In respect to the growth of Western trade and commerce, I extract a few sentences from a very valuable address before the Historical Society of Ohio, by William D. Gallagher, Esq., 1850:—­

“A few facts will exhibit as well as a volume the wonderful growth of Western trade and commerce.  Previous to the year 1800, some eight or ten keel-boats, of twenty or twenty-five tons each, performed all the carrying trade between Cincinnati and Pittsburg.  In 1802 the first government vessel appeared on Lake Erie.  In 1811 the first steamboat (the Orleans) was launched at Pittsburg.  In 1826 the waters of Michigan were first ploughed by the keel of a steamboat, a pleasure trip to Green Bay being planned and executed in the summer of this year.  In 1832 a steamboat first appeared at Chicago.  At the present time the entire number of steamboats running on the Mississippi and Ohio and their tributaries is more probably over than under six hundred, the aggregate tonnage of which is not short of one hundred and forty thousand; a larger number of steamboats than England can claim, and a greater steam commercial marine than that employed by Great Britain and her dependencies.”

And now, fellow-citizens, having stated to you this infallible proof of the growth and prosperity of the nation, I ask you, and I would ask every man, whether the government which has been over us has proved itself an infliction or a curse to the country, or any part of it?

Ye men of the South, of all the original Southern States, what say you to all this?  Are you, or any of you, ashamed of this great work of your fathers?  Your fathers were not they who storied the prophets and killed them.  They were among the prophets; they were of the prophets; they were themselves the prophets.

Ye men of Virginia, what do you say to all this?  Ye men of the Potomac, dwelling along the shores of that river on which WASHINGTON lived and died, and where his remains now rest, ye, so many of whom may see the domes of the Capitol from your own homes, what say ye?

Ye men of James River and the Bay, places consecrated by the early settlement of your Commonwealth, what do you say?  Do you desire, from the soil of your State, or as you travel to the North, to see these halls vacated, their beauty and ornaments destroyed, and their national usefulness gone for ever?

Ye men beyond the Blue Ridge, many thousands of whom are nearer to this Capitol than to the seat of government of your own State, what do you think of breaking this great association into fragments of States and of people?  I know that some of you, and I believe that you all, would be almost as much shocked at the announcement of such a catastrophe, as if you were to be informed that the Blue Ridge itself would soon totter from its base.  And ye men of Western Virginia, who occupy the great slope from the top of the Alleghanies to Ohio and Kentucky, what benefit do you propose