifteen years. This would make her population in 1850, 530,096. This is veYy near what it will be, including her suburb, Brooklyn. Cincinnati has, on the average, since 1800, when it had 750, doubled her numbers every seven years. 1790 33,131 1805 G6,2G2 1800 750 1807 1.500 1814 3,000 NEW YOKK. 18-20 132,524 I 1S50 1835 265,048 .530,096 CINCINNATI. 1821 G.OOO 1828 12,000 1835 24,000 1842 48,000 1849 96,000 It appears from this table that, on the average of fifty years, Cincinnati, the leading interior town, has doubled her popula- tion every seven years; while New York, on the average of sixtj^ years, has scarcely doubled hers in every period of fifteen years. If New York is compared to Cincinnati during the same fifty years, it will be seen that the period of her duplication averages over fifteen j-ears. She had, in 1800, 60,489. Doubling this every fifteen j'cars, she should have, in 1850, nearly 650,000. This number will exceed her actual population more than 100,000, whereas Cincinnati in 1850 will certainly exceed 96,000. Let us now sup[)ose that, for the next fifty years after 1850, the ratio of increase of New York will be such as to make a duplication every eighteen years, and that of Cincinnati every ten years. New York will commence with about 500,000, which will increase by the year ISGS to 1,000,000 1 1S8G to 2,000,000 | 1904 to 4,000,000 Cincinnati will commence in 1850 v^-ith at least 100,000, which will double every ten years ; so that in 1860itwlUbe.. 200,000 1 ISSOit will be.. 800,000 I 1900 itwmbe..3,200,000 1870 •' .. 400,000 I 1890 "■ ..1,600,000 | 1904 '' ..4,0GG,6G7 The resulting figures look ver^^ lai'ge, and, to most readers, will appear extravagant. Let us suppose the duplication of New York, for the next 100 3'oars, to be eifectsd on an average of twenty years, and that of Cincinnati of twelve years. CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 117 ISoO 500,000 1870 1,000,000 1850 100,000 1862 200,000 1874 400,000 NEW YOKK IN 1S90 2,000,000 1910 4,000,000 CINCINNATI IN 1886 800,000 1898 1,600,000 1910 3,200,000 1930 8,000,000 1950 10,000,000 1922 6,400,000 1934 12,800,000 1946 25,600,000 This looks like carrying the argument to absurdity; but if these two leading cities be allowed to represent all the cities in their sections respectively, the result of the calculation is not unreasonable. It is not beyond possibility, and is not even improbable. The growth of the leading interior marts, since 1840, has been about equal to the average growth of Cincinnati for fifty years past. This growth, for the last eight years, according to the best information to be obtained, has been more than 115 per cent., as the following table will show: 1840. 1848. Cincinnati 46,900 95,000 St. Louis 16.000 45,000 Louisville 21,000 40,000 Buffalo 18.000 42,000 Pittsburorh 31,000 58,000 Cleveland 6,000 14,000 Columbus 6,000 14,000 Dayton 6,000 14,000 1840. 1848. Detroit 9,000 17,000 3Iihvaukee 2,000 15,000 Chicago 5,000 17,000 Osweo^o 5,000 11,000 Roche.3ter 20,000 30,000 Total 191,000 412,000 The growth of the exterior cities for the same period has been about 38 per cent., according to the following figures : 1840. 1848. I New York 312,000 425,000 Philadelphia 228,000 350,000 Baltimore 102,000 140,000 New Orleans 102,000 102. C03 Boston 93,000. 130,000 Charleston 29,000 31,000 1840. 1848. Savannah 11,000 14,000 Mobile 12,000 12,000 Brooklyn 36,000 72,000 Portland 15,000 24,000 Total 910,000 1,300,000 The census for 1840 is our authority for that year. For 1848, we have late enumerations of most of the cities. The others we estimate. Thei'e are doubtless a few inaccuracies in the detail, but not enough to vary the result in any important degree. In the aggregate our interior cities, depending for their growth on internal trade and home manufacture, increase three times as fast as the exterior cities, which carry on nearly all the foreign 118 CnANOE OF NATIONAL E.MPIRE. commorco of tho countiy, and monopolizo the home coirimcrce of the Atlantic coast. This is fi fuct of signilicance. It proves that our fertile fields, after supplying food to everybody in foreign lands who will bu}', and feeding the cities and towns of the Atlantic States, have sufficed to feed a rapidly growing town population at home. It proves, also, that the Western people are not disposed to accept the destiny kindly offered them by their Eastern brethren, of confining themselves to the hand- work of agriculture — leaving to the old States the whole field of machine labor. Although the land on which the people of the great valley have but recentl}^ entered is new, the civil, social, and economical condition of this people is advanced nearly to the highest point of the oldest communities. The contriving brain and the skillful hand ai-e here in their maturit3^ The raw materials necessary to the artisan and the manufacturer, in the production of whatever ministers to comfort and elegance, are here. The bulkiness of food and raw materials makes it the interest of the artisan and manufacturer to locate himself near the place of their production. It is this interest, constantly operating, which peoples our Western towns and cities with emigrants from the Eastern vStates and Europe. When food and raw materials for manufacture are no longer cheaper in the great valley than in the Sates of the Atlantic and the nations of Western Europe, then, and not till then, will it cease to be the interest of artisans and manufacturers to prefer a location .in Western towns and cities. This time will probably be about the period when the Mississippi shall flow towards its head. The chief points for the exchange of the vai'ied productions of industry in our Western valle.y will necessarily give employment to a great population. Indeed, the locations of our future great cities have been made with reference to their commercial capa- bilities. Commerce has laid the foundation on which manufac- tures have been, to a great extent, instrumental in reai'ing the superstructure. Together, these departments of labor are des- tined to build up in our fertile valley the greatest cities of the world. ^ J. W. S. NuJiBER V. — 1S57. In the rapidly developing greatness of North America, it is interesting to look to the future and speculate on the most probable points of centralization of its commercial and social power. I leave out the political element, because, in the long run, it will not be very potential, and will wait upon industrial CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. IIO' developments. I also omit Mexico, so poor, and po diseon- nectcd ia her relations to the great body of the continent. Including with our nation, as forming an important part of its commercial communit.y, the Canadas and contiguous provinces, the center of ]iopulation, v.-hite and black, is a little west of Pittsburgh. The movement ©f this center is north of west, about in the direction of Chicago. The center of productive power cannot be ascertained, with any degree of precision. We know it must be a considerable distance oast, and north of th& center of population. That center, too, is on the grand march westward. Both, in their regular progress, will roach Lake- Michigan. The center of industrial power will touch Lake Eric, and possibly, but not probably, the center of population ma}'- movo so far northward as to reach Lake Erie also. Their tend- enc}^ will be to come together; but a considerable time will be required to bring them into near proximity. Will the move- ment of these centers be arrested before they reach Lake- Michigan ? I think no one expects to stop eastward of that lake; few will claim that it will go far beyond it. Is it not, then, as certain as anything in the future can be, that the cen- tral power of the continent will move to, and become permanent on, the border of the groat lakes ? Around these pure waters will gather the densest population, and ou their borders will grow up th» best towns and cities. As the centers of population and wealth approach and pass Cleveland, that city should swell to large size. Toledo will be still nearer the lines of their move- meVit, and should be more favorably affected by them, as the aggregate power of the continent will by that time be greatly increased. As these lines move vvostward towards Chicago, tha influence of their position will be divided between that city and Toledo, distributing benefits according to the degree of proximity. If we had no foreign commerce, and all other circumstances wore equal, the greatest cities would grow up along the line of the central industrial power, in its westward progress, each new city becoming greater than its predecessor, b}' the amount of power accumulated on the continent, for concentration from point to point of its progress. But as there are points, from one resting-place to another, possessing greatly superior advantages for commerce over all others, and near enough the center line of industrial power to apj)ropriate the commerce wdiich it offers, to these points we must look for our future great cities. To become chief of these, there must be united in them the best facilities for transport, by water and by land. It is too plain to need proof that these positions arc occupied by Cleve- land, Toledo, and Chicago. 120 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. But WO have a foreign comraei'ce beyond the continent of North America, by means of the Atlantic Ocean, beai'ing the proportion, we will allow, of one to twenty of the domestic commerce within the continent. This proportion will seem small to persons who have not directed particular attention to the subject. It is, nevertheless, within the truth. The proof of this is difficult, onlj^ because we cannot get the figures that repre- sent the numberless exchanges of equivalents among each other in a community such as ours. If we suppose ten of the twenty-nine millions of our North American community to earn, on an average, SI 25 per day, 312 days in the yeai-, it will make an aggregate of nearly four thousand millions of dollars. If we divide the yearly profits of industry equally between capital and labor, the proportion of labor would be but 61 25 per day, for five millions of the twenty- nine millions. The average earnings of the twenty-nine millions, men, women, and children, to produce two thousand millions yearly, would be 22 cents a day, for 312 working days. This is rather under than over the true amount ; for it would furnish less than §70 each for yearly support, without allowing anj-thiug for accumulation. Of the four thousand millions of yearly production, we cannot suppose that more than one thousand millions is consumed "by the producers, without being made the subject of exchange. This will leave three thousand millions as the subjects of com- merce, internal and external. Of this, all must be set down for internal commerce, inasmuch as most of that which enters the channel of external commerce'first passes through several hands betwen the producer and exporter. Foreign commerce repre- sents but one transaction. The export is sold, and the import is bought with the means the export furnishes. Not so with domestic commerce. Most of the pi-oducts which are its sub- jects are bought and sold many times, between the producer and ultimate consumer. Let us state a case: I purchase a pair of boots from a boot dealer in Toledo. He has purchased them from a whole^^ale dealer in New York, who has bought them of the manufacturer in Newark. The manu- facturer has bought the chief material of a leather dealer in New York, who has made the purchases which fill his lai'ge establishment from small dealers in hides. These have received their supply from butchers. The butchers have bought of the drovers, and the drovers of the farmers. If the boots purchased are of French manufacture, they have been the subject of one transaction represented in foreign trade, to-wit : their purchase in Paris by the American importer; whereas, they are the sub- ject of several transactions in our domestic trade. The importer CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 121 sells them to the jobber in New York ; the jobber sells them to the Toledo dealer, who sells them to me. It can scarcely admit of a doubt that the domestic commerce of North America bears a proportion as large as twenty to one of its foreign commerce. Has internal commerce a tendency to concentrate in few points like foreign commerce ? Is its ten- dency to concentration less than that of foreign commerce? No difterence, in this respect, can be perceived. All commerce develops that law of its nature to the extent of its means. For- eign commerce concentrates chief!}' at those ports where it meets the greatest internal commerce. "The domestic commerce being the great body draws to it the smaller body of foreign com- merce. New York, by her canals, her railroads, and her superior position for coastwise navigation, has drawn to herself most of our foreign commerce, because she has become the most con- venient point for the concentration of our domestic trade. It is absurd to suppose she can always, or even for half a century, remain the best point for the concentration of domestic trade; and, as the foreign commerce will every year bear a less and less proportion to the domestic commerce, it"^ can hardly be doubted that before the end of one century from this time the great cen- ter of commerce of all kinds, for North America, will be on a lake harbor. Supposing the center of population (now west of Pittsburgh) shall average a yearly movement westward, for the next fifty years, of twenty miles; this would carry it one thou- sand miles northwestward from Pittsburgh, and some five hundred or more miles beyond the central point of the natural resoui'ces of the country. It would pass Cleveland in five years, and Toledo in eleven years, reaching Chicago, or some point south of it, in less than twentj'-five years. The geographical center of industrial power is probably now in Northeastern Pennsylvania, having but recently left the city of New York, where it partially now for a time remains. This center will move at a somewhat slower rate than the center of population. Supposing its movement to be fifteen miles a year, it will reach Cleveland in twenty years, Toledo in twenty-seven years, and Chicago in fortj'-five years. If ten years be the measure of the annual movement northwestward of the industrial central point of the continent, Cleveland would be reached in thirty years, Toledo in forty, and Chicago in sixty-throe years. It is well known that the rate at which the center of population in the United States is now moving westward is over fifteen miles a year, and that it is moving with an accelerated speed. It is obvious that the center of population and the center of indus- trial power, now widely separated, by the nature of the country between New York and Cleveland, by the superiority in pi'o- ductive power of the old Northern and Middle States over tho 8 122 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. new States of the Northwest, and still more by the inferiority of industrial power of the plantation States, compared with the region lying north of them, will have a constant tendency to approximate, but can never become identical so long as the infe- rior Afx'ican race forms a large portion of the population of the great Southern section of our Union. The constant tendency of the center of industrial power will be northward, as well as westward. This will be determined by the superiority of natural resources of the Northwest over the Southwestern section, by the use of a far greater proportion of machine labor, in substi- tution for muscular labor, in the northern region, and also by the superior muscular and mental power of the inhabitants of the colder climate. To these might be added the immense advantage of a vastly greater accumulated industrial power in every branch of industry, and the tendency of the supera- bundant capital of the Old World to flow into the free States and the countrj^ north of them. In the view of the subject which has been taken here, it will be seen that the trade with the Biitish Provinces north of ua has been considered a portion of our domestic trade, and that Mexico and California have been left out of our calculation. These may be allowed to balance each other. But, together or apart, they will not be of sufficient importance to our continental .commerce to varj^ materially' the results of its future for the ,next fifty years, as develo|)ed in this paper. At the present rate of increase, the United States and the Canadas fifty years from this time, will contain over one hun- dred and twenty millions of people. If we suppose it to be one hundred and five mil ions, and that these shall be distributed so that the Pacitic States shall have ten millions, and the Atlantic border twenty-five millions, there will be left for the great inte- rior plain seventy millions The^e seventy millions will have twenty times as much commercial inteirourse with each other , as with the world outside. It is obvious, then, that there must be built up in their midst the great city of the continent; and not only so, but that they will sustain several cities greater thaa those which can be sustained on the ocean border. This is the era of great cities. London has nearly trebled in numbers and business since the commencement of the current century. The augmentation of her population in that tim-^ has been a" million and a half. This increase is equal to the whole population of New York and Philadelphia, and yet it is proba- ble that New York will be as populous as London in about fifty years. A liberal, but not improbable, estimate of the period of duplication of the numbers of these great cities would be, for London thirty years, and for New York fifteen years. At this rate, London will have four millions and seven hundred thou- CHANGE OF X^iTIOXAL EMPIRE. 123 eand, and 'Now York three millions four hundred thousand, at the end of thirty years. At the end of the third duplication of jSIew York — that "is, in forty-five years — she will have become more populous than London, and number nearly seven millions. This is beyond belief, but it shows the probability of New York overtaking London in about fifty years. A similar comparison of New York and the leading interior city — Chicago — will show a like i-esult in favor of Chicago. The census returns show the average period of duplication to be fifteen years for New York, and less than four years for Chicago. Suppose that of New York for the future should be sixteen years, ond that of Chicago eight years, and that New York now has, with her suburbs, nine hundred thousand, and Chicago one hundred thousand people. In three duplications, New York would contain six millions two hundred thousand, and Chicago in six duplications, occuping the same length of time, would have six millions four hundred thousand. It is not asserted, as probable, that either city will be swelled to such an extraor- dinary size in forty-eight j-ears — if ever; but it is more than probable that the leading interior city will be greater than New- York fifty years from this time. A few words as to the estimation in which such anticipations -are held. The general mind is faithless of what goes much beyond its own experience. It refuses to receive, or it receives with distrust, conclusions, however strongly sustained by facts and fair deductions, which go much beyond its ordinary- range of thought. It is especially skeptical and intolerant toward the avowal of opinions, however well founded, which are san- guine of great future changes. It does not comprehend them, and therefore refuses to believe; but it sometimes goes further, and, without examination, scornfully rejects. To seek for the truth is the proper object of those who, from the past and present, undertake to say what will be in the future, and, when the truth is found, to express it with as little reference to what will be thought of it as if putting forth the solution of a mathe- matical problem. If we were asked whose anticipations of what has been done to advance civilization, for the past fiftj- years, have come nearest the truth — those of the sanguine and hopeful, or those of the cautious and fearful — must it not be answered that no one of the former class had been sanguine and hopeful enough to antici- pate the full measure of human progress since the opening of the present century? May it not be the most sanguine and hopeful only, who, in anticipation, can attain a due estimation of the measure of future change and improvement in the grand march of society and civilization westward over our continent? J. W. S. 124 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. "We have given Mr. Scott the benefit of a full hearing, in order to enable the reader the better to see the justness of the arguments and the truth of the positions in the discussion bearing upon the subject of the pamphlet and the future devel- opment of the internal trade of the continent. No home question of the American people, touching their con- tinental growth and commerce, is so great as this one upon the internal and westward growth of material power. It is the great source of industrial vitality and civil progress. In the discussion of the internal trade of the continent and the Western movement of the center of population and of the industrial power of North America, Mr. Scott has gone elabo- rately into the questions, yet he has lived to see some errors in his own arguments 3 and against them I caution the reader, and point to what I conceive to be the truth in commercial experi- ence and in fact. The great error of most men who undertake to solve the problems of mankind in the different phases of their career comes first from a failure to draw the correct lessons from history ; and second, on account of being too much guided by existing conditions, and not looking beyond to what must be the inevitable unfold ment and growth of their industry from the fixed principles of nature This was Mr. Scott's error. His reasonings to prove that Toledo would be the great inland center of commerce, and that Chicago and Cleveland would be her handmaids,_were founded purely upon the existing condition of things at the time he wrote, while beyond that condition the fixed principles of nature told of a different growth and a differ- ent distribution of the commerce of the continent. Mr. Scott wrote when his vision was circumscribed by the deadening influence of slavery over more than one-half of the States, and when Indian reservations blockaded the way to fertile lands in the West and Southwest. He saw the free States of the North, with their population preponderating in great numbers over the population of the slave States of the South. He saw from those populous States thousands of hardy sons and daughters going forth to the Northwest in search of homes when the way was blockaked to the Southwest, and thus conceived that the life-currents of the nation were destined to CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 125 localize themselves in that region. At a later day thousands from all parts of the South were seen fleeing from the terrors of the rebellion to the Northwest ; an activity and a growth was seen there that has never been equaled on the continent, and short-sighted observers have imagined that all that unparalleled tendency of the people thither, and that extraordinary growth in population and material power, was in conformity to a fixed law of national growth. Not so. These incidental, yet local causes, positively compelled the tide of American progi-oss and power to the lakes and the Northwest. Slavery and Indian titles alone compelled the flank movement of the central column Northward in the civil conquest of the continent. So, too, did the late unhappy war drive the population, the industr}', and the wealth, to the Northwest ; but, with the extinction of slavery and Indian titles, the continent is left alike all over, and, founded upon the material resources of the country, trade and industry will be guided by the normal action of society and the law of Bupply and demand, and thus change all the workings of com- merce founded alone upon temporaiy conditions. For each slave set free is added §1,000,000 to the nation's wealth, and for each Indian title extinguished will be added a great community of industrious and intelligent people, who, "yielding to irre- sistible attraction, will seek a new life in becoming a part of the great whole." But let us look beyond Mr. Scott's reasoning, and set right those whom he has misguided. Two theories of internal com- merce have been Avritten into notice by American writers : one is the Lake theory, and the other is the Eiver theory. The Lake theory has been before the people much the longest timS; and has been the subject of a greater number of writers than has the Pdver theory. The Lake theory now is that Chicago is to be the commercial center for the trade of the Mississippi Yalley, and that the produce will go there, and from thence over the lakes to New York and foreign markets. The River theory- is that the commerce of the Mississippi Valley will follow the rivers to the Gulf, and from thence to the markets of the world. Mr. Scott advocated the Lake theory, first making Toledo the commercial center, but at a later day pointed to Chicago as the favored place. The Eiver theory, as yet, has received but little 126 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. attention in public print or public enterprise. Although both of these theories are entitled to great consideration by the Ameri- can people, yet it seems to be but an easy matter to determine which is to be the dominant one. For the Lake theory to pre- vail, New York must control the commerce of the Valley States and the farther West. This is an utter impossibility. She neither can control it by means of conveyance via the lakes nor by the Gulf The development of the Yalley States and the farther West will break her hold upon this people in spite of her wealth. It is the commerce going to and from nations that builds great cities on the seaboard, and that, too, when the people of the interior are only a producing people. On the other hand, when a nation has a valuable interior, rich soils, heavy forests, valuable metals, and good water-powers, its people are sure to become a consuming people, and therefore a populous people, and, with the dense population, in the interior, the great cities grow in the interior, and the seaboard cities become scarcely more than shipping ports. France and England give the strongest evidence of this truth. London and Paris are their interior cities, while Liverpool and Brest are their shipping ports. Such will be the result in America. But a few more years and that difference of wealth will not exist between the seaboard cities and those of the West that now dqes, and, therefore, they cannot exercise that arbitrary commercial control over the trade of the West that they now do. The rapid approach to the time when our inland cities will equals and even surpass, the Atlantic cities may be seen in the following figures. Taking the four cities of the seaboard and the four of the interior, they stand thus : Seaboard Cities. 1860. Boston 177,840 New York 805,651 Philadelphia 565,529 Baltimore 212,418 1,761,438 Inland Cities, 1860. Cincinnati 161,044 Chicago 109,260 St. Louis 160,773 New Orleans 168,675 590,752 Seaboard cities over Western cities 1,161,686 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMriRE. 127 Seaboard Cities. 18G8. Boston 278,000 New York 885,000 Philadelphia. 725,000 BaltiQiore 230,000 Inland Cities. ISfiS. Cinciniiii'.i 250,000 Chicago 252,000 St. Louis 265,000 New Orleans 200,000 2,118,000 967,000 Seaboard cities over Western cities 1,151,000 The figures show a material gain by the inland cities over those of the seaboard, in spite of the ravages of the war upon St. Louis and New Orleans; besides, in the West we have a greater area of country inviting alike all over to the emigrant, which causes a greater diffusion of our Western people than upon the seaboard part of our continent. But give us ten years of peaceful growth, and the West will double in population and wealth. In 1860 St. Louis was the seventh city of the country. She is now the fourth, and will soon be the third. In another ten years St. Louis will have more railroads run- ning to her than Chicago has. Startling as this statement may be to those who have been for a long time hearing that Chicago was the greatest railroad city in the country, the statement is nevertheless true. An}' one who is acquainted with the railroad system of St. Louis, and can comprehend what ten years will bring forth, can see at once the truth of the statement. In addition to St. Louis becoming the great railroad center, she will command both the Omaha and Kansas Pacific Eailroads, for she is more than 100 miles nearer Omaha than Chicago. Besides the road via New Mexico and Arizona to the Pacific ocean must be, on account of climate, the superior road. St. Louis will also have the advantage of the Galveston road and the Mississippi river, which will give her the advantage of the Southern and tropical trade. Thus everywhere are to be seen the unmistakable evidence of the future supremacy of St. Louis and her destiny to become the commercial center of the Missis- sippi Yalley. On our Western seaboard we have San Francisco, with a population of 125,000, besides many other rapidly growing cities in the intei'ior. The population of the West will also be more dense than that of the East; also, the workshops and wealth will be 128 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. greater. Hence the inevitable triumph of the River theory of commerce over the Lake theory. The inhabitants along the rivers v^^ill grow the crops, work the metals and the timbers, while the rivers and the railroads bear away over the country and to the Gulf the product of their industry. With cheaper freights and greater advantages, resulting from greater proximity to the produce, the River theory must prevail, and the interest of Chicago, St. Louis, and New Orleans be one in the united industrial and commercial movements of the West. He who reasons for the results of the future must take for the "basis of his arguments the facts as they exist in nature as well as in man, and combine them in proper relations, and then he becomes a prophet among his people. Man's success everj^where comes from his working in harmony with nature's laws. Then, in conformity to these overruling conditions, the commerce of the Mississippi Yalley must follow the flow of the rivers, and the wealth of the people must come from the soils, the minerals, and the forests. In response to all these truths, the River theory of the commerce of the West must be dominant over the Lake theory. In support of this position, the following facts are offered as still greater evidence of its truth : The States lying upon the banks of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, fourteen in number, had, by the census of 1860, a popu- lation of 16,909,494, or more than half the whole population of the United States j and these two rivers have a coast line of 36,098 miles, while the coast of the Atlantic is 2,163 miles, and the Gulf of Mexico 1,764 miles, and of the Pacific 1,343 miles, ■on an outer line, or 21,354 miles including bays and indentations. That these rivers drain an area of 1,785,267 square miles, more than half of the whole 3,001,002 square miles in the United States; and these fourteen States, in 1860, contained 94,402,869 of the 163,110,720 improved acres, and 126,703,393 of the 244,101,818 unimproved acres of the whole United States j and the valution of property in these fourteen States shows $8,467,511,274 of the whole valuation of the United States, $16,077,358,715; showing very conclusively that these fourteen States pay more than half the taxes, work moi'e than half of the improved land, have the majority of the population, and also the majority of the land to develop, of the whole United States. CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 129 By the census of 1860, the whole product of the United States was valued at $1,900,000,000, while the foreign exports of domestic produce were only $373,189,274, or less than one-fifth of the whole product, leaving four-fifths for exchange in domestic commerce between the States. The proportion of the whole product afforded by these four- teen States we speak for, may be judged by these returns of their produce, gathered from the census of 1860, and compared with the whole United States, as follows : The Fourteen StafB. The whole United States. Corn 632 453,375 bushels. 838.792 740 bushels. Wheat r26,9;)0,730 " 173,10-1,924 Oats 103,995 461 " 172,643,185 Tobacco 345,400.759 pounds. 434,209 4()1 pounds. Suo'ar 222,6:i6,000 " 230,982,000 Cotton 1,079,799,600 " 2,154,820,800 " Wool 31,277.839 " 60,264,913 " Hay 9,297,743 tons. 19,083.896 tons. Bui-ter 230,601,405 pounds. 459,681,372 pounds. Hemp 69,470 tons. 74,493 tons. Hoo-s 22,225,760 31.512,867 Bituminous coal 3,247,264,425 bushels, 3,621,923,105 bushels Horses and asses 4.804,634 7,400,322 Cattle 12,517.392 25,616,019 Sheep 11,973,315 22,471,275 Showing for tke river States a great preponderance in the products of the whole country. The total tonnage owned in the United States is returned in the census of 1860 as 5,353,868 tons, and the portion belonging to the fourteen States as 996,266 tons ; but it is estimated, by competent parties, that the steamers on the Ohio and Mississippi have carried 7,905,216 tons during the year 1866, evincing the activity in domestic commerce of these river States, and this commerce but jet in its infancy — for it is developing daily, and demonstrating that from these States has and must come the food supply for the whole nation and for export; and that the}' must also supply the gold and silver States which are developing so largely and quickly upon the tributaries of their rivers. These figures cannot be regarded otherwise than in favor of the River theory, and the consequent development of St. Louis as the commercial center of the Mississippi Valley. 130 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. In further proof of St. Louis becoming the commercial center of the Mississippi Y alley, the following evidence given b}' Pro- fessor WaterhousO; of this city, in one of his valuable articles upon the resources of Missouri, is submitted : ST. LOUIS THE COMMERCLVL CENTEE OF NOETH AMEEICA. St. Louis is ordained by the decrees of physical nature to become the great inland metropolis of this continent. It cannot escape the magnificence of its destiny. Greatness is the neces- sity of its position. New York may be the head but St. Louis will be the heart of America. The stream of traffic which must flow through this mart will enrich it with alluvial deposits of gold. Its central location and facilities of communication unmistakably indicate the leading part which this city will take in the exchange and distribution of the products of the Missis- sippi Yalley. St. Louis is situated upon the west bank of the Mississippi, at an altitude of 400 feet above the level of the sea. It is far above the highest floods that ever swell the Father of Waters. Its latitude is 38 deg. 37 min. 28 sec. north, and its longitude 90 deg. 15 min. 16 sec. west. It is 20 miles below the mouth of the Missouri, and 200 above the confluence of the Ohio. T-,. . - . Miles. Distance by river from St. Louis to Keokuk 200 " Burlino:-toii 260 " Rock Island 350 '* Dubuque 470 *« St. Paul 800 " Cairo 200 " Memphis 440 " Vicksburcr 830 ♦' New Orleans 1.240 " Louisvill 580 ♦' Cincinnati 720 " Pittsburg 1,200 " I-eavanworth 500 " Omaha 800 " Sioux City 100 " Fort Benton i....3,I00 Distance by rail from St. Louis to Indianapolis 20O " Chicago 280 " Cincinnati 340 " Cleveland 470 ♦« Pittsburg 650 " Buflalo G50 *' New York 1,000 " Lawrence 320 " Denver 880 ♦' Salt Lake 1,300 " Virginia City 1,900 '* Sail Francisco 2,300 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMriUE. 181 St. Louis very nearly bisects the direct distance of 1,400 miles between Superior City and the Bulize. It is the geographical center of a valley which embraces 1,200,000 square miles. In its course of 3,200 miles, the Mississippi borders upon Missouri 470 miles. Of the 3,000 miles of the Missouri, 500 lie within the limits of our own State. St. Louis is mistress of more than 16,500 miles of river navigation. This metropolis, though in the infancy of its greatness, is al ready a large city. Its length is about eight miles, and its width three. Suburban residences, the outposts of the grand advance, are now stationed six. or seven miles from the river. The present population of St. Louis is 204,300. In 1865, the real and personal property of the city was assessed at $100,000,000, and in 1866 at $126,877,000. St. Louis is a well-built city, but its architecture is rather substantial than showy. The wide, well-paved streets, the spa- cious levee, and commodious warehouses; the mills, machine- shops, and manufactories: the fine hotels, churches, and public buildings ; the universities, charitable institutions, public schools, and libraries, constitute an array of excellences and attractions of which any city may justly be proud. The Lindell and Southern tlotels are two of the largest and most magnificent structures which the world has ever dedicated to public hospi- tality. The Lindell is itself a village.* The appearance of St. Louis from the eastern bank of the Mississippi is impressive. At East St. Louis, the eye sometimes commands a view of 100 steamboats lying at our levee. Not- withstanding the departure of more than 40 boats for Montana, there are at this date 70 steamers in the port of St. Louis. A mile and a half of steamboats is a spectacle which naturally inspires large views of commercial greatness. The sight of our levee, thronged with busy merchants and covered with the commodities of every clime, from the peltries of the Eocky Mountains to the teas of China, does not tend to lessen the mag- nitude of the impression. The growth of St. Louis, though greatly retarded by social institutions, has been rapid. The'population of the city was, in 1769 891 1795 925 1810 1,400 1820 4,928 1828 5,000 1830 5.852 1833 G,31)7 1835 8,316 1837 12,04a 1840 10,409 1844 34,140 1850 74,439 1S52 94,000 1856 125,200 1859 185.587 1866 204,327 •On the 30th of March, 1S07, this superb odiflce was burned to the ground. 132 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. In 1866, 1,400 buildinga, worth 83,500,000, were erected in St. Louis. The total number of structures in the city is now about 20,000, and their approximate value is S50,000,006.* At the present rate of decennial increase, St. Louis, in 1900, would contain more than 1,000,000 inhabitants. This number certainly seems to exceed the present probability of realization, but the future growth of St. Louis, vitalized by the mightiest forces of a free civilization, and quickened by the exchanges of a continental commerce, ought to surpass the rapidity of its past development. The real estate in St. Louis was, in 1859 assessed at $69,846,845 1860 " " 73,765,670 1861 " " 57.537.415 1862 " " 40,240,450 1863 assessed at $49,409,030 1804 " " .53,205,820 1865 " " 73,960,700 1866 " " 81,961,610 In 1866, the valuation of the real and personal property in St. Louis on which the State and military taxes were levied was $126,877,000. The amount of duties collected at the St. Louis Custom House was, in 1861 $30,183 96 1862 20,404 70 1863 36,622 09 1864 $76,448 43 1865 586 407 47 1866 785,652 30 The amount of imposts paid at the port of Chicago during the fiscal year ending December 31, 1866, was §509,64:3 39 in coin. The duties collected during the same period at this port amounted to $60,176 45 in currency, and $780,706 97 in gold. Only about one-fifth of the customs levied on goods imported into St. Louis are collected at this point. St. Louis is only a port of delivery. The imposts upon our foreign merchandise are chiefly paid at the ports of entry. The present system of foreign importation is unfavorable to the commercial interests of St. Louis. This city should be made a port of entry. The goods of St. Louis importers are now subjected to great delay and expense at New Orleans. The municipal authorities do not permit the merchandise to lie on the landing more than five days. If the requisite papers are not made out within that time, the goods arc sent to bonded ware- houses. This contingency not unfrequently occurs. The pi'ess of business or official slowness often delay's the issue of the Custom House pass beyond the specified time, and then the * A report recently marie under mnnicipnl authority, shows that at the date of the present publioation, November, 18G8. more than ti.OOO linilding.s — almost all of them Ijuilt of l)rick, and many of them faced with stone— are either now in process of erection or just linished. CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 133 "Western importer is subject to the serious expense which the draj-age to the warehouse, loss of time, and frequent damage to the goods, involve. The gravity of this embarrassment forces many of our merchants to pay the duties at New Orleans. This course saves delay and expense. The revenue laws recog- nize no distinction between the actual payment of duties and the transportation bond. But practically there is an important difference. In case the impost is paid at Now Orleans, the goods are almost alwa3-s forwarded within live days; but when the merchandise is shipped under a transportation bond, the detention is very frequently ten days, and sometimes a month. In the former instance, any package can be forwarded as soon as the duty is paid; but, in the latter case, the imports cannot be dispatched to their destination till the entire shipment has passed the inspection of the Custom House. In consequence of these unjust discriminations against St. Louis, many of our largest importers, notwithstanding the inconvenience of keeping gold on deposit in New Oi-leans, prefer to pay the duties on their foreign goods at the port of entry. An excessive and unnecessary delay at the New Orleans Custom Ilouse recently subjected one of our merchants to a loss of §8 a ton on a shipment of iron. Last season, another of our importers ordered a large stock of Christmas goods. The articles reached New Orleans in sea- son, but were detained there till after the holidays. They must now be kept, with loss and deterioration, for another year ; and, before next Christmas, they may become comparatively worth- less by changes of mode and new directions of public taste. These examples illustrate the importance of time in commer- cial transactions. The Government could easily obviate all the difficulties which our importers now experience by making St. Louis a port of entry. The commercial embarrassments of the present system need immediate removal. In the event of the proposed change, frauds upon the Government could be prevented by reshipping the goods at New Orleans under the eye of the Custom House authorities, keeping them during the voyage under lock and key, and, if necessary, subjecting them on the passage to the surveillance of a Revenue officer. During the rebellion, the shipments of merchandise to Southern ports were placed under similar supervision. The satisfactoiy operation of this system, amid all the liabilities to abuse which exist in times of civil tur- bulence, warrants the conviction that the proposed plan would, in a period of peace, prove eminently successful. If Congress respects commercial rights, St. Louis will soon become a port of entry. 134 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. From the records of the United States Assessor, it appears that in 1865 the sales of 612 St. Louis firms amounted to §140,688,856. For the same year, the imports of this city reached an aggregate of §235,878,875 The manufactures of St. Louis constitute an important element in our commercial -transactions. In 1860, the capital invested in manufactures was ?59, 205,205, and the value of the product was §21,772,323. In 1866, the mills of this city made 820,000 barrels of flour. In 1865, our receipts of strain, including flour, were...l7,Gj7,2oO bushels. " 1SG6, " ^" " ...20.855,280 " 1865, exports " " ...13,427.000 " *' 18G6, *' " " ...18,680,500 St. Louis, though the eighth city in the United States in popu" lation, ranlis as seventh in the importance of its manufactures- Missouri might profitably imitate the activity of its metropolis. The extent of our social and commercial intercourse with the rest of the world may be inferred from the postal statistics of this department. In 1865, the number of letters which passed through the St. Louis Post Office for distribution, mail or delivery, was about 11,000,000. In 1866, the total sum of postage collected, including the sale of stamps, was more than 3195,000; and the amount of raonej' orders paid was 8145,000. In postal importance, St Louis is the fifth city of the Union. The earnings of our railroads indirectly exhibit the magnitude of our trade. For the fiscal year of 1865 the total receipts of the Iron Mountain were §424,700; Iv'orth Missouri, $1,013,000 ; Missouri Pacific and Southwest Branch, §1,939,000; Hannibal and St. Joseph, §2,000,000. In 1866, the earnings of the Mis- souri Pacific were §2,670,000. The returns of the Union Pacific for November, 1866, were §77,869. The Directors estimate their monthly receipts for 1867 at §100,000. In 1865, the total number of passengers, by river or rail, w-ho made St. Louis their destination or a point of transit, amounted to 1,180,000; and in 1866, 1,250,000. In 1866, the number of liouses and firms doing business in St. Louis was 5,500, and the number of commercial licenses issued during the same year was 4,800. The tonnage owned and enrolled in the district of St. Louis in 1865 was 97,000 tons. On the first of January, 1867, the amount of our steam tonnage, exclusive of a large number of barges and canal boats Avhich made occasional trips, was 106,600 tons, with a carrying capacity of 186, 00 tons, and a value of §10,376,000. Our commerce is aided by ample banking facilities. There are in St. Louis, in addition to 20 private banks, 38 insurance CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 135 companies, 31 incorporated banking institutions, with an actual capital of §15,000,000. The character of our banks stands de-ervodly high in the financial world. The development of the territories is brini>:ing large deposits to our banks, creating new demands for capital, and cxtetiding the channels of circulation. Our trade with the mountains is large and rapidly increasing. In 18G5, 20 boats set out from this port for Fort Benton — which is more than 3,000 miles from St. Louis — Avith a total freight of 6,000.000 pounds. In 1866, 50 boats sailed for Fort Benton, with an aggregate tonnage of 10,284 tons. In three instances the cost of assorted goods was as follows : 13 tons of merchandise $12,000 35 " " 40,0C0 40 " " G5,0(10 Mean cost per ton 1,300 The agent who furnishes these facts feels authorized b}' his experience in the trade of the Upper Missouri to appraise a ton of Montana merchandise at §1,000. The following table is an approximate estimate, based upon the preceding data, of our commerce with Montana for the year 1866: Number of boats 50 *' " passengers 2.500 Pounds of freight 13.000.000 Value of merchandise $0,500,000 The trade across the Plains is of still greater magnitude. The overland freight from Atchison alone has increased from 3,000,000 pounds in 1861 to 21,500,000 in 1865. The Overland Dispatch Company have courteousl}' furnished me with estimates, founded upon their own transactions, of our total commerce with the Territories in 1865. These figures do not include the Fort Benton trade. ISfunaber of passengers East and West by overland coaches 4,800 " '• " " bj'' trains and private conveyances 50,000 Number of wagons 8,000 " " cattle and mules 100,000 Pounds of freight to Plattsmouth 3.000.000 " " Leavenworth City....: 6,000,000 " " Santa Fe S,0(i0,()00 ♦» '« St Jo.seph 10,000 000 " " Nebraska City 15,000.000 " " Atchison 25.000.000 •Government freight 50.000.000 Total number of pounds 117.000.000 Amount of treasure carried by express $3,000,000 " •' " by private conveyance 30,000,000 136 CHANGE OP NATIONAL EMPIRE. The Overland Express charge 3 per cent, for the transporta- tion of bullion. This high commission and the hostility of the Indian tribes induced many miners to send their gold East by the way of San Francisco to Pafiama. In 1860, tlie total assay of bullion in the United vStates was ,^81,389,540. Of this aggregate, $73,032,800 came fron^ the Pacific and Eocky Mountain mines. Upon the usual estimate that 25 per cent, of the gold and •silver escapes assay, the entire product of the country in 1866 was §100,000,000. The increase of population in the gold regions, the richness of recent discov- eries, and greater activity in raining operations indicate a still larger aggregate in 1867. In 1866, the Westward traffic of Leavenworth amounted to $50,000,000. This aggregate includes the Santa Fe trade, whose value last year was about ^35,000,000. The Westero trade of Nebraska City was, in 1868 Ifi.SOO.OOO pounds. 1864. 23,000,000 ' ' 1865 44,000,000 " 1866 30,000,000 " The freightage from this point across the Plains required, in 1865, 11,739 men, 10,311 wagons, 10,123 mule.s, and 76,596 oxen. So great is the length of the overland routes that the trains are able to make but two through trips a year. The Union Pacific railroad already extends to Fort Harker. This materially shortens the extent of overland freightage.* Distance from St. Louis to Fort Harker 508 miles. " " Fort Harker to Denver 372 " " " " " Salt Lake City 81.0 " " " " " Virginia City 1432 " The length of these lines of transportation, the slowness of our present means of communication, and the magnitude of our territorial population and trade, forcibly illustrate the necessity of a Pacific railroad. The foregoing summaries exhibit the commerce of the Missis- sippi Valley with the mountains. But while St. Louis does not monopolize the trade of the gold regions, it j-et sends to the *The Union Pacific, Eastern Division, now extends to Slieridan, 688 miles west of St. Louis. The iiistaiice fi-Din .'^lieridan to Denver i.s 175 miles, and from Denver to Cheyenne— wiiere the Union Pacific forms a junction with the Northern Hue — 112 miles. The Northern Pacilic is now completed S.'iO miles west of Omaha. The Central Pacific now runs eastward from San Franci.sco more than 600 miles The 400 miles which remain to be built will probably be linishcd by the fourth of July, 1869 — moi-e than six years before the time jn-e.-^cribed by law for the completion of the road. Then an unbroken line of railway of 3,300 miles" long will stretch from New York to .San Francisco. This gigantic work, prosecuted during the most formidable rebellion of mo d* o d~ CO ;2 c^ o o > o o o o o »o -JTJ d i-c CO 05 CO o o ■^ ■n CO «fr -1* o o o~ ~o o o CO o o o o <=■ o o o c> o^ o o g f-£ o o d" d d" <3> o CO c o 00 3 .j:^ o o o c •— o o ^ g ?? fc "^ c f"* ^ ^ <» o o o o* o -J o o i£ ;_ ^ ^ o ^-1 OJ CO oc o -# c:^ 'M ; "* o en o -i< o i «& i-H CO o g- O o i'3 = ■6 o d -J^f" o -+ 3 o I-- o o o £ 6 in C-' ^ cc E: « -o CO o -* o o 00 o d o ll 3 o co" *^ ."J 00 ^' {5 c/) £2 ■rH o| o:) o O o O o O , d" d' "3 o o g 1 '■-' '^ [ - ; c3 i 5 c - T < ■g 5 £ S w s ' c V i 3 £■ 2 t- H 'c (W p 5 t s a ^ ^ t> >• < U -a Jd !? ■* § -* bcj- ^'2 is- 5=.^ " ^ a; 3^ a> «5 ^T c;> >^*:^ o2 -*" 0" ^ c<-i -u 2 3 000 (?!_ 0_ 10 o_ 03 .0 -S £'■" CD 0" CO :^ c; CD cT CO ■*^ ;£ 05 aj sLr c £ i- C M >> < i-H 00 ■3 ^ S 000 a'^- fe =< '73 -^ «*-! .5 ^ So ^ m 000 i § i g p »o J c .ra ~ -^^ a c s 2 . c ---^^ S^ S a =3 S N--S CO Co "S '^ bc.5 i 0^ 2 0" 0" 0" ° 8 s^ i S.2 rS i-T cT 0' CD -t< 1 5335^° -fJ !^ S Cl^ CO 00 ^- P c3 tS S ^ ° 2 - " i : 5^225 CO t3 o-f a ri § : CO • CO 7^ ^ ^ .5 TO £7. > ~ 8 : I- ? ? a '^ ^2 'ui S 2 : ?f : - - cs m .2 s'm— c3 ■^ S I T* 1 ^^ -^ ■ c; -^ =^ -jS C Vh (» — «--C!ci:?3 -^^ -^ ^ 2 P 2 CO r-j aU CI ill >; G 3 S 5 § m ^ CO : , c; S . -J 3 § § 0" S 8 0" CO c 1 ^11^'- •<^-;i 2I tc S S :s" i £ 2 s "S ^ ^1 o5 -)<_ I V 5 fcCt! - "--* c3 t-. \< i-g ; _ 00 dco -^ ! g 5 o> 00 -* >v3 B ^^ CO bo . .2 9<-7;^i i .s 2' -J 2 .-- ^ ^2 ti (B :2 ■>; 152 CnANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. Table showing the growth of coinage of the United States from 1793 to 18G7. Years. Gold. Silver. Copper. Total. 1793 to 1800, 8 yrs $1,014,290 00 $1,440,454 75 $79,390 82 $2,534,135 57 1801 to 1810, 10 yrs 3,250,742 50 3,509,105 25 1.51,246 39 6,971,154 14 1811 to 1820, 10 yrs 3,166,510 00 5,970,810 95 191,158 57 9,328,479 52 1821 to 1830, 10 yrs 1,903,092 50 16,781,016 95 1.51,412 20 18, 835,. 5.51 05 1831 to 1840, 10 yrs 18,791,862 00 27,199,779 00 342,322 21 46,333,963 21 1841 to 1850, 10 yrs 89,443,328 00 22,226,755 00 380,670 83 112,0,50,753 83 1851 to 1860, OMyrs 470,838,180 98 48,087,763 13 1,249,612 53 .520,175,-556 04 1861 to 1867, 7 yrs 296,987,404 63 12,638,732 11 4,860,3.50 00 314, 475,. 546 74 Total, 74 yrs $885,375,470 61 $137,914,587 14 $7,415,163 55 $1,030,705,141 30 I have already intimated that, instead of the people of the Yalley States looking to India, China, and Japan, for commerce, as the popular but superficial judgment seems now to incline, their interest lies in the tropics of our own hemisphere ; that instead of indulging in wild and chimerical speculations, across distant oceans to distant lands, for things relatively use- less in life, they must look to the islands of the Gulf, Mexico, Central and South America, for the wealth and products of those count I'ies. An important element of that wealth may be inferred from the following table: CnANQE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 153 Co >i ^ "SOST sonis JO aiiiBA imox J3 "^ ,_j *j -a |2 o O H 00 Q e ii^ 10 o o « O O iC => o o = 000001 o o crs — ■M^ ' 2 S o o c: o o o o - o o o o o o -* o o o M t- Tl ;i O ^^ — . rt o o • 1- O I n — ■ . oi^ O o o o s o 2 ■5* TO 22^ X X C-. 5 S| TO CO "^~ n » OJOOOOOO 2 22 — - 2 2 2 2 2 2" 2" 2"^"-' 3 5 S S 3: ox m Oi z: 000 000 coo 2" 2" 2" S o_S5 o'o'o'o'o"; g r< o - o : o o o if^ — < ; ^ x'r-T-* o"; O— 'OO-COOO O'MOO-^OOO Ox00^3r^OC5 > o o O ; 0^31 I-l- o - • X X oT 000000 00 OMOOOOOO o^ooosoo o"-* o"o o'o'o'o" 0—1000000 ri4 o t-t ;o 1-^ X — o ■5 o" « J^" o~ o" «" x" S •:; - M.z: S 3 3 X 00 MO t^O 00 o"o t^O o o Sf o S 0-* (M O tea c o © 03 a o .- s c 5=^3, '^ i* 00 Sri^ > x " T3 o 3 o j:3 00000000 O COOQOOO 00000000 000 00 ifj't^cT o ■-; o LT o t^ •>) o O -# -* I- O OS Miles. 13,400 10,600 10,400 4,800 3,500 2,800 2,000 3,800 4,000' 4,500 5,000 8,480 9,890 V5 Miles. 9,600 10,800 11,600 8,100 10,000 11,500 14,000 14,000 14,000 14,000 14,000 2,620 2,830 > O V Miles. 4,100 8,900 9,600 5.260 3,340 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 155^ Table showing the trade of the United States that icould pass througfr the Isthmus Canal if now finished. Countries traded with. Export? and Imports. Tonnao^e. $ 126,537 $ 5,73a 004,550 16,589 4,728,083 52,105 11,744,151 177,121 98,432 3,665 9,601,063 34,673 5,375,354 131,708 425,081 36,599 0,645,634 63,749 716,679 193,131 48,979 1,979 1,157,849 33,876 12.752,002 123,578 80,143 4,549 10,796,090 116,730 35,000,000 861,698 $100,294,687 $ 1,857,485 92,874,250 $193,168,937 $9 2,874,250 Alaska Dutch East Indies Briti.>ih Australia and New Zealand, British East Indies French East Indies Half of Mexico Half of New Granada Central America Chili Peru , Ecu.-idor Sandwich Islands China Other ports in Asia and Pacific "Whale Fisheries California to East United States Value of cargo Value of ships at $50 per ton Total value of ships and cargo Table showing the trade of England that would pass through the Isthmus Canal if now finished. Countries traded with. Half of Mexico Half of Central America. Half of New Granada.... Chili , Peru Ecuador Chma, I Qnt^y_^rd only, forty days saved S?ngkpore,j ^^^'^^^^ Australia and New Zealand Sandwich Islands California Value of trade Value of ships at $50 per ton. Total value of trade and ships. Exports and Imports. Tonnage. $ 2,775,137 $ 11,833 1,244,817 5,615 2,437,605 10,188 15,486,110 118,311 20,473,.-)20 244,319 360,015 1,820 f 7,077,390 68.520 \ 3,821;410 16,003 4.364,070 16,500 78,246,095 522,426 520,560 1,9.50 2,378,105 11,800 $139,184,834 $ 1,029,295 51,464,750 1 $190,649,584 $51,404,750 156 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. Table showing the trade of France that would pass through the Isthmus Canal if now finished. Countries traded with. Chili Peiu Half of Mexico Half ot New Granada Ecuador Boiivia California Dulch East Indies. }0'^t^^'-^l«"^J^- Sandwich Islands Philiiplne Islands Australia Value of cargoes Value of ships at $50 per ton Total value Exports and Imports. $10, 13. 2, 1, 000,000 160.000 790,000 090,000 440,000 100,000 073,859 180,000 440,000 000,000 000,000 800,000 $59,073,859 8,136,750 $67,210,609 Tonnage. 25,688 'io,004 2,389 1,651 1,000 8,997 2,028 20.400 4,119 1,463 50,000 162,735 8,136,750 Table showing the total tonnage that would yearly pass through the Isthmus Canal if noio finished. Tons. United States.... England , France ., Other countries. Total 1,857,485 1,029,295 162,735 44,555 3,094,070 Table showing the general result of the foregoing tables. Tonnage and trade of the United States.... England " " France " *' Other countries. $193,168,937 190,649,584 67,210.609 16,802,000 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 157 These tables show items of vast importance to the trade of the world aud its approaching change. That a ship canal will bo constructed across the Isthmus, there is no manner of doubt. In further demand of its construction, the United Slates would save yearly by it, in her shipping, §35,995,930. England would save by it yearly $9,950, 'U8. France would save by it yearly §2,183,930. The trade of the world would save by its construc- tion §49,530,208. With this vast amount of trade awaiting its construction, we can safely say that the time for its completion is not remote, and it will give a new growth and vitality to our country and to the Valley States. Then will the Mississippi river and the Lake and Gulf railways become the greatest commercial channels on the continent, thus increasing our internal trade and augment- ing the commercial supremacy of St. Louis. The close prox- imity of our Gulf ports to such a canal would necessarilj- control that portion of our government trade for the Valley States, and, by the necessities of our trade and the wants of the people, give the control of that trade to St. Louis. Several efforts have been made within the last sixteen years to provide for the construction of this great canal, but as yet without success. Very recently a meeting was held in New York city for the purpose of organizing a company and securing the required financial aid for its construction. The following statement of the meeting is taken from the December number of Appleton's Railway Guide, and will be found interesting to the reader : IMPORTANT COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE — A CANAL TO BE MADE ACROSS THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA. At a meeting of the corporation of the Isthmus Canal Com- pany, held at the residence of Peter Cooper, Esq., the company was organized by electing Mr. Cooper as president, and Fred. A. Conklin as secretary. The Secretary of State of the United States, the Hon. William H. Seward, and the Attornej^-General of the United States, the Hon. William M. Evarts, having come frona Washington to con- fer with the leading capitalists and merchants of this city upon the subject, were present, and laid many important facts before the meeting. Estimates from the highest sources state the cost 158 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. of the work at $100,000,000. The following gentlemen were appointed commissioners to obtain subscriptions to the stock of the company : W. F. Coleman, Marshall O. Roberts, Cornelius K. Garrison, William B. Duncan, and Eichard Scheil. Among those present at the meeting were many gentlemen prominent as capitalists, merchants, and as members of the learned professions. Charts of surveys of the proposed route, by Frederick W. Kelley and other eminent engineers, were exhibited, which demonstrated the feasibilit}^ of the undertak- ing, and entire conjSideuce was expressed in its ultimate success as a woi'k of engineering and as a commercial enterprise. During the discussion, the Hon. William H. Seward spoke substantially as follows : SPEECH OP THE SECRETARY OF STATE. " Gentlemen : Ever since the canal of the Pharaohs across the Isthmus of Suez fell into disuse, and was lost under changes of society and nature, commerce has desired the restoration of that original and most feasible channel of trade and intercouse between the Atlantic and the Pacific nations. The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope supplied a costly and hazardous substi- tute, which Avas eagerly accepted. The exploration of the newly-discovered American continent, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, disclosed at once necessities for a better chan- nel to be constructed across that continent, and made a full revelation that that better channel could be constructed across that continent, and nowhere else. During the past three hun- dred years statesmanship and humanitarianism have combined with ever-increasing diligence and effort to find the means of effecting an enterprise which is, perhaps, the only one that ever has commanded universal assent and commended itself to the desire of all mankind. Every advance of modern civilization in Europe, the establishment of every new nation in America, every opening of any secluded Asiatic State and nation that has occurred, has increased the zeal and the energy of the friends of progress in favor of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien. We habitually feel and say that we are living in an important and interesting period. We do, indeed, have occasion and oppor- tunity to labor effectually in various ways in the cause of civilization and humanity; but, if I do not mistake, the chief of all the advantages of statesmen of the present day in all the countries is. that they can take part in the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien. " Gentlemen, to accept our respective parts in this great enter- prise is the work of this night. We are Americans. We are charged with responsibilities of establishing on the American continent a higher condition of civilization and freedom than CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 159 has ever before been attained in any part of the world. We all acknowlediie and feel this responsibility. The destiny which we wish to realize as Americans is set plainly before us, and dis- tinctly within our reach ; but that destiny can onl}' be attained by the execution of the Darien ship canal. The reason is obvi- ous. While the electric telegraph can and must be used for the interchange of ideas between nations, and while improved high- ways must and will be used for overland travel and intercourse, yet the mineral, forest, and agricultural bulky productions of the earth can only be exchanged by navigation, and this naviga- tion must be made as cheap and as frequent and as expeditious as is possible. But as to navigation by sailing vessels, com- merce can no longer afford to us the circuitous and perilous navigation around the Capes. It must and will have shorter channels of transport, and of these there can be but two — the one across the Isthmus of Suez, the other across the Isthmus of Darien. A canal across the Isthmus of Suez already approaches its completion. If that channel is to secure the patronage of universal commerce, it will be fully enlarged and completely adapted to the interests of modern commerce. In that case the commerce of even the Atlantic American coast, from the St. Lawrence to Cape Horn, will be turned eastward across the Atlantic, and through the 3Iediterranean and Eed Seas, and the Indian Ocean, to" India and China. It would be a reproach to American enterprise and statesmanship to suppose that we are thus to become tributaries to ancient and effete Egypt, when by piercing the Isthmus of Darien we can bring the trade of even the Mediterranean, and of the European Atlantic coast, through a channel of our own, so palpably indicated b}^ nature that all the world has accepted it as feasible and necessary. "We have undertaken to develop the resources of our own continent, and to regulate and restore the Asiatic nations to free self-government, prosperity, and happiness. The Darien ship canal is the only enterprise connected with the great work of civilization which remains to be undertaken. It was a mis- take to suppose that we have been hitherto either inactive or idle in regard to this important matter. We have built a rail- road across the Isthmus of Panama, and within twelve months raiore we shall have stretched a railroad across the continent from New York to San Francisco. Wo have abundant assur- ance that these achievements are profitable and useful. Both of them, however, are profitable and useful only as types and shadows of the Darien ship canal, which we all feel and know must be transcendently profitable and transcendently useful. "The executive Government of the United States, gentlemen, has adopted the enterprise in which you are engaged. It has provided for a full, satisfactory, and final survey, preparatory to 160 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. the construction of the Darien ship canal. It is engaged in negotiating with the Eepublic of Colombia for its consent to your achievement of the enterprise. The Prei^ident will go for- ward with renewed zeal and vigor on receiving the assurances which you have given me that the city of New York has named the men who will undertake that achievement, and stand ready to furnish the hundred million dollars which it may be expected to cost." EXPENSES. Lest some should still be read}^ to object on account of some trivial cause, and especially on account of the public expense necessary to make the change and erect new buildings, I submit the following statement from the Hon. Hugh McCuUoch, Secre- tary of the United States Treasury, giving the cost ot the public grounds and buildings at Washington : Treasury Department, September 28, 18G8. Sir: In reply to yom- inquiries, I have to say that the total amount expended in the District of Columbia from the time the seat of "jovern- ment was located there to June 30th, 1868, for pubhc works of every description, includino: buildings and works of art, is $37,390,853.08. The real estate, exclusive of buildinfjs, was assessed at $13,412,293.26, in 3858. Since that time there has been no assessment of which the Department is advised. Very respectfully, HUGH Mcculloch, Secretary of the Treasury. L. U. Keaa^s, Esq., St. Louis, Mo. By this statement it will be seen that the expense of erecting the public buildings at Washington City is far below the amount supposed by those who have ventured an opinion upon the subject. On the following page will be found a statement from the Hon. O. H. Browning, Secretary of the Interior, showing the extent of the public grounds in the District of Columbia. The statement, like that of the public expenditures, is much below that which the uninformed individual would have estimated. CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. IGl Department of thtc Intebior, 1 Washington, D. C, Ueceuibt-r 19, 18G8. / Sir: lieferriiifi: to your request of the 1st inst., 1 inclose herewith for your information a statement showing tlie extent of the public grounds in the District of Columbia. 1 am, sir, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, O. II. BROWNING, Secretary , L. U. Reavis, Esq., St. Louis, Mo, (J Q >q o . ^ H ID H < R ^ A t^ ^ o H m M H H fi I«'h CO <1 H H CO h H H ^ S5 t3 H H EH H -f I— I OC CO'CO r- 02 00 o c> • o CJ CO CO ^r' 'C 00 1^ >r5 eo > CO — 1 CO l> •M CC C5 00 oco>or~-OfocoMO>-i i^ t-. . lO O •* C7-1 1^ 05 « 1^ o: i>. •— o 'MC'ieot— roco^^-»*ico .— I— CO— ' — iMtrJcO-rf-tl O CO to tt t- ^ cc ir. t- CS i-ir^OOCCXr-lOi—ir— I £-^ CO ^ ^ i^ 2 2 '-0 4J J -J a 4.: *: ;'• ^rJ;^SS^^I< »o ; cc t~ 00 O CO -«*< CO -«»< JJ t i-ir-c'*5r 162 CHANGE OP NATIONAL EMPIRE. A change of the seat of government does not imply a loss of the public buildings at Washington, by any means, for all the valuable material can be easily moved and put in the new buildings; and by this means new and better buildings can be erected at a less cost than were the present ones. Good engin- eers freely express the entire feasibility and safety of taking down and removing either or all the present government buildings, and they can be taken down, moved, and newly erected, in five years. Boats can bring the materials all the way round by water, and land them at the new seat of govern- ment at far less expense than was first required to collect them together at Washington. But the cost of the change and the erection of the buildings is a matter of but small consideration. An expense of $1(:0,000,000 would be of little concern to this great nation, ■and especially when it would probably be twenty years in spending it. It is true that for the Capital of the New Eepublic would be required buildings of more magnificent structure than those of the Old Government — more magnificent than were ever yet wrought by human hands. In anticipation of loftier and purer American statesnaen than now are, the Eepublic will require more magnificent legislative halls. In anticipation of the future grandeur and goodness of the Eepublic, department buildings far superior and more commodious than the pi-esent will be required. In anticipation of a wiser and better people all over the land, the New Eepublic will be required to give national aid to the distribution of knowledge among its citizens and mankind, and thus Avill be demanded departments for these beneficent purposes. Yet the expense for all is insignificant, when considered in the light of the future growth of the Eepublic. Again, the national expense will be reduced, by the removal of the seat of government to the Yalley States, by cutting short the mileage of new members of Congress that will yet claim seats as representatives and senators of the new States yet to be born into the family of the Eepublic. This item alone, small as it may seem, will in time show largely on the side of economy. Again, there exists an intolerable objection to the seat of CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 1C3 government remaining at "Washington, on account of the inconvenience to reach it, and also on account of the poverty and monopoly of its markets. Those who know anything of the markets at Washington Ciiy know that they are scantily sup- plied, and that, too, with products that bear no comparison with Western products; and besides their inferiority and scarcity, the people are compelled to buy or do without. These would seem to be insignificant items ; but when we consider the immense use of such products at a national capital, they at once become items of great concern. The seat of government, located at St. Louis, will be placed at the center of the best means of public communication from all parts of the country afforded on the continent; besides, situ- ated in the midst of the best products of the Mississippi Valley, where there can be no scai'city and no monopol}^. It has been foolishly argued by some that the seat of govern- ment, at any point, is a means to generate demoralization and corruption in the people. This objection is so silly that it deserves to be noticed in order to render it contemptible. It is one of those objections often made by individuals who can always see more faults in their neighbors than they can in themselves. It is made by those who look upon the dark side of the pictui*e of human life with doubt and distrust, and, by thus expressing themselves, are enemies to the highest interests of human society. Away from that dark picture ; away from the faith or influence of him or her that does not have implicit confidence in the success of the EepubUc ! Never before in the history of man- kind has individual or national life reached so high a plane in intellectual and moral progress as at the present hour. To con- tend that the seat of government of the Eopublic is a means to breed corruption and guilt, is to contend that one's self is a villain, and that his neighbors are hypocrites and demagogues, that society is a farce, and the law a blank. It is not so. The capitals of England, France, Turkey, China, Eussia, Mexico, and nearly all the great nations of the earth, are located at the great cities. Let us have faith in the people, and let it be said in all truth that if the people send honest and upright men to the national legislature, society will be as pure and statesmanship as elevated 164 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. at the seat of government as the most upright and enlightened can desire. Let us look on the bright side, and resolve that none shall represent the New liepublic but the pure and the wise, the faithful and the upright, and all will be well. One of the most important duties for the American people to perform is tliat wdiich looks directly to the elevation of the national life, and this work must be begun at homo. Let no man bo blind to this fact. If the stream is impure, the fountain must be, also. If the people w^ant temperance, virtue, morality, honesty, and moral and intellectual grandeur, in cit}' councils. State legislatures, and in the national Congress, they must first acquire the supremacy of those excellencies at homej and they who do Bot contend earnestly for these virtues and attainments at home are hypocritical grumblers against their neighbors and rulers. Then, let the lesson first be unerringly taught at home, and its meaning will be indelibly impressed upon the national life. Already the sentiment for a better state of society and gov- ernment is germinating in the hearts of the people, and corrupt politicians will soon give place, all over the land, to worthy and capable statesmen. Let us all labor to hasten the change, in the hope that, when some future Plutarch weighs the coming men of the Eepublic, they will be the grandest growth of the human race. SPECIAL AND LOCAL CONSIDERATIONS. In addition to the genera] arguments which have been given in the preceding pages in favor of the removal of the seat of government to the Mississippi Valley, and the indication of St. Louis as the most suitable place for it, the following map of lands, together with local and special facts, are presented as supplemental considerations. Last winter the Hon. C. A. Newcomb, member of Congress from Missouri, oifered a bill in Congress providing for the removal of the seat of government from Washington Cit}^ to St. Louis. In co-operation with Mr. Newcomb's bill, the Hon. G. A. Finkelnburg, member of the Legislature of Missouri, offered the following bill authorizing the State of Missouri to cede a certain portion of her territory to the exclusive use and control of the General Government, in consideration of the National Capital being moved to the portion of territory ceded. An Act to cede a portion of the territory of St. Louis county, in the State of Missouri, to the United States of America, for a seat of government of the United States. Section 1. Be it enadted by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, as follows : That so much of the territory of the State of Missouri as is included within limits and boundaries following, to-wit: Beginning at a point in the Mississippi river one mile south of Chouteau avenue, in the city of St. Louis; thence west ten miles; thence south to the center of the Meramec river; thence down the Meramec river to its junction with the Mississippi river; thence up the Mississippi river to the place of beginning — be and the same is hereby ceded and transferred to the United States of America; and all the right, title, authority, and jurisdiction, now owned, possessed, exer- cised, and enjoyed, by the State of Missouri, in or to or over said territory, is hereby vested in the United Stato-i of America, upon the sole and express condition that the seat of govern- ment of the United States of America shall be removed to said territory on or before the first day of Januar}-, 1880. Skc. 2. Be it farther enact Py I, That said territory shall not vest in the United States of America until Congress shall pass an 166 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. act movinf the seat of government of the United States of America to said territory, and authorizing the laying out of a capitol and public grounds ; and any removal of the seat of o-overnraent from said territory any time thereafter shall imme- diately revert all the title, jurisdiction, and authority in, to, and over said territory in the State of Missouri : And provided, further, that no change of government, or jurisdiction, which may take place under "this act, shall affect the rights of property of individuals or bodies corporate within the territoiy aforesaid. Sec. 3. As soon as Congress shall pass an act removing the seat of government to said territor}-, the Governor shall formally transfer the same to the United States of America. Sec. 4. The Governor shall forward copies of this act to the presiding otficers of each House of Congress, to be laid before said Houses for consideration. The district described in the above bill has an area of about 90 square miles. A vote was taken in the House of Representatives on Judge Newcomb's bill, and, under the circumstances, was more favor- able for the removal than the friends could have expected. Owino- to the lateness of the time at which Mr. Finkelnburg's bill was introduced in the Legislature, a vote was not reached. But there can be no question about the State of Missouri ceding to the General Government such a district of territory as may be required for the purposes of a National Capital. SHAW's SUBmVTSION. The map of grounds submitted to illustrate this part of the subject of the pamphlet shows the district described in Mr. Finkelnburg's bill, w^ith an addition of a strip one mile in width on the north side, which is added to include Mr. Shaw's sub- division and his splendid garden. Mr. Finkelnburg made the selection of the district described in his bill, in accordance with the public sentiment of the people of St. Louis, who, without hesitation, look thither to several beautiful sites, one of which seems fated to be the seat of empire for the New Eepublic. By reference to the map of this district, it will be seen there are four shaded tracts of land, three lying upon the Mississippi river, and one back from it. The two southern tracts of land, as CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. 16T will be seen on the map, are the property of the Hon. Henry T. Blow, and known as Clifton Heights. The tract farthest up the river is Jefferson Barracks, and is owned by the Government. The shaded tract on the north side of the map, and out from th& city, is the property of Mr. Henry Shaw, whose reputation has gone all over the country, on account of his fine botanical garden. Mr. Shaw's property is situated at a distance of four and five miles from the river. His garden property and that immedi- ately around it, although extremely beautiful and valuable, is not so elevated as many of the adjoining locations. However, beyond his garden, a little more than one mile, is a beautiful broad prairie ridge, with an elevation of 200 feet above the city directrix. It is the most beautiful site back from the river that is in the vicinity of the city of St. Louis, and on account of its situation, its elevation, and itS surroundings, it is regarded as one of the favorite and suitable localities for the Government to erect new public buildings. Besides the general fixvorable- ness of this location, its close proximity to Mr. Shaw's fine garden would be an item of great concern to the new seat of government, for his is much the finest garden in the United States, and infinitely surpasses those of the Government at Washington. Land adjoining Mr. Shaw's sub-division is from ^500 to §2,000 per acre. CLIFTON HEIGHTS. Passing from Mr. Shaw's sub-division to Clifton Heights, tho property of Mr. Blow, we find an entirely different situation. Clifton Heights is situated ten miles below the city. It con- sists of 1,300 acres, and, as will be seen by the shadings upon the map, lies immediately upon the great Father of Waters, and has a river front of five miles. The topography and general character and location of Clifton Heights cannot be equaled by any other property upon the river in the vicinitj' of St. Louis, and is not surpassed anywhere from its source to its mouth. It is high and commanding, with views equal to any of the Alleghanies ; and when the art of man, with equal skill, there unites with nature, no people can point to a place more remark- able for its beeauty, healthfulness, and commanding position. 168 CHANGE OF NATIONAL EMPIRE. In fact, it would seem that nature, far back in the past, had especially provided this beautiful site on the groat Mississippi river for the seat of empire for the New Eepublic. This property has an elevation of 252 feet above the river, which is much higher than any other ground around the city, and from its favorable situation it commands a view of 50 miles each way up and down the stream; and with the Government buildings erected upon this elevated plateau, they will occupy a position which, united with their great size, will afford a view to the traveler upon the river or railroad which will far surpass any views on the Hudson or Potomac — views which will never grow dull to the vision. Land about Clifton Heights ranges from $80 to S300 per acre, and every advantage for the supply of good water and good building stone is afforded from the bluffs of the Mississippi and the Meramec rivers. JEFFERSON BARRACKS. Situated on the river, just above Clifton Heights, is Jefferson Barracks, the property of the Government, consisting of 1,700 acres, which would afford ample room for the Government buildings, but for its unfavorable character would not be so well suited for such an important purpose. The ground is not so elevated as that of Clifton Heights^ or as that of Mr. Shaw's division. Therefore it is not probable that the Government would fix upon that tract in the event of a change, but would, no doubt, retain it for a few years, until the sale of it would be an item of pecuniary importance. In this connection it may be proper to state that when Con- gress orders a removal of the seat of government, it will be necessary, as under the Old Government, to provide for the tem- porary use of buildings for Congress and the departments at the place selected for the new Capital, in order to admit of the removal of the present ones at Washington. In that event, St. Louis, or whatever other place may be selected, will no doubt bo asked to furnish suitable buildings for temporary use. WHAT TIME. The general mind is faithless of what goes much beyond its own experience. It refuses to receive, or it receives with distrust, conclusions, however strongly sustained by facts and fair deductions, which go much beyond its ordinary range of thought. It is especially skeptical and intolerant toward the avowal of opinions, however well founded, which are sanguine of great future changes. It does not comprehend them, and therefore refuses to believe; but it sometimes goes further, and, without exnminn- ti»u, scornfully rejects. To seek for the truth is the proper object of those who, from the past and present, undertake to say what will be in the future, and, M-hen tlie truth is found, to express it with as little referrence to what will be thought of it as if putting forth the solution of a matliematical problem.— J. W. Scolt. The reader of this little pamphlet will no doubt be desirous to know what time the seat of government will be moved from its present place to the Mississippi Valley, or, at least, will be anxious to know what time one so sanguine as the writer has fixed for the change. I unhesitatingly answer that the change will be made within five years from January 1, 1869. Before two years from January 1, 1869, Congress will authorize, by its own act, the removal of the seat of government from its present place, and soon will follow the President, national archives, and the legislature of the Eepublic. I know there are those who will regard this statement more visionary than any preceding one I have made ; but, to such as choose to look with discredit upon it, I can only hope that expe- rience will teach them that which they are now unable to comprehend. He who does not comprehend the workings of the under life-current of the Eepublic at the present time, is shut out from a comprehension of the future, and thus he becomes a conservative, a fogy — drift-wood in the rolling tide of progress. Ours is a moving time. Changes come much sooner than most men expect them. The Hon. Horace Greeley but a few years ago did not expect slavery to be abolished in this century. Pof. Morse did not expect the ocean to be sijanned by a tele- graph for two or more generations hence. Dr. Lardner, the most learned philosopher of England in his day, declared in a 11 170 OHANGK OP NATIONAL EMPIRE. lecture, in Liverpool, that he would eat the first steam engine that propelled a vessel across the ocean. Six months afterward a vessel did cross the ocean by the use of a steam engine, but was not eaten. There are, no doubt, some wise men with large stomachs, who will read this pamphlet or hear of it, that will propose to eat the first public building erected on the new Capital grounds in the Mississippi Yalley in the next generation. There are, no doubt, men of would-be public spirit and enterprise who will readily volunteer to do this eating. What is there to retain the Capital where it is ? But two things — the local interests of the people of Washington City, and the consideration on the part of the Government of the public buildings erected at that place. I have already shown that the consideration of the public buildings at that place is an item of small consequence to the great and growing interests of the Eepublic. The local interests of the people of Washington City can have no weight in the matter whatever. It is purely a national question, and the representatives of the people must alone view it as such. It is of no value whatever to New York to have the Capital at Washington. James Gordon Bennett, some yeai's ago, declared that he would not give the patronage of the washer-women of Now York for all the Government patronage. So, too, might the city of New York say, for she stands above Washington. None of her interests are subservient to Washington ; therefore she will be unconcerned about the change. Let me repeat again : the change will be made in five years, and before 1875 the President of the United States will deliver his message at the now seat of government in the Mississippi Valley. i- ^ i- -i- -t i' A ^ ^m -^■'p*- - .' ■M-^l*^ -■♦> f:- 1t-;-,^-'^;^#^v ■^ -*■ --^^ •*. '-J:-'' i -f-' I -# ^'[m^ ' 't «<^ * * * f -*(• T" !> • ^ siw^ 4^ .% t .^ ,',/ V -V'-^ "^i^^ ..iff , ^^.^,fc-# •-;,;:/■■- "^ f . " X- ■-""'w /'V^ ^N^ '^^^ ■i(^fr^^ f 4 4 f * ^ *• T^ ^ 4 ^ t -I- -^i ib ^ •h # ■« T^ -^ li- -f * V •f > 4 i- * -^ ^ f •*» + •h *-■ '■ ■» -f i- ^ 1^ ^ >•- >^ ^ ^ f ^4 f f H^ -*• ^ -^ -f -f 4 it -^ f f 4 f ^ it -f * 1*- r ^ -^ ^ ''^ f f 1^ '^^ *f ^ i^ 4. + -#• ■f 4 __i 7 J 1^ ^P •V i- •i. -^ f -<- ^ J I -i-- y- t -^ f 4 4 4 ♦ ■f ^. •t 4 'f f -f # ■f. ^ + ^ ^ + 4 H. 4^ *• T *X 4 A- f ♦f- ^ -.(., 4^ •7" f •r ■f^ .*• ^ ^