by the Fathers, but caused rather by the close local attention demanded by the development of our own country, cannot continue to be the policy most beneficial to our people. There has been heretofore no need to look over the sea into foreign lands for employment for our busy hands. Our rich mines heretofore have waited only for the touch of the pick to pour their golden flood into the lap of him who took for the finding. The rich and bounteous lands of the South and West are no longer waiting for the coming of the husbandman to bless him with their fatness and crown him with their glory of waving grain kissed into ripeness by the soft sun of our blessed land. Where but a generation ago there was the solitude of the prairie land, to-day the household gods watch over the fortunes of myriads of happy people. The prattle of children at play and the laugh of the contented workman as he drives the flying shuttle to and fro, weaving into the web and woof of his life his love of country, is heard where but the span of a short life was the lair of the wild beast and the sporting place of the wilder man. At the ocean side, on the rich plain, by the river, and under the mountain, are all the tremendous forces of the Republic at their mighty work. New conditions are arising, and necessarily should arise, under the powerful demands of a virile people, strengthened by the potent influence of the most progressive civilization which has been known to mankind. The policy of isolation, political and mercantile, died with the

white sails of the ship, the filling of the prairie with homes, and by the production created by the energy of nearly a hundred millions of people at work. It died when the South turned the quiet fields into the manufactory and its villages into bustling cities. Its requiem was sung by the hurrying locomotive, the whispering telephone, the whirling propeller of the steamship, by the crowded manufactory which in six months' work can furnish sufficient for the needs of the whole year, by the grand contest between the civilizations of the East and the West, and above all by the Macedonian cry of the peoples of the earth, come over and help us."

To those who see Roman triumphs and the flowing purple of the Imperial Robe in the widening of our commercial power to other lands and the extension of our civilization to broader fields, we simply answer that the immortal Virginian who penned the code of free government, when he added to our domain the mighty Louisiana land, was impeached in high places for casting the shadow of the Imperial Eagle over the land and giving the liberties of the people to its cruel beak. The little fringe along the Atlantic has added the flood of the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Oregon to its domain. The will-o'-the-wisp and the glowworm light our flag at night under the palms of Florida, and by day its folds are touched by the sweet airs ladened with the incense of the orange and magnolia. Our Constitution is the highest law to the

people of the Pacific, and from the banks of the Potomac they receive its highest interpretation. Yet, notwithstanding this glory of added domain, the Constitution has not been wrenched, nor has its rich inheritance of freedom been invaded. The glory of the Lord has surely been about and around this people. Here are the most exalted civilization, the purest Christianity, the most advanced science, the most absolute civil freedom which the world ever saw. The conditions are happier for us than they are for any other people. Justice is not bought or sold, nor held by the strong, but is for the rich and the poor. The citizen, enlightened and upheld by the genius of his country, is his own ruler, and in that no man can gainsay him. The workman, however humble, is a king in his own. house, and only to the law of the land does he owe any allegiance.

But are these great blessings for us alone? Shall Ethiopia in vain stretch out her arms to us, and shall we turn away from the people in the shadows of the forests? Shall we not give as well as receive? Shall we remain at home and invite the rigid conditions, social and industrial, which inevitably come to a people living within itself? The most convincing argument that the great Instrument was made for broad conditions is that, although the domain under its provisions has widened and increased beyond the dreams of those who sat at its birth, yet still it has easily met every condition, and under its power seventy millions of

people dwell in happiness and peace. In dwarfing that great instrument, in minimizing its wide provisions, in restricting and narrowing its interpretations so as to correspond with the horizon of some of them who affect to be entirely guided by its provisions, lies the conservatism which will work more real harm to the world and to the people than the radicalism so much appealed to and so lavishly criticised. The excess of conservatism is more to be feared than the radicalism, for the good common sense of the American people will sternly repress any radicalism which really threatens the permanence of our institutions. When by the fortunes of war or by honest purchase, new lands and people become subject to its provisions, surely we can give them the freedom, the liberal institutions, and the local self-government guaranteed to us by our Constitution. I appreciate, sir, that I have been late in announcing the specific text of my discussion. Appreciating that the question of greatest importance to-day is the question of Foreign Trade and Foreign Markets, it seems to me that it is of peculiar interest to you to know the position of the South upon this important question. It would not be becoming on this occasion for me to occupy your time with any matter of detail, and I will only attempt to generally indicate to you the position of the progressive South on the great questions which are to-day paramount in the commercial affairs of the American people. I take much pleasure in

presenting a few suggestions for thought on the lines of

The Attitude of the Progressive South towards the Measures for promoting the Country's Foreign Trade; what the Country, and especially the North, will gain from the South's aid in making these Measures effective; and what the South is to expect in return for such aid.

The first question of absolute importance to-day to the North is the matter of the foreign markets. It is supreme in its importance to the whole people. We cannot longer live within ourselves, and such is the situation that, if the American people propose to assume their required position in the great foreign trade, they must grasp these markets. In a short time the opportunity will be lost, and our civilization will be restricted and our productive powers must be

lessened.

Where are the markets which are necessary to this country's commercial progress, and what is the position of the South as to obtaining and holding them? First, of critical importance is the market of the Empire of China. This is the market for which Russia, Germany, Britain, and France, with all of their energies, are contending. Here is the most important market of the globe, and a market of peculiar importance to us in that it needs about everything we manufacture. Here are three hundred and fifty mil