if these resolutions are intended to condemn the legislation which has given land to aid in the construction of the great continental railway between the Atlantic and the Pacific, they are not, in my judgment, either wise or opportune. The opening up to settlement and civilization of the vast wilderness on both slopes of the Rocky Mountains was nearly or quite impossible without these great roads. Within the last fifteen years, both the political parties, in their national conventions, have recommended the building of a Pacific railroad. More than ten years ago, William H. Seward made a speech on the passage of the first Pacific railroad bill through the Senate, in which occurred this striking and suggestive passage:

"I want it to be known, I want it to be seen and read of all men here and elsewhere, that, at the very day and hour when it was apprehended by patriotic and wise men throughout the land that this Union was falling into ruin, the Congress of the United States placed upon the statutebooks, for eternal record, an act appropriating ninety-six millionsthe largest appropriation ever made to bind the Northeast and the Northwest and the Southwest, the East and the West, and the North and the South, by a physical, material bond of indissoluble union.”

The bill to aid in the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad became a law in 1862; in 1864, the bill to aid, by a grant of lands, the building of the Northern Pacific road was passed. Both political parties were divided in regard to these bills; but the completion of one of the roads has fully vindicated the wisdom of the legislation.

The most important law passed at the late session of Congress relating to grants of land was an act amendatory of the law of 1864 in regard to the Northern Pacific road. It allows the company to issue their own bonds, and mortgage the lands already given to them; but it enlarges the grant very little, if On the passage of this amendatory act both parties were divided, as they were in 1862 and 1864. I have stated these details for the reason that attempts have been made to represent that, at the last session, large grants of land were recklessly made to railroad corporations.

any.

The remaining resolutions of the Democratic platform concerning the taxation of the bonds, the enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment, hostility to Great Britain and Spain, praising the conduct of Democratic Congressmen, etc.— are but the stuffing and padding which have become so cheap and

so common in such conventions, but which influence the popular mind far less than politicians suppose.

In reviewing the ground gone over, there appears to run through the career of the Democratic party, both before, during, and since the war, a malignant consistency in opposing everything done or attempted by the Republican party. They were unwilling to have the Union saved, if it was to be done under the lead of the Republican party. They denounced us for keeping the Southern States out so long, but opposed reconstruction, apparently because Republicans proposed it. In all their efforts, they seem to be moved by their hates rather than their loves. This makes them a party of negations, of destruction and revolution. All the substantial measures which they have recommended in their platforms are reactionary and violent. All the debris of the Rebellion has fallen into their party. The shattered hopes and broken purposes of the Rebels have added bitterness to the Democratic spirit, and they seem almost wholly destitute of both sweetness and light, those heaven-born qualities which a great writer has described as the two angels of civilization.

I know of no political party in modern times whose record is so high and noble as the Republican party's, of no party that has so little of which to be ashamed, and so much of which to be proud. Its faith and courage since the war, in meeting and conquering prejudice and passion, in acting firmly on the conviction that nothing is settled until it is settled right, have been even more admirable than its faith and patience and valor during the

The upheaving of the Rebellion brought to the surface of political life some bad elements, which have begun to show themselves in political organizations. Some corrupt men have found their way into the Republican party, and some mistakes have been made; but the head and heart of the great party are sound and true, and it is still not unworthy of its noble record.

AMERICAN AGRICULTURE.

ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE NORTHERN OHIO FAIR, CLEVELAND, OHIO,

OCTOBER 12, 1870.

MR.

R. PRESIDENT,-We are here among the elements and forces out of which are developed the prosperity, strength, and glory of a nation. It is not in mighty armies, great navies, magnificent cities, nor indeed in any great aggregation of wealth or splendor, that we see the real strength of nations. It is rather in the mines, and shops, and farms, where all these displays of power have their origin.

When the great steamship is struggling with the tempest far out at sea, the wise man does not look at her trim decks nor her gilded cabins to determine whether she can outride the storm. He goes down into the hold, examines her ponderous engines, her stock of fuel, the strength of her great ribs, the soundness of her timbers, the thought, courage, and discipline. of her crew; and if all these be in good order, he treads the deck in confidence and laughs at the storm, for he knows that a skilful pilot can take her precious cargo of human life safe into port. Jupiter, seated among the gods of Olympus, could not have hurled his red lightnings and shaken the world, had not Vulcan, in his black forges of the Cyclops, fashioned the thunderbolt out of the rough elements of the earth. I look around through these beautiful grounds, crowded with so many thousands of people and filled with such a variety of products, and say again, these are the elements, these the forces, which alone can be moulded into national wealth, power, and glory.

I know of no more fitting theme to discuss to-day than Agriculture, and its relation to National Prosperity. And first I inquire, What is national prosperity, and what are the conditions upon which it rests?

It took two hundred years to explode one most fatal error, the theory known as the mercantile system, which is founded on the doctrine that gold and silver are the only wealth, and that all industry must be so managed as to bring more into a country than is taken out. This theory made England a nation of shopkeepers, created her colonial system, lost her her American colonies, ruined and reduced her country population by an unequal distribution of wealth. It founded great commercial corporations, and piled up vast wealth in the hands of the few, while the great body of the people were impoverished and imbruted. It led to that condition which a poet has described in the line,

"A nation lies starving on heaps of gold."

It led Goldsmith to write that beautiful poem, "The Deserted Village," the substance of which is expressed in a single couplet, — "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay."

About the time of our Revolution, the mercantile system was exploded, and the nobler idea was reached, that wealth embraces every product of labor which ministers to the wants or comforts of man and has exchangeable value. National prosperity is a condition wherein the muscle and brain of every citizen have the freest play, and lay hold of all elements of nature and fit them for the use of man.

Wherever a blade of grass, a sheaf of wheat, a shock of corn, is produced; wherever an ore is dug from the earth, or a useful implement or machine is fashioned; wherever any product, by change of form or by transformation, is better fitted or becomes more accessible to the use of man, there is national wealth, there a step has been taken in the direction of national prosperity. To achieve this requires the harmonious co-operation of agriculture, manufactures, mining, commerce, and all forms of industry, which are not enemies, but friends.

To realize this idea of national prosperity, two great forces must be brought into harmonious action. These are the people and the territory, the body and the soul of the nation. This relation is not fanciful but real. Who shall trace the manifold influence on the national character of the soil, the climate, the mountains, rivers, lakes, and the various aspects of nature? Humboldt and Ritter call these the great organic forces of civ

ilization. The law of greatness here, as in the individual man, is a sound mind in a sound body.

And now of what kind is the body of this republic, this land of ours? Let us study its character. Our national domain is a vast irregular triangle, washed by two historic oceans, and fringed by the greatest chain of lakes on the globe. I said it is washed by two historic oceans. The sea, the ocean, and its shores, has always been the scene of civilization. The Mediterranean Sea was the first great theatre of human progress. Around it were grouped Greece, Rome, Carthage, and other states of antiquity. When these decayed, modern nations made the Atlantic and its shores the scene of their triumphs, and it is the scene of their triumphs to-day. But the course of empire is still taking its way westward, and this new republic is now reaching toward the ancient cradle of the race. When the circle is complete, the Pacific will be the theatre of civilization. Our domain is, therefore, washed by the ocean of the present and the greater ocean of the future; and this last we shall command.

But let us look within this great domain. By what a wonderful arrangement is it watered and redeemed from desert! The surrounding seas and lakes, the currents of ocean and air, the great chains of mountains, placed as refrigerators to condense and equalize the rainfall, and the vast river systems which drain and adorn it, all indicate the grandeur of conception and perfection of design which could originate only with Him who holds the oceans in the hollow of His hands, and weighs the hills in a balance.

Exclusive of Alaska, this national domain covers three and a quarter million square miles, one twelfth of which is river and lake, and eleven twelfths land fit for human habitation. And where on the earth will you find such a vast range and variety of climate and soil? Trace the course of the Mississippi River. At its source in Minnesota the mean yearly temperature is forty degrees, while at its mouth the average is seventytwo degrees. Along its banks grow the oak, the beech, the sycamore, the willow, the bay, the cypress, the magnolia, the palmetto; and it reaches the sea among the orange groves that line the shores of the Gulf.

Who has fathomed the depths or measured the variety and richness of our mines? Take the article of coal alone, on the supply of which the greatness-I had almost said the life—