Well may this be termed nobler than the empire of conquest, in which man subdues only his fellow-man.
"To the accomplishment of this prophecy, the first necessary step was the acquisition of the right of self-government, by the people of the British North American Colonies, achieved by the Declaration of Independence, and its acknowledgment by the British nation.

The second was the union of all these colonies under one general confederated Government--a task more arduous than that of the preceding separation, but at last effected by the present constitution of the United States.
"The third step, more arduous still than either or both the others, was that which we, fellow-citizens, may now congratulate ourselves, our country, and the world of man, that it is taken.

It is the adaptation of the powers, physical, moral, and intellectual, of this whole Union, to the improvement of its own condition: of its moral and political condition, by wise and liberal institutions--by the cultivation of the understanding and the heart--by academies, schools, and learned institutes--by the pursuit and patronage of learning and the arts; of its physical condition, by associated labor to improve the bounties, and to supply the deficiencies of nature; to stem the torrent in its course; to level the mountain with the plain; to disarm and fetter the raging surge of the ocean.
Undertakings of which the language I now hold is no exaggerated description, have become happily familiar not only to the conceptions, but to the enterprize of our countrymen.

That for the commencement of which we are here assembled is eminent among the number.

The project contemplates a conquest over physical nature, such as has never yet been achieved by man.