Indolence begets degeneracy, and immobility is the first stage of dissolution.  John Quincy Adams sought not merely to consolidate the Republic, but to perpetuate it.  For this purpose he bent vast efforts, with success, to such a policy of internal improvement as would increase the facilities of communication and intercourse between the States, and bring into being that great internal trade which must ever constitute the strongest bond of federal union.  Wherever a lighthouse has been erected, on our sea-coast, on our lakes, or on our rivers—­wherever a mole or pier has been constructed or begun—­wherever a channel obstructed by shoals or sawyers has been opened, or begun to be opened—­wherever a canal or railroad, adapted to national uses, has been made or projected—­there the engineers of the United States, during the administration of John Quincy Adams, made explorations, and opened the way for a diligent prosecution of his designs by his successors.  This policy, apparently so stupendous, was connected with a system of fiscal economy so rigorous, that the treasury augmented its stores, while the work of improvement went on; the public debt, contracted in past wars, dissolved away, and the nation flourished in unexampled prosperity.  John Quincy Adams administered the Federal Government, while De Witt Clinton was presiding in the State of New York.  It is refreshing to recall the noble emulation of these illustrious benefactors—­an emulation that shows how inseparable sound philosophy is from true patriotism.

If [said Adams, in his first annual message to the Congress of the United States,] the powers enumerated may be effectually brought into action by laws promoting the improvement of agriculture, commerce and manufactures, the cultivation and encouragement of the mechanic arts, and of the elegant arts, the advancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences, ornamental and profound, to refrain from exercising them for the benefit of the people would be to hide in the earth the talent committed to our charge, would be treachery to the most sacred of trusts.  The spirit of improvement is abroad upon the earth.  It stimulates the hearts, and sharpens the faculties, not of our fellow-citizens alone, but of the nations of Europe, and of their rulers.  While dwelling with pleasing satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions, let us not be unmindful that liberty is power, that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty, must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself, and his fellow men.  While foreign nations, less blessed with that freedom which is power than ourselves, are advancing with gigantic strides in the career of public improvement, were we to slumber in indolence, or fold our arms