ago the barrier between civilization on the one side and almost
unbroken barbarism on the other; and banners of the Republic waved
from flagstaff and highland, through the broad valleys of the Ohio,
the Mississippi, and the Missouri. Nor stopped its progress there.
Thence onward poured the tide of American civilization and,
progress, over the vast regions of the Western plains; and from the
snowy crests of the Sierras you look down on American States
fronting the calm Pacific, an empire of themselves in resources and
wealth, but loyal in our darkest hours to the nation whose
authority they acknowledge and in whose glory they proudly share.

"From a territorial area of less than nine hundred thousand square
miles, it has expanded into over three millions and a half--fifteen
times larger than that of Great Britain and France combined--with a
shore-line, including Alaska, equal to the entire circumference of
the earth, and with a domain within these lines far wider than that
of the Romans in their proudest days of conquest and renown. With a
river, lake, and coastwise commerce estimated at over two thousand
millions of dollars per year; with railway traffic of four to six
thousand millions per year, and the annual domestic exchanges of
the country, running up to nearly ten thousand millions per year;
with over two thousand millions of dollars invested in
manufacturing, mechanical, and mining industry; with over five
hundred millions of acres of land in actual occupancy, valued, with
their appurtenances, at over seven thousand millions of dollars,
and producing annually crops valued at over three thousand millions
of dollars; with a realm which, if the density of Belgium's
population were possible, would be vast enough to include all the
present inhabitants of the world; and with equal rights guaranteed
to even the poorest and humblest of our forty millions of people,