“Thus far I have dealt with facts only; and I have been careful to avoid any matter susceptible of controversy. In conclusion, I will venture a few deductions of my own, based upon the foregoing statements of simple facts. I will assume at the start that our internal development of farms, workshops, mines, railways, coastwise, lake, and river commerce, etc., has reached a point at which capital has reached its zenith of profitable investment in them, and must look for some new field, not only for further original investment, but also for the protection or betterment of investments already made. In my judgment, our energy and enterprise during the last twenty-five years have exhausted all the large chances of fortune within the boundaries of the United States. Our existing industries of every description represent an enormous volume of local ‘plant’ and productive organizations quite up to our local requirements for some time; hence it is necessary to seek outlets for an inevitable surplus of product, and, in default of such outlet, there must be a plethora of production which is bound to result in stagnation, or, in other words, national apoplexy. For this there can be but one preventive, ‘an ounce’ of which is said on traditional authority to be ‘worth a pound of cure,’ and that is in the development and retention of external market outlets. It is my opinion that we can never secure these until we can ourselves command the avenues to them. Commerce has its ‘strategy’ no less than war. In war, strategy depends on lines of operation and communication. At this time we possess neither for either commerce or war. Our great rival controls both in every sense of the word. To-day we could not even defend our own coasts against her obsolete iron-clads in war, and we cannot control our own foreign commerce as against the poorest and least seaworthy of her myriad of ‘ocean tramps.’ If, for any reason, she were to withdraw from our trade the vessels which, by virtue of our acquiescence, do all our trans-Atlantic fetching and carrying for us, our peerless nation would be laid helpless under an embargo compared to which that of Jefferson’s administration would be but a mere trifle of annoyance. It has seemed strange to me that so little attention is paid to this fact. What would our political independence be worth, if circumstances, likely to occur at any moment, should visit upon us the consequences of our commercial servitude to England? and in a less, though still important, degree to Germany?