"For myself and my country, I thank you for the aid you have given in it; and I congratulate you on having lived to give these aids in a transaction replete with blessings to unborn millions of men, and which will mark the face of a portion of the globe so extensive as that which now composes the United States of America;" and when, as President, he gave notice in a message to Congress of the actual occupancy by the Government of its new acquisition, he happily presaged the future and gave assurance of his complete faith and confidence in the beneficent result of our nation's extensions, in these words: "On this important acquisition, so favorable to the immediate interests of our western citizens, so auspicious to the peace and security of the nation in general, which adds to our country territories so extensive and fertile and to our citizens new brethren to partake of the blessings of freedom and self-government, I offer Congress and our country my sincere congratulations." Our prophets do not live forever. They are not here to see how stupendously the growth and development of the American nation, or the domain newly acquired in their day, have, during a short century, outrun their anticipations and predictions. Almost within the limits of the territory gained by the Louisiana purchase, we have already carved out twelve great States, leaving still a large residue whose occupants are even now loudly clamoring for statehood. Instead of the 50,000 white settlers who occupied this domain in 1803, it now contains 15,000,000 of industrious, enterprising, intelligent Americans, constituting about one-fifth of the population of all our States; and these are defiantly contesting for premiership in wealth and material success with the oldest of our States, and are their equals in every phase of advanced intelligence and refined civilization. The States which composed the Union when its possessions were so greatly extended have since that time seen the center of the nation's population carried more than 500 miles westward by the swift and constant current of settlement toward this new domain; and the citizens of these States have been flocking thither, "new brethren to partake of the blessings of freedom and self-government," in multitudes greater than even Jefferson would have dared to foretell. I shall not enter the field of statistics for the purpose of giving details of the development of the territory acquired under the treaty we commemorate. I have referred to such development in some of its general features by way of suggesting how distinctly the century just ended gives assurance of a startling and superabundant final fulfillment of the prophecies of its beginners.