The Same.

Bur, gentlemen, in whatever direction your efforts may be made, you will encounter difficulties and discouragements. You will be opposed by that contented spirit which regards every improvement as innovation, and which perpetually, though falsely, complains that mankind degenerate without making an effort to check the progress of error. You will be regarded as visionary by those who consider skill in acquiring, and success in retaining wealth, as the perfection of human wisdom; but you will remember that such as these seldom bestow their countenance upon the benefactors of mankind, nor does Fortune always distinguish them by her favors. Robert Morris, a financier of the Revolution, died a bankrupt. Christopher Colles, our efficient advocate of inland navigation in the last century, was interred by private charity in the Strangers' burying-ground. The essays of Jesse Hawley, which demonstrated the feasibility and importance of a continuous canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson river, were sent forth from a debtor's prison; and De Witt Clinton, whose name is written upon the capital of every column of our social edifice, was indebted to private hospitality for a tomb. It is the same generous and patriotic spirit which animated those philanthropists, and sustained them in their struggles with the prejudices of the age in which they lived, that I desire to invoke in favor of agriculture. This spirit, wisely directed, can not fail, for it has been irresistible in every department it has hitherto entered. But let us all remember that the only true way to begin reform is to find the source of error; and that if we cultivate man, the improvement of the animal and vegetable kingdoms will surely follow.-Address before N. Y. State Agricultural Society, Albany, Sept. 29, 1842.

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

Internal Emprovement the Policy of the Founders of the Republic.

THE principle of internal improvement derives its existence from the generous impulses of the revolutionary age. It regards the future welfare, prosperity, and happiness of the people. Its agency is everywhere salutary in encouraging emigration and the settlement and improvement of new lands, in augmenting national wealth, in promoting agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and the diffusion of knowledge, and in strengthening the bonds of our national Union. It is recited in the Declaration of Independence as one of the wrongs committed by the king of England, that he had endeavored to prevent the population of these states, and for that purpose had obstructed the laws for the naturalization of foreigners, had refused to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and had raised the condition of new appropriations of lands. The father of his country could have had none of the modern skepticism when in his first message to Congress he recommended a facilitation of the intercourse between distant parts of the country by a due attention to the postoffice and postroads. The population of the United States was confined for almost two centuries to the Atlantic coast, but the mighty mind of Washington perceived that a region far more extended, fertile, and salubrious, lay beyond the borders of the thirteen states; that inasmuch as the sovereignty of the Union was distributed among the cultivators of the earth, the political power of the government would find a centre in that region; that if the natural barriers between that region and the East should remain unchanged the West would at no distant pe

riod cast off its union with the maritime states: but that if the natural barriers could be surmounted by roads and pierced by canals, connecting the inland navigation of lakes and rivers with tidewater, the wealth and population of the whole country would be vastly increased, and the states be bound together in an indissoluble union of interest and affection. Imbued with these sentiments, he stopped not in his farewell address to discuss or to recommend his favorite policy, but boldly predicted as a certain event that progressive improvement of interior communication by land and water, the auspicious results of which are only just beginning to be realized. It is a fact as interesting as it is instructive that the solicitude of the father of his country knew no rest after the achievement of her independence, but passed directly from the cares of that great struggle to the greater and even more glorious work of strengthening the union of the states and perpetuating their liberties. In 1783, immediately after the close of the war, he proceeded up the difficult navigation of the Mohawk to Fort Stanwix, now the site of the town of Rome, and crossed to Wood creek, which empties into Oneida lake and affords an imperfect communication with Lake Ontario. The noble and patriotic sentiments inspired by his observations were thus expressed: "Taking a contemplative and extensive view of the vast inland navigation of the United States, I could not but be struck with the immense diffusion and importance of it, and the goodness of that Providence who had dealt his favors to us with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may have wisdom to improve them!" The connection of Lake Ontario with the Hudson by perfect canals instead of the difficult and obstructed navigation of the Mohawk and Wood creek, the mingling of the waters of Lake Erie with those of the same noble river by means of a canal, the conversion of Fort Stanwix into the centre of a constellation of cities and villages, with all the consequent benefits of those improvements, reflect additional glory upon the fame of Washington, and prove that the efforts. of this state in fulfilment of his noble aspiration have been crowned with the blessing of that Great Being to whom it was addressed. His contemporary, Jefferson, one of the most sagacious of American statesmen as well as one of the most ardent votaries of liberty, pronounced roads, canals, and rivers, to be

great foundations of national prosperity and union, and recommended to Congress the policy of applying the surplus revenues arising from imposts upon luxuries and from the sale of the public lands, to the great purposes of public education, the improvement of the navigation of rivers, the construction of roads and canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it might be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of the federal powers: operations by which, as he well remarked, new channels of communication would be opened between the states, the lines of their separation would disappear, their interests would be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties.

It is worthy of remark, that none of the distinguished founders of American liberty stopped to calculate the question of revenue when they recommended this enlightened policy, designed to increase the prosperity and cement the Union of the states. The distinction between internal improvements and measures of public defence upon the ground that the former can not as rightfully be carried on with the revenues of the state, or with the use of its credit, as the latter is a refinement of modern times. The statesmen of the Revolution evidently regarded free intercommunication as one of the means of national defence. Had it been then understood as is now asserted, that internal improvement is a departure from the legitimate power of government, the opposition of the British king to emigration and his raising the conditions of new appropriations of land, would have found no reprobation in the Declaration of Independence, and the improvement of roads and rivers at the public expense would not subsequently have obtained an equal place with the promotion of public education in the executive recommendations of Washington and Jefferson. No such absurdity was then conceived as the proposition that while a nation may employ its revenues and credit in carrying on war, in suppressing sedition, and in punishing crime, it can not employ the same means to avert the calamities of war, provide for the public security, prevent sedition, improve the public morals, and increase the general happiness. Annual Message, 1840.

Enternal Emprovement Wise and Beneficent.

WHEN we look abroad through our country, and regard the improvements already completed, and the struggling efforts which are put forth by intelligent and patriotic men, with little of popular support or sympathy, in favor of others—and when we mark how surely and how speedily increased wealth and prosperity, and moral, social, and intellectual refinement, have followed the accomplishment of every enterprise which has been consummated—it seems passing strange that every advance of the system should have been contested against the incredulity of the people, and with a consent wrung from a hesitating and reluctant government. Hitherto the merit of the founders and advocates of the system has been enhanced more by their triumphs over popular prejudice and legislative repugnance than by their forecast of the rich blessings they called down upon their country. We will not question either the necessity or the wisdom of the decision by which the great system of internal improvement has, with the apparent consent of the people, been rejected from among the responsibilities of the general government, interested as that government is to secure the union of the states, and enriched as it is with the entire national domain and the exhaustless resources of the commerce which owes its prosperity to that very system. But it is manifestly our right, as it is our duty, to carry forward the system with such agency and under such patronage and sanction as the popular will recognises as legitimate for that purpose. It seems now to be settled that the agency consists in the combination of individual effort, under the sanction and patronage of the state government. To every region of our state the legislature owes a paternal care in this respect; and its obligations are only limited by the condition of its resources, and the question whether such improvements as are contemplated will advance the public weal. We must expect to encounter local prejudices; but these, when disclosed, are seldom able to defeat a meritorious enterprise. We must be prepared, by generous and lofty motives, and patriotic and expanded views, to overcome the more formidable opposition which arises from an honest but often unwise application of republican economy.