In fifteen years from 1845 to 1860--and this is a fact which I
stated in this room more than a year ago, when speaking on the question
of America, but it is a fact which every working man ought to have in
his mind always when he is considering what America is--in fifteen years
there have emigrated to the United States from Great Britain and Ireland
not less than two million four hundred thousand persons. Millions are
easily spoken, not easily counted, with great difficulty comprehended;
but the twenty-four hundred thousand persons that I have described means
a population equal to not less than sixty towns, every one of them of
the size and population of Rochdale. And every one of these men who have
emigrated, as he crossed the Atlantic--if he went by steam, in a
fortnight, and if he went by sails, in a month or five weeks--found
himself in a country where to his senses a vast revolution had taken
place, comprehending all that men anticipate from any kind of revolution
that shall advance political and social equality in their own land--a
revolution which commenced in the War of Independence, which has been
going on, and which has been confirmed by all that has transpired in
subsequent years.
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