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Atlantic Monthly

Subtitle Vol. 2, no. 12, October, 1858
Category Periodical
Language English
Published 1858
Word count 85,057
Excerpt

are the constitutional nations, exacting terms of government that acknowledge private right. Resource may also be emphasized as a characteristic of these nations. Hitherto they have honored every draft that has been made upon them. The Dutch first fished their country out from under the sea, and afterwards defended it in a war of eighty years' duration against the first military power on the globe: two feats, perhaps, equally without parallel.

Being thus satisfied upon the point of pedigree, we may proceed to inquire about estate. To what inheritance of land has Nature invited our New Man? He comes to the country of highest organization, perhaps, upon either hemisphere. Brazil and China suggest, but probably do not sustain, a rivalry. What is implied in superior organization will appear from the items to be mentioned.

1. Elaboration. Central North-America is to an extraordinary degree worked out everywhere in careful detail, in moderate hill and valley, in undulating prairie and fertile plai