On the banks of the Mississippi he is now arrested. The proposed road in Iowa will bear the adventurer yet further, to the banks of the Missouri; and this remote giant stream, mightiest of the earth, leaping from its sources in the Rocky Mountains, will be clasped with the Atlantic in the same iron bracelet. In all this I see not only further opportunities for commerce, but a new extension to civilization and increased strength to our National Union. A heathen poet, while picturing the Golden Age, perversely indicates the absence of long roads as creditable to that imaginary period in contrast with his own. "How well," exclaims the youthful Tibullus, "they lived while Saturn ruled,--_before the earth was opened by long ways_!" "Quam bene Saturno vivebant rege, priusquam Tellus _in longas est patefacta vias_!"[88] But the true Golden Age is before, not behind; and one of its tokens will be the opening of those _long ways_, by which villages, towns, counties, states, provinces, nations, are all to be associated and knit together in a fellowship that can never be broken. [88] Eleg. Lib. I. iii. 35, 36. * * * * * SECOND SPEECH. The debate on the Iowa Railroad Bill was continued on successive days down to February 17th, when the speech of Mr. Sumner was particularly assailed by Mr. Hunter, of Virginia. To this he replied at once. One word, if you please, Mr. President. The Senator from Virginia [Mr. HUNTER], who has just taken his seat, has very kindly given me notice that I am to expect "a broadside" from the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. UNDERWOOD]. For this information I am properly grateful. When, a few days ago, I undertook to discuss an important question in this body, I expressed certain views, deemed by me of weight. Those views I submitted to the candor and judgment of the Senate. I felt confidence in their essential justice, and nothing heard since has impaired that confidence. I have listened with respect and attention to the address of the Senator from Virginia, as it becomes me to listen to everything any Senator undertakes to put forth here. But I hope to be excused, if I say, that, in all he has so eloquently uttered with reference to myself, he has not touched by a hair-breadth my argument. He has criticized--I am unwilling to say that he has cavilled at--my calculations; but he has not, by the ninth part of a hair, touched the conclusion which I drew. That still stands. And let me say that it cannot be successfully assailed in the way attempted by him.