Suppose that the continent could turn toward you to-morrow at sunrise, and show to you the whole American area in the short hours of the sun's advance from Eastport to the Pacific. You would see New England roll into light from the green plumes of Aroostook to the silver stripe of the Hudson; westward thence over the Empire State, and over the lakes, and over the sweet valleys of Pennsylvania, and over the prairies, the morning blush would run and would waken all the line of the Mississippi; from the frosts where it rises to the fervid waters in which it pours, for 3,000 miles it would be visible, fed by rivers that flow from every mile of the Alleghany slope, and edged by the green embroideries of the temperate and tropic zones; beyond this line another basin, too--the Missouri--catching the morning, leads your eye along its western slope till the Rocky Mountains burst upon the vision, and yet do not bar it; across its passes we must follow, as the stubborn courage of American pioneers has forced its way, till again the Sierras and their silver veins are tinted along the mighty bulwark with the break of day; and then over to the gold fields of the western slope, and the fatness of the California soil, and the beautiful valleys of Oregon, and the stately forests of Washington, the eye is drawn, as the globe turns out of the night shadow; and when the Pacific waves are crested with radiance, you have the one blending picture--nay, the reality--of the American domain. No such soil--so varied by climate, by products, by mineral riches, by forest and lake, by wild heights and buttresses, and by opulent plains, yet all bound into unity of configuration and bordered by both warm and icy seas--no such domain, was ever given to one people.