Our career has corresponded with this great outline. Perfection in
our organization could not have been expected in the outset either
in the National or State Governments or in tracing the line
between their respective powers. But no serious conflict has
arisen, nor any contest but such as are managed by argument and by
a fair appeal to the good sense of the people, and many of the
defects which experience had clearly demonstrated in both
Governments have been remedied. By steadily pursuing this course
in this spirit there is every reason to believe that our system
will soon attain the highest degree of perfection of which human
institutions are capable, and that the movement in all its
branches will exhibit such a degree of order and harmony as to
command the admiration and respect of the civilized world.

Our physical attainments have not been less eminent. Twenty-five
years ago the river Mississippi was shut up and our Western
brethren had no outlet for their commerce. What has been the
progress since that time? The river has not only become the
property of the United States from its source to the ocean, with
all its tributary streams (with the exception of the upper part of
the Red River only), but Louisiana, with a fair and liberal
boundary on the western side and the Floridas on the eastern, have
been ceded to us. The United States now enjoy the complete and
uninterrupted sovereignty over the whole territory from St. Croix
to the Sabine. New States, settled from among ourselves in this
and in other parts, have been admitted into our Union in equal
participation in the national sovereignty with the original
States. Our population has augmented in an astonishing degree and
extended in every direction. We now, fellow-citizens, comprise
within our limits the dimensions and faculties of a great power