he beneficent principle of the system itself? What would prevent
similar results following if, subject only to the necessities of
government, it were extended to Mexico, to Canada, to South America, to
the world? In such extension the United States have everything to gain,
nothing to lose. This country would soon become the supply house of the
world. We will soon have cattle and harvests enough for all nations.
Our cotton is everywhere in demand. It is again king. Its crown has
been restored, and in all the markets of the world it waves its royal
sceptre. Out of our coal and minerals can be manufactured every thing
which human ingenuity can devise. Our gold and silver mines will supply
the greater part of the precious metals for the use of the arts and
trade.

With the opportunity of unrestricted exchange of these products, how
limitless the horizon of our possibilities! Let American adventurousness
and genius be free upon the high seas, to go wherever they please and
bring back whatever they please, and the oceans will swarm with American
sails, and the land will laugh with the plenty within its borders. The
trade of Tyre and Sidon, the far extending commerce of the Venetian
republic, the wealth-producing traffic of the Netherlands, will be as
dreams in contrast with the stupendous reality which American enterprise
will develop in our own generation. Through the humanizing influence of
the trade thus encouraged, I see nations become the friends of nations,
and the causes of war disappear. I see the influence of the great
republic in the amelioration of the condition of the poor and the
oppressed in every land, and in the moderation of the arbitrariness of
power. Upon the wings of free trade will be carried the seeds of free
government, to be scattered everywhere to grow and ripen into harvests
of free peoples in every nation under the sun.

IX.--FINANCE AND CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

With the election of 1876 and the inauguration of President Hayes, March
4, 1877, the Period of Reconstruction may be said to have closed. The
last formal act of that period was the withdrawal of the national troops
from the South by President Hayes soon after his inauguration. During
the last two decades the "Southern Question," while it has been
occasionally prominent in political discussions,--especially in
connection with the Lodge Federal Elections Bill, 1889-91, has,
nevertheless, occupied a subordinate place in public intere