plea for a united country, one glorious land from Maine to the Sierras.
He seems to have perceived the danger hidden in the perfectly natural
ambition of leading men to take advantage of the troubled time to launch
the Pacific Republic, and thus avoid all danger of the coming conflict
between North and South. A free, independent California, which should
practically include the entire Coast, - surely here was an inspiring and
seductive dream. By a method peculiarly his own he did not directly
combat this fascinating idea, but rather sought to win his hearers to
the larger vision of an empire extending from ocean to ocean, every mile
of it dedicated to liberty and progress.

"What a privilege it is to be an American," he exclaims in a favorite
lecture, often repeated.

"Suppose that the continent could turn towards you tomorrow at sunrise,
and show to you the whole American area in the short hours of the sun's
advance from Eastport to the Pacific! You would see New England roll
into light from the green plumes of Aroostook to the silver stripe of
the Hudson; westward thence over the Empire State, and over the lakes,
and over the sweet valleys of Pennsylvania, and over the prairies, the
morning blush would run and would waken all the line of the Mississippi;
from the frosts where it rises, to the fervid waters in which it pours,
for three thousand miles it would be visible, fed by rivers that flow
from every mile of the Allegheny slope, and edged by the green
embroideries of the temperate and tropic zones; beyond this line another
basin, too, the Missouri, catching the morning, leads your eye along its
western slope till the Rocky Mountains burst upon the vision, and yet do
not bar it; across its passes we must follow, as the stubborn courage of
American pioneers has forced its way, till again the Sierra and their
silver veins are tinted along the mighty bulwark with the break of day;