The American Union Speaker

by John D. Philbrick

The question now arises, shall this one great people, having a common origin, a common language, a common religion, common sentiments, interests, sympathies and hopes, remain one political state, one nation, one republic; or shall it be broken into two conflicting, and, probably, hostile nations or republics? Shall the American people, then, be divided? Before deciding on this question, let us consider our position, our power, and capabilities. The world contains no seat of empire so magnificent as this; which, embracing all the varying climates of the temperate zone, and traversed by wide expanding lakes and long branching rivers, offers supplies on the Atlantic shores to the overcrowded nations of Europe, and, on the Pacific coast, intercepts the commerce of the Indies. The nations thus situated, and enjoying forest, mineral, and agricultural resources unequaled, if endowed, also with moral energies adequate to the achievement of great enterprises, and flavored with a government adapted to their character and condition, must command the empire of the seas, which, alone, is real empire.

We think we may claim to have inherited physical and intellectual vigor, courage, invention, and enterprise; and the systems of education prevailing among us, open to all the stores of human science and art. The Old World and the Past were allotted by Providence to the pupilage of mankind. The New World and the Future seem to have been appointed for the maturity of mankind, with the development of self-government, operating in obedience to reason and judgment.

We may, then, reasonably hope for greatness, felicity, and renown, excelling any hitherto attained by any nation, if, standing firmly on the continent, we lose not our grasp on either ocean. Whether a destiny so magnificent would be only partially defeated, or whether it would be altogether lost by a relaxation of the grasp, surpasses our wisdom to determine, and happily it is not important to be determined. It is enough, if we agree, that expectations so grand, yet so reasonable and so just, ought not in any degree to be disappointed. And now, it seems to me, that the perpetual unity of the empire hangs on the decision of this day and this hour.

California is already a State,—a complete and fully appointed State. She never again can be less than that. She never again can be a province or a colony; nor can she be made to shrink or shrivel into the proportions of a federal dependent territory. California, then, henceforth and forever, must be, what she is now,—a State.

The question whether she shall be one of the United States of America, has depended on her and on us. Her election has been made. Our consent alone remains suspended; and that consent must be pronounced now or never. W. H. Seward.

LXXVI.

A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC.

Mr. President, I go for a national highway from the Mississippi to the Pacific. And I go against all schemes of individuals or of companies, and especially those who come here and ask of the Congress of the United States to give themselves and their assigns the means of making a road, and taxing the people for the use of it. If they should make it, they are to tax us for the use of it—tax the people eight or ten millions a year for using a road which their own money built. A fine scheme, that! But they would never build it, neither themselves nor their assigns. It would all end in stock-jobbing. I repudiate the whole idea, sir. I go for a national highway—no stock-jobbing.

We find all the localities of the country precisely such as a national central road would require. The Bay of San Francisco, the finest in the world, is in the centre of the western coast of North America; it is central, and without a rival. It will accommodate the commerce of that coast, both north and south, up to the frozen regions, down to the torrid zone. It is central in that respect. The commerce of the broad Pacific Ocean will centre there. The commerce of Asia will centre there. Follow the same latitude across the country, and it strikes the centre of the valley of the Mississippi. It strikes the Mississippi near the confluence of all the great waters which concentrate in the valley of the Mississippi. It comes to the centre of the valley;—it comes to St. Louis. Follow the prolongation of that central line, and you find it cutting the heart of the great States between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean, Illinois, Indiana Ohio a part of Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania,—they are all traversed or touched by that great central line.

We own the country, from sea to sea, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and upon a breadth equal to the length of the Mississippi, and embracing the whole temperate zone. Three thousand milks across, and half that breadth, is the magnificent parallelogram of our domain. We can run a national central road through and through, the whole distance, under our flag and under our laws. Military reasons require us to make it; for troops and munitions must go there. Political reasons require us to make it; it will be a chain of union between the Atlantic and Pacific States. Commercial reasons demand it from us; and here I touch a boundless field, dazzling and bewildering the imagination from its vastness and importance. The trade of the Pacific Ocean, of this western coast of North America, and of eastern Asia, will all take its track; and not only for ourselves, but for posterity.