[425] It is not improbable, too, that another vast army may be needed to build the Pacific Railroad, ship-canals, and other great works of protection and defence.1 And he would be both a short-sighted and sanguine optimist who should leave out of the horoscope of the next few years, the contingencies, if not the probabilities, of a collision with Great Britain. That struggle is as inevitable as this rebellion was. All the issues have been gathering, and the result must come, unless through a premature flash of the millennium, all our difficulties should be settled by Arbitration, which Heaven grant, although it seems like praying for the ‘happy thousand years.’ No mortal power can protract it forever. We must be prepared for it, so that it can at no time take us by surprise. This is now the feeling among all parties and sections throughout the country. This feeling will not change. Nations never forgive wrongs or insults. Ours must and will be avenged. The African race emancipated will hereafter constitute the great body-guard of the Union.
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1 In speaking on the subject of defence for the Northern frontier, Senator Arnold, of Rhode Island, used the following striking language:—
He said,It is the duty of the statesman not only to crush the rebellion, but to cement the Union. This canal will revive the idea of national unity,—the grand idea which has inspired the vast and sublime efforts of the people to restore the national unity. This canal will be an east-and-west Mississippi. He spoke of the unqualified devotion of the West to the Union. There were rebels in the West, and elsewhere, who are seeking to alienate the West from the East. To this traitorous band was addressed the proclamation of the rebel General Bragg. How the West responds, the rebels learned from the mouths of her cannon at Murfreesborough. The soldiers of the East and the West, fighting together on many a glorious and sanguinary field, will with their blood cement a union and a nationality so strong and deep that no sectional appeal can ever shake the loyalty of the glorious band of loyal States. The West will regard as traitors alike those who suggest a peace with any portion of the Mississippi in rebel hands, and those who suggest a Union with patriotic, brave New England left out. The Northern frontier must he defended; and this canal is the cheapest and best means of defending it. While the Atlantic shore is protected from any foreign enemy by three thousand miles of ocean, by forts and fortifications from Maine to Florida, by a navy which has cost hundreds of millions, the Northern frontier, not less important, is entirely defenceless, and within easy cannon-range for hundreds of miles of a foreign territory. The North-west cheerfully pays her proportion for the defence of the Atlantic, and will pay further large appropriations now required. But we ask, in justice, that the Northern frontier should be secured. He then read a memorial of ex-President Fillmore and others, showing the exposed condition of Lake Erie, and showed that the lakes by the Canadian canals were accessible to British gunboats, and the lake cities and commerce were exposed to destruction. This canal will enable us to place our gunboats on the lakes. He read a letter from Admiral Porter, showing that we had now afloat more than fifty gunboats which could pass from the ocean to the lakes by this canal. He then presented the importance—fiscal, commercial, and agricultural—of the interests thus seeking protection. Fifty-eight million bushels of breadstuffs were shipped from Chicago alone during the past year. The commerce of the lakes was at least four hundred millions per annum. Corn, since cotton had committed felo de se, was now king, and kept the peace between Europe and America. This enlarged canal is the cheapest mode of defending the lakes. The whole cost of the canal was only thirteen million dollars. This will turn the Mississippi into the lakes, and unite forever the East and the West. Every dollar thus expended in defence cheapens transportation. The capacity of the proposed Illinois Canal will be twelve times that of the Erie Canal. The largest steamers which navigate the Mississippi will steam directly to Lake Michigan. These grand results cost only thirteen millions. It will rapidly pay for itself, and is then to leave a grand national free highway. It will add to the taxable property of the Union as much, or more, than the Erie Canal has done. It will give stability to our Government, and add to the national wealth. It will increase both our ability to borrow money and to pay it.
United States Publishing Company, 1874.
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