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Let diagrammet tuivants illuttrent la m*thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ALASKA SPEECH OF WILLIAM H. SEWARD, AT SITKA, AUGUST 12, 1869. WASHINGTON, D. C: PHILP & SOLOMONS. 1869. // / 1 SPEECH / / f S Citizens of Alaska, fellow-citizens of the United States: You have pressed me to meet you in public assembly once before I leave Alaska. It would be sheer affecta- tion to pretend to doubt your sincerity in making this request, and capriciously ungrateful to refuse it, after having received so many and varied hospitalities from all sorts and conditions of men. It is not an easy task, however, to speak in a manner worthy of your consid- eration, while I am living constantly on ship-board, as you all know, and am occupied intently in searching out whatever is sublime, or beautiful, or peculiar, or use- ful. On the other liand, it is altogether natural on your part to say, "You have looked upon Alaska, what do you think of it?" Unhappily I have seen too little of Alaska to answer the question satisfactorily. The en- tire coast line of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, is 10,000 miles, while the coast line of Alaska alone, including the islands, is 26,000 miles. The portion of the Territory which lies east of the peninsula, includ- ing islands, is 120 miles wide ; the western portion, including Aleutian islands, expands to a breadth of 2,200 miles. The entire land area, including islands, is 577,390 statute square miles. We should think a for- eigner very presumptuous who should presume to give the world an opinion of the whole of the United States of America, after he had merely looked in from his steamer at Plymouth and Boston harbor, or had ran up the Hudson river to the Highlands, or had ascended the 51861 Delaware to Trenton, or the James river to Eichniond, or the Mississippi no farther than Memphis. My ob- servation thus far has hardly been more comprehen- sive. I entered the Territory of Alaska at the Port- land canal, made my way through the narrow passages of the Prince of "Wales archipelago, thence through Peril and Chatham straits and Lynn channel, and up the Chilcat river to the base of Fairvveather ; from which latter place I have returned through Clarence straits, to sojourn a few days in your beautiful bay, under the shadows of the Baranoff hills and Mount Edgecombe. Limited, however, as my opportunities have been, I will, without further apology, give you the impressions I have received. Of course I speak first of the skies of Alaska. It seems to be assumed in the case of Alaska that a coun- try which extends through 58 degrees of longitude, and embraces portions as well of the arctic as of the temperate zone, unlike all other regions so situated, has not several climates, but only one. The weather of this one broad climate of Alaska is severely criti- cised in outside circles for being too wet and too cold. Neverthelesss it must be a fastidious person who com- plains of climates in which, while the eagle delights to soar, the humming-bird does not disdain to flutter. I shall speak only of the particular climate here which I know. My visit here happens to fall within the month of August. Not only have the skies been sufficiently bright and serene to give me a perfect view, under the 60th parallel, of the total eclipse of the sun, and of the evening star at the time of the sun's obscuration, but I have also enjoyed more clear than there have been cloudy days, and in the early mornings and in the late ' evenings peculiar to the season I have lost myself in admiration of skies adorned with sapphire and gold as richly as those which are reflected by the Mediterra- nean. Of all the moonlights in the world commend me to those which light up the archipelago of the North Pacific ocean. Fogs have sometimes detained me longer on the Hudson and on Long Island sound than now on the waters of the North Pacific. In say- ing this, I do not mean to say that rain and fog are unfrcquent here. The Russian pilot, George, whom you all know, expressed my conviction on this matter exactly when he said to me, "Oh, yes, Mr. Seward, we do have changeable weather here sometimes, as they do in the other States." I might amend the expres- sion by adding, the weather here is only a little more changeable. It must be confessed at least that it is an honest climate, for it makes no pretensions to con- stancy. If, however, you have fewer bright sunrises and glowing sunsets than southern latitudes enjoy, you are favored on the other hand with more frequent and more magnificent displays of the aurora and the rain- bow. The thermometer tells the whole case when it reports that the summer is colder and the winter is warmer in Alaska than in New York and Washington. It results from the nature of such a climate that the earth prefers to support the fir, the spruce, the pine, the hemlock, and other evergreens, rather than decid- uous trees, and to furnish grasses and esculent roots, rather than the cereals of drier and hotter climates. I have mingled freely with the multifarious population — the Tongass, the Stickeens, the Cakes, the Hydahs, the Sitkas, the Kootznoos, and the Chilcats, as well as with the traders, the soldiers, the seamen, and the settlers of various nationalities, English, Swedish, Russian, and American — and I have seen all around me only persons enjoying robust and exuberant health. Manhood of every race and condition everywhere exliibits activity and energy, while infancy seems exempt from disease and age relieved from pain. It is next in order to speak of the rivers and seas of Alaska. The rivers arc broad, shallow, and rapid, while the seas are deep but tranquil. Mr. Sumner, in his elaborate and magnificent oration, although he spake oily from historical accounts, has not exagge- rated — no man can exaggerate — the marine treasures of the Territory. Beside the whale, which everywhere and at all times is seen enjoying his robust exercise, and the sea-otter, the fur-seal, the hair-seal, and the walrus, found in the waters which embosom the western islands, those waocrs as well as the seas of the eastern archipelago are found teeming with the salmon, cod, and other fishes adapted to the support of human and animal life. Indeed, what I have seen here has almost made me a convert to the theory of some naturalists, that the waters of ihe globe are filled with stores for the sustenance of animal life surpassing the available productions of the land. It must be remembered that the coast range of moun- tains, which begins in Mexico, is continued into the Territory, and invades the seas of Alaska. Hence it is that in the islands and on the mainland, so far as I have explored it, we find ourselves everywhere in the immediate presence of black hills, or foot-hills, as they are variously called, and that these foot-hills are over- topped by ridges of snow-capped mountains. These snow-capped mountains arc manifestly of volcanic origin, and they have been subjected, through an indef- inite period, to atmospheric abrasion and disintegration. •*4 u }t*9!ii^:i(^4iiiltii*^i^Ki)^^>^ persons liood of activity disease I seas of I rapid, mer, in ugh he 3xagge- casures ywhere ^cercise, md the >m the seas of til the iupport ^e seen Jory of e filled )assing mo un- to the uce it ir as I in the 3 they over- These Icanic indef- ition. Hence they have assumed all conceivable shapes and forms. In some places they are serrated into sharp, angular peaks, and in other places they appear archi- tecturally arranged, so as to present cloud-cupp ^ '^as- tles, towers, domes, and minarets. The mountain si les are furrowed with deep and straight ravines, down which the thawing fields of ice and snow ai a precip- itated, ger v.i'y in the month of May, with such a vehemence as to have produced in every valley im- mense level plains of intervale land. These plains, as well as the sides of the mountains, almost to the sum- mits, are covered with forests so dense and dark as to be impenetrable, except to wild beasts and savage huntsmen. On the lowest intervale land the cotton- wood grows. It seems to be the species of poplar which is known in the Atlantic States as the Balm of Gilead, and which is dwarfed on the Rocky Mountains. Here it takes on such large dimensions, that the Indian shapes out of a single trunk even his great war canoe which safely bears over the deepest waters a phalanx of sixty warriors. These imposing trees always appear to rise out of a jungle of elder, alder, crab-apple, and other fruit-bearing shrubs and bushes. The short and slender birch, which, sparsely scattered, marks the verge of vegetation in Labrador, has not yet been reached by the explorers of Alaska. The birch tree sometimes appears here upon the river side, upon the level next above the home of the cottonwood, and is generally found a comely and stately tree. The forests of Alaska, however, consist mainly neither of shrubs, nor of the birch, nor of the cottonwood, but, as I have already intimated, of the pine, the cedar, the cypress, the spruce, the fir, the larch, and the hemlock. These forests begin almost at the water's edge, and they rise 8 with regular gradation to a height of two thousand feet. The trees, nowhere dwarfed or diminutive, attain the highest dimensions in sunny exposures in the deeper canons or gorges of the mountains. The cedar, some- times called the yellow cedar, and sometimes the fra- grant cedar, was long ago imported into China as an ornamental wood: and it now furnishes the majestic beams and pillars with which the richer and more am- bitious native chief delights to construct his rude but spacious hall or palatial residence, and upon which he carves in rude symbolical imagery the heraldry of his tribe and achievements of his nation. No beam, or pil- lar, or spar, or mast, or plank is ever required in either the land or the naval architecture of any civilized State greater in length and width than the trees which can be hewn down on the coasts of the islands and rivers here, and conveyed directly thence by navigation. A few gardens, fields, and meadows, have been attempted by natives in some of the settlements, and by soldiers at the military posts, with most encouraging results. Nor must we forget that the native grasses, ripening late in a humid climate, preserve their nutritive prop- erties, though exposed, while the climate is so mild that cattle and horses require but slight provision of shelter during the winter. Such is the island and coast portion of Eastern Alaska. Kla-kautch, the Chilcat, who is known and feared by the Indians throughout the whole Territory, and who is a very intelligent chief, informs me, that beyond the mountain range, which intervenes between the Chilcat and the Youkon rivers, you descend into a plain unbroken by hills or mountains, very fertile, in a genial climate, and, as far as he could learn, of boundless extent. We have similar information from ' 9 those who have traversed the interior from the shore of the Portland canal to the upper branches of the Youkon. We have reason, therefore, to believe that beyond the coast range of mountains in Alaska we shall find an extension of the rich and habitable valley lands of Oregon, Washington Territory, and British Columbia. After what I have already said, I may excuse myself from expatiating on the animal productions of the for- est. The elk and the deer are so plenty as to be under- valued for food or skins, by natives as well as strangers. The bear of many families — black, grizzly, and cinna- mon ; the mountain sheep, inestimable for his fleece ; the wolf, the fox, the beaver, the otter, the mink, the raccoon, the marten, the ermine ; the squirrel — gray, black, brown, and flying, are among the land fur-bear- ing animals. The furs thus found here have been the chief element, for more than a hundred years, of the profitable commerce of the Hudson's Bay Company, whose mere possessory privileges seem, even at this late day, too costly to find a ready purchaser. This fur-trade, together with the sea fur-trade within the Territory, were the sole basis alike of Russian com- merce and empire on this continent. This commerce was so large ai.d important as to induce the Govern- ments of Russia and China to build and maintain a town for carryiiig on its exchanges in Tartaiy on the border of the two empires. It is well understood that the supply of furs in Alaska has not diminished, while the demand for them in China and elsewhere has im- mensely increased. I fear that we must confess to a failure of ice as an element of territorial wealth, at least as far as this immediate region is concerned. I find that the Rus- 10 sian American Company, whose monopoly was abol- ished by the treaty of acquisition, depended for ice exclusively upon the small lake or natural pond which furnishes the power for your saw-mill in this town, and that this dependence has now failed by reason of the increasing mildness of the winter. The California Ice Company are now trying the small lakes of Kodiac, and certainly I wish them success. I think it is not yet ascertained whether glacier ice is pure anu practi- cal for commerce. If it is, the world may be supplied from the glaciers, which, suspended from the region of the clouds, stand forth in the majesty of ever-wasting and ever-renewed translucent mountains upon the banks of the Stickeen and Chilcat rivers and the shores of Cross sound. Alaska has been as yet but imperfectly explored. But enough is known to assure us that it possesses treasures of what are called the baser ores equal to those of any other region of the continent. We have Copper island and Copper river, so named as the places where the natives, before the period of the Russian discovery, had procured the pure metal from which they fabricated instruments of war and legendery shields. In regard to iron, the question seems to be not where it can be found, but whether there is any place where it doea not exist. Mr. Davidson, of the. Coast Survey, invited me to go up to him at the sta- tion he had taken up the Chilcat river to make his observations of the eclipse, by writing me that he had discovered an iron mountain there. When I came there I found that, very properly, he had been study- ing the heavens so busily, that he had but cursorily examined the earth under his feet ; that it was not a single iron mountain he had discovered, but a range of 11 hills, the very dust of which adheres to the magnet, while the range itselT, two thousand feet high, extends along the east bank of the river thirty miles. Lime- stone and marble crop out on the banks of the same river and in many other places. Coal-beds, accessible to navigation, are found at Kootznoo. It is said, how- ever, that the concentrated resin which the mineral contains renders it too inflammable to be safely used by steamers. In any case, it would seem calculated to supply the fuel requisite for the manufacture of iron. What seems to be excellent cannel coal is also found in the Prince of Wales archipelago. There are also mines at Cook's inlet. Placer and quartz gold mining is pursued under many social disadvantages upon the Stickeen and elsewhere, with a degree of success which, while it does not warrant us in assigning a superiority in that respect to the Territory, does nevertheless war- rant us in regarding gold mining as an established and reliable resource. It would argue inexcusable insensibility if I should fail to speak of the scenery which, in the course of my voyage, has seemed to pass like a varied and magnifi- cent panorama before me. The exhibition did not, indeed, open within the Territory. It broke upon me first when I had passed Cape Flattery and entered the Straits of Fuca, which separate British Columbia from Washington Territory. It widened as I passed along the shore of Puget Sound, expanded in the waters which divide Vancouver from the continent, and finally spread itself out into a magnificent archipelago, stretch- ing through the entire Gulf of Alaska, and closing un- der the shade ^' Mounts Fairweather and St. Elias. Nature has furnished to this majestic picture the only suitable border which could be conceived, by lifting the 12 coast range mountains to an exalted height, and cloth- ing them with eternal snows and crystalline glaciers. It remains only to speak of man and of society in Alaska. Until the present moment the country has been exclusively inhabited and occupied by some thirty or more Indian tribes. I incliie to doubt the popular classification of these tribes, upon the assumption that they have descended from diverse races. Climate and other circumstances have indeed produced some differ- ences of manners and customs between the Aleuts, the Koloschians, and the interior continental tribes. But all of them are manifesth of Mongol origin. Al- though they have preserved no common traditions, all alike indulge in tastes, wear a physiognomy, and are imbued with sentiments peculiarly noticed in Japan and China. Savage communities, no less than civilized nations, require spice for subsistence, whether they depend for it upon the land or upon the sea — in savage communities especially; and increase of population dis- proportioned to the supplies of the country occupied necessitates subdivision and remote colonization. Op- pression and cruelty occur even more frequently among barbarians than among civilized men. Nor are ambi- tion and faction less inherent in the one condition than in the other. From these causes it has happened that the 25, 000 Indians in Alaska are found permanently divided into so many insignificant nations. These na- tions are jealous, ambitious, and violent ; could in no case exist long in the same region without mutually af- fording V, hat, in every case, to each party, seems just cause of war. War between savages becomes the private cause of the several families which are afflicted with the loss of their members. Such a war can never be composed until each family which has suffered receives an indem- 18 nity in blankets, adjusted according to an imaginary tariff, or, in the failure of such compensation, secures the death of one or more enemies as an atonement for the injury it has sustained. The enemy captured, whether by superior force or stategy, either receives no quarter, or submits for himself and his progeny to perpetual slavery. It has thus happened that the In- dian tribes of Alaska have never either confederated or formed permanent alliances, and that even at this late day, in the presence of superior power exercised by the United States Government, they live in regard to each other in a state of enforced and doubtful truce. It is manifest that, under these circumstances, they must steadily decline in numbers, and unhappily this decline is accelerated by their borrowing ruinous vices from the white man. Such as the natives of Alaska are, they are, nevertheless, in a practical sense, the only laborers at present in the Territory. The white man comes amongst them from London, from St. Pe- tersburg, from Boston, from New York, from San Francis- "■ and from Victoria, not to fish (if we except alone the w^hale fishery) or to hunt, but simply to buy what fish and what peltries, ice, wood, lumber, and coal, the Indians have secured under the superintend- ence of temporary agents or factors. When we con- sider how greatly most of the tribes are reduced in numbers, and how precarious their vocations are, we shall cease to regard them as indolent or incapable; and, on the contrary, we shall more deeply regret than ever before, that a people so gifted by nature, so vig- orous and energetic, and withal so docile and gentle in their intercourse with the white man, can neither be preserved as a distinct social community, nor incorpo- rated into our society. The Indian tribes will do here 14 as they seem to have done in "Washington Territory and British Columbia : they will merely serve the turn until civilized white men come. You, the citizens of Sitka, are the pioneers, the advanced guard, of the future population of Alaska ; and you naturally ask when, from whence, and how soon, reinforcements shall come, and what are the signs and guaranties of their coming? This question, with all its minute and searching interrogations, has been asked by the pioneers of every State and Territory of which the American Union is now composed ; and the history of those States and Territories furnishes the complete, conclusive, and satisfactory answer. Emi- grants go to every infant State and Territory in obe- dience to the great natural law that obliges needy men to seek subsistence, and invites adventurous men to seek fortune where it is most easily obtained, and this is always in the new and uncultivated regions. They go from every State and Territory, and from every foreign nation in America, Europe, and Asia ; because no established and populous State or nation can guar- anty subsistence and fortune to all who demand them among its inhabitants. The guaranties and signs of their coming to Alaska are found in the resources of the Territory, which I have attempted to describe, and in the condition of society in other parts of the world. Some men seek other climes for health and some for pleasure. Alaska invites the former class by a clima.e singularly salu- brious, and the latter class by scenery which surpasses in sublimity that of either the Alps, the Apennines, the Alleghanies, or the Rocky Mountains. Emigrants from our own States, from Europe, and from Asia, will not be slow in finding out that fortunes are to be 15 gained by pursuing here the occupations which have so successfully sustained races of untutored men. Civ- ilization and refinement are making more rapid ad- vances in our day than at any former period. The rising States and nations on this continent, the Euro- pean nations, and even those of Eastern Asia, have exhausted, or are exhausting, their own forests and mines, and are soon to become largely dependent upon those of the Pacific. The entire region of Oregon, Washington Territory, British Columbia, and Alaska, seem thus destined to become a ship-yard for the sup- ply of all nations. I do not forget on this occasion that British Columbia belongs within a foreign juris- diction. That circumstance does not materially affect my calculations. British Columbia, by whomsoever possessed, must be governed in conformity with the interests of her people and of society upon the Ameri- can continent. If that Territory shall be so governed, there will be no ground of complaint anywhere. If it shall be governed so as to conflict with the interests of the inhabitants of that Territory and of the United States, we all can easily forsee what will happen in that case. You will ask me, however, for guaranties that the hopes I encourage will not be postponed. I give them. Within the period of my own recollection, I hav^e seen twenty new States added to the eighteen which before that time constituted the American Union, and I now see, besides Alaska, ten Territories in a forward condition of preparation for entering into the same great political family. I have seen in my own time not only the first electric telegraph, but even the first railroad and the first steamboat invented by man. And even on this present voyage of mine, I have fallen in 16 with the first steamboat, still afloat, that thirty-five years ago lighted her fires on the Pacific ocean. These, citizens of Sitka, are the guaranties, not only that Alaska has a future, but that that future has already begun. I know that you want two things just now, when European monopoly is broken down and United States free trade is being introduced within the Terri- tory : These are, military protection while your num- ber is so inferior to that of the Indians around you, and you need also a territorial civil government. Congress has already supplied the first of these wants adequately and tfectually. I doubt not that it will supply the other want during the coming winter. It must do this, because our political system rejects alike anarchy and executive absolutism. Nor do I doubt that the political society to be constituted here, first as a Territory, and ultimately as a State or many States, will prove a worthy constituency of the Republic. To doubt that it will be intelligent, virtuous, prosperous, and enterprising, is to doubt the experience of Scot- land, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and Belgium, and of New England and New York. Nor do I doubt that it will be forever true in its republican instincts and loyal to the American Union, for the inhabitants will be both mountaineers and sea-faring men. I am not among those who apprehend infidelity to liberty and the Union in any quarter hereafter, but I am sure that if constancy and loyalty are to fail anywhere, the fail- ure will not be in the States which approach nearest to the north pole. Fellow-citizens, accept once more my thanks, from the heart of my heart, for kindnesses which can never be forgotten, and suffer me to leave you with a sincere and earnest farewell. ■ ■ n r" " i ' li :ssG MR. SEWARD'S SPEECH AT VICTORIA. At a banquet given to !»ir. Seward at Victoria, he spoke as follows : Gentlemen : You are aware that if my preference could have been consulted, this would have been a private, instead of a public, entertainment. The assev- erations of loyalty which I hear on both sides, from British subjects and resident Americans, admonish us that we are liable to be misunderstood, as assuming to speak for our respective nations in a diplomatic character. Give me your assent, therefore, to a few preliminaries. First, that the loyalty of British sub- jects here is fully acknowledged and respected on my part. Having derived my existence through a long line of British ancestors, including my father and mo- ther, I am not likely, here or elsewhere, to disparage my lineage of their race. On the other hand, I freely confess that it is my political ambition to see the United States of America, of which I am a. native citi- Z'-n, transcend even the British nation in civil and religious liberty, and usefulness to the human race. Neither Gcwernnjents nor peoples are particularly pleased when they find private citizens attempthig to withdraw their national dillerences from the control of constitutional agents and adjust them with indecorous haste at provincial dinner tables. We will, therefore, leave the Puget Sound Agricultural question, the San Juan boundary, the Canadian Reciprocity, and the Ala- bama claims to our respective and respected Govern- ments. I have never heard an}^ person, on either side of the United States border, assert that British Columbia is not a part of the American continent, or that its peo- ple have or can have any interest, material, moral, or social, different from the common interests of all Amer- 18 can nations. Discoverers, indeed, must limit their pretensions b}' rivers or nioiiiitiiiiis wliieli they rcacli, ;ind adjacent States must fix their boundaries as tliey •an agree. Nevertlieloss, all contiguous iStates have mutual and intimate relations, wiiich require harmony, if not concert, between them. Upon these their citi- zens can consult with each other without giving just cause of ofl'ense. I have heard in Victoria regrets of an abatement in industrial enterprise in the province, resulting from a disai)pointment of high-wrought ex- pectations of gold mining on the Frazer river. These regrets have seemed to indicate something of despond- ency. It is not a special object of my present journey to study British Columbia. The real object is to study the Pacific coast region of the American continent, with more particular reference to the United States. With this purpose I left the sea at Cape Flattery, passed through the Straits of Juan de Fuca, traversed Puget Sound and Washington Territory, and thence made my way by the interior passages tlirough the waters of British Columbia to the sixtieth parallel in Alaska. At o time was I ha/dly beyond hailing dis- tance from the mainland ,and yet my excursion was a continuous voyage of one thousand two hundred miles, through one cojistant and beautiful archipelago, i oc- casionally looked up the continental rivers far enough to see that mainland and islands uniformly presented the same features — features which indicate the pres- ence of the precious as well as the baser metals in the mountains, fishes abounding in the seas, furs abounding in the lands and waters, and evergreen forests, useful for all the purposes of land and naval architecture, still more abounding. 'J his whole region I found to be unique and inseparable in regard to the de- 19 volopmont of its rich resources. T venture to call it by Olio cominou iianio, the Nortli Piicific American coast; and I venture to predict that in its entire length and breadth, extending from tlie banks of the Colum- bia river, in Oregon, to Mount St. Elias, in Alaska, it will become immediately a common ship-yard for the American continent, and speedily for the whole world. Europe, Asia, South America, and even the Atlantic American States, have either exhausted or are ex- hausting their native supplies of timber and lumber. Their hist and only resort must be to the North Pacific region I have described. I noticed with pleasure and without surprise the beginning of a whale fishery in Puget Sound, and T discou'^sed in the Spanish language with lumber traders from Cliili. The scenes of indus- try I witnessed along the sound astonished me when I reflected that the entire population of Washington Territory is only eight thousand souls. The European emigrant has hardly reached that coast, and the Chinese are scarcely known there. In their absence the In- dians seemed to be assuming the habits of civilization, in obedience to an extraordinary demand for labor. Sagacious persons in the Atlaniic States and in Europe were before me in apprehending this interesting con- dition of things, and I think in foreseeing the destiny of the North Pacific shores. They had already pro- jected railroaWll foreign nations. Do thev require too much in asking that their capacities and loyalty to the Union shall be known and appre- ciated? 1 early accepte ' and continually held fast to these several political convictions: 1st, That if a nation /' I 3 ; 22 desires to be independent and prosperous, and enjoy peace at liome and abroad, it must expand itself comraensurately with its resources and advantages. 2d, That human bondage is incompatible with a suc- cessful republic. 3d, That the permanent continuance of European or monarchical government in the Ameri- can hemisphere would be injurious and dangerous to the United States. 4th, That in the expansion of the Republic, the establishment and acceptance of new Spates, on the same footing as the original States, is essential for the security of civil and religious liberty. I seem, indeed, to myself, to have lived chiefly for the purpose of laboring to 'l^fend an inchoate republic against external and internal dangers, and to expand it upon the principles I have mentioned. Let the world judge, then, of the satisfaction I enjoy in wit- nessing the success of this policy, and of the gratitude I feel in being so kindly received here, at the capital of the new State of Oregon, as I have been received before at the capitals of the other new States and Ter- ritories which I have visited. You will excuse mo, if the habit of nationality of thougiit and reasoning which I have contracted has rendered me incapable oi' considering Oregon as an isolated State, or of separat- ing my ideas of her condition and products from tlie general ideas which I have formed of all the States and Territories, mutually connected with each otiier, and subordinate in their proper relations as parts of tiie whole United States. In California there is no louirer need for external encoiu-agement. The highest ex- pectiitions of its settlers have not uiijustly ripened into absolute assurance. San Francisco is lirmly established as the Constantinople of American empire, and Cali- fornia exercises fully and wisely an important political 23 !r influence in the United States and throughout the world. The other new States and Territories have not yet secured an equal position. The dwellers in these States are continually asking of every visitor, "What do you think we shall be, and when?" I must answer with the same confidence which, among men of little faith, has sometimes procured for me the character of an optimist. Kansas, in her infancy the Cinderella, has already become a leading and effective member of the political family by which she was despised. Nebraska, standing upon the west side of the Missouri, has seized the railroads of the Atlantic States, and welded and riveted them with the system of railroads which has successfully begun to traverse and ramify the States and Territories of the Pacific shore. Wyo- ming, Colorado, and New Mexico, surmounting Indian troubles and reckless speculations, have reached a point of civil and social esuiblishment from which it need not be feared they will recede. I have not 3'et been able to visit Arizona, but I have learned enough of Mon- tana, Idaho, and Utah, to know that they are reason- ably assured of a successful and prosperous career. Nevada, although politically separated from California, is a full sharer in her rising prosperity and greatness. Considerations of convenience, not choice, cariied me northward before I was able to visit Oregon. The Territories of Washir.gton and Alaska, extending (with the exception of British Columbia) from the forty-ninth parallel of latitude along the islands and coasts of America to the Arctic ocean, are, as might be expected, feebler than the more southern States and Territories. Nevertheless, I realized, if indeed I did not discover, in those Territories a new, peculiar, and nnignilicont field of commerce and empire, i found one continuous and 24 expanding archipelago along the coast, from the base of Pugot Sound, in Washington, to Mount St. Elias, in Alaska. I found land and sea teeming with provisions for the subsistence of a population adequate to bring the marine, mineral, animal, and vegetable resources of that remote and secluded region into a productive State. The neglected portion of the country furnishes even now, to refineu nations in northern climates, the furs which, from considerations of need and of luxury, they continually demand. No metal used in arts or commerce is absent there. The forests are luxuriant, universal, and inexhaustible. When I saw British, Chinese, and Chilian, as well as American vessels, bearing away the timber and lumber, with difficulty wrested from the wasting fires of the sumniei by the feeblest of all American populations, and conveying them away to be used in civil and naval architecture on both sides of the Pacific ocean, I needed no other suggestion of the fact that I had reached that very place where, within the period of an early future, the navies, mercantile and prmed, of America, and even of the world, are to be built. Knowing the import- Hnce of ship-building and navigation in every stage of civilization, my mind was expanded with wonder and admiration of the ultimate prosperity and greatness of the north Pacific coast. Although British Columbia remains, as Oregon not long ago was, and as the region west of the Mississippi so recently was. and as the whole of the United States once were, ibj( )p( »wei I, lever less, found existing there commercial and political forces which render a permanent political separation of British Columbia from Alaska and Washington Terri- tory impossible. 25 Of Washington Territory, so lately a part of Oregon, it is hardly necessary to say here, that the British trav- eller was not mistaken, who, in 183G, not foreseeing its severance from the British crown, pronourced Paget Sound a base of future empire. In the State of Oregon I have only explored the Columbia river to the Dalles, and the Willamette val- ley, in the vicinity of Portland, Milwaukee, Oswego, Oregon City, Monmouth, Albany, Santiam, and this capital. No one will accuse me of infidelity to New York and the other Atlantic States, whether North or South. Neverthelesp, I shall not hesitate, hereafter, to advise the student in natural science, who desires to learn how islands, mountains, and countries are heaved up from the deep ; how rivers are traced out, defined, and run ; how minerals are secreted in the earth ; and how valleys are formed, spread out, and fertilized, to ascend the Columbia river from the sea, through its cascades and cataracts, to its sources in the interior of the continent. Nor Ghall I fail to advise the tourist, who delights in the grand and the beautiful, to leave behind him the Rhine and the Hudson, after seeing the one marvel of N iagara, and to come here and admire the snow-clad mountains which dominate over the Pacific coast. Wonderful, horizontal, and massive foundations lie all along the river banks, in the shape of wharves, docks, ports, and gateways. On these everlasting found- ations are raised, not merely one column of basaltic palisade, but terraces of basaltic palisades, which, ris- ing one above another, and assuming the magnificent outlines of towers, pinnacles, castles, coliseums, and cathedrals, seem to pierce the very clouds. The early emigrants saw, as they descended the Rocky Mountains, boundless and luxuriant prairies, 3 26 waterea by the Willamette, and a spacious forest region traversed by the Columbia — plains, forests, and rivers imequalled on the Pacific coast. That coast, north- ward and southward, was occupied by inert races, from whom the settlers of Oregon apprehended no rivalry. They, therefore, expected that some sea-port in their own Territory would become the principal seat of the western commerce. This expectation is disappointed. The opening of sea-ports, with inland connections, at the base of the northwestern archipelago on Puget sound, indicates the commercial development there to which I have already alluded. San Francisco, with its magnificent bay and fortified Golden Gate, has taken the position which before was erroneously assigned to Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia river. So it has happened that Oregon proper has failed to obtain the capital prize in the commercial lottery of the Pacific coast. It ought to be enough, however, to reconcile the people of Oregon to that disappointment, to know that the central position of the State, between and contiguous to the two great commercial out-posts of the Pacific, alTords her the advantage of being at once the granary and manufactory for both. It is in Oregon, so far as I am able to determine, and nowhere else, that two climates — the Atlantic, with its heated summers and inclement winters, and the Pacific, with its colder sum-=^ mers and milder winters — embrace and produce a higher and more varied fertility than is elsewhere real- ized. The Atlantic States, with their grassy valleys, are already becoming dependent upon the slopes of the Rocky Mountains for the supply of animal provisions. The fruits of Orei^on are unsurpassed in quality and unequalled in abundance. Wheat and other cereals grow and ripen here, almost without care, as abundantly isaB^fflKw^ss^ "'T i '"rnn'""T°T*rT'-^-'"™'^'" ""' ™"'*^ " ■MM 27 as they do with the use of irrigation in Utah, while the native soil, everywhere covered with fern and annual flowers, provokes the farmer to the cultivation of the potato and other esculent roots. What acquaintance I have made with the adventurous miners, descending the Columbia river, satisfies me, that if it were possible for the laborer to fail in other occupations, he would, even in that case, find an abundant reward in the gold deposits of the mountains. The useful metals and minerals abound everywhere, while a vast hydraulic power, invaluable under all circumstances and indis- pensable in new communities, is distributed throughout all parts of the State. I know, indeed, that the pres- ent dwellers in California and Washington think that they possess forest, agricultural, and manufacturing ad- vantages and resources commensurate with the future which they anticipate. My own observation of the ever-increasing exigencies of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston — Paris, Liverpool, and London — is conclusive with me upon the subject. The territo- rial lines which divide one political jurisdiction into distinct States not unnaiurally tend to circumscribe and confuse our ideas of the future of each of the several States. No one would be satisfied with the prospect ol Oregon if it were included within the political juris- diction of California, and if it had contiiuied to retain the shores of Puget Sound. It is hardly necessary to say, on the other hand, that the political subdivision uf the region tends not to diminish, but to magnify, the prosperity of every part. Such is the future which I argue for the State of Oregon. This destiny, of course, exacts, just as the future of every part of the United States always does, an increase of the population and capital. I regard 28 this condition as already secured. Population will seek and find every place, even those most remote and least known, where industry, already organized and estab- lished, assures to the laborer a certain reward. One need only to look into Portland, Dalles City, Oregon City, and other towns, to see that capital is profitably employed. One need only to look over the fields and orchards in the agricultural districts, and upon the ves- sels engaged in inland transportation on the Willamette, to enable him to foresee a speedy subdivision of im- mense farms among multiplied emigrants. Neverthe- less, population is not to be grown here or elsewhere in one country in sufiicient numbers and with sufficient haste. It must everywhere be induced from abroad. It will not go anywhere until its going can. be made cheap and easy by improved transportation. The Co- lumbia river and the Willamette, although noble streams, cannot, unaided, perform the work. They do not pene- trate the sources of emigration, nor adequately distri- bute it through the State. They must be reinforced with railroads;: — first, railroad to San Francisco and Puget Sound, where the immediate consumers of your agricultural products will dwell ; next, railroads through the mining regions, intersecting the existing Pacific railroad and such others as shall be built. The re-^ ceivers of your productions along and at the ends of such railroads will forward, in return, the emigrants and laborers whom you will require in increasing the productions. Nor would you hasten the future of your State, which I regard as the common interest of the whole Republic, by suffering yourselves to be involved as partisans in the local and personal passions, ambi- tions, and jealousies of other communities. No State or nation has ever flourished that was unsocial, inhos- 29 pitable, or intolerant. Your statesmen in the national councils, if they are wise, will foster and cultivate har- mony and peace equally throughout the whole Repub- lic, and harmony and peace equally with all foreign nations, insisting at the same time, as is their right, upon a policy at home and abroad which shall be adapted to the interest of the Pacific. Such a policy will require that the United States shall own and pos- sess self-producing islands on your coast, and sugar and coffee-producing islands in both oceans, and will regard the extension of American invention and enterprise into Japan, China, Australia, and India, as worthy of consideration equally with international commerce be- tween the United States and the countries of Western Europe. ,1 found in your morning paper yesterday the following dispatch: "The ship Norway arrived on the 4th of September, one hundred and fifty-seven days from Cardiff. This ship brings iron for ten miles of the East Side road, being the first installment of two thousand tons, purchased by Ben Holladay & Co. The rest is on another vessel, which is due in thirty days, if she makes an average voyage." This mere transac- tion suggests what Oregon and the whole Pacific coast need : 1st, such manufacture of your own metals as will relieve you from the necessity of importing iron .from any foreign country; and, 2d, the construction of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien, which will reduce the navigation between the Pacific shores and those of the Atlantic, of both continents, a hun- dred and twenty days. I know too well that political, religious, and social objections are made against the policy of freedom and immigration which I advocate. But such objections are as old as the Republic. They have assisted, and 80 at times threatened to strangle or arrest, this great policy, which was wisely engrafted upon the Constitu- tion of the United States. What would have been our condition now, and our prospects, if the country had listened to objections of the same nature against the abolition of African slavery — a measure to which we are indebted for entire and complete national inde- pendence? What if we had yielded to the fiery re- sistance made to that Irish immigration which has con- structed so many of our canals and railroads, and built so many of our cities ? What if we had been prevailed upon to repel and reject that great German immigra- tion which has given a new impulse to our arts, our hterature, and our science? We have no excuse for admitting such objections or prejudices now. The ex- periment of self-government which we are making has developed its own necessary conditions and laws. We could not escape from them even if we would. The experiment we are making, fellow-citizens, is not a local or isolated experiment, whether the people of one nation are capable of self-government. It is the experiment whether men of ?.\\ nations are capable of self-government. Let us persevere in it, relying that mankind in every country only need freedom and know- ledge to enable them to govern themselves more wisely and more happily than they have hitherto been gov- er..ea. Citizens of Oregon, it is long since we have known, though it is only just now that we have met, each other. I have been made profoundly sensible of this fact by your invitation, which found me at sea ; by the welcome given me on arrival in port; by the reception and munificent hospitalities bestowed upon me in your great commercial city of Portland j by the C( 81 cap tal and by way^do entertainments in the village I tl T'"' '^° ^— »»J«. -'d in the fa,-m.hou!e Should not fai to invoke, forever, blessings fit for all sorts and conditions of men, upon Oregon