at a coming
time, can, and probably will, wrest from us that commercial primacy. We
have no title, I have no inclination, to murmur at the prospect. If she
acquires it, she will make the acquisition by the right of the
strongest; but, in this instance, the strongest means the best. She
will probably become what we are now, the head servant in the great
household of the world, the employer of all employed; because her
service will be the most and ablest. We have no more title against her,
than Venice, or Genoa, or Holland has had against us. One great duty is
entailed upon us, which we, unfortunately, neglect: the duty of
preparing, by a resolute and sturdy effort, to reduce our public
burdens, in preparation for a day when we shall probably have less
capacity than we have now to bear them.

Passing by all these subjects, with their varied attractions, I come to
another, which lies within the tranquil domain of political philosophy.
The students of the future, in this department, will have much to say in
the way of comparison between American and British institutions. The
relationship between these two is unique in history. It is always
interesting to trace and to compare Constitutions, as it is to compare
languages; especially in such instances as those of the Greek States and
the Italian Republics, or the diversified forms of the feudal system in
the different countries of Europe. But there is no parallel in all the
records of the world to the case of that prolific British mother, who
has sent forth her innumerable children over all the earth to be the
founders of half-a-dozen empires. She, with her progeny, may almost
claim to constitute a kind of Universal Church in politics. But, among
these children, there is one whose place in the world's eye and in
history is superlative: it is the American Republic. She is the eldest
born. She has, taking the capacity of her land into view as well as its
mere measurement, a natural base for the greatest continuous empire ever
established by man. And it may be well here to mention what has not
always been sufficiently observed, that the distinction between
continuous empire, and empire severed and dispersed over sea, is vital.
The development, which the Republic has effected, has been unexampled in
its rapidity and force. While other countries have doubled, or at most
trebled, their population, she has risen, during one single century of
freedom, in round numbers, from two millio