p. 36 | Our Nation's Progress

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 19, 1870

Our Nation's Progress.

In an article by Schuyler Colfax in the N. Y. Independent of July 7, 1870, we find the following statements concerning the rapid growth and present powerful position of this nation. Think of a nation with a territorial area fifteen times larger than that of two of the great powers of Europe combined; think of a coast line equal to the entire circumference of the globe; think of resources in one nation sufficient to sustain the present population of the earth. It is almost impossible to comprehend such an idea. If there is any difficulty in our application of prophecy to this country, it is that the nation is outgrowing the symbol. The difficulty is, not that it should be represented at all, but that the symbol by which it is represented should have been of more huge proportions, and more formidable appearances. Think, however, on the other hand, of the position of some, that the nation is not brought into prophecy at all! The thought borders on idiocy. Commencing with a brief glance at the past history of our government, Mr. C. says:—

“Wonderful, indeed, has been that history. Springing into life from under the heel of tyranny, its progress has been onward, with the firm step of a conqueror. From the rugged clime of New England, from the banks of the Chesapeake, from the savannahs of Carolina and Georgia, the descendants of the Puritan, the Cavalier, and the Huguenot, swept over the towering Alleghenies, but a century ago the barrier between civilization on the one side and almost unbroken barbarism on the other; and banners of the Republic waved from flagstaff and highland, through the broad valleys of the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Missouri. Nor stopped its progress there. Thence still onward poured the tide of American civilization and progress, over the vast region of our Western plains; and from the snowy crests of the Sierras you look down on American States fronting the calm Pacific, an empire of themselves in resources and wealth, but loyal in our darkest hours to the nation whose authority they acknowledge and in whose glory they proudly share.

“From a territorial area of less than nine hundred thousand square miles, it has expanded into over four millions and a half—fifteen times larger than that of Great Britain and France combined—with a shore-line, including Alaska, equal to the entire circumference of the earth, and with a domain within these lines far wider than that of the Romans in their proudest days of conquest and renown. With a river, lake, and coastwise commerce estimated at over two thousand millions of dollars per year; with a railway traffic of four to six thousand millions per year, and the annual domestic exchanges of the country running up to nearly ten thousand millions per year; with over two thousand millions of dollars invested in manufacturing, mechanical, and mining industry; with over five hundred millions of acres of land in actual occupancy, valued, with their appurtenances, at over seven thousand millions of dollars, and producing annually crops valued at over three thousand millions of dollars; with a realm which, if the density of Belgium’s population were possible, would be vast enough to include all the present inhabitants of the world; and with equal rights guaranteed to even the poorest and humblest of our forty millions of people; we can, with a manly pride akin to that which distinguished the palmiest days of Rome, claim as the noblest title of the world, ‘I am an American citizen.’”