WESTWARD EMPIRE; OR, The Great Drama of Human Progress. BY E.L. MAGOON, AUTHOR OF "PROVERBS FOR THE PEOPLE," "REPUBLICAN CHRISTIANITY," "ORATORS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION," "LIVING ORATORS IN AMERICA," ETC., ETC. "Westward the course of empire takes its way, The four first acts already past; A fifth shall close the drama with the day, Time's noblest offspring is the last." GEORGE BERKELEY. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, 329 TO 335 PEARL STREET. 1856. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by HARPER AND BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York. TO CITIZENS WHO TRUST IN PROVIDENCE, MEN WHO ARE TRUE TO HUMANITY, AND PATRIOTS ALWAYS HOPEFUL OF THE REPUBLIC, THIS WORK IS FRATERNALLY INSCRIBED. INTRODUCTION. By a natural movement, in not one of its great elements has civilization gone eastward an inch since authentic history began. To demonstrate this simple and comprehensive fact is the motive of the following work, and all the great leading events of time are the means employed. Berkeley has suggested a grand outline in his significant stanza, but neither he nor any other author has hitherto attempted to define the acts, and portray the connected scenes, which constitute the one great drama of human progress. Artistic beauty, martial force, scientific invention, and universal amelioration, have thus far illustrated the great progressional law of successive predominance, and these, we believe, will ultimately be consummated in the supreme sway of perfect civilization. We are led to this view by taking a catholic survey of every nation that has risen above the historical horizon; in which course we observe that all are alike the subjects of Providence, each in its time and place being furnished with a part to act, and a destiny to fulfill. Considered in this light, it may be reverently said that human history is a sacred drama, of which God is the poet, each transitional age an act, humanity the hero, and the discriminating annalist a prophetical interpreter.