The mouths of rivers, both before and since the time of railroads, have controlled the business of the interior.

To our national pride the thought, however, is intolerable, that the Russian griffin should possess a point which is indebted to the British lion for its importance.

The mouth of the Stikine must be ours,--or at least a harbor of export must be established on British soil from which our steamers can pass the Russian belt.

If we let slip the opportunity, we shall live to see a Russian city arise at the gates of a British colony.

The Russian “griffin” was to give way to the British “lion.” The Anglo-Norman was to be master as far as Behring Strait, across which he might survey his Russian neighbor.

The archives of the State Department show an uninterrupted cordiality between the two Governments, dating far back in our history.

More than once Russia has proffered her good offices between the United States and Great Britain; once also she was a recognized arbitrator.

The Rebellion, which tempted so many other powers into its embrace, could not draw Russia from her habitual good-will.

She made no unjustifiable concession of ocean belligerence, with all its immunities and powers, to Rebels in arms against the Union.

It remains to hope that it may be a new link in an amity which, without effort, has overcome differences of institutions and intervening space on the globe.

Most of these, if not all, are calculated to impress the public mind; but I can readily understand a difference of opinion with regard to the urgency of negotiation at this hour.

At all events, now that the treaty has been signed by plenipotentiaries on each side duly empowered, it is difficult to see how we can refuse to complete the purchase without putting to hazard the friendly relations which happily subsist…

As an international question, it would be tried by the public opinion of the world; and there are many who, not appreciating the requirement of our Constitution by which a treaty must have “the advice and consent of the Senate,” would…

I would save to the Senate an important power justly belonging to it.

This treaty must not be a precedent for a system of indiscriminate and costly annexion.

There is no territorial aggrandizement worth the price of blood.

Our triumph should be by growth and organic expansion in obedience to “preëstablished harmony,” recognizing always the will of those who are to become our fellow-citizens.

Our motto may be that of Goethe: “Without haste, without rest.” Let the Republic be assured in tranquil liberty, with all equal before the law, and it will conquer by its sublime example.

More happy than Austria, who acquired possessions by marriage, we shall acquire them by the attraction of republican institutions.

Meanwhile our first care should be to improve and elevate the Republic, whose sway will be so comprehensive.

Plant it with schools; cover it with churches; fill it with libraries; make it abundant with comfort, so that poverty shall disappear; keep it constant in the assertion of Human Rights.

All of which, so far at least as it describes this region, is inconsistent with truth.

Such an incident cannot be forgotten, and his name will always remind us of courageous enterprise, before which distance and difficulty disappeared.

Here, for instance, is an excellent map of North America, purporting to be published by the Geographical Institute of Weimar as late as 1859, on which we have the Yukon pictured, very much like the Niger in Africa, as a large river…

Recent discovery, by the enterprise of our citizens in the service of the Telegraph Company, fixes that this river is an affluent of the Kwichpak, as the Missouri is an affluent of the Mississippi, and enters into Behring Sea by many…