When you received my promise to attend as a delegate the Chicago Canal Convention, little was it then supposed by me, that duty would call me before that time to Europe. So much of my promise, however, as embraced the discussion of the question, will now be redeemed. The project of an enlarged _thorough-cut_ canal, uniting Chicago and the lakes with the Illinois river and Mississippi, has long attracted my attention. As a Senator of the United States, for many years, from a Southwestern State, then devoted to the Union, and elected to the Senate on that question, I have often passed near or over the contemplated route, always concluding, that this great work should be accomplished without delay. Every material interest of our whole country demands the construction of this canal, and the perpetuity of the Union is closely identified with its completion. It is for the nation's benefit, and should be the nation's work. It will give new outlets to the Mississippi, through the lakes, to the ocean, and neutralize that too exclusive attraction of Western commerce to the Gulf, which has so often menaced the integrity of the Union. We must make the access from the Mississippi, through the lakes, to the ocean, as cheap, and easy, and eventually as free from tar or toll, as to the Gulf, and the flag of disunion will never float again over an acre of the soil, or a drop of all the waters of the mighty West. It is clear that, centuries ago, the lakes and Mississippi were united, through the Illinois and Wisconsin rivers, and we must remove the obstructions, now divorcing their waters, and restore their union, by thorough-cut canals. In a few years, the saving of transportation, in a single year, would more than pay the cost of the work. The increase of population, wealth, products, imports, exports, and revenue, which would follow the completion of this work, can scarcely now be estimated, and it should be accomplished if for no other reason, as a most profitable investment of capital for the benefit of the nation.