The idea that the American people are to be taken by surprise, and that six large States ought to be added to this confederacy by legerdemain, without notice and without sufficient time for reflection on all the consequences of such an addition to our territory, calls for deliberation, reflection and a solemn pause, like the stillness of a Quaker’s silent meeting, before we decide this question--especially in the affirmitive. Let us hear it discussed openly in the Senate, and in all places of public resort. Our right to Oregon, up to the fifty-fifth degree of north latitude, is quite clear and our people will occupy that territory forthwith, and then Congress will limp along after them, carrying our laws to them. In the mean time, villages, towns and cities will rear their spires along the rivers, the stage driver’s horn and the steam boat’s bell will be heard there. The sound of the axe, the hammer and the saw, will rival in speed the roaring of the waters rushing over mill dams, or dashing against the rocks in the streams of Oregon. All these things will soon be heard and seen there, but we can wait a little time yet, until the nation is ready to rush in one mass of men, to wash their feet in the waters of the Pacific, as they roll their briny waves on to our great western boundary. As Mr. Owen said, in the house, “the Pacific is our destination and our destiny.” Lay the question over, gentlemen, till next session of Congress. The prancing steed and the nodding plume shall be seen there and the star spangled banner shall wave, and rustle in every breeze that moves over the prairies, the hills and the plains of our own farthest West. A rail-road from Astoria to Boston can transport the salmon of the Multnomah to our farthest East. Between the salmon of Penobscot and those of the Columbia river, let the Bostonians decide which is preferable. We will wait, sitting with gravity in a wig and gown in our court, until the Bostonians are called into it, to give their testimony on a point of so much delicacy, in a matter of taste, too, about which old Horace has said there is no disputing.--“_De gustibus non disputandum._” CHAPTER VII. Visit to Mr. Calhoun, Secretary of State.--Alexandria, its early history.--Reminisences of General Washington.--Memoir of Mr. Anthony Charles Cazenove; a most interesting tale.--He was the old partner of Albert Gallatin, at New Geneva, Pennsylvania.