61 by the charity and the grace of the triumphs which have been achieved in peace. " Peace hath her victories, not less renowned than War," and the hard-earned fruits of these victories rebellion shall not take from us. [Cries of " No," " No," " Never."] Our peaceful triumphs ! Who shall enumerate their value to the millions yet unborn ? What nation, in so short a time, has won so many ? On the land and on the sea, in the realms of science and in the world of art, we everywhere have gathered our honors, and have won our garlands. Upon the altars of the States they yet lie, fresh from the gathering, while their happy influences fill the land. Of the importance and value of our thousand peaceful triumphs, time will permit me to mention only one, which is yet fresh in the memory of us all. It is now two years ago, when up the waters of the Potomac, toward the Capital, sailed the representatives of an empire till then shut out from intercourse with all Christian nations. In the eastern seas there lay an empire of islands, which hitherto had enjoyed no recognition in the Christian world, other than its name upon the map. No history, so far as we know, illumined it no ancient time-mark told of its advance, step by step, in the march of improvement. There it had rested for thousands of years, wrapped in the mysteries of its own exclusiveness, " gloomy, dark, peculiar." It had been supposed to possess great power, and vague rumors had attributed to it, ingenious arts to us unknown. Against nearly all the world, for thousands of yeais, Japan had obstinately shut her doors. The wealth of the Christian world could not tempt her cupidity, the wonders of the Christian world could not excite her curiosity. There she lay, sullen and alone, the phenomenon of nations. England and France and the other powerful Governments of Europe had at various times tried to conquer this oriental exclusiveness, but the Portuguese only partially succeeded, while all the rest signally failed. At length, we, bearing at our masthead the glorious old stars and stripes, approach the mysterious portals, and seek an entrance. Not with cannon and implements of death do we demand admission, but appreciating the saying of Euripides, that " Resistless eloquence shall open The gates that steel exclude," we peacefully appeal to that sense of right, which is the " touch of nature that makes the whole world kin," and behold, the interdiction is removed, the doors of the mysterious empire fly open, and a new garland is woven, to crown the monument of our commercial conquests. [Loud applause.] Who shall set limit to the gain that may follow this one victory of peace, if our Government be perpetuated so as to gather it for the generations? Who shall say, in an unbroken, undivided Union, that the opening of the ports of Japan shall not accomplish for the present era all that the Reformation, the art of printing, steam and the telegraph have done within the last three hundred years? New avenues of wealth are thrown open, new fields are to be occupied, arts new to us, doubtless, are to be studied and to be Americanized, and science, perhaps, from that arcana of nations, has revelations to make to us, equal to anything which we have ever learned before. Reciprocity bids us to extend what-
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