The Southern States, and the region bordering on the Northern Lakes, are favorable to the growth of certain commercial staples, and until recently their facilities of transportation eastward were much better than those enjoyed by the central region. These were inducements not likely to be overlooked by an intelligent and enterprising people. The culture of tobacco and hemp, the principal commercial staples of the central region, could not be rapidly increased without depressing the price below the cost of production, while the cereals produced in the interior, remote from navigation, would not bear transportation to market.

Hence, it is evident that the course of emigration has been governed chiefly by considerations of economy and calculations of profit on labor. The owners of slave labor emigrating from the Atlantic States moved within the range of the cotton growing region, while the more substantial, and perhaps better judging farmers of the free States settled along the shores of the Northern Lakes.

So decided and well defined has been this movement, that its effects are observable at no great distance below the Falls of the Ohio: Western Kentucky, Southern Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas having remained comparatively stationary in the development of their resources, while the northern and southern regions, and more especially the former, have increased in population, commerce and wealth to a degree unequalled perhaps in the history of man.

Having traced the currents of emigration, as hitherto observed, to physical causes, we are gratified to perceive that those causes are undergoing important modifications, and that not only the physical impediments to emigration have, in a good measure, been overcome, but the commercial facilities of the central region are now nearly equal, all things considered, to those enjoyed by either the north or the south. Within another year we may reasonably expect that at least three lines of railway will be completed from the Atlantic to the Mississippi river, affording ample facilities to emigration and commerce. After reaching the Mississippi, emigration, still governed in its course by physical causes, will, instead of diverging north and south, as in times past, tend to the

center.

The hydrographic systems and physical conformation of that part of the continent lying between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, all point with unerring certainty to such a result.

The valleys of the Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Yellow Stone, the upper Arkansas and the upper Del Norte, will from this time forth attract emigration and commerce to the central region west of the Mississippi, by causes not less certain in their operation than the law of gravitation. Already, even before the Indians have left their hunting grounds, or the surveyors have stretched a chain upon the soil, many have entered those valleys, others are on their way, and thousands are preparing to remove without seeing the land.

This extraordinary movement is attributed in part to that provision in the organic law of these territories, which recognizes the institution of slavery; but we are persuaded that it may be traced to a far deeper source-the instincts of the American people.

Individuals actuated by political and religious fanaticism may have been instrumental in organizing emigrating companies in the eastern States; but in this they have only anticipated a movement which would have taken place sooner or later without their assistance. All that was necessary to ensure the rapid settlement of these territories was the removal of the Indian tribes. The spirit of emigration is a natural and active element in the character of the race to which we belong; and the fertile region bordering on the shores of the northern lakes having become so much occupied as to have lost its attractions as a new country, nothing could be more natural or more consistent with the character of our people residing north of the cotton growing region, than to emigrate to the valleys of the Kansas and Nebraska.

If these views touching the course of emigration be correct, it is manifest that we are about to onter upon a new era in the commercial and social history of this country.

The currents of commerce rising in the valleys and plains on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains and flowing eastwardly, will be checked in their course by the Mississippi, and there meeting with commercial currents flowing north and south, the shores of this river, in a commercial point of view, will be to the region west of it, what the shores of the Atlantic were in former times to the whole country. Hither the productions of the west-the great central region-will, necessarily, come to be exchanged for the commercial staples and fruits of the south, and direct importations of foreign merchandize following as a natural consequence, a cen

tral commercial system, which we have so long labored to introduce, will be established by the operation of natural laws.

This new order of things in the west presents the States of Missouri and Iowa in a new aspect, and gives them a degree of importance among the States of the Union which those who have most highly appreciated their location and natural resources have scarcely hoped for, or even imagined.

One can hardly imagine an event more favorable to the prosperity of Missouri than the settlement of these territories. Her agriculture, commerce, manufactures, mining and public improvements, will all be benefitted by it. The demand for breadstuffs, provisions and stock to supply the new settlements will ensure renumerating prices for all her agricultural productions; while the trade of her commercial emporium will increase in volume with a rapidity unexampled even in the history of western cities.

The center of a great commercial system having been established, manufactures in all their varied forms will grow up in and around it as a natural and certain consequence. For a great commercial center and its vicinity affords facilities, and includes the conditions necessary to ensure success to many branches of manufactures, which cannot exist elsewhere in an equal degree. It is not proximity to the consumer which the manufacturer requires so much as immediate contact with the merchant, and his agency in furnishing raw material, and distributing the fabrics. Doubtless, some one or more of the conditions favorable for manufacturing many commodities may be found to exist at points remote from commereial cities; but then others necessary to ensure success upon a large scale are wanting, and it is on this account that manufacturing in rural districts remote from great cities has so rarely succeeded in this country.

One of the principal advantages which we anticipate from the settlement of Nebraska and Kansas is the powerful impulse which it is calculated to impart to the growth of manufactures in St. Louis. While those territories are filling up with an industrious and enterprising population, they must look to the east for almost every commodity necessary to their convenience and comfort except such as are derived from agriculture and the natural pasturage of the plains. No other place in the west, nor indeed in the United States, combines as many of the conditions required for the suc

cessful manufacture of such commodities as are needed in a new country, as does St. Louis; and these conditions will continue to be enlarged and improved, as the population of the new territories shall increase.

The settlement of these territories will create a large demand for iron in all its forms; and while it will be in the power of Missouri to supply the raw material, the manufactures of St. Louis should aim to produce the manufactured articles in quantity sufficient to keep pace with the increasing wants of the country. Indeed, when we take a view of the mineral deposites, as far as they are known, west of the Mississippi, it is manifest that the entire central region west of the river must depend, in a great measure, upon Missouri for its supply of iron.

These are facts that sagacious men will soon begin to investigate; and it will then require no argument on our part to convince them of the advantages of mining and manufacturing in Missouri.

The settlement of these territories will also greatly enhance the value of our works of public improvement.

It is true that all our railroads do not lead in that direction; but they will all be benefitted by a more rapid development of the resources of the State.

The event is especially propitious to the future prospects of the line of railway-the Pacific-connecting St. Louis with the eastern boundary of Kansas, near the Missouri river. This may now be justly regarded as among the best public enterprises west of the Alleghanies; and if the cost of the work should not too far exceed the Engineer's estimates, the stock must be sought for time as a desirable object of investment.

The great demand created for this road by the opening of the Kansas valley to settlement should operate as a powerful argument to the directory and to the people along its line, increase their exertions to complete the work; and we sincerely hope, that the citizens of the western counties through which the road passes, will, in view of the benefits to be derived from its immediate completion, come up to the work with a resolution that will ensure its accomplishment in two years at furthest from the present date.

But passing from local to broader and more national views of this subject, we still find cause of gratification in the settlement of these extensive territories.

They embrace a region most admirably adapted to the pursuits of the herdsman, and more especially to the production of sheep. The American people are not much addicted to the occupation of herdsmen, and it may be some years before this branch of industry attains to much importance. But when a residence on the plains shall be made safe from Indian depredations, if Americans do not possess them as pastures and sheep walks, emigrants from other lands will, and the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains will add another great staple to the national wealth.

But more and better still than all, we shall have a pastoral population in the center and heart of the Union, whose bold independence and incorruptable patriotism will constitute one of the strongest and most durable pillars of our institutions.

It requires no effort of the imagination to perceive that the settlement of these territories will produce important changes in the political aspects of the nation. The machinery which has been used with so much effect by political aspirants and demagogues, will, in a great measure, be rendered powerless. The northern and southern parties which to the detriment of the center have been so long struggling for political ascendency, are destined ere long to lose their potency in the councils of the nation, and yield to sentiments more liberal and a policy more national-emanating from the center.

Heretofore the central region has had no policy of its own, and its weight in the national councils is still regarded by the north and the south as a prize to be won and enjoyed by the party which can play the deepest game to secure it. It is a matter of little consequence to the west which wins; for her interests are generally overlooked and often positively sacrificed by the successful party. It is a pleasing reflection that the time is rapidly approaching when a new order of things will be established; when the people of the great central region attracted thither by natural laws and actuated by a truly national sentiment, shall rise above the sectional strifes which have so long vexed the nation and disturbed the harmony of its constituents.

The people occupying the central region, when its resources shall have been developed, can have no interests antagonistic to those of either the northern or southern sections of the Union, and from the nature of things their policy must be conservative, and tend to the perpetuation of our happy institutions.