"From the date last given until the burning of the Capitol by the British, in 1814, in the room now occupied by the Supreme Court Library, in the north wing, were held the sessions of the Senate. That now almost forgotten apartment witnessed the assembling of Senators who, at an earlier period of our history, had been the associates of Washington and Franklin, and had themselves played no mean part in crystallizing into the great organic law, the deathless principles of the Declaration of Independence. From this chamber went forth the second Declaration of War against Great Britain; and here, before the Senate as a court of impeachment, was arraigned a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to answer the charge of alleged high crimes and misdemeanors.
"With the rolling years and the rapid growth of the Republic, came the imperative necessity for enlarging its Capitol. The debates upon this subject culminated in the Act of Congress of September 30, 1850, providing for the erection of the north and south wings of the Capitol. Thomas U. Walter was the architect to whose hand was committed the great work. Yonder noble structure will stand for ages the silent witness of the fidelity with which the important trust was discharged.
"The corner-stone of the additions was laid by President Fillmore, on the fourth day of July, 1851. In honor of that event, and by request of the President, Mr. Webster pronounced an oration, and while we have a country and a language his words will touch a responsive chord in patriotic hearts. Beneath the corner-stone was then deposited a paper, in the handwriting of Mr. Webster, containing the following words:
"'If it shall be, hereafter, the will of God, that this structure shall fall from its base, that its foundation be upturned and this deposit brought to the eyes of men, be it then known that on this day the Union of the United States of America stands firm, that their Constitution still exists unimpaired, with all its original usefulness and glory, growing every day stronger and stronger in the affections of the great body of the American people, and attracting more and more the attention of the world. And all here assembled, whether belonging to public life or to private life, with hearts devoutly thankful to Almighty God for the preservation of the liberty and happiness of the country, unite in sincere and fervent prayers that this deposit, and the walls and arches, the domes and towers, the columns and entablatures now to be erected over it, may endure forever.'
"From the sixth day of December, 1819, until January 4, 1859, a period of thirty-nine years, the sessions of the Senate were held in the present Supreme Court room. This was, indeed, the arena of high debate. When, in any age, or in any country, has there been gathered, within so small compass, so much of human greatness? Even to suggest the great questions here discussed and determined, would be to write a history of that eventful period. It was, indeed, the coming together of the master spirits of the second generation of American statesmen. Here were Macon and Crawford, Benton, Randolph, Cass, Bell, Houston, Preston, Buchanan, Seward, Chase, Crittenden, Sumner, Choate, Everett, Breese, Trumbull, Fessenden, Douglas, Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and others scarcely less illustrious. Within the walls of that little chamber was heard the wondrous debate between Hayne and Webster. There began the fierce conflict of antagonistic ideas touching the respective powers of the State and of the Nation—a conflict which, transferred to a different theatre, found final solution only in the bloody arbitrament of arms.
"For more than a third of a century the sessions of the Senate have been held in the magnificent chamber of the north wing of the Capitol. Of the procession of sixty-two Senators that, preceded by the Vice-President, Mr. Breckenridge, entered the Chamber for the first time, on the fourth day of January, 1859, but four survive; not one remains in public life. It is, indeed, now a procession of shadows.
"When the foundation-stone of this Capitol was laid, our Republic was in its infancy, and self-government yet an untried experiment. It is a proud reflection to-day that time has proved the true arbiter, and that the capacity of a free and intelligent people to govern themselves by written constitution and laws, of their own making, is no longer an experiment. The crucial test of a century of unparalleled material prosperity has been safely endured.
"In 1793 there was no city west of the Alleghanies. To-day a single city on Lake Michigan contains a population of a little less than one-half of the Republic at the time of the first inauguration of Washington. States have been carved out of the wilderness, and our great rivers, whose silence met no break on their pathway to the sea, are now the arteries of our interior trade, and bear upon their bosoms a commerce which surpasses a hundred-fold that of the entire country a century ago.
"From fifteen States and four millions of people, we have grown to fifty States and Territories, and sixty-seven millions of people; from an area of eight hundred and five thousand, to an area of three million, six hundred thousand square miles; from a narrow strip along the Atlantic seaboard, to an unbroken possession from ocean to ocean. How marvellous the increase in our national wealth! In 1793, our imports amounted to thirty-one million, and our exports to twenty-six million dollars. Now our imports are eight hundred and forty-seven million, and our exports one billion and thirty million dollars. Thirty-three million tons of freight are carried on our Great Lakes, whose only burden then was the Indian's canoe. Then our national wealth was inconsiderable; now our assessed valuation amounts to the enormous sum of twenty-four billion, six hundred and fifty million dollars. Then trade and travel were dependent upon beasts of burden and on sailing vessels; now steam and electricity do our bidding, railroads cover the land, boats burden the waters, the telegraph reaches every city and hamlet; distance is annihilated, and
"'Civilization, on her luminous wings,
Soars, Phoenix-like, to Jove.'