Globalization of the United States, 1789-1861

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Smucker, Samuel M. The Life of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, and of other Distinguished American Explorers: Containing Narratives of their Researches and Adventures in Remote and Interesting Portions of the Globe. Philadelphia: G.G. Evans, 1860.

Samuel M. Smucker. The Life of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, and of other Distinguished American Explorers: Containing Narratives of their Researches and Adventures in Remote and Interesting Portions of the Globe. Philadelphia: G.G. Evans, 1860. pp. 12-13.

Smucker listed national heroes in the order of their necessary appearance: first military heroes and statesmen, then artists and engineers, and finally scientists and missionaries.

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It is the singular merit of this Republic that, during a brief national existence which has not yet attained the limits of a century, she has produced men in each department of intellectual excellence, who are celebrated in every portion of the civilized world. It is also a remarkable circumstance connected with the progressive and rapid development of the national greatness, that its master-spirits in every sphere have been evoked into a splendid and efficient existence, precisely in proportion as the developing wants of the country demanded their presence and their activity.

The first necessity of the young Republic was the possession of soldiers and generals whose skill and prowess should overturn the unjust supremacy of Britain, by their achievements on the battle-field, and thus repel the aggressions of the most powerful nation on the globe. That necessity was satisfied as soon as felt, from the rich resources of the nation; for the deeds of Washington and his associates in the camp will forever remain, a brilliant and honorable record on the historic page. The next want of the Confederacy was that of statesmen, whose profound and sagacious minds could comprehend the peculiar form of government best adapted to promote the welfare of the people; who possessed the requisite ability to construct such a government; and who were gifted with the practical talent afterward to administer its laws with energy, fidelity, and success. And then also, in that great crisis of the nation’s destiny, there arose men whose superiors as statesmen the world has never seen; for all men concede the matchless ability of Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and their chief associates.

Under their guidance and under that of their worthy successors, among whom Quincy Adams, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster rank as noblest and greatest, the territories of the republic have gradually extended, until they now comprise an entire continent filled with a numerous brotherhood of nations, each one of which is equal in wealth, intelligence, and power to many of the renowned kingdoms of the Old World. Everywhere we now behold the prevalence and supremacy of equal laws, of skilful legislation, of judicious education, of industry, security, and prosperity, as the result of the masterly ability with which the leading minds of the nation, during the last half-century, have moulded and developed the prodigious resources of the people for whom they were called to legislate.

But physical interests and wants are not the only ones which have stirred within the breasts of the twenty millions of freemen who inhabit the land. There is a better department of man’s nature than that appropriated to the mere acquisition of wealth, or the development of material resources. The whole history of civilization during past ages proves, that its progress has always been associated first with the practical and necessary, afterward with the ornate and the superfluous, wants and gratifications of the community. Arts and sciences, literature and refinement, inevitably follow in the train of wealth, liberty, and power; and to gratify these more elevated and cultivated impulses of humanity, abilities are necessary which are different in character from those exhibited by the chief actors in the practical and necessary departments of mental labor.

Here again the Republic displayed the creative richness and abundance of her resources; for she now boasts many immortal names in the various departments of science, literature, artistic skill, and mechanical invention. She may point to such rare men as Benjamin West, Washington Irving, Bryant, Noah Webster, Story, Fulton, and Morse; the last of whom seems to possess the power of distributing and circulating the lightning over the face of the earth, in obedience to his will, with almost the same facility as that with which Omnipotence wields and manages the thunderbolts, in the blue concave of heaven. It may be asserted, without the least exaggeration, that few nations of ancient or modern times have produced so many gifted minds in every department of intellectual power, during so short a period of national existence, as the United States.

But there is still another high and noble sphere of endeavor, which the best impulses of a great people will eventually comprehend, when the more immediate and pressing necessities of their existence have been satisfied. This sphere requires as elevated a range of mental ability as many of those to which we have just referred; with an advantage over some of them in the sublimity of sentiment and the disinterested philanthropy which impel men to become heroes in it. This is the department in which the resources of science are appropriated to the accomplishment of the aims of benevolence and philanthropy. Such as these are the missionaries of religion and knowledge, who explore the dark places of the earth carrying in their hands the torches both of divine and human wisdom. Such as these are the adventurers who, while they place their own existence in jeopardy, visit the domains of physical suffering, privation, and peril, either to rescue others whom an unpropitious fate has there detained in continual danger of destruction; or who endure the utmost extremes of all that men can undergo, in order to extend the boundaries of knowledge, to investigate the hidden mysteries of the globe, and ascertain what portion of its treasures may yet remain unknown, which, if appropriated to the service of man, might elevate his nature, might ameliorate his condition, and might increase his happiness.