OUR COUNTRY'S FUTURE.--_Edward Everett's Oration at the Webster Statue Inauguration_, 1860.
What else is there, in the material system of the world, so wonderful as this concealment of the Western Hemisphere for ages behind the mighty vail of waters? How could such a secret be kept from the foundation of the world till the end of the fifteenth century? What so astonishing as the concurrence, within less than a century, of the invention of printing, the demonstration of the true system of the heavens, and this great world-discovery? What so mysterious as the dissociation of the native tribes of this continent from the civilized and civilizable races of man? What so remarkable, in political history, as the operation of the influences, now in conflict, now in harmony, under which the various nations of the old world sent their children to occupy the new; great populations silently stealing into existence; the wilderness of one century swarming in the next with millions; ascending the streams, crossing the mountains, struggling with a wild hard nature, with savage foes, with rival settlements of foreign powers, but ever onward, onward? What so propitious as this long colonial training in the school of chartered government? and then, when the fullness of time had come, what so majestic, amidst all its vicissitudes and all its trials, as the Grand Separation--mutually beneficial in its final results to both parties--the dread appeal to arms, that venerable Continental Congress, the august Declaration, the strange alliance of the oldest monarchy of Europe with the Infant Republic? And, lastly, what so worthy the admiration of men and angels as the appearance of him the expected--him the Hero--raised up to conduct the momentous conflict to its auspicious issue in the Confederation, the Union, the Constitution?
Is this a theme not unworthy of the pen and the mind of Webster? Then consider the growth of the country, thus politically ushered into existence and organized under that Constitution, as delineated in his address on the laying the corner-stone of the extension of the Capitol--the thirteen colonies that accomplished the Revolution multiplied to thirty-two independent States, a single one of them exceeding in population the old thirteen; the narrow border of settlement along the coast, fenced in by France and the native tribes, expanded to the dimensions of the continent; Louisiana, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, California, Oregon--territories equal to the great monarchies of Europe--added to the Union; and the two millions of population which fired the imagination of Burke, swelled to twenty-four millions, during the lifetime of Mr. Webster, and in seven short years, which have since elapsed, increased to thirty!