foundations and under-pinning of social order. History, when challenged, can give no other testimony in regard to polygamy than that it is a forcing-bed of vice. What institution could Satan himself devise, a surer nursery of crime, than a numerous house-hold, whose members are not held together by ties of natural affection, but rather estranged by the most fierce and consuming jealousies known to the human heart? ‘Then consider the heterogeneous character of the population swarming to this great western hive, from the dark lanes, and crowded factories, and filthy collieries of the old world,—the sewerage and drainings of European population. For a time, an outward pressure will hold those elements in contact; but no sooner shall the difficulties be overcome which attend the subjugation of a new country, than the centrifugal force will be disclosed, and we shall see only the “disjecta membra” of this now rising empire. The consolidation of power in the hands of the Presidency and Priesthood, and the vast accumulation of wealth under their control, cannot but corrupt the government. The absence, too, of all constitutional checks to their power, and the fanatical pretensions to the Divine favour, will render the tyranny at last, only the more insolent and oppressive. It has only to become intolerable, and the day of revolution is at hand.
To these explosive elements within the system, add the immensely powerful influence of this great Republic, in assimilating all the parts, however extreme, over which it obtains control. In this most remarkable and auspicious power, lies the only hope of our government in its rapidly expanding jurisdiction. I have recently met with the statement, that the United States, with their territories and dependencies, cover ah area twice as large as that of the Roman empire, in its palmiest days, under Trajan and the Antonines: and it may assist us to apprehend the vastness of our territorial area, to know that now the United States own not less than one billion, three hundred and eighty-seven million, five hundred and thirty-four thousand acres of public land, to be thrown into market and in some way disposed of. The unwieldy bulk of the Roman empire was one of the many causes of its dissolution; but then Rome gained its empire
