But it may be asked, may not some of the effects which I have just described as flowing from monarchy, be produced under the republican form of government? To this I answer that almost all of them may be expected to be the result of one homogeneous republic, stretching over a great extent of territory, including a numerous population and a great diversity of interest; but, as such a government as this has been wisely provided against in our country at least, by a system of confederated republics, I will now proceed to the main object of my discourse this evening--to point out the peculiar influence which our federative system of government is calculated to produce upon literature and character. And in the first place, supposing our system to continue as perfect in practice as it undoubtedly is in theory, a mere statistical exposé of its future condition in regard to numbers and wealth at no very distant period, is of itself sufficient to present to our view prospects of the most cheering and animating character. We have a territory extending over three millions of square miles, composed of soils of every variety and every degree of fertility, stretching almost from the tropics to the poles in one direction, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the other. We have spread sparsely over a portion of this immense territorial expanse, a population of fifteen millions, principally descended from that nation in Europe, which is at the same time the most wealthy, the most powerful, the most enterprising, the most free, the most civilized, and perhaps the most moral, purely religious and intellectual nation, among all the great powers of Europe. This population, which has, so far, {266} shown itself worthy of the immortal stock of ancestors from which it is descended, is rapidly advancing in numbers and in wealth. Our censuses have hitherto shown a duplication of our population, in periods of less time than twenty-five years. We will assume, however, this period in our calculation, and we shall find this elastic spring of population, (if we can only bind down the movements of the governments of our system within their prescribed orbits,) of itself, like the magic wand of the enchanter, or the marvellous lamp of Aladdin, capable of achieving all which may confer glory and power and distinction on nations. In a period of seventy-five years, which is but a short time in a nation's history, we shall have a population of one hundred and twenty millions of souls, and yet not so dense as the population of many of the states of Europe. We shall then have an empire, formed by mere internal development, as populous as that of Rome and much more wealthy, speaking all the same language, and living under the same or similar institutions.