The long series is now completed. The circuit of the world has been made. The hardy, the inventive, the go-ahead American looks out on the Pacific and towards that side of the old continent from which his first ancestors started on the long career which in his person is now consummated. The like of this has not been done by any other race of men, or in any other part of the world. In human history it is something quite unique. It is the main stream in the history of man. All other series of events—as, for instance, that which resulted in the culture of mind in Greece, and that which resulted in the empire of Rome—only appear to have purpose and value when viewed in connection with it, or rather as subsidiary to it. Their true place in history is that of affluents to this main stream. And even Christianity itself, which so loudly proclaims its indifference to all national or ethnological distinctions, and its equal regard for every branch of the human family, while it has been rejected by the race to which it was first revealed, has become to the more advanced parts of the Teutonic race, in a greater degree than to any other people, their educator and their strength. A moment’s comparison of the tone in which we write and speak about America with the tone in which we write and speak about other countries, and of the feelings with which we regard what is passing there with the feelings with which we regard what is passing elsewhere, will show that we look upon American events as fraught with a greater amount of good and of evil to ourselves, than what is happening in all the world besides. Much, for instance, has of late been said and written about what is called the resurrection of Italy, but who expects from that resurrection anything that will affect either the hopes or the fears of mankind? Everybody, however, feels that the future of humanity will be greatly influenced by, and in no small degree depend upon, what is going on in America. Or if we turn to that country which has hitherto been more influential than any other in disturbing, or, which it claims as its right, of directing the course of events on the Continent of Europe, we do not find any causes now in operation which we can suppose likely to result in improving the material circumstances of the French petty proprietors, that is, of the bulk of the French nation, or in giving them more freedom and intellectual energy than they at present possess. The form and character of their government, their church, the division of property that obtains among them, the accepted arrangements and spirit of society, all tend to immobility. In America everyone understands that the stream is all the other way. Mental activity is universal. Public opinion is the opinion of those who in the open arena of public discussion are able to influence the greatest number; and public opinion sweeps away every obstruction. [Sidenote: _The Northern States sown with Houses._]