"We have followed out the suggestions of these eminent Americans hitherto, and I am sure at a very small cost. The Government of the United States appropriated $40,000 to test the practicability of Morse's suggestion; the $40,000 thus expended established its practicability and its use. Now, there is no person on the face of the globe who can measure the price at which, if a reasonable man, he would be willing to strike from the world the use of the magnetic telegraph as a means of communication between different portions of the same country. This great invention is now to be brought into its further, wider, and broader use--the use by the general society of nations, international use, the use of the society of mankind. Its benefits are large--just in proportion to the extent and scope of its operation. They are not merely benefits to the Government, but they are benefits to the citizens and subjects of all nations and of all States. "I might enlarge further on this subject, but I forbear to do so, because I know that at some future time I shall come across the record of what I have said to-day. I know that then what I have said to-day, by way of anticipation, will fall so far short of the reality of benefits which individuals, States, and nations will have derived from this great enterprise, that I shall not reflect upon it without disappointment and mortification." After such arguments, it should seem that there could be but one opinion, and yet the bill passed the Senate by only _one_ majority! It also had to run the gauntlet of the House of Representatives, where it encountered the same hostility. But at length it got through, and was signed by President Pierce on the third of March, the day before he went out of office. Thus it became a law. FOOTNOTES: [A] It is worthy of notice, that when the Bill granting a charter to the Atlantic Telegraph Company was offered in the British Parliament, at least one nobleman found fault with it on this very ground, that it gave away important advantages which properly belonged to England, and which she ought to reserve to herself: "In the House of Lords, on the twentieth of July, 1857, on the motion for the third reading of the Telegraph Company's bill,