r, and augment our revenues
from duties and taxes.

As this domain is extended over fifteen States and all the Territories,
the completion of these enlarged canals, embracing so large a portion of
them, would be most advantageous to all, and the inducement to
immigration would greatly increase, and immigration must soon flow in
from Europe in an augmented volume. Indeed, when these facts are
generally known in Europe, the desire of small renters, and of the
working classes, to own a farm, and cultivate their own lands here, must
bring thousands to our shores, even during the war. But it will be
mainly when the rebellion shall have been crushed, the power of the
Government vindicated, its authority fully reestablished, and slavery
extinguished, so as to make labor honorable everywhere throughout our
country, and freedom universal, that this immigration will surge upon
our shores. When we shall have maintained the Union unbroken against
foreign and domestic enemies, and proved that a republic is as powerful
in war as it is benign in peace, and especially that the _people_ will
rush to the ranks to crush even the most gigantic rebellion, and that
they will not only bear arms, but taxes, for such a purpose, the
prophets of evil, who have so often proclaimed our Government an
_organised anarchy_, will lose their power to delude the people of
Europe. And when that people learn the truth, and the vast privileges
offered them by the Homestead Bill, there will be an exodus from Europe
to our country, unprecedented since the discovery of America. The wounds
inflicted by the war will then soon be healed, and European immigrants,
cultivating here their own farms, and truly loyal to this free and
paternal Government, from which they will have received this precious
gift of a farm for each, will take the place of the rebels, who shall
have fled the country. We have seen that the total cost of our railroads
and canals, up to this date, was $1,335,285,569, and I have estimated
the probable cost of these enlarged works as not exceeding one tenth of
this sum, or $133,528,556. Let us now examine that question. We have
seen that our 4,650 miles of canals cost $132,000,000, being $28,387 per
mile, or less, by $8,395 per mile, than our railroads. It will be
recollected that a large number of miles of these canals have already
the requisite depth of seven feet, and width of seventy, and need only
an enlargement of their locks. It appears, how