, could we show
our confidence in the principles of liberty, as the source as well as
the expression of life, how better could we demonstrate our own
self-possession and steadfastness in the courses of justice and
disinterestedness than by thus going calmly forward to fulfill our
promises to a dependent people, who will now look more anxiously than
ever to see whether we have indeed the liberality, the unselfishness,
the courage, the faith we have boasted and professed. I cannot believe
that the Senate will let this great measure of constructive justice
await the action of another Congress. Its passage would nobly crown the
record of these two years of memorable labor.

But I think that you will agree with me that this does not complete the
toll of our duty. How are we to carry our goods to the empty markets of
which I have spoken if we have not the ships? How are we to build up a
great trade if we have not the certain and constant means of
transportation upon which all profitable and useful commerce depends?
And how are we to get the ships if we wait for the trade to develop
without them? To correct the many mistakes by which we have discouraged
and all but destroyed the merchant marine of the country, to retrace the
steps by which we have, it seems almost deliberately, withdrawn our flag
from the seas, except where, here and there, a ship of war is bidden
carry it or some wandering yacht displays it, would take a long time and
involve many detailed items of legislation, and the trade which we ought
immediately to handle would disappear or find other channels while we
debated the items.

The case is not unlike that which confronted us when our own continent
was to be opened up to settlement and industry, and we needed long lines
of railway, extended means of transportation prepared beforehand, if
development was not to lag intolerably and wait interminably. We
lavishly subsidized the building of transcontinental railroads. We look
back upon that with regret now, because the subsidies led to many
scandals of which we are ashamed; but we know that the railroads had to
be built, and if we had it to do over again we should of course build
them, but in another way. Therefore I propose another way of providing
the means of transportation, which must precede, not tardily follow, the
development of our trade with our neighbor states of America. It may
seem a reversal of the natural order of things, but it is true, that the
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