nations. The coal mines that abound throughout our domain will continue to build up great manufacturing establishments. It is not possible, in short, to over-estimate the national value of these resources.
Of the great gold belts stretching across the United States, the chief are the Appalachian gold field, traversing a line parallel with the Atlantic coast; the Rocky Mountain gold field, traversing the newly organized territories; and the great Sierra Nevada gold field, traversing the country bordering on the Pacific.
The influence of the last-mentioned gold deposits on national development is seen in the rapid advance of California, which, in 1846, had a population of a few thousand Indians, lorded by a few rich land-owners and dissolute priests. The State now has a population of nearly half a million energetic people, who are sending a hundred millions yearly to our treasury to help pay the interest of the national debt. At this moment it is the wealth of California alone that keeps up the balance of trade, without which, in the present disorganized condition of American finances, the nation would be so deeply indebted to foreign countries as to collapse for want of means to go on with.
The iron wealth of America is also too enormous to be estimated; indeed, it is impossible to compute the vast amount of this useful and indispensable metal which lies buried in the earth everywhere throughout the Union. Good authority has declared that the State of Missouri alone contains iron ore sufficient to supply a million tons per annum of the manufactured product for the next two hundred years. Extensive copper mines exist at various points from the valley of the Mississippi to the Pacific; while lead, tin, and zinc are found in large quantities in several States and Territories. In 1848 the country began to develop the mineral wealth of California. Since that year, over one thousand millions of dollars have been produced from her soil. The younger States are making large additions to the American yield of gold and silver.
These facts, hastily grouped together, relate to only one element of national wealth, namely, the mineral resources of the country. I could easily take up and display in like manner its agricultural, commercial, inventive, and manufacturing powers and prospects, to make the story complete. What conclusion shall be drawn? One practical conclusion in my own mind is, that there should be no fear of the country's being able to free itself before many years of the huge national debt, whose very shadow now seems to hang over the national prospects like a pall. I would go farther in my inference from these material facts, and ask why we of the present generation should fret and struggle to pay off entirely and at once an obligation which was incurred for the benefit of millions yet unborn? Let those that are to enter into this rich inheritance, take their part of the labor of shouldering the debt, since we of this generation have freely shed our blood that they, too, may be prosperous and happy.
We cannot doubt that the coming generation will perceive the justice of such a policy. We shall transmit to them no worn-out soil, no poverty-stricken country. Even the late desolating war has but measurably reduced the national resources. In most countries, revolutions have impoverished the people; in ours, even luxuries are still abundant throughout that portion of this land where the sinews of war were gathered. The revolution has placed the factories of the country on a more stable foundation. It has made us feel that we have a country and a flag to fight for. And yet, what spectacle does the country now present? That of a blooded courser, ready to start in the race, but weighed down by a load that paralyzes his limbs and dims the brightness of his spirit. Unwise
