"Let us then look a little further at this symbol of Rev.13:11-17, and see if our government has developed any features in its past history, or present character, which answer to the specifications brought to view in the symbol.
2. When the nation intended by this prophecy first came to the prophet’s attention, it was “coming up.”
And the point of time is clearly indicated. It was when the preceding, or papal power, represented by the sea beast, went into captivity (Rev. 13:10), or when, as already mentioned, the Papacy was temporarily over-thrown, in 1798.
Q: Was our own nation then coming up?—A: Most emphatically. The Declaration of Independence was issued only twenty-two years before, and the war for national freedom reached its successful termination only fourteen years before.
---Hence, in the two important points of chronology and location, are we held to this country, and no other, for the application of the symbol of the two-horned beast."
Uriah Smith
