or the admission of Mexico as a State.
When this is effected, Mexico will be the fifty-second State of our
Union. Some Senators are understood to doubt the advantage to the
country, at the present time, of this admission, on account of the
constitutionally unsettled character of the population. Since
Protestantism has so generally prevailed there, however, Mexico is said
to have greatly improved. The acceptance of the whole of Central
America, in the form of three Territories, must soon follow. For this
also, but little can be urged, except the now very old argument of
"manifest destiny." Commercial men say that it is time for this
extension to be made, on account of the growing importance of
interoceanic navigation, by the three routes, of Panama, Nicaragua, and
Tehuantepec. Our large trade with Japan and China requires, besides the
steamers running between San Francisco, Yokohama, and Hong Kong every
two weeks, more frequent and quick water transit from Philadelphia, New
York, Boston, and Baltimore, through one or other of these Isthmian
routes.

It has been abundantly shown that the anticipation of some speculative
persons, that the course of the Gulf Stream, and consequently the
climate of Western Europe, might be altered by cutting through the
isthmus, and thus connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was
altogether erroneous. No change whatever in the direction, rate of
motion, or temperature of the great current has been observed. It is too
majestic a movement to be so affected.

It is remarkable how entirely mistaken, also, those croaking prophets
were, who formerly supposed that much addition to the old United States
would make a cumbrous and impracticable political aggregate. Since the
principle that only honest men shall be placed in public offices has
been adopted throughout the nation, local administration of local
affairs harmonizes so well with a central national government
controlling general interests, that all works smoothly yet; even with
the addition of the three great States which once formed the Dominion of
Canada, and the outlying territories of Greenland, Labrador, Hawaii,
Cuba, and St. Domingo.

A motion made in the House last year, but then postponed rather than
defeated, will probably come up again in Congress at this session:
namely, to hold the meeting of Congress every third year in San
Francisco. Alternation between Washington and St. Louis has now worked
well for eleven years; and