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Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 149
AUTHOR: Daniel Webster (1782–1852)
QUOTATION: The Senator says the territory of California is three times greater than the average extent of the new States of the Union. Well, Sir, suppose it is. We all know that it has more than three times as many mountains, inaccessible and rocky hills, and sandy wastes, as are possessed by any State of the Union. But how much is there of useful land? how much that may be made to contribute to the support of man and of society? These ought to be the questions. Well, with respect to that, I am sure that everybody has become satisfied that, although California may have a very great sea-board, and a large city or two, yet that the agricultural products of the whole surface now are not, and never will be, equal to one half part of those of the State of Illinois; no, nor yet a fourth, or perhaps a tenth part.
ATTRIBUTION: Senator DANIEL WEBSTER, remarks in the Senate on admitting California into the Union, June 27, 1850.—The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, vol. 10, p. 130 (1903).
SUBJECTS: California