UNITEDSTATES

United States. No single event in modern history has been of so much importance to mankind as the discovery of America. That great continent, which had been hid from the eyes of civilized nations for so many ages, comprises nearly one-third of the habitable globe. In soil and climate, it rivals the best parts of the old continent. It is not, like Asia and Africa, infested by the larger and more dangerous species of wild animals, nor deformed by vast deserts, which present insuperable obstacles to civilization. But its great and peculiar advantage lies in the unrivalled magnitude and number of its navigable rivers, which enable its most remote inland parts to hold commercial intercourse with each other, and with foreign states, with unparalleled ease and rapidity. The position of these great rivers, whose estuaries all open to the east, points out the western side of the old continent as the region with which it is destined by nature to be most closely connected. Two great classes of colonists, widely dissimilar in character and circumstances, came from Europe to occupy this new world. The Spaniards, who were first in order of time, took possession of the most populous and fertile regions; but their natural advantages were rendered abortive by political and moral evils,—a rapacious spirit, a corrupt religion, and a vicious system of government. The English, the other great class of colonists, owed their better fortunes in some measure to their apparent disadvantages. Having neither gold mines to work, nor wealthy Indians to rob, they cultivated with greater diligence the natural riches of the soil, and laid the foundation of future prosperity in habits of order and industry. Neglected by the government as a band of destitute refugees, they enjoyed what was then an unusual degree of civil and religious liberty. Their industry flourished, because it was unfettered and unburdened. They were well governed, because they were left to govern themselves. And if they wanted the aid of the mother country when that aid might sometimes have been useful, they were, on the other hand, exempted from those incessant exactions and vexations to which the Spanish colonists were exposed, from the ignorant, meddling, grasping, bigoted spirit of their European rulers. The troubles they experienced from the hostility of the Indians diminished as their own numbers increased, and, except at first, were never extremely detrimental. Their common dangers served in some measure as a bond of union among themselves, and perhaps favoured their social improvement, by acting as a slightly compressing force to prevent the indefinite diffusion of the population over a large surface. To their free spirit, virtuous habits, intelligence, and industry, the English colonists certainly owed much of their early success; but we must not forget that a series of fortunate changes, not directly the consequence of their own exertions, have greatly contributed to place them in the enviable situa-

tion they now occupy. Had the Dutch, French, Danish, and Swedish colonies planted in North America spread as fast and as far as those of England, and continued separate and independent, we should have seen, in the space between the Mississippi and the Atlantic, the same medley of nations and languages, with the same diversity of manners, religion, institutions, and clashing interests, which foster everlasting feuds and jealousies in Europe, engender desolating wars, load the people with oppressive taxes and military tyrannies, and present a formidable barrier to the circulation of knowledge and the progress of society. The conquests of England, which blended all these colonies into one nation, have secured to the United States an exemption from half the evils which afflict civil society in Europe, and prepared for them a career of peaceful grandeur and growing prosperity, which divided Europe cannot hope to enjoy, and which has had no parallel in the history of mankind. The people of the United States find themselves in a condition to devote their whole energies to the cultivation of their vast natural resources, undistracted by wars, unburdened by oppressive taxes, unfettered by old prejudices and corruptions. Enjoying the united advantages of an infant and a mature society, they are able to apply the highly refined science and art of Europe to the improvement of the virgin soil and unoccupied natural riches of America. They start unincumbered by a thousand evils, political and moral, which weigh down the energies of the old world. The volume of our history lies before them: they may adopt our improvements, avoid our errors, take warning from our sufferings, and with the combined lights of our experience and their own, build up a more perfect form of society. Even already, they have given some momentous and some salutary truths to the world. It is their rapid growth which has first developed the astonishing results of the productive powers of population. We can now calculate with considerable certainty, that America, which yet presents to the eye, generally, the aspect of an untrodden forest, will, in the short space of one century, surpass Europe in the number of its inhabitants. We even hazard little in predicting, that, before the tide of civilization has rolled back to its original seats, Assyria, Persia, and Palestine, an intelligent population of two or three hundred millions will have overspread the new world, and extended the empire of knowledge and the arts from Cape Horn to Alayska. Among this vast mass of civilized men, there will be but two languages spoken. The effect of this single circumstance in accelerating the progress of society can scarcely be calculated. What a field will then be opened to the man of science, the artist, the popular writer, who addresses a hundred millions of educated persons?—what a stimulus given to mental energy and social improvement, when every new idea, and every useful dis-

covery, will be communicated instantaneously to so great a mass of intelligent beings, by the electric agency of the post and the press? With the united intellect and resources of a society framed on such a gigantic scale, what mighty designs will then be practicable? Imagination is lost in attempting to estimate the effects of such accumulated means and powers. One result, however, may be anticipated. America must then become the centre of knowledge, civilization, and power; and the present leading states of Europe (Russia perhaps excepted), placed on the arena amidst such colossal associates as the American Republics, will sink to a subordinate rank, and cease to exert any greater influence on the fate of the world than the Swiss Cantons do at the present day.

The territory of the United States is situated between the 25th and 49th degrees of north latitude, and between the 67th and 124th degrees of west longitude from London. Its extreme length east and west is 2780 miles, its greatest breadth north and south 1230 miles, and its area, according to Mr Mellish, 2,076,410 square English miles. It is bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the north by the British possessions, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, and on the south by Mexico and the Mexican Gulf. The Mississippi divides it into two parts nearly equal in extent. In the north-east angle of this territory, there is a space of more than 100 miles square, of very barren ground, interposed between New Brunswick and Lower Canada, the possession of which has long been the subject of negotiation between the British and American Governments. On the west coast the Americans have an unquestioned claim to the country, between the 42d and 47th parallels; but Russia disputes the right of possession with them to the tract of country between the 49th and 60th parallel. As the admitted boundaries are in general very distinctly marked on the common maps, we shall not describe them in detail.

Two chains of mountains separate this extensive territory into three great natural divisions. 1. The Atlantic region, or the country lying east of the Alleghany mountains. 2. The valley of the Mississippi, or the country watered by the Mississippi, Missouri, and their numerous branches. 3. The Pacific region, or the country lying west of the Rocky mountains.

The Alleghany mountains commence in Lower Canada, below Quebec, and passing along the northern boundary of Maine, and through New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the two Carolinas, they terminate in the upper parts of Georgia and Alabama, preserving a south-west direction throughout. They consist of three, four, five, or more distinct ridges, with wide and fertile valleys interposed. Their entire length is 1100 miles, their breadth varies from 110 to 150. In the northern half their height is greatest, but most

unequal, detached peaks are numerous, and the ridges indistinctly marked. In the south, the ridges are lower, but better defined, and their summits are often distinguished by a very uniform continuous level. They attain their greatest height in New Hampshire, where Mount Washington has an elevation of 6600 feet. Their greatest height in New York is 3800, in Pennsylvania 2500, in Virginia 3900, in South Carolina 4000. The mean height is said by Mr Mellish to be from 1000 to 1800 feet, but his average is undoubtedly formed on wrong principles. That of the highest chain cannot be less than from 2000 to 2500 feet.*

The Rocky mountains, known but imperfectly, are a continuation of the Mexican Cordilleras, and extend to the Polar Ocean. They pass through the territory of the United States, at the distance of 500 miles from the Pacific Ocean, and consist of several elevated chains, occupying a breadth of 300 miles, with deep valleys between them. They rise abruptly from their base, and are supposed to reach the elevation of 12,000 feet in their highest summits, many of which are covered with perpetual snow. There are, however, several passes through them, which, with a little improvement, might be traversed by loaded waggons.†

The Atlantic Region was the first settled, and is the most populous and improved portion of the United States, but not the most favoured as to soil and climate. It may be considered as the eastern slope of the Alleghanies. Including all the countries watered by rivers flowing into the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, east of the Mississippi, it is about 1700 miles in length, with an average breadth of 250, and embraces an area of 400,000 square miles. It includes three well marked varieties of soil and surface. 1. The alluvial district, consisting of sand, gravel, and clay, comprising a stripe of level land, extending along the coast from New York southward, with a breadth varying from 20 miles to 100. The surface is level or slightly undulating; and it embraces large tracts of marsh near the coast. The soil is poor and sandy, producing almost nothing but pines, except in the alluvial tracts which skirt the rivers. About one-half of the surface of New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, one-fifth of Virginia, one-third of the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, fall under this description. 2. The upland country, extending from the alluvial tract to the foot of the mountains, with a breadth varying from 20 to 200 miles. The soil here is chiefly formed from the detritus of the primitive rocks, and is generally fertile, and well adapted for tillage. 3. The ridges of the Alleghanies, and the valleys between them, which bear a strong growth of natural wood, have generally a rich soil capable of tillage, wherever the surface is not rocky or too steep; and are almost free from marshes. In part of Pennsylvania, New York, and in

* Mellish's Geographical Description of United States, Philadelphia, 1822, p. 20. Warden's Statistical, Political, and Historical Account of United States, 1819. Introduction.

† Mellish, p. 21. James's Account of an Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky Mountains in 1819, 1820, Vol. III. p. 238. Warden, III. 161.

the six New England States,* where the Alleghanies spread out into an irregular broken surface, the soil possesses a mixed character. The northern parts of New England are mountainous, the southern hilly or uneven. The soil, comparatively speaking, is rocky, has little depth, and is better adapted for pasture than tillage, and improves generally as we advance inwards from the coast. The south-east section of New York corresponds in character with New England. But Pennsylvania contains the largest portion of good soil on the east side of the mountains, of all the old States. The woods originally covered all this Atlantic region, except some tracts called by the Americans prairies, on which, from causes not well explained, no natural growth of timber exists. These are not meadows or wet grounds, as the French term might be supposed to indicate; but lands bare of wood, whether wet or dry, level or uneven. As the population thickens, the forests disappear; but even in the most densely peopled parts, the woodlands occupy so large a proportion of the surface, that the country generally presents, to the eye of a European, the aspect of a natural wilderness, but broken by patches of cultivation, which are numerous round the great cities, but grow less frequent as we recede from the shore, till they terminate in the boundless forests of the Alleghanies.

Valley of Mississippi. The basin or Valley of the Mississippi, which extends from the Alleghanies to the Rocky mountains, is not so large as the basin of the Amazon by one-third, but being situated in the best part of the temperate zone, it may be pronounced the finest valley in the world. Its breadth east and west is 1400 miles; its length in the opposite direction 1200, and its area 1,400,000 square miles. It comprehends a great diversity of soil, surface, and climate. 1. The basin of the Ohio, including the Cumberland, 700 miles long and 300 broad, is a rich and beautiful country; the garden of the United States. The lower parts of the surface are from 500 to 800 feet above the level of the sea, and are finely diversified with round topped arable hills, rising 400 or 500 feet above their base. The rivers generally run in deep hollows, sometimes mere ravines, but often spreading out into vallies, which include lands of exuberant fertility. This district includes Kentucky, Tennessee, with part of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. 2. The territory extending from the basin of the Ohio north-westward to Lake Superior, including the country between the Missouri and Upper Mississippi. The surface is sometimes undulating, sometimes so level that the waters stagnate on it, till carried off by evaporation; and it is not broken by any notable elevations, except one long ridge extending between the Missouri and Mississippi, and two low eminences called the Ocooch and Smoky mountains. The soil is naturally rich, and covered with luxuriant herbage; but the climate is severe,

and the woods so thin, that the bare ground or prairies occupy three-fourths of the surface on the east side of the Mississippi, and nineteen-twentieths on the west. The absolute elevation of the northern parts is probably not under 1500 feet, for Cassina lake, 30 miles below the sources of the Mississippi, is 1330 feet above the sea. (Mellish, p. 32. James's Expedition, III. 204.) 3. The last and largest division of this great valley, extending from the Mississippi and Missouri to the Rocky mountains, consists of two very different qualities of soil, which graduate into each other, but, on the great scale, may be conceived to form two parallel tracts of nearly equal extent, parted by the 98th meridian. In the middle of the eastern section, and, as it were, in the very bottom of the great basin of the Mississippi, lie the Ozark mountains, a chain like the Alleghanies, of great length and breadth and small height, rising only from 1000 to 2000 feet above the sea. (James's Expedition, III. p. 313.) Mr Mellish erroneously calls the height 3500 feet. Their breadth is from 100 to 150 miles: their sides, which slope with gentle declivities, are deeply furrowed with streams, and partly covered with small timber. The Arkansas and Red River are the only streams which cut their way through this chain. On the east side of the Ozark chain is the Great Swamp, 200 miles long and 20 broad, which is converted into a lake by the annual overflow of the Mississippi, but is dry during the heats of summer, and rendered impenetrable at all times by a thick growth of cypress. The country round it is rich bottom or meadow land, clothed with excellent timber. The country for one or two hundred miles west of the Ozarks is also good, but less wooded; and in the eastern section, taken altogether, the open ground occupies nineteen-twentieths of the surface. The western section, extending from the meridian of 98° to the Rocky mountains, is comparatively dry and sterile, and much of it an absolute desert, destitute of herbage, and unfit for human habitation. As we approach the mountains, the ground, which is at first hilly, subsides into smaller undulations, and these terminate in table lands, nearly flat on the top, with steep, and sometimes precipitous sides, and rising 600 or 800 feet above the common level. These table lands, consisting of alternate beds of sandstone and breccia, increase in number and diminish in extent, as we approach the base of the mountains, which is believed to have an elevation of 3000 feet above the sea. The desert aspect of the country, however, is not the effect of its elevation, but more probably of its aridity; for valleys among the mountains, which are still higher, are fertile. The rivers in this frightful solitude often spread out to a breadth of one or two miles, and dry up in the warm weather. Salt springs are numerous, and salt incrustations cover many square miles. Trees are only to be seen at some spots along the rivers, and are rather more abundant in the south than in the

* As the name of New England occurs often in American books, it may be proper to mention, that the appellation is applied to the six States east of the Hudson,—Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

north; but throughout the whole section, the wood does not cover the thousandth part of the surface. Of the basin of the Mississippi altogether, it may be observed, that the western side is a barren desert; the middle contains much good lands, but abounds in swamps; the east side, comprehending the basin of the Ohio, is the richest, and the most eligible for human habitation. The woods, in their natural state, increase continually as we advance from the Rocky mountains to the Atlantic, a proof, perhaps, that the summer heat, and the quantity of atmospheric moisture, follow a similar law.*

The Pacific Region extends from the Rocky mountains to the ocean, and (exclusive of disputed ground) from latitude 42° to 49°, embracing an area of 300,000 square miles. It consists almost entirely of the basin of the Columbia river. A chain of mountains runs through it from south to north, about 150 miles from the coast, between which and the Rocky mountains there is a high valley, 300 miles broad, intersected by smaller chains, but well wooded and watered, and enjoying a pure air and a fruitful soil. The land between the outer chain and the coast is nearly of the same description, but much lower, and overcharged with moisture from frequent and heavy rains. The climate is remarkably mild and equable, resembling that of France and Spain much more than that of the Atlantic coast. Frost is rarely seen in winter at the mouth of Columbia river, though it is in the same latitude as Quebec, where the ice lasts five or six months.†

The United States, whose territories almost touch the tropic on the one side, and reach to districts where frost lasts five or six months on the other, embrace greater varieties of climate than any other single state in the world. Generally speaking, the climate of the United States is distinguished from that of Europe by three peculiarities. 1. It is absolutely colder for the corresponding degrees of latitude, the mean temperature of the year, according to Humboldt, being nine degrees of Fahrenheit lower on the east coast of America than on the west coast of Europe at the latitude of 40°, and 12½° lower at the latitude of 50°. 2. The thermometer has a greater range, as the heat of summer and the cold of winter reach greater extremes. 3. The climate changes more rapidly as we proceed from south to north, or a greater variety of climates is comprised within the same range of latitude. The mean temperature of Quebec, at one extremity, is 42°, and of Cape Sable, at the other, 72.7°. Between the parallels of 38 and 50, a degree of latitude which make a change of 1.13° (Fahrenheit) in Europe, makes a change of 1.57° in the United States; and the same annual temperature which is found at a given degree of latitude in the United States, is found seven degrees farther north in Europe. The

seasons are also very differently distributed. Philadelphia, for instance, has the summers of Rome and the winters of Vienna. In Florida, at New Orleans, and at St Mary's in Georgia, snow is never seen; but in Pennsylvania snow lasts three months, in Massachusetts four, and in Maine five.‡ In the two latter states, the ice bears loaded waggons, and the sea is sometimes frozen to a considerable distance from the coast. In all the low country, from Florida to the St Lawrence, the extreme summer heat is nearly the same, from 90° to 98°, and the varieties of climate are marked chiefly by the intensity and duration of the winter's cold. The climate in the basin of the Ohio, compared with that of the Atlantic coast, possesses no very striking peculiarities, but seems, on the whole, to have its mean annual heat a little higher, to be rather more steady and equable, to be less frequently visited by the frigorific north-west winds, and to have fits of cold weather almost equally severe, but more transitory. The great lakes appear to mitigate the winter cold in the country immediately around them, and probably in the basin of the Ohio too, for on the west and north-west of this district the climate is much more rigorous. At Council Bluffs, on the Missouri, in latitude 41½°, the thermometer descends to -22° in winter, and rises to 105° in summer. At St Peter's Fort, on the Mississippi, in latitude 45°, it ranges from 92° to -30°, and the mean temperature of January is about Zero. The absolute height of the fort, which cannot exceed 1000 feet, does not account for this excessive cold. We have already mentioned the equable temperature of the basin of the Columbia; and, from the observations made on the Missouri and Upper Mississippi, we have reason to believe that the mildest and the most rigorous winters known in any similar latitude are to be found at once on the opposite sides of the great rampart of the Rocky mountains. (On the subject of Climate, see Mellish, p. 59—77.)

So many local circumstances affect the annual Rain and depth of rain, that little confidence can be put in general Wind. estimates. We find that it was 42 inches at Charlestown, on an average of some years, 40 at Natchez, 30 at Philadelphia, 36 at Cincinnati. The mean fall of rain for the inhabited part of the United States (latitude 41°) should be about 34 inches. (See the Article PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.) The frequent failure of the streams, and the scarcity of verdure in the country near the Rocky mountains, indicates a deficiency of atmospheric moisture in that region. Snow falls to the greatest depth on the borders of the great lakes. On the sea coast it is rarely seen farther south than Northfolk, latitude 37°; but in the interior, it is found four or five degrees farther south. Compared with the middle countries of Europe, the United States, occupying a more southern position, have rains more regular and heavy,

* This account of the basin of the Mississippi is entirely taken from Major Long's Memoir, published in the third volume of James's Account of the Expedition to the Rocky Mountains.

† Morse's American Universal Geography, 7th edition, 1819, Vol. I. p. 671. Mellish, p. 417.

‡ Humboldt, Prolegomena de Distrib. Geog. Plant. 1817, p. 68—71. Warden, Vol. I. p. 287, 353. Vol. II. p. 60.

United States. and greater in absolute quantity, but a smaller number of wet days. Of the winds, the most remarkable are, 1. A moist and warm south or south-west wind, which is supposed to be a branch of the trade-wind, and is felt all over the Atlantic States as far as the Potowmac, and occasionally in New England. 2. Another wind, possessing the same qualities, and believed also to be a branch of the trade-wind; it blows from the Mexican Gulf up the course of the Mississippi, and seems to send off subordinate branches, which ascend the courses of the Ohio and Missouri. In Louisiana and Arkansas, it is a south wind; at Council Bluffs, on Missouri, it is a south-east; and in Ohio and Kentucky, a south-west wind. It is the prevailing wind in all these districts. 3. The north-west blows occasionally on the west side of the Alleghanies, but more frequently on the east side, and is most prevalent in New England. It everywhere produces intense cold, depressing the thermometer to $-7^\{\backslash circ\}$ or $-8^\{\backslash circ\}$ in Ohio, and sometimes to $-20^\{\backslash circ\}$ in Massachusetts. 4. The north-east is a cold wind, which, transporting the fogs of the Newfoundland bank, occasions showers of snow. Various facts observed in the United States seem to show, what some meteorologists have doubted, that clearing and cultivation improve the climate, at least so far as regards the growth of the cerealia.*

on the east side by an extensive formation of old red sandstone. †

Minerals. That important mineral, coal, is found on both sides of the Alleghanies. The two principal formations on the east side are, 1. On the river Potomac, above Richmond (Virginia), where a seam of excellent coal, which occupies a basin 20 miles long and 10 broad, has been long worked, and employs 5000 persons; 2. At various spots along a narrow tract of country, from the sources of the Juniata and western Susquehannah to Providence Bay. At Lehigh, and other parts within this district, the coal is worked. On the western side of the Alleghanies, an immense formation of coal, probably the largest in the world, extends from the head waters of the Ohio southward to those of the Tombigbee, and westward, with some interruptions, beyond the Mississippi. A similar bed appears on the west side of the Ozarks, which is also traced far up the course of the Missouri; and there is a third bed, of unknown extent, on the east side of the Rocky mountains. ‡

Salt, another mineral of primary importance, is distributed in considerable abundance over the United States territory, especially those parts that are remote from the sea. A great formation of rock salt (and gypsum), indicated by numerous salt springs, is believed to accompany the coal formation over a great part of the basin of the Mississippi. Salt springs are numerous at the foot of the Rocky mountains, and extensive plains occur covered with salt, one of which, the Grand Saline, is 30 miles in circumference, and in hot weather is covered with a crust of clear white salt, from two to six inches deep, and superior in quality to manufactured salt. On the east side of the Alleghanies, salt is generally obtained from the ocean, or imported.

Iron is found in nearly all the States, and is worked to such an extent, that of 50,000 tons consumed, according to computation, in the country, only 10,000 are imported. (Morse, I. 236.) A bed of magnetic iron ore, from eight to twelve feet thick in gneiss, and another from two to twenty feet, extend, with some interruptions, from the White mountains, on the one side, and from Lake Champlain, on the other, to the northern limits of New Jersey. Iron ore, of various kinds, is also met with in Maryland and Virginia. On the west side of the Alleghanies it is abundant, and is extensively worked at Pittsburgh, and in Kentucky and Tennessee. The whole number of furnaces, forges, and bloomeries, in 1810, was 530. Ores of copper are smelted in New Jersey, and are found in various other parts of the Union. Native copper is said to exist in great quantities near the river St Croix, in the north-west territory; but at present, the United States are supplied with this metal chiefly from Mexico. Lead is

If we draw a line from New York to the east end of Lake Ontario, the peninsula lying north-eastward between the St Lawrence and the sea consists of primitive rocks, interspersed with some patches of secondary. From this line southward, the country has a different geological character. A belt of alluvial soil, beginning at Long Island, extends along the shore of all the southern states to Natchez on the Mississippi, having an average breadth of a hundred miles, and including, probably, all Florida, except some high ground in the interior. It is everywhere penetrated by the tide water in the rivers. On the west side of this is a region of primitive rocks, from 100 to 200 miles broad, in which gneiss predominates. It embraces the eastern ridges of the Alleghanies, with the rolling country at their foot. On the west side of this, again, is a long narrow zone of transition rocks, including the western ridges of the Alleghanies, and extending from Lake Champlain to the north-west angle of Georgia. From this transition formation, which forms, as it were, the eastern edge of the basin of the Mississippi, immense beds of secondary limestone, sandstone, and shale, cover the country to the Rocky mountains, interrupted only by the alluvial formations on the banks of the rivers, and by the Ozark mountains. These mountains are formed, like the Alleghanies, of the same formations, disposed in the same order. The Rocky mountains, so far as they have been explored, consist of primitive rocks, granite, gneiss, quartz rock, &c., covered

* Warden, Vol. I. p. 289, 355. Birkbeck's Letters from Illinois, p. 37.

† Maclure's Observations on the Geology of United States, passim. Major Long's Memoir; and Engraved Sections in James's Expedition.

‡ James's Expedition, Vol. III. p. 96, 298, and Engraved Sections. Maclure, p. 35. Warden, Introduction, p. 32.

found in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, but it exists most abundantly in Missouri, at the north-east angle of the Ozark mountains, where 45 mines are worked, which yield three millions of pounds annually. (Mellish, 366.) Gold and silver are met with, but only in minute quantities. Mercury and tin have not been found. Cobalt, antimony, manganese, and ores of zinc, occur in some few spots. Nitre is obtained in vast quantities from the limestone caves in Kentucky. On a general view, it may be said that the United States, so far as explored, are nearly destitute of the precious metals, but have a supply of coal, salt, iron, lead, and probably copper, adequate to their own consumption.

The United States have no considerable lake, entirely within their territory, except Michigan. But a series of fresh water lakes, by far the largest in the world (for the Caspian Sea is salt), and connected with one another by the St Lawrence, extend along their northern frontier. The following is their extent, and their elevation above the level of the sea:

Reckoning from Quebec to the western extremity of Superior, these lakes afford a line of 1550 miles of inland navigation, which will be increased to 4500 miles if we include the whole extent of their shores. But Quebec is far from the open sea, and the shortest and best route to the Atlantic from Lake Erie and the waters above will be by the New York canal. Lake Erie is about twenty fathoms in average depth, Ontario eighty, and Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, are said to be still deeper. All these inland waters can be navigated with advantage; and will be crowded with vessels at some future period, when an active population covers the north-west territory. The principal interruptions at present are, 1st, At the rapids between Montreal and Kingston, where it is proposed to cut a canal. 2d, At the rapids and the great fall of Niagara, where a canal is also projected. 3d, In the stream of the river between Lakes Huron and Erie, where there are also rapids, and in Lake St Clair, which is full of shallows. 4th, At the falls of St Mary, between Huron and Superior, amounting to twenty-three feet in half a mile. All these obstructions, it is believed, can be surmounted by art. These various lakes evidently occupy the bottom of a raised plateau, the outer sides of which are not very distant; and hence they receive very few rivers of any magnitude. Their shores are beset with ice for two, three, or four months in the year.

Lake George, 36 miles long and 7 broad, pours

its waters into Lake Champlain, which is 160 miles long and 18 broad, and communicates by the River Sorelle with the St Lawrence. A canal, 22 miles long, now nearly finished, connects Lake Champlain with the Hudson. We pass over the other lakes of smaller size.

The rivers of the United States belong to four Rivers. different systems; 1st, Those which water the Atlantic region. 2d, The Mississippi and its branches, which water the great central valley of North America. 3d, Those which flow into the St Lawrence; and, 4th, The Columbia and its tributaries, which flow into the Pacific Ocean.

The rivers which fall into the Atlantic, and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, from Maine to the eastern boundary of Louisiana, all rise in the Alleghanies, except the Susquehannah and the Hudson, which pass entirely through the principal chains. Their length varies from 200 to 450 miles, increasing gradually with the breadth of the level country, as we advance southward. The tide-water ascends in all these rivers to the outer boundary of the primitive formations, where falls regularly occur, except on the Hudson. In this river, the tide reaches to Albany, 160 miles from its mouth, to which point there is an uninterrupted navigation for sloops of 80 tons. This peculiar advantage has made the Hudson the scene of a more active inland trade than any river, perhaps, in the world, of the same magnitude. Tide navigation reaches a very short way up the great rivers in the northern states generally; but in those south of the Susquehannah, it reaches generally from 100 to 130 miles. Boats ply on these rivers much farther up, but the navigation is seldom uninterrupted. The following are the principal rivers on the Atlantic side, with their approximate lengths.

The rivers that fall into the St Lawrence, and its Northern lakes, are comparatively small, and probably do not carry off one-tenth part of the water that falls on the east side of the Mississippi. The most considerable are the Fox River, which falls into Lake Michigan, the Miami of Lake Erie, the Genessee, and Seneca of Lake Ontario, and the Saurelle or Richlieu, which joins the St Lawrence below Montreal.

The majestic Mississippi drains a greater surface than any river in the world, except the Amazon, and in the magnitude of its stream is only surpassed by the Amazon and the Plata. It has been computed to convey to the Mexican Gulf $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ of all the water which the ocean receives from the dry land. (See PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.) The extreme length of the Mississippi Proper, including all its sinuities, is generally computed to be 2500 miles, but reckoning to the head of the Missouri, which is the largest branch, it is nearly 4000. It has three bars at its mouth, the deepest of which affords only 17 feet of water. (Warden, I. 114.)

Sloops of this draught can navigate to Natchez, 350 miles from its mouth. There is depth sufficient at all times for sloops drawing six feet to the Ohio, and for vessels drawing three feet to the junction with the Missouri. (James's Expedition, III. 258.) But, during the floods in May, June, and July, the waters rise 50 feet, and are then navigable by vessels of any size. The Mississippi, from its junction with the Ohio to the sea, is about 1000 yards, or two-thirds of a mile in width, and below Red River it is about 120 feet deep. From the junction of the Arkansas, its banks form an elevated ridge or platform, which support the stream at the height of ten or twenty feet above the level of the adjacent lands. In its floods, it sometimes bursts the barriers which confine it, and inundates the flat country below. Of the two great branches, the Missouri, and Mississippi Proper, the former stream is the larger, and more rapid, and also more turbid, from the quantity of travelled soil it transports. But its waters, generally occupying a wider channel, are more loaded with bars and sand-banks, and the navigation is more intricate. (James's Expedition, III. 259.) The Platte, Kansas, and some other tributaries of the Missouri, often spread out to a breadth of one or two miles, and during the warm season, dry up entirely. But these, and all the branches of both rivers, generally admit of boat navigation for nine-tenths of their course, during a longer or shorter period every year. In the Ohio, the boating season is from 20th February to the middle of June. Before this period the waters are ice-bound; after it, they are too shallow, except for very small craft. The length of the Mississippi, from its mouth to the junction of the Ohio, is about 1200 miles, and to its junction with the Missouri, 1300. The length of the Missouri, above the junction to its remotest branch, is, by Lewis' and Clarke's measurement, 2575 miles. The length of the Ohio, above the point of confluence, is 1188 miles. The other large branches of the Mississippi are the Red River and Arkansas, in the lower part of its course. The chief tributaries of the Missouri are the Osage, Platte, Kansas, and Yellowstone; of the Ohio, the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Wabash. The whole extent of the navigable waters above the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi has been estimated at 23,000 miles, to which, if we add 12,000 for the Ohio, Arkansas, Red River, &c. and their branches, we shall have 35,000 miles of boat navigation in the basin of the Mississippi. To this we may add 10,000 miles more for the eastern section of the States, with 5000 for the lakes and their tributary streams, and 2000 for the River Columbia, making altogether 51,000 miles of river navigation, which is probably three times greater than all the rivers of Europe afford. Except in New England, Pennsylvania, and New York, the rivers of the United States flow over a surface which has rather a small declivity. Of the two sides of the great cen-

tral valley, the western in the steepest. The base of the Rocky mountains is computed to have an elevation of 3000 feet. That of the beds of the rivers, where they begin to be navigable, may be about 2000; and estimating their average length of course to the sea to be about 2500 miles, the mean fall will be about nine or ten inches per mile. The Mississippi Proper, at 2500 miles from the sea, has a height of 1330 feet, or a mean fall of six or seven inches per mile. The Ohio, at Pittsburgh, 2200 miles from the sea, has a height of 600 feet, or a mean fall of four inches. In the Amazon and the Ganges, from the point where they leave the mountains, and in the Wolga, from its source, the average rate of descent is from four to five inches per mile. In the middle and south of Europe, generally, the fall of the rivers is probably twice as great.*

The variety of cultivated plants in North America corresponds to the diversity of its climates. At one extremity, the sugar cane of the tropical regions thrives, and at the other, oats and barley, the staple crops of the Arctic regions, are leading articles of cultivation. The high summer heat, however, in all parts of the United States, makes some plants, which cannot be raised in England, succeed in the coldest districts of the north. Of this description is maize, or Indian corn, an indigenous American plant, which is cultivated from Maine to Louisiana. It is a vegetable in universal use in the United States, yields generally double the produce of wheat, and is adapted to a greater variety of situations. The maple tree, which grows in all the States, yields a juice from which sugar is made. Nearly ten millions of pounds of maple sugar were made in 1810. Wheat is raised from one extremity of the Union to the other, but succeeds best in the middle and western States, and in the uplands of the southern. The cultivation of tobacco begins in Maryland, about the parallel of 39° or 40°, and continues through all the southern States, and through those in the west, south of the Ohio. The climate favourable for cotton is not found farther north than about the latitude of 37°, though it can be raised as far north as 39° on both sides of the mountains. The best grows in South Carolina and Georgia, in dry situations upon the sea coast. The rice crops, which require a marshy soil, and a great heat, commence about the same parallel with cotton, and have nearly the same geographical range. The sugar cane grows in low and warm situations, as high as the latitude of 33°, but the climate favourable for its cultivation does not extend beyond 31½°. Oats, barley, hemp, and flax, succeed well, except in the low grounds of the southern States. The vine can be advantageously raised as far north as Pennsylvania. The olive, orange, lemon, and fig, are injured by the frost in South Carolina, but it is believed, that these trees, as well as the banana, will succeed in Florida.† The forest trees of the United States com-

* PHYSICAL GEOG. in this Supplement. Warden, I. 115. Mellish, 32. Major Long's Memoir in James's Expedition, with the Sectional Maps.

† Warden's Introduction, 27. II. 399. III. 222. Humboldt, Proleg. 156.

prise almost all the valuable and useful species of wood.

The United States contain about one-fourth of the known species of quadrupeds. Some are common to both continents, others are peculiar to the western. Comparing individuals of the same species, some are perfectly similar; between others there is some difference in size, colour, or other circumstances. In a few instances, the animal of the eastern continent is larger than the American; in most the reverse is the case. The following is a catalogue of the quadrupeds of the United States.

Nine-tenths of these animals yield a fur, which is used for dress or in manufactures. The bison, or wild ox (improperly called the buffalo), is, according to some American naturalists, of the same species with the common neat cattle of the United States, the difference being the effect of the domestication of the latter. Buffon, however, thinks otherwise. The bison is larger than the domestic ox, has a fleshy or grisly substance extending along his shoulders and back, and has on his neck and shoulders a woolly hair, which admits of being spun or wrought into hats. The moose-deer, now rare, is a gigantic animal, one variety sometimes reaching the height of 12 feet. The caribou is probably the reindeer of Scandinavia. The bear is of two species. The short-legged lives chiefly on vegetable food, and is probably not carnivorous. He dozes away the winter in a torpid state, sucking his paws, and expending the fat he had previously acquired. The ranging bear is larger, but more lean. He destroys calves, sheep, pigs, and sometimes children, and in winter migrates southward. The wolf, like the bear, is found in all the States. It is a voracious animal, stealing into sheepfolds at night, attacking deer, hogs, and small cattle, and sometimes hunting in packs. The catamount is of the size of a large dog, and extremely ferocious, but it is rarely seen. The spotted tiger is scarcely seen, except near

Louisiana. It is from five to six feet long. The cougar or American panther is about the same size, but more common. It destroys sheep, calves, and hogs, and, when hungry, will attack large cattle. The urchin differs in several respects from the European hedgehog. The lion, leopard, striped or true tiger, hyena, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, camelopard, are unknown in the New World. The horse, the ass, the sheep, the goat, the hog, and the camel, did not originally exist there, but have been naturalized. The latter, however, are not numerous, and have never been introduced into the United States. Of the birds and reptiles our limits will not allow us to speak in detail. The eagle, pheasant, grouse, partridge, swan, Canadian goose, ptarmigan, are less or more numerous. In general, the small birds of America surpass those of Europe in the beauty of their plumage; but are much inferior to them in the melody of their notes. Among the reptiles, the most remarkable is the alligator or American crocodile, from 12 to 23 feet long, very strong and active. Of serpents, the rattlesnake, from four to six feet long, is the most formidable.*

Perhaps no single circumstance connected with the United States has attracted so much attention as the rapid growth of their population. Philosophers had shown, from the laws which govern propagation, that the human species might double its numbers in a short period. But this was only known as a speculative truth, applicable, it was supposed, to small tribes under extraordinary circumstances, but not to a great nation of many millions. The Spanish colonies, planted a hundred years earlier than the United States, should have made this principle familiar to the world long ago, but ignorance and misgovernment, intercepting the bounty of nature, inflicted all the vices and evils of old societies upon these colonies, and a jealous policy threw a veil of secrecy over their condition.

The first European emigrants settled in the United States in 1607. From that period, colonists continued to flock to the country in small parties or large bodies. The last new settlement on a considerable scale was in 1733, when, by means of a grant of £10,000 from Parliament, and various sums raised by private contributions, 618 persons were sent out from England to Georgia.† The growth of the colonies was rapid and obvious; but much more of it was probably attributed to the influx of settlers from the mother country than was consistent with the truth. No accurate enumeration of the inhabitants was made till the first census was taken in 1790. That for the year 1753, in Marshall's Life of Washington, is undoubtedly erroneous. The ratio of increase being ascertained by the four separate enumerations, and having continued remarkably uniform for forty years, we can now, by calculating backwards, obtain results more deserving of confidence than the rude guesses made from uncertain

* Morse, Vol. I. p. 263, &c. Warden, Chap. 6. Buffon's Quadrupeds, Vol. II. London edit. 1775.
† For an account of this and the earlier settlements, the reader may consult the History of the British Empire in America, 2 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1741.

United States. data. The period of doubling at present is 24½ years; but, taking it at 25 years, and reckoning backwards from 1790, we find the population at the under mentioned periods would be,—

Beyond the last mentioned period we cannot, for

obvious reasons, carry our calculation. If we suppose 1000 settlers to have come from Europe annually for the first 33 years, these, by natural multiplication, would amount to about 60,000 at the time alluded to, that is, in 1640. The following Table, constructed from documents afforded by Seybert and Mellish, with several new calculations, gives an interesting view of the progressive changes in the different states, and in the two great classes of the population.

It will be observed from this table, that the rate of increase is very unequal for the different sections of the Union. The older states of Connecticut and Massachusetts have only added one-fifth to their population, in the same period in which the new states of Kentucky and Ohio have quadrupled theirs. The reason obviously is, that the more densely peopled parts of the Union, and, in particular, New England, serve as a nursery to the new states, to which they are continually sending out large draughts of emigrants. There is thus a constant stream of population pouring across the Alle-

ghanies, from the east side to the west, to occupy the vast plain of the Mississippi; and by this gradual generation of a mighty people, as it were from a central stock, a uniformity of language, manners, and institutions, is diffused over the whole, which will cement their union, in spite of local diversities of interest, and which promises to make the countless millions, who will by and by cover North America, from sea to sea, more truly one people than the inhabitants of Austria, Prussia, France, Spain, or Britain, are at this day.

If we calculate prospectively from the present rate

of increase, assuming that it will continue permanent for some time, the population, at the under mentioned periods, will be,

Before this last result is realized, some retardation will probably take place in the rate of increase. But even were the vast population alluded to in existence, the average density for the whole territory would not be greater than it is at this day in Massachusetts, and only half as great as in Italy, France, and the British Isles.

The rapid growth of the population in America becomes much more striking when we contrast it with the scarcely perceptible progress of communities in the Old World. France, which had 19,094,000 inhabitants in 1700, according to the enumeration of Marshal Vauban, had 26,363,000 in 1791. Now, according to the rate of increase which this indicates, that country would have doubled its population in 195 years; but the population of the United States in the same period would have increased to 220 times its first amount. The following table, which we have calculated from the best data to be obtained, shows the comparative rate of increase in different countries.

Slavery is nearly extinguished in all the New England States, and is hastening to its extinction in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. In Ohio it does not exist. In Indiana and Illinois it will soon cease. In Maryland, though there has been a small absolute increase in the slave population, their number, compared with that of the whites, has diminished. In two important circumstances there is a wide difference between slavery as it exists in North America, and in the West Indies. In the former, the number of slaves nowhere equals that of the free inhabitants, except in South Carolina, where there is a trifling excess of the former,—and in the States where slavery exists, taken altogether (excluding those northward of Kentucky and Delaware), the blacks form only one-third of the population. But in the West India Islands, the blacks are ten, or sometimes twenty times more numerous than the whites.* In the second place, it is well known that the slaves in the West Indies continually decrease, and would speedily die out, unless kept up by new importations; but, in the United States, they double

their numbers in 29½ years, without any importation whatever. It may be safely said, that the superior humanity of the Americans in the treatment of the blacks is the greatest obstacle to that abolition of slavery which they so ardently wish to accomplish, and that, were their slaves worked and fed like those in the West Indies, the race of blacks, instead of multiplying tenfold in the course of one century, would be entirely extinguished. The existence of slavery is a bequest from Britain; it is not the crime of the Americans, but their misfortune. It is an evil which they deplore, and of which they would gladly rid themselves if they knew how. The difficulty is, how to dispose of the slaves, whom many would be willing to manumit. The plan of carrying them back to a colony on the African coast seems absolutely chimerical; and the strong distinction of colour, with the rooted prejudices of the whites, form an insuperable bar to such an amalgamation of the two races as took place when the serfs of Western Europe were incorporated with the freemen in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Time alone promises a certain alleviation of the evil, though not an absolute cure. If we separate the white and black races, the former double their numbers in 23½ years, and the latter in 29½, a difference apparently trifling, but which produces important results, if we reckon forwards. Supposing the ratio of increase to remain steady, in 118 years the slaves will have multiplied to 16 times, and the whites to 32 times their present numbers. And in this period, the relative proportions of the two races would be so changed, that the slaves, who form at present $\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$ of the population, would then form only $\backslash frac\{1\}\{8\}$ or $\backslash frac\{1\}\{16\}$th. If we add the free blacks, indeed, the increase is more rapid than here assumed, but we throw these out as a compensation for the mulatto or mixed race, who are the progeny, not of blacks alone, but of blacks and whites, and a large part of whom must ultimately melt into the mass of the white population.

In France and England, and probably in Europe at large, the females exceed the males by 2 or 3 per cent.; but, in the United States generally, the males exceed the females by nearly 4 per cent. In the newest States, the excess is as high as 19 per cent. (Seybert, p. 42.) The difference is still more striking in what relates to ages. In the United States, children form a much greater, and aged persons a much smaller, proportion of the population than in Europe. In Sweden, according to Wargent's Tables, the persons under the age of 16 form 36 per cent. of the population; in Britain, according to the last census, 40, and in the United States 50 per cent. The persons aged above 45 form 22 per cent. of the whole population in Sweden, 18 per cent. in Britain, and 12 per cent. in the United States. This peculiarity arises from the rapidly progressive state of the population. Since the inhabitants of the United States quadruple their numbers in 50 years, a person born half a century ago belongs by his birth to a society of two millions and a half of persons, but now lives in a society of ten millions, which will fur-

* Colquhoun's Wealth, Power, and Resources of the British Empire, p. 40.

nish four times as many old men to a future and equidistant period. The annual amount of immigration (to borrow an American word) is very variable, and its effects have been greatly overrated. The whole number of passengers who arrived, in 1817, at the ten principal ports, was 22,240, including citizens and persons on business who did not mean to remain in the country. In 1816, it was estimated at 20,000; in 1818 and 1819, at 28,000 each, not more than one-half of whom, very probably, were strangers come to settle. In 1820, the true number of immigrants, according to the National Calendar, was 7001, of whom 5042 were males, consisting of 997 agricultural persons, 1461 commercial, 1407 manufacturers, artisans, &c. Dr Seybert thinks the average number of foreigners who come to settle in the United States does not exceed 6000 per annum; but assuming it to be 8000 or 9000, this is only from $\backslash frac\{1\}\{30\}$ to $\backslash frac\{1\}\{35\}$ of the whole annual increment, which must amount to 290,000 persons to make the population double in 24½ years.*

This rapid increase does not greatly affect the rate of the annual mortality, which is proportionally rather greater among the persons under 25 than among those of all ages. In the absence of proper data for ascertaining the annual mortality of the whole country, or of any single state, we can only refer to a single fact. The average number of deaths in Philadelphia, for eight years (1807 to 1814), was found to be about $\backslash frac\{1\}\{3\}$ of the contemporaneous population. (Seybert, p. 50.) In Birmingham, in the ten years ending 1811, it was about $\backslash frac\{1\}\{30\}$, in London $\backslash frac\{1\}\{11\}$, and in all England, including the army and navy, about $\backslash frac\{1\}\{24\}$ or $\backslash frac\{1\}\{25\}$. (Milne's Annuities, p. 456.) This single fact, therefore, so far as it goes, bears testimony to the salubrity of the climate, and to the comfortable condition of the inhabitants of the United States.

The active population in the United States is proportionally greater, and the idle population less than in any other country. They have few public functionaries, preachers, or annuitants, and a very small army and navy. According to a table which will be found farther on, the active population amounts to 27 per cent. of the whole, or 2 per cent. more than the number of males above the age of 16. The proportions employed in agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, according to the census of 1820 were,—

But the number assigned to commerce evidently does not include mariners, or includes only those who resided on shore at the time the census was taken. For the sake of comparison, we give the general result of the British returns for 1811, re-

marking, however, that the two classifications are not constructed on the same plan, the second head in our arrangement corresponding to the second and third in the American.

The situation of the labouring classes in the United States is confessedly far superior to that of the same description of persons in any other part of the world. Wages are so high, compared with the price of provisions, that an American labourer, who should live exactly as labourers live in other countries, might always save the half of his earnings. The average wages of a labourer were estimated at 75 cents a day by Mr Blodget, and more recently at 80 cents by Mr Niles, wheat being 1½ dollar per bushel. (Warden, Introduction.) In such circumstances, a very moderate degree of industry suffices to place a man above want, and pauperism can only be the lot of those who are debilitated by old age or disease. Accordingly, it is a proud distinction for North America, that this moral deformity, except so far as it is the consequence of natural and unavoidable misfortunes, is almost unknown within her borders. It is not there as in the old countries of Europe, where a person, who is able to provide comfortably for his own wants, has still his feelings exposed to daily laceration from the sight of multitudes of miserable beings, who exhibit human nature in its most loathsome and degraded state, and whose wretchedness it is beyond his power to relieve. It is Rochefoucault, we think, who remarks, that he had seen only one beggar in the United States. Mendicity does exist, but except in the large cities where foreigners are often found in a state of destitution, it rarely obtrudes itself on the eye, and may be said generally to be as rare in that country as it is abundant every where else. In Europe, the paupers have been supposed, on a rough calculation, to amount to one-twentieth part of the population. In the United States, they were estimated by Mr Niles, some years ago, at one person in 250 on the Atlantic coast, and one in 350 in the interior. But, in times of great public calamity, the proportion is much higher. In the New England States, and in some of the others, though not the whole, each parish is obliged to provide for the support of its own poor, according to the humane spirit of the English laws. (Morse, Vol. I. 293. Warden, passim.)

The North American Union comprehends at present twenty-four distinct States, each governed by its own constitution; three territories, in which civil governments are established, without constitutions;† and

* Seybert, p. 28. Carey's Essay on Political Economy, 1822, p. 453, 467. Nile's Register.

† A territory becomes a state when its inhabitants, amounting to not less than 60,000 persons, have met and formed a constitution. Previous to this, they are placed under the civil authority of a governor, appointed by the President and Congress.

three other territories, which are yet unoccupied by a civilized population. To these we must add the district of Columbia, comprising a space of ten miles square round Washington, which is placed under the exclusive authority of that Federal Government.

The following Table gives a view of the extent, population, and representation of each State, and of the proportion of its inhabitants engaged respectively in agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, according to the census of 1820.

The thirteen original States which concurred in the declaration of independence on the 4th July 1776, were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia. Vermont was then an appendage to New York, and Maine to Massachusetts. The extent of the several States is very unequal. Rhode Island and Delaware are specks in the map, rather smaller than Devonshire or Perthshire. New York, Pennsylvania, and the New States generally, are each larger than Ireland or Scotland; while Virginia, Georgia, Missouri, and Illinois, severally exceed England in extent. The density of the population varies from one person per square mile to

67. It diminishes pretty regularly in every direction as we recede from Massachusetts, and in that State, where it is greatest, it rather exceeds that of Spain, or Poland, or Europe, taken altogether. The mean density for all the States east of the Mississippi, and including Louisiana, is 13 persons to the square mile, which rather exceeds that of Sweden and Norway.

Some writers, who derive their political ideas from the old institutions of Europe, disapprove strongly of the division into states, with distinct local governments. But this arrangement, though originally the effect of accident, is admirably adapted to the circumstances of the country, and deserves to rank as an improvement in the science of legislation. It is

the only system by which the great advantages of union could be combined, in such a gigantic empire, with a due attention to the separate interests of all the parts. The federal compact, by preserving peace and friendship among states that would otherwise be rivals and enemies, exempts them from the scourge of frequent wars, gives unbounded freedom to their internal trade, and, while it enables them to dispense with that sort of strong government which is scarcely compatible with liberty, it gives them an aggregate strength, which secures them against external attacks. On the other hand, each separate district, acting by its own legislature, is invested with the entire regulation of its local concerns, which can never be entrusted to others without the certainty of mismanagement. No single legislative body, even were its sessions perpetual, could properly conduct the local business of such an empire as that now forming in North America. In our own Parliament, it is notorious, that, from the multiplicity of business transacted, the general style of legislation is most slovenly, and bills of all kinds, but especially local bills, are often grossly mismanaged. How great an impediment is it felt to be to the redress of grievances, or the promotion of improvements, in the remote parts of Scotland and Ireland, that witnesses, parties, and agents, must be carried six or seven hundred miles at a vast expence, and that, when at the seat of legislation, their success must greatly depend on the votes of persons who either understand their business imperfectly or not at all, and who are only prevailed upon to bestow a slight attention upon it by private solicitation. The division into states supplies the only remedy to this great evil. It encourages local improvements by uniting those whose situation gives them a community of interest as to certain objects. It lessens corruption in the general government, by subdividing patronage. In times of public frenzy, it multiplies the securities against the persecution of individuals, because such persons will always find protectors in some one of the state governments. It has, indeed, one disadvantage; the state legislatures may become the strong-holds of faction, as exemplified in Massachusetts during the last war. But, as the number of States increases, the weight of each in the confederacy, and its power to disturb the union is diminished. Even out of this danger a security arises against another. The existence of the separate state governments forms a strong barrier against despotism, because it creates so many distinct centres of power, from which resistance might be made, if a military tyrant should master the general government, as Cromwell mastered that of England, and Bonaparte that of France. Some inconvenience, no doubt, arises from the unavoidable diversity of laws in such an aggregation of republics; but the evil is not much felt or complained of practically, and it is the necessary concomitant of a union producing boundless advantages. An iron despotism may subject all its slaves to the same laws without regard to the dis-

tinctions of climate, character, or situation; but free-men will not associate voluntarily on such a principle. Liberty consists, not in being governed by the laws that are absolutely best, but by those which are deemed best by the people who obey them. No wise and liberal statesman will hold it necessary that the fishermen of Massachusetts, the husbandmen of Pennsylvania, and the sugar planters of Louisiana, should live under one perfectly uniform system of jurisprudence. Such a uniformity could not be enforced without rending asunder the union. And let it be recollected, that the diversity of laws, such as it exists, is much less than it would be if the federal compact were dissolved, and the several States entirely independent. In short, if it is possible by any device to reconcile freedom with extensive empire; to unite all the parts of a vast continent together in the bonds of peace and commercial intercourse; and yet not to trench materially on the natural rights of each part, or the free use of its natural powers and advantages; it must be by a federative system similar in its essential characters to that of the United States. The experiment is by far the most interesting that has ever been made in the science of legislation, and the steadiness and success with which it has hitherto proceeded opens up the most encouraging prospects as to the future destiny of mankind.

The federal government, of which we shall speak afterwards, possesses merely those specific powers which are vested in it by the Constitution. All other powers and rights remain with the state governments, in whom the sovereignty essentially resides. The territory of each state is not the territory of the Union, but of that particular State. The people and militia are the people and militia of the several States, not of the Union. Lands are held under the laws of the States; descents, contracts, and all the concerns of private property, the administration of justice, and the whole criminal code, except in the case of breaches of the laws of the federal body, are regulated by state laws.* All the twenty-four States have written constitutions, formed subsequently to the Revolution, except Rhode Island, which is still governed by the charter granted by Charles II. in 1663. These constitutions are purely republican, though the right of suffrage (for the term franchise is inapplicable and odious where voting is a general right, not a special privilege) is restricted in one or two States, and unequally divided in one or two others. In every one of the States the legislature consists of two chambers, both chosen by direct popular election, except in Maryland, where the senators are chosen by delegates. In nineteen States out of the twenty-four, the representatives (or members of the Lower House, according to our phraseology) are elected annually, and in five triennially, viz. in South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Illinois, and Missouri. The period of service in the senates (or Upper Houses) varies from one to four years, except in Maryland, where it is five: in some cases one-third

* Views of the President of the United States on the subject of Internal Improvements, laid before Congress, 4th May 1822.

or one-fourth, in others one-half of the members are renewed every year; in others, one-half every two years. In some of the States the right of suffrage was formerly limited to freeholders or corporations, but by amendments in most of the old constitutions, these odious and really impolitic restrictions have been abolished; and the right of suffrage, though variously defined in the different States, is substantially universal in them all, except in New Jersey and Virginia. In these two States, the possession of a small amount of property still constitutes the citizen's title to vote. In many of the States there are certain qualifications prescribed for the persons elected. A senator must, in general, be a freeholder, and not under 30 years of age; a representative not under 25. The governors act, in some cases with, in others without a council, and hold their offices, some for one year, some for two, some for three, but none for more than four years. In all the constitutions recently framed an express provision is introduced for adopting amendments. The rule generally is, that if any alteration is judged necessary and approved of by two successive legislatures, it may then be submitted to the people, who appoint a special convention to decide upon it. In some cases it is provided that a convention shall meet periodically to revise the constitution. The existing legislature is always considered as exercising a trust, in the terms of which it has no power to make the smallest change. By this principle, legislation is founded on a clear and rational basis. It gives stability to institutions that might otherwise be the foot-ball of domineering factions; it checks the growth of sinister interests, and, while it affords a safe and easy remedy for grievances, it is so far from being an inlet to rash innovations, that it is the best guarantee against them; as the history of the United States demonstrates. To suffer those who exercise the supreme power of a country to change at pleasure the conditions by which they hold it, is equally as absurd as to suffer the judge to make the laws he administers, or the steward to fix the terms of the engagement which invests him with the management of an estate. Under such a system, the steward unavoidably becomes a peculator, the judge a tyrant, and the legislature a junta of conspirators against the public weal.

The agriculture of the United States varies according to the climate, soil, and situation, of the several divisions of the country; but, taken altogether, it differs materially from that of Britain,—in the nature of the productions cultivated, in the condition of those who are engaged in it, and in the general principles by which it is conducted. Besides our staple productions, wheat, barley, oats, pease, beans, turnips, and potatoes, the soil of the United States yields rice, Indian corn, indigo, cotton, sugar, tobacco, the vine; and Florida will probably add to these the olive and the banana, which scarcely succeed in the other States. The staple produce of New England is Indian corn; that of the middle States, wheat and tobacco; that of the southern, cotton, rice, and, to a limited extent, sugar. Dr Morse indicates the proportional quantity of each species of produce raised, by naming them in the following order, the greatest be-

ing first: In New England, Indian corn, grass, rye, oats, flax, wheat, buck-wheat, barley, and hemp; in the middle States, wheat, Indian corn, tobacco, grass, oats, buck-wheat, flax, barley, potatoes, spelts, rye; in the southern States, cotton, wheat, tobacco, Indian corn, rice, indigo (formerly), barley, and hemp. The western States, along the Ohio, correspond in their productions to the middle States, on the Atlantic. Good soils, carefully cultivated, in the United States, yield 100 bushels of Indian corn, or 50 of wheat per acre. But the average produce of the cultivated land in Ohio and Kentucky, districts not inferior in soil to any in the Union, is estimated as follows: maize 40 bushels per acre, wheat 22, rye 26, oats 35, barley 30, tobacco 12 to 15 cwt., cotton 5 to 7 cwt. in the seed, or from 150 to 200 pounds cleaned. (James, Vol. III. p. 199.) An acre sown in rice yields from 1200 to 1500 pounds on what are called tide lands, and from 600 to 1200 on inland plantations. An acre planted in canes yields about 1000 or 1200 pounds of sugar, with an equal quantity of molasses. The necessity of renewing the canes annually by planting, in consequence of the winter's frost, renders the cultivation less advantageous than in the West Indies. In 1817, however, it was calculated that 20,000,000 of pounds of sugar were made in Louisiana alone, which was estimated to be about $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ of the whole annual consumption of the United States. (Warden, II. p. 483, 541. Morse, I. p. 668.)

The rural population of the United States presents an extraordinary contrast in its constituent parts to that of every country in Europe. The class of extensive proprietors living on their rents, and the class of peasants living merely by their labour, are almost equally unknown. The great bulk of the inhabitants consists of farmers, who are the owners of the lands they occupy, and the greater proportion of whom work with their own hands. "The number of those who are mere labourers," says Dwight, "is almost nothing, except in a few populous towns, and almost all these are collected from the shiftless, the idle, and the vicious. A great part of them are foreigners. Every young man hired to work upon a farm aims steadily to acquire a farm for himself, and hardly once fails of the acquisition." (Dwight's Travels, Vol. IV. p. 335.) Except in some few spots near large towns, there is scarcely any land rented. The price is generally so low, that a small addition to the sum necessary for stocking a farm suffices to purchase it; and even where the value is higher, an individual who has money enough to stock a large farm will prefer buying one of half the size. Of the State of New York, only one-fifth, and of the whole inhabited country east of the Mississippi (excluding Michigan and Florida), only about one-tenth part is yet cleared and cultivated. Of course, the best soils are first used, and, till population thickens and produce rises, soils of the second and third quality will not repay the expence of culture; and as a necessary consequence, those of the first quality yield no rent. The farms occupied by the owners are seldom large, because, where wages are high, agriculture cannot be advantageously conducted on an extensive scale; and the large property in land occasionally acquired by an individual is soon broken up by division among

his children. Thus situated, the rural population certainly enjoy a greater share of happiness in the United States than in any other country in the world. They are exempted from the fluctuations incident to the commercial and manufacturing classes; they feel none of the evils of dependence, and are far above want; without possessing that wealth which engenders idleness and vanity, and often becomes a snare to its possessor. They have the means of settling their families well, without making great sacrifices; they live in the enjoyment of all the substantial comforts of life, and can look forward to old age with less anxiety and apprehension than any class of men in any other country.

The system of agriculture is necessarily less perfect in the United States than in Britain. Where prime soils can be had for almost nothing, where the price of labour is high, and that of produce low, the elaborate and costly modes of cultivation adopted in Britain cannot be advantageously applied. Some English farmers, who have gone out to America with an impression that large gains might be made by introducing our improved system of husbandry, have found themselves disappointed. Something the Americans may learn from us; but, till the country is more densely peopled, it will be more profitable to cultivate a large surface rudely than a small one laboriously. In the middle and eastern States, however, where produce brings a considerable price, farming is carried on with care and skill. In Pennsylvania, which holds the first rank as an agricultural state, in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Jersey, agricultural societies exist, and much attention is paid to the cultivation of the indigenous grasses and to the use of manures. Grazing is well understood in New England, where it is considered the most profitable species of farming. Much care has been bestowed on the breeding of sheep, and Merinos are now spread over all the northern, middle, and western States.

Hutchins reckoned that $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ths of the land east of the Mississippi was covered with a strong fertile soil. The remaining $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ths were occupied by lakes and rivers, or consisted of land too poor or too steep for cultivation. In 1811, Mr Blodget estimated the land under "actual improvement" to be 40,950,000 acres, or 5$\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ acres for each inhabitant, a proportion which is found to be near the truth. In 1798, when a census was taken for the imposition of a tax, the quantity of land valued and taxed in sixteen States was one hundred and sixty-three millions of acres out of three hundred and eight millions, the estimated value of which was four hundred and seventy-nine millions of dollars. The value per acre varied widely. In Connecticut it was fifteen dollars per acre, in Pennsylvania six, in Georgia three-fourths; but the average for the whole was about three dollars. The value of the houses was estimated at a hundred and forty millions of dollars, or two-sevenths of that of the land. When new returns were procured in 1814, the value of lands and houses conjointly had risen from six hundred and twenty to one thousand six hundred and thirty millions of dollars. From these two documents, which afford a curious view of the state and growth of property in the republic, we find

that, in the sixteen States organized, in 1798, rather more than one-half of the surface was the property of individuals. In the old States, such as Massachusetts and Connecticut, the appropriated land embraced nearly the whole surface; in New York, it embraced about four-sevenths, in Georgia one-third. The number of acres appropriated for each individual of the population was about thirty, of which five and one-half or six acres were cleared or "improved." The estimated value of the houses and lands was at the rate of 125 dollars for each individual of the contemporaneous population in 1798, but had risen to 200 dollars in 1814. Supposing every other species of property to have grown as rapidly, the rate of increase would be about 6$\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ per cent. per annum, and the capital of the country must double itself in 11$\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ years, or it increases twice as rapidly as the population. With a stationary population, the rate of increase would be 5, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ per cent., and the period of doubling 13$\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ years. We have no similar data for other countries to found a comparison on, but we are certain that such a velocity of accumulation is unknown anywhere else.

The value of houses, lands, and slaves, in 1814, was, according to the returns, 1902 millions of dollars. If we add one-eighth for omissions and under estimates, and for Louisiana, which was not included, with 50 millions for state lands, and two-thirds additional for all other species of property (this being nearly the proportion in Colquhoun's estimate for Britain); namely, agricultural stock, manufactured goods on hand or in progress, ships, harbours, canals, roads, public buildings, &c.—the whole will be 3550 millions of dollars, equal to 780 millions Sterling, or about L. 95 for each individual of the contemporaneous population. Colquhoun's estimate for Britain was 2700 millions Sterling, or L. 150 for each inhabitant. This gross amount, increasing at the rate of 6 per cent. would become 1400 millions Sterling in 1824, and the annual increment, or the value added to the national capital every year, should be about 80 millions Sterling. The whole annual produce of the national industry, which affords a saving of 80 millions, cannot be less than four times as much, or 320 millions, that is, L. 32 per head on the population. Colquhoun's estimate for the British Isles in 1812, was 430 millions, or L. 24 per head on the population. (Colquhoun, p. 55, 65.) These calculations are founded on the returns taken as they stand. It is probable, however, that the second census would be more accurately taken than the first, and that the growth of the national capital is not quite so great as it appears.

The large profits which farming yields, and the high price of labour, are discouragements to manufacturing industry in the United States. The arts in which they have made the greatest progress, are cabinet and coach making, shoemaking, steam-boat and ship building, the construction of mill machinery and wooden bridges, and bank-note engraving. Piano-fortes are respectably made. The saw gin for cleaning cotton from the husks, and the nail-making machine, are American inventions. The woollen manufacture is almost entirely domestic, being carried on in the houses of the farmers; but the cotton manufac-

ture is partly conducted in large works. This last, as well as several other manufactures, received a great stimulus during the late war with Britain, but they have declined since the peace, though a few of the works then established are still carried on with advantage. It was computed by a Committee of Congress, that the cotton manufactures, which consumed only 10,000 bales of the raw material in 1810, consumed 90,000 in 1815; employed 100,000 hands (10,000 men, 66,000 women and girls, 24,000 boys), and produced 81,000,000 yards of cloth, valued at 24 millions of dollars. The value of the woollen manufacture was estimated at 19 millions of dollars, and was supposed to employ 50,000 hands constantly, and as many more occasionally. (Reports of 13th February and 6th March 1816.) According to the returns made in the census of 1810, the whole annual value of the manufactures of the United States was 127,694,602 dollars. But Mr Tenche Coxe calculated, that, making allowance for articles omitted or under-estimated, the true value would not be less than 172,700,000 dollars (L. 37,500,000.) If the increase in this branch of industry has kept pace with the growth of the population, it should now amount to 240 millions (L. 52,000,000.) But the value of the manufactured goods imported in 1821 was only 32 millions of dollars, and deducting five millions re-exported, the quantity which remains for home consumption is only 27 millions, or one-ninth part of the whole. It is against this small fraction of the annual consumption that such an outcry is made; and that the Americans, borrowing our exploded maxims, are fencing themselves by such an apparatus of protecting duties, prohibitions, and restrictions. For the purpose of comparison we may mention, that Chaptal estimated the annual value of the French manufactures, in 1820, at L. 72,800,000, which is probably a good deal under the truth; and that Colquhoun estimated that of the British manufactures at L. 116,000,000 in 1812, exclusive of the raw material. Of the manufactures returned in the census of 1810, valued at 127,694,602 dollars, the following were the most considerable:

Goods manufactured by the loom 39,500,000 dollars.
Machinery of various kinds.....6,100,000
Hats .....4,300,000
Iron manufactures.....14,360,000
Leather .....17,900,000
Distilled and fermented liquors...16,530,000
Wooden articles .....5,540,000

According to the returns, there were 153 iron furnaces, 34 rolling and slitting mills, 325,392 looms, 122,647 spindles for yarn, 141,191 distilleries, producing 22,977,167 gallons of spirits from grain, and 2,827,625 from molasses, 132 breweries, 208 gunpowder mills. Nearly one-fourth of the manufactures were in Pennsylvania; Massachusetts ranks next, then New York, Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut, North Carolina, New Jersey, Vermont, Ken-

tucky. It may be remarked, that the effect of the high price of labour in discouraging manufactures is counteracted by three circumstances. 1. The United States being far distant from Europe, the expence of freight, and still more that of inland carriage, makes a material addition to the prime cost of all bulky or heavy articles. 2. As the use of machinery comes to be substituted more and more for manual labour, the disadvantage of high wages gradually vanishes; and the Americans, who possess great mechanical genius, have the means of procuring steam and water power to an unlimited extent. 3. The American women prefer working in factories to domestic service, which they consider degrading; and hence female labourers are not scarce, and may be procured at moderate wages.*

The commerce of the United States has made Commerce much greater progress than their manufactures. The wars and convulsions of Europe, consequent on the French Revolution, threw a great proportion of the general carrying trade into their hands; and in the interval, from 1790 to 1807, their exports increased from 20 millions to 108 millions of dollars. But the Berlin Decrees and the British Orders in Council gave a sudden check to this growing prosperity, and the foreign trade of the United States has never since reached so great a height. The following table shows the amount of exports, distinguishing foreign from domestic produce, from 1800 to 1821:

The imports have not been regularly published. For 1821, they amounted to 62,585,724 dollars in

value, from which deducting bullion and articles re-exported, there remain for domestic consumption 43,696,405, of which the leading articles were,—

The imports and exports were chiefly from the following countries:

The following table (from Carey and Lea's Atlas) shows the tonnage of each State, and of the whole Union, in 1821:

It will be seen from these tables, that since the peace, foreign produce or manufactures constitute about one-fourth, and domestic three-fourths of the exports. The leading articles are raw produce. Cotton forms about 46 per cent. of the domestic exports; wheat, Indian corn, and other breadstuffs, 15 per cent.; tobacco, 13 per cent.; lumber, bark, &c, 6 per cent.; horses, beef, &c. 5 per cent. The leading imports are the fine products of the loom in wool, cotton, silk, linen, or articles not raised in the country, such as tea, coffee, sugar, wine. In hemp, iron, and leather, the imports are small. About four tenths of the whole imports come from Britain, and only about one-tenth from France.

The internal and coasting trade of the United States has increased more rapidly than their foreign commerce, and is undoubtedly far greater than that of any other state with an equal population. The enrolled and licensed tonnage, which was only 184,000 tons in 1795, had risen to 588,000 in 1821. It is now equal to the registered tonnage, of which it formed only one-third in 1795, and it has more than tripled in the period in which the population has doubled. The Hudson, which is the great channel of inland trade, for districts containing nearly two millions of inhabitants, has, according to Palmer and other recent travellers, 2000 sloops and schooners plying upon it,—a greater number than belonged to all Scotland in 1810. The Delaware, Susquehannah, Potowmac, and other large rivers farther south, are all the scene of an active and growing traffic. The majestic Mississippi, though it does not yet rival the Hudson, must in time far surpass it. The invention of steam-vessels has done for the navigation of rivers what the invention of sails did for that of the ocean. The United States had the honour of introducing this admirable improvement; and they make a more extensive use of it than any other country in the world. In the evidence given by Mr Perkins of New York before a Committee of Parliament in 1822, he stated there were about 300 steam-boats employed in the United States, and of these about one-half used high pressure engines. On the Mississippi alone, according to a recent American paper, there were 78 in 1823, measuring 14,338 tons, or about 184 tons on average.

The great facilities for inland navigation which nature has bestowed on the United States, have been improved by art; and considering the sparseness of the population, the number of canals which have already been formed is truly surprising. The Middlesex Canal, in Massachusetts, completed many years ago, is 31 miles long and four feet deep, and cost 700,000 dollars. The Lake Champlain Canal, which joins the Hudson at Fort Edward, is 22 miles long, and four feet deep, and was to be finished in 1823. A canal, 22 miles long, connects Chesapeake Bay with Albemarle Sound. Another of the same length joins Santee and Cooper Rivers in South Carolina. Besides these, ten or twelve canals, from one mile long to seven or eight, either finished or in progress, are enumerated by American writers. Many others are projected, among which are one of 28 and another of 22 miles in length, to connect the Raritan and Delaware rivers with Chesapeake Bay. If these were completed, an uninterrupted inland navigation

would exist for nearly 500 miles, from New York to Pamlico Sound. But the greatest work of the kind in the United States, and perhaps in the world, is the Great Canal which unites the Hudson with Lake Erie. It begins in the neighbourhood of Albany, passes along the course of the Mohawk River to Rome, then proceeds westward, keeping at a variable distance of 10, 15, or 20 miles from Lake Ontario, and terminates in Lake Erie at Black Rock, a mile from Buffalo. It is 362 miles long, 40 feet wide at top, 28 at bottom, and four in depth. Its termination in Lake Erie is 554 feet above its origin in the Hudson; but the aggregate rise and fall is 654 feet, and is effected by 81 locks. The canal, which is the property of the State, was begun in 1817, and finished in 1823, except about 30 miles, which will be completed in 1824. It is believed the whole expense will rather fall short of the estimate, which was five millions of dollars (L. 1,100,000). The freight is about a dollar per ton, each 100 miles, to which is to be added tolls at the following rates: for salt and gypsum 50 cents—grain, flour, &c. 150 cents—and merchandise, 300 cents per ton for each 100 miles. This great undertaking, almost equaling in magnitude, and far surpassing in utility, the most magnificent works of Imperial Rome,—executed by a State with a million and a quarter of inhabitants, affords a gratifying proof of the energy and enterprise generated by free institutions.

No country has suffered so much from the mania for banking, or been so deluged with depreciated and worthless paper money, as the United States. There were 400 banks in existence in 1819, three-fourths of which probably had only fictitious capital. They were got up generally by knots of speculating tradesmen and lawyers, often without depositing a dollar beyond what was necessary to pay for paper and engraving. Even the respectable banks issue notes for a single dollar; but in the western country, where these establishments were on the worst footing, notes were issued for a half, a quarter, an eighth, and even a sixteenth of a dollar! The immense mass of worthless paper money they put into circulation created a transient and hollow prosperity, which was followed by a degree of embarrassment and distress that had almost the character of a general bankruptcy. The paper bubbles burst, one after another, with extraordinary celerity, and involved multitudes in ruin. Of a hundred banks in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana, there were only two whose notes were received at the land offices. In some of these States acts were passed by the legislature suspending legal proceedings to compel payment of debts. It may be imagined what an extraordinary derangement was produced in the state of property, when the circulating medium was reduced in three years (1815 to 1819) from 110 to 45 millions of dollars.*

The United States present the singular spectacle of a government supported without internal taxes. The public revenue is derived entirely from the customs and the sale of public lands; for the post-office

merely defrays its own expence, and the sums that stand in their accounts as bank dividends, are but the produce of money previously invested. Small imposts, indeed, are levied for the support of the state governments, but these on an average probably do not exceed one dollar for each inhabitant, or ten million of dollars for the whole Union. The public revenue of the federal government amounted to 14,264,000 dollars in 1821, and to 20,232,427 for 1822. For 1823 they were estimated at 20,444,035 dollars, and for 1824 at 18,550,000, composed of the following items—

The estimated expenditure for 1824 was—

The public debt, which amounted to 123,630,000 of dollars in 1816, was reduced to 90,177,962 dollars (L. 19,800,000 Sterling) at the 1st January 1824; one-fourth of the whole having been paid off in the intervening eight years. A farther reduction of ten millions will, it is supposed, take place at the 1st January 1825, from an accumulating balance or surplus in the Treasury. The Democratic party, however, would have acted more wisely, had they availed themselves of the existence of this debt to repair their great error—the abolition of internal taxes—by keeping up some of the duties imposed during the late war, till the whole amount was discharged. When peace brings an entire exemption from taxes, the burdens, which even a just and necessary war imposes, will be borne very impatiently, and the government will not receive the support necessary to carry it through an arduous struggle. During the last short war in 1813 and 1814, the clamours of the people, in consequence of burdens and embarrassments not half so serious as are patiently borne in Europe, had almost compelled the government to sacrifice the national honour by accepting peace on shameful terms.

The free spirit of the Americans, and still more, Army.

* Report of Secretary of Treasury on Currency, 1820. Flint's Letters from America, Nos. 16 and 17.

their parsimonious habits in public matters, make them averse to the existence of a large standing army. In this, as in some other things, they, perhaps, carry their opposition to the practice of the European States too far. Regular troops can be effectually opposed only by regular troops; and, in the present condition of the world, the state which denudes itself of efficient defensive weapons, may be said to court disaster and disgrace. To supply the want of a small number of regular troops by masses of raw militia six times as numerous, who leave their homes under great personal and pecuniary sacrifices, is not economy, but the reverse,—to say nothing of the certain losses it occasions, and the humiliations these produce to natural feeling. After the close of the late war, the Congress, by act of 3d March 1815, fixed the strength of the regular army at 9980 men, but it has since been reduced, and its actual strength, as reported to Congress in March 1822, was—

The army is distributed at about fifty posts and places along the sea-coast and inland frontier. The pay of a colonel of infantry is seventy-five dollars (L. 16, 10s.) per month, and six rations a day—of a captain, forty dollars and three rations—of a first lieutenant, thirty dollars and three rations—of a sergeant, eight dollars and one ration—of a private, five dollars and one ration. The aggregate expence of the army in 1822 was 1,929,179 dollars, and the average charge for each man 299 dollars (L. 66). The Americans have a well conducted military academy at West Point, on the Hudson, where 230 cadets, between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one, are instructed in the branches of knowledge necessary to form engineers. The period of service is five years, and the expence for each pupil is about 500 dollars per annum. But the chief military force of the United States is the militia, consisting properly of all the males between eighteen and forty-five, but always less or more deficient. A return at the close of 1823 makes the number amount to 993,281. When called out to the field they have the same allowances as the regular army, and their period of service is limited to six months. The American militia are under the charge of the State governments. They generally, if not universally, elect their own officers, and are said to be very indifferently disciplined.*

The exploits performed by the American ships in the last war have made the navy extremely popular. The United States had not a single ship of the line ready for sea till near the close of the contest, and they have now twelve built, or building. In 1816, Congress appropriated a million of dollars per annum for eight years to increase the navy. In

1821, the grant was reduced to 500,000 dollars, and continued till 1825. A small number of vessels are kept always in commission, and stationed partly in the West Indies, and partly in the Mediterranean. According to an American journal, the strength of the navy in November 1823 was as follows:—

To these must be added vessels on the lakes, viz. two of 74 guns on the stocks, one of 44, one of 36, one of 32, one of 26, two of 24, with eleven smaller vessels, and fourteen gun-boats, some of which are much decayed. The American vessels are built larger than ours of the same class, and carry heavier guns. Their steam frigates are an improvement yet untried in actual service, but which may probably lead to an important change in maritime war. The navy is managed by a Board of three commissioners, and a secretary. A small tax of twenty cents per month is paid by all officers and seamen, both in the navy and merchant service, for the relief of sick and disabled mariners, part of whom are lodged in hospitals.

The American Federal Government is a genuine Government—democracy, admirable for the simplicity and harmony of its principles, and supposed by many to produce a greater amount of public good and private happiness than any political institution that ever existed. Its establishment was an experiment which was deemed doubtful and hazardous, even by the enlightened men who were its founders; but, to use the words of Mr Monroe, "it has succeeded beyond any calculation that could have been formed of any human institution;" and it now exhibits a model in the science of government, which approaches more nearly to ideal perfection than statesmen or sages had dreamed of.

The legislative power is vested in a Congress, consisting of a Senate and House of Representatives. The senate is composed of two members from each State, chosen for six years, by the respective State legislatures, and the seats of one-third are vacated every two years. A Senator must be thirty years of age, an inhabitant of the State for which he is chosen, and he must have been a citizen of the United States for nine years. The members of the House of Representatives are chosen every second year by the people, in the proportion of 1 for every 40,000 inhabitants, excluding the Indians, and two-fifths of the people of colour. The electors being the same as for the most numerous branch of the State legislature, the right of suffrage may be described as universal. A representative must be an inhabitant of the State for which he is chosen, of twenty-five years of age, and he must have been seven years a citizen

* Warden, III. 402, &c. Nile's Register, 16th and 30th March 1822, and American Papers.

of the United States. No law can be passed without the concurrence of both Houses. When that is obtained, it is presented to the President, who, if he approves, signs it; if not, he returns it, with his objections, for the reconsideration of Congress, and it cannot in that case become a law without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members. The executive power is vested in a President, who is elected for four years, by a number of electors chosen for the purpose by the people, distinct from the senators and representatives each State sends to Congress, but equal to them in number. The President must be a native born citizen of the United States, and not under thirty-five years of age. His salary is 25,000 dollars (L. 5500) per annum.

The Congress has power to impose taxes and duties to pay the debts and provide for the defence of the republic; to borrow money; to regulate commerce; to establish uniform laws of bankruptcy and naturalization; to coin money, and fix the standard of weights and measures; to establish post offices; to constitute tribunals; to declare war, raise and support an army and navy; to call forth the militia; and to provide for organizing, arming, and discipling it. The President is commander-in-chief of the army, navy, and the militia, when in active service. By and with the advice of the Senate (two-thirds concurring), he makes treaties, and nominates ambassadors, ministers, consuls, and judges.

The Federal Judiciary consists of the Supreme

Court (formed of a chief judge and six associate judges), which sits at Washington, and a District Court in each State, in which one judge sits. The chief judge has 4000 dollars a year, an associate judge 3500, and a district judge from 800 to 2000. The Supreme Court, deriving its authority from the Constitution, is not bound by the proceedings of the legislature farther than they are consistent with that charter. It has, accordingly, set aside several acts of the State legislatures, and even of Congress itself, on the ground that they contravened an express provision of the Constitution, by annulling or impairing the validity of contracts. The laws of the United States are substantially the same with the laws of England, but differently modified in each State by causes springing out of the physical, moral, and political situation of the people.

There is no national church in the United States; each congregation pays its own minister, and each sect regulates its own concerns. Notwithstanding this, wherever the population is dense, the means of religious instruction are as ample as in any country in Europe. It is computed that there are above 8000 churches, or religious societies, of which about 3000 belong to the Baptists, 2000 to the Methodists, 1200 to the Congregationalists, 900 to the Presbyterians, 600 to the Episcopalians, and a small number to the Catholics, Dutch Lutherans, Universalists, and other sects.

(B. B. N.)