association, which has perpetuated, in the name of your city, that of an ever memorable village in the county I inhabit, and in the near neighborhood of my residence. When the news of the battle of Lexington, on the 19th of April, 1775, reached a party of hunters, assembled at the spring in this place, they resolved, in prophetic commemoration of that event, to give the name of Lexington to the place of their encampment, and the town that should there be founded. Not more than fifty years, I believe, have passed away, since the actual laying out of this town; and in that period, what a monument have not you and your fathers reared to the brave and good men, who, at that doubtful crisis of the country's fate, on the morn of her independence, offered up their lives in her sacred cause! They were not of your kindred, except in the kindred of struggling liberty, and by the blood which they shed for your freedom, as for their own. They lie in their humble graves, in the beautiful village where they fell; and a simple stone marks the scene of their costly sacrifice; but how worthily, in the remote West, has their pious self-devotion been commemorated, in the ample streets, the sightly dwellings, the substantial public edifices, in the charitable, the literary, the religious foundations of this important town! The day of our present meeting carries us back, by a natural and most interesting coincidence, to the same eventful period, to the battle fields, which have rendered so many portions of the Atlantic coast a classic soil, and to those historical recollections, which are a rich portion of the moral treasures of United America. It is the 17th of June. On that day, fifty-four years ago, the heights of Charlestown, the place of my residence, were the scene of that great and costly sacrifice to the cause of American Liberty. The precious blood there shed, flowed not alone for the ancient colonies, by whom the revolutionary war was fought, but for you also, their hopeful offspring. Oh, that the brave and devoted spirits, who there offered up their lives, could have caught a glimpse, in their dying moments, of the prosperity they were achieving for regions then beyond the line of American colonization, and for the millions, that are springing up in the mighty West. Oh, that they could have anticipated, in the last agony, the tribute of gratitude, which beams in your glistening eyes! But little more than half a century has elapsed since that momentous event, and meantime, in the astonishing progress of our country, this State, then an almost pathless wilderness, half explored, untilled, or tilled only by the bold hunter, who went to the field with a spade in one hand and a rifle in the other, has become itself the parent of other rising States. Beyond the Wabash,beyond the Mississippi,-there are now large communities, who look to these their native fields, with the same feelings, with which your fathers looked back to their native homes in Virginia. I have myself, within a week or two, heard an individual, who had been to explore for himself a new home in Illinois, and was on his return to take out his family to the chosen spot, even while commending the abundance and fertility of the vast prairies in that region, check himself, as we were passing by some of the prosperous settlements, the comfortable houses, the rich corn-fields, the pleasant meadows, the beautiful woodland pastures of his native State, and exclaim, 'after all, there is nothing on God's earth like old Kentucky!' And thus, gentlemen, it is, that civilization, improvement, and our republican institutions of government are making their auspicious progress from region to region, throughout the continent, founded on the happiest conception of political wisdom, and confirmed by the dear ties of nature and kindred. The rapid growth of the country has brought into unusual association those opposite feelings and relations, which belong respectively to ancient and modern States, and were never before combined in one. And the torch of enlightened liberty, originally kindled at the altars of Jamestown and Plymouth, and long ago transmitted across the mountains, is still travelling onward and onward, through the wide West. It requires no great stretch of the imagination, to trace its auspicious path to regions yet lying in the untenanted solitude of nature; nor to apply to it, with still happier augury, the beautiful language, by which the poet has described the revival of freedom, among the nations of the elder world :— I saw the expecting regions stand, And each, as she received the flame, But, Mr President, I must check myself, on this delightful theme, and spare your patience. Allow me, in sitting down, to renew my thanks to this respectable company, for their friendly and hospitable attentions, and to propose the following senti THE EASTERN AND WESTERN STATES:-ONE IN ORIGIN, ONE IN INTEREST:-UNITED IN GOVERNMENT, MAY THEY BE STILL MORE UNITED BY MUTUAL GOOD WILL. SPEECH DELIVERED AT A PUBLIC DINNER, AT THE YELLOW SPRINGS, IN OHIO, 29TH JUNE, 1829. MR CHAIRMAN, PERMIT me to thank you and this respectable company, for the sentiment just announced; although I find it difficult to do so in any suitable terms. It is known to most of the company, that I arrived here two or three hours since, with my worthy friend, your fellow citizen, (Mr Fales, of Dayton,) with no other anticipation, than that of enjoying the natural beauties of this lovely spot, where every thing seems combined, that can delight the eye, afford recreation, and promote health. To meet, in addition to the gratification of a visit to so agreeable a retreat, the kind and unexpected welcome of such a company, inspires me, I need not say, with emotions, which I had better leave to your indulgence to imagine, than attempt to express. Allow me, therefore, to pass from a topic so unimportant as my private feelings, and dwell a few moments on those views, which present themselves to the mind of the stranger, in visiting your prosperous State. My first distinct impressions relative to this State were formed some thirteen years ago, in the interior of the continent of Europe, from a work which had then just been published by your distinguished fellow citizen, Dr Drake,-The Picture of Cincinnati. Having, at that time, an opportunity, through the pages of one of the literary journals of Germany, to call the attention of the reading public in that quarter, to the wonderful progress you had made and were making, as set forth in the work alluded to, I found the account to be received almost with incredulity. Nor was this wonderful. I remember to have passed eighteen months in that country, traversing it, to a considerable extent, in several directions, before I had seen one new house, in progress of erection. With such a state of things about them, (the consequence of the disastrous political condition of Europe,) you can easily conceive, that they found it difficult to credit the statement, when they were told that Ohio contained in 1787 not a single white settlement, in 1790 three thousand inhabitants, in 1800 forty-two thousand, in 1810 two hundred and thirty thousand, and in 1815 at least four hundred thousand; and that this was not merely the overpouring of the whole redundant population of the old States, into one favorite resort of emigration; but that half a dozen other new States had been growing up, with nearly equal rapidity, at the same time, while the old States also had been steadily on the increase. It is not surprising, that such facts, told to a community, whose population is nearly stationary, should scarcely gain credence. Such was the impression produced by the condition of your State in 1815. The next time my attention was more particularly called to the subject, was about two years since, by another interesting work, the well-known pamphlet, entitled 'Cincinnati in 1826,' in which some general views are given of the progress of Ohio. From this it appeared, that in the interval between the two publications, new wonders of advancement had been made; and farther strides had been taken, astonishing even to the eye, familiarized to the improvements by which you are surrounded. In this short period, regular communications by stage coaches had been established; the National Road had entered your limits; your rivers had become thronged with steamboats; and your population had doubled. But your progress did not stop at this period. On the contrary, it now received perhaps, its most powerful stimulus. Your canal policy,—the glory and prosperity of the State,—had been determined upon, and a commencement made in its vigorous execution. In the latest publications relative to your State, particularly in 'The Geography and the History of the Valley of the Mississippi,' the still farther and still more rapid progress produced by this new stimulus is indicated. But even this does not bring it |