ilt up by arbitrary power,
may fall to pieces, because it is not bound together by the ligaments
which an ubiquitous commerce affords. Another, because thus interlaced
and woven together, cannot be sundered. The dependence of part on part
and the facilities of transportation from one section to another, render
such an empire a really vital organism, which cannot be divided without
destroying the whole; but since nations, as individuals, are tenacious
of life, the whole cannot be destroyed, and the empire cannot be
divided. There is no place for division, and none can be made. This
principle, we believe, applies to our own country.

Lines for the transmission of intelligence, the highways of travel, the
channels of intercommunication and commerce--these connect remote
sections with each other, and, in connection with the specialization of
industry, cause them to become mutually dependent, and thus form a web
of unity knitting the many into one. The Mississippi River has been
characterized by some one as a great original Unionist. It is so.

The channels and highways of commerce are of two kinds: natural and
artificial. The natural are the seas, lakes, rivers; and these only
become the means of political union according to the extent of the use
which is made of them. The improvement of harbors and of rivers, and the
modern revolutions in the art of navigation, have greatly increased
their power to make one section necessary to another, and bind people to
people. Were not steam applied to locomotion, the great rivers of North
America would afford far less of promise for American unity than they
now do.

Since whatever facilitates communication and transportation makes one
class of people dependent on another, through the mutual exchange of
social opportunity and of industrial productions, and binds them more
firmly together; hence, also, the political and social values of the
artificial channels of commercial intercourse. Wagon roads, canals,
railroads, telegraphs, are all so many political unitizers; but the
railroad, with its accompaniment, the telegraph, may be regarded as the
chief of all.

Let us notice for a moment the political value of our rivers, with the
improved navigation of the same, and of our railroads, in the
suppression of the existing rebellion.

Had there been no navigable rivers and no railroads uniting the North
and South, the chances for the local division of our country would be
far greater tha