116 _ WESTERN INCIDENTS.

at that period there was no city here—there were a few rude
buildings, and some gentlemen, attracted by the location and
prospective importance of the place, interested in its future
building up, and, like myself, believing it might grow into a great
city. I attended, I recollect, a court here at that time, but there
were hardly any inhabitants and very little to do in the court. I
cannot describe the condition of this place at that time. I have
been over the city to-day, and endeavored to recollect the sites
where the important transactions were, even where the Court
House stood ; but I am entirely unable now to form any definite
opinion where the place was, and so of all the rest of the city.
We have all heard of the wonderful and amazing growth of this
city ; of the great, bold enterprise of its inhabitants-—the whole
country is deeply impressed with these sentiments, but, sir, it
takes the presentation of the reality before us to enable us to
understand the full power of your operations here. [Applause. ]
I have been amazed to-day, as I passed through your thorough-
fares and viewed the wonderful progress that has been made in
that short period. I believe that to-day you constitute a city,
third in point of population, and first, I may say, in point of
enterprise, upon this continent—[applause|—and I doubt whether
you yourselves understand the full importance of the position on
this continent which you occupy. I am sure, sir, until I passed
through this excursion, I had really no conception of the
importance of this point, Chicago, and, what is still more
important, of the vastness and richness of the great country that
lies west of you, and which is bound to contribute in the future,
so much to build up the second, if not the first city upon this
continent. [Applause.] I have always been a strenuous advo-~
cate for a railway communication between the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans. I have never doubted that it was a political as
well as a commercial necessity, without which I do not believe
that our great and glorious republic could be amplified and
grow to its full dimensions. I have always been willing, as a
member of the National Legislature, to do almost anything that