station as a nation, it must be by enlarging,
liberalizing, strengthening, and encouraging our foreign trade, by all
of the proper, efficient, and honorable means within our power. It is
the duty of the Government, both to itself and to its citizens. (_See
Section VII._)

The history of commercial nations admonishes us that no trading people
can long maintain their ascendency without using all of the most
approved means of the age for prosecuting trade. Portugal was at one
time the most powerful commercial nation of the globe; and at another
Holland was the mistress of the seas. But while the latter is now only
a fourth-rate commercial power, the former has sunk into obscurity,
and is nearly forgotten of men. At that time England and France had
but a limited foreign trade and scarcely any commercial reputation.
France could more easily maintain her existence without a foreign
trade, than could England; and yet her matured manufactures and her
products of the soil became so valuable that she sought a foreign
market. England, to the contrary, had not territory enough to remain
at home, and yet be a great power. She matured an immense
manufacturing system, and needed a market, as well as the raw
material, and food for her operatives. She began to stretch her arms
to the outer world, and had made very considerable strides in foreign
commerce side by side with France and the German States, and in the
face of the steady young opposition of the American States.

It now became a contest for supremacy. Her large navy had enabled her
to conquer important foreign territories, which with the supremacy of
the seas would make her the mistress of the world. France was still
her equal rival, and the United States were becoming formidable common
carriers, although they had but little legitimate commerce of their
own, and none that was under their positive control. The commercial
men of England finding their statesmen ready to aid them in their
efforts for national progress, wealth, and glory, directed their
attention to steam as an agent of supremacy and power, both in the
Navy and the Commercial Marine. They indicated and proved the
necessity of drawing the bonds between them and foreign countries more
closely; of shortening the distances between them; of providing the
means of rapid, safe, and comfortable transit of English merchants
between their homes and foreign lands; of regular, rapid, reliable
British steam mails to every poin