nd operate equally, as well at
all times and in all fields of American enterprise, as upon all
classes. No such system can be built up in one year or in ten years;
much less by one spasmodic steam effort, even in the right direction,
followed by an eternal sleep, or a total indifference. It is the work
of ages. It is not a system which, if set in motion, will work on
perpetually of itself, without assistance. It needs constant care and
fostering; and its results prove it worthy of all the care and
attention that can be expended on it. The mature system of Great
Britain has not grown up in a day. It has been constantly before the
British public during twenty-four years, and has never been neglected
for an hour. There has been no hiatus in it; for this would have
disrupted the system, broken the chain, and resulted in disastrous
failure. Neither has the one great purpose been changed every few
years to suit the caprice of some new cabinet. It was a great cardinal
idea, founded in reason and justice, that has gone on maturing from
year to year; and none had the hardihood to touch it, or trifle with
the people's purpose in establishing it; not even so far as to make it
a passing text for demagoguery. It composed and yet composes a part of
the far-reaching and controlling policy of the British crown; a
purpose limited not to the visions of to-day, or the financial crises
and panics of to-morrow, or to some new field of British effort, to
be developed in a year or two; but limited to that time only, when men
shall cease the strife of commerce, abandon the pursuit of wealth,
yield the palm of enterprise, and unlearn the love of money and its
power. There has been nothing spasmodic in this; nothing fitful,
alluring, and evanescent; nothing that held out a hope to the
enterprising man, and deceived him in all the essential conditions of
its fulfillment in the end. It was founded in reason, founded in
necessity; and it was well determined that it should endure.

It is creditable to the administration of President Polk, that there
was one effort made in this country to found a similar judicious and
fruitful system. We had until that time taken no notice whatever of
marine steam navigation; and British steamers swarmed around our coast
north and south, thick as cruisers in a blockade. (_See Paper E._)
Indeed, it was a veritable blockade of our commerce, and told most
disastrously upon our enterprise and independence. The Cabinet of