For many general statements with regard to the United States, especially its geography and population, the reader is referred to the article in this Encyclopaedia on America. For many details, reference may be made to articles on the separate States and Cities. The statistics in the following article relate to the nation as a whole. In the historical portion of the article, many omissions have been necessary; but some of them are supplied in other articles on individuals, as in that on Washington.

The United States now (January 1860) embrace States and thirty-three States, one District, and five Territories, the last being those portions of the country more recently occupied, and not yet organised as States, all of which are described in the following table:

| Section | State | Organization | Sq. Miles | Population | |---------|-------|--------------|-----------|------------| | South | Virginia | Colonised, 1607 | 61,352 | *1,147,636 | | New England | Massachusetts | " | 7,800 | *1,132,269 | | Do. | New Hampshire | " | 9,280 | 317,976 | | Middle | New York | " | 47,000 | *3,468,812 | | Do. | Maryland | " | 11,124 | 492,666 | | New England | Connecticut | " | 4,674 | 370,792 | | Do. | Rhode Island | " | 1,306 | 147,545 | | Middle | Delaware | " | 2,120 | 92,442 | | South | South Carolina | " | 29,385 | 283,523 | | Do. | North Carolina | " | 50,704 | 580,491 | | Middle | Pennsylvania | " | 8,320 | 489,555 | | Do. | New Jersey | " | 46,000 | 2,311,786 | | South | Georgia | " | 58,000 | *571,054 | | New England | Vermont | Admitted to Union, | 10,212 | 314,120 | | +West | Kentucky | " | 57,680 | 771,424 | | Do. | Tennessee | " | 45,600 | 763,258 | | Do. | Ohio | " | 39,964 | 1,980,329 | | South | Louisiana | " | 41,255 | *343,171 | | West | Indiana | " | 33,809 | 988,416 | | South | Mississippi | " | 47,156 | 296,648 | | West | Illinois | " | 55,409 | *1,036,676 | | South | Alabama | " | 56,722 | *460,222 | | New England | Maine | " | 31,766 | 543,169 | | +West | Missouri | " | 67,380 | 594,622 | | Do. | Arkansas | " | 52,198 | *247,879 | | Do. | Michigan | " | 56,243 | *511,672 | | South | Florida | " | 59,268 | *61,297 | | Do. | Texas | " | 237,504 | 154,431 | | West | Iowa | " | 50,914 | *633,549 | | Do. | Wisconsin | " | 53,924 | *552,451 | | Do. | California | " | 160,000 | *507,067 | | Do. | Minnesota | " | 86,000 | *150,042 | | Do. | Oregon | " | 185,030 | *60,000 | | Fed. District | District of Columbia | Organized, | 1790 | *60,000 | | Territory | New Mexico | " | 207,067 | 6,417 | | Do. | Utah | " | 269,170 | 11,880 | | Do. | Washington | " | 123,022 | *10,000 | | Do. | Arizona | " | 114,798 | *75,000 | | Do. | Nebraska | " | 235,882 | *10,716 | | Do. | Unorganized | Probable increase in Population, about | 210,962 | 3,084,067 | | Total, about | 3,000,000 | 26,000,000 | 4,000,000 |

Territory: The United States occupy the vast portion of the North American continent, which stretches from the twenty-fourth to the forty-ninth degrees of N. latitude, and from the sixty-sixth to the one hundred and twenty-fourth degrees of W. longitude; its average breadth, N. to S., being about 1300 miles, and its average length, E. to W., about 2400 miles. Its area, as appears from the preceding table, is more than five-sixths of the area of Europe, and more than ten times the area of Great Britain and France united. Of all the natural features of the country, none is more striking externally, or more connected with the pursuits and prospects of the nation, than the immense proportion of navigable waters, exterior and interior; the shore line of the eastern coast being nearly 7000 miles, that of the southern 3400, and that of the western 2200, or 12,600 miles in all; while the lake line of the N. is 1500 miles, and the extent of river navigation, N. and S., E. and W., is beyond our powers of accurate computation. Another fact to arrest attention is the relation of the eastern shore to the opposite shore of Europe, point corresponding to point, the American coast advancing where the European recedes,—a relation which suggests a pre-existing unity of the two continents. This view finds

* Numbers according to recent estimates. The others are as given in the census of 1850. † Southern, rather than Middle or Western States. ‡ Several new territories are proposed, viz.—Arizona, Colorado, Jefferson, and others. confirmation in the comparative openness of the United States on the European side, to which the narrow extent of open country on the Asiatic side presents a remarkable contrast. These, however, are but suggestions, and but a few of many that might be made to throw light upon the geographical position and features of the United States territory.

Its geographical divisions may be reduced to five in number, of which a brief description follows:—1. The Atlantic slope is a long belt, extending westward from the Atlantic shore, beginning at the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and stretching to the Gulf of Mexico—nowhere wider than 200 miles, and in many places, particularly towards the north-east, having hardly any width at all. It is very plainly subdivided, where wide enough to be divided, into two portions, one a plain immediately upon the coast, the other a slope proper, from 50 to 300 feet in elevation, constituting in the Middle States what has been termed "one of the most attractive and richest districts on the continent." 2. West of the Atlantic slope lies the mountainous tract, variously styled the Atlantic or the Appalachian system, which, like the slope with which it is generally parallel, begins at the St. Lawrence, and extends to the S.W., as far as Alabama, 1550 miles in length, and from 50 to 150 miles in width. The mean elevation of the various ridges composing this system is not more than 2500 feet, though some of the higher ranges attain an average altitude of 3500 or 4000 feet. The system is naturally divided into two groups, one in the N.E., consisting of the White, Green, and Adirondack Mountains, the highest peak being Mount Washington (6226 feet); the other in the S.W., consisting of the Alleghany, Blue, Cumberland, and other ranges, of which the highest point is Black or Mitchell Mountain (6470 feet). Allied with the Appalachian system, though separated from it by a great interval, is the Ozark range, between the Missouri and the Red Rivers. 3. Next, on the west, is the immense plain, partly table-lands, partly slopes, spreading westward to the Rocky Mountains, and from the Gulf of Mexico on the south to the northern boundary of the United States. This "vast continental area," as it has been well styled, consists, so far as the United States are concerned, of three subdivisions. Least of the three is the basin of the St. Lawrence and the lakes on the north. From this, southward and westward, opens the great basin of the Mississippi, partly forest, partly prairie land, with soil and climate the most favourable to material development, and promising, from the magnitude and variety of its physical resources, to become the chief district, not only of the United States, but of the entire American continent. Westward from the Mississippi basin, the table-lands of the west, consisting of two plateaus, the lower or eastern attaining a mean height of 2500 feet, the higher or western one of 4000 feet, the western extremities, however, rising to 6000 feet as they reach the base of the Rocky Mountains. Both the plateaus, but especially the western, present wide expanses, almost entirely without tree or shrub, grassy in some parts, arid and actually desert in others, the dividing line between them and the fertile basin upon which they border being about the ninety-eighth meridian. 4. Next we find the Rocky Mountain system, vast, lofty, and irregular, partly volcanic, partly desert, the highest portion of the entire United States territory. It consists of three parallel divisions: a. The Chippewayans, or Rocky Mountains proper, a double, and, in some parts, a treble chain, the highest of which is the Wind River range, Fremont's Peak being 13,588 feet; b. An area of table-land, wide and elevated, the mean height 5000 feet, with salt and desert plains; c. A western chain, extremely broken, consisting of three principal ranges, the Sierra Nevada, the Coast, and the Cascade, the highest peak being one of the Cascade Mountains, St. Helen's (about 15,000 feet). 5. Lastly, the Pacific Slope, an irregular and a narrow tract, about 100 miles in breadth, extends from the western chain of the Rocky Mountain system to the coast of the Pacific.

The geological divisions of the United States are made according to the more ancient or the more modern formation of the different districts. Chief among the tracts of more ancient formation are, first, the Atlantic plain, as it is styled, covering nearly half the breadth of the continent, and extending from the northern border nearly to the Gulf of Mexico; and, second, the Rocky Mountain district, much subdivided and interrupted, but extending, more or less, from 105 degrees to 123 degrees W. longitude. The more modern formations, principally cretaceous and tertiary, cover the remaining territory or the Atlantic slope, the Pacific slope, and the southern portions of both the central plain and the Rocky Mountain system. The mineral productions of the country are described in another article. It is sufficient here to remark the immense extent of the carboniferous strata, especially "the great Appalachian coal field," as it is termed, extending from Pennsylvania to Alabama, over an area of 70,000 square miles, and to a depth of 2500 feet. The entire area of the coal measures is 200,000 square miles, or more than twenty times as large as the coal area of Europe. At the same time, the quality of the American coal is not yet equal to that of the English, nor are the American mines as fully worked as the English—a recent writer in the Edinburgh Review remarking that "the total produce of America for the thirty-five years from 1820 to 1855 did not exceed the produce of Northumberland and Durham for four years, from 1851 to 1855, while it was less than the total annual yield of the United Kingdom by seven millions of tons."

The climate of the United States has its natural divisions. The Atlantic slope and the Mississippi basin constitute the east; the Table Lands and the Rocky Mountain system the interior; and the Pacific Slope the west, each division possessing a climate of its own. East.—The characteristic of that in the east is its variety of elements, at once oceanic and continental, temperate and tropical. Even the coast has what are called continental features, while the Mississippi basin has oceanic features; and the tropical or semitropical features of the climate extend further into the N., just as the temperate or semi-temperate features extend to the extreme S. As a whole, the climate is one of great extremes, low winter and high summer temperatures. The latter are particularly remarkable as occurring in temperate latitudes; and according to recent observations, the mean temperature for the three summer months is 70°, lat. 40°-45°; 75°, lat. 38°-40°, and 80° or more, from the Gulf of Mexico northward to the 34th parallel. Yet, as a late writer remarks, "This high temperature is associated with the peculiar features of the temperate climates in other respects; with equally distributed, yet abundant rains, and with the high curve of daily changes which belongs to the same districts. It is simply an excess of temperature and humidity, engrafted on, without otherwise changing the characteristic laws elsewhere belonging to much lower temperatures." There is as much variability in humidity as in temperature; moisture and drought alternating in extremes at the same seasons, and great precipitations of rain or snow preceding or following long periods of clearness. The variety which characterizes the eastern climate exhibits itself in uniform aspects. Local influences exist as a matter of course, but it is surprising how slight their effect may prove, as in the case of the Appalachian ranges, whose influence is merely to reduce the temperature of their own atmosphere, without disturbing the uniformity of the districts which they divide physically. The distribution of rain is singularly uniform, the rains being almost entirely continuous, and the greatest amounts falling on low levels and in the inland States, as in those of the Gulf of Mexico and the southern valley of the Mississippi. Snow is a constant feature of the winters in the north, and falls profusely in latitudes where it is utterly unknown in Europe. With regard to winds, the higher currents are all from the W., and the lower, especially on the coast, from the E.; the very hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico being uniform in season and in character. Thus the variety of the climate, otherwise tending to try the human constitution, as well as all animal and vegetable life, to the utmost, is so modified and regulated by its uniformity, as to prove itself adapted to a much greater range of life than is common to the same latitudes in the other hemisphere. Interior.—The climate here is less known. It appears to be uniform, but without variety; the general character decidedly continental, or, as one of its early observers styled it, Asiatic, it being remarkably dry and rarefied. Aridity is the predominant feature of the climate as of the soil; whatever rain or snow there is, falls, as a United States officer describes it, "upon the higher peaks and ranges, and is carried down to the main streams through deep canyons (gorges) and chasms, leaving the plains parched and dry." One of the natural effects is to be observed in the soil, of which the saline and alkaline elements are in great predominance. Nor can these territories be made to support either animal or vegetable life in any proportion to their vastness, so long as their climate remains bereft of moisture. A great range of temperature through the day is remarked upon as another characteristic of the interior; the thermometer below the freezing point at sunrise, and yet rising to 80° at noon or in the afternoon. The temperature for the entire year is lower than in the east or the west, though not so much as might be expected among the mountains, where great heights are reached, without such reductions of heat as are common to elevated situations. Rains are periodic throughout the interior. Though there is little or no variety in the climate as a whole, there is a great deal of variation in parts; district differs from district, and the symmetry of the east is not reproduced in the uniformity of the interior. West.—The Pacific coast possesses a climate more like that of Western Europe than either of the other divisions of the United States. There are great contrasts in different localities, and sudden changes everywhere, but the general range through the country, and for the year, is more steady than in the east, the winter not being so cold nor the summer so hot; indeed, the summer is comparatively cool, the early autumn being the hottest season. The air is described as equally dry with that of the interior, but more elastic and invigorating, and both climate and soil, at least in the more favoured regions, are of such prolific influence, that grasses, grains, and fruits attain to peculiar perfection. The accounts of the old Spanish missions in California teem with statistics of live stock and agricultural productions; nor is there any reason to doubt that these will be far surpassed by the development of the country in the hands of its present possessors. The rains, like those of the interior, are periodic.

Thermals.—The isothermal of 50° for the year runs from New York westward, on nearly the same parallel, until it reaches the interior, where it first bends deeply to the S., then turns westward, and before crossing the division, turns N.W., and reaches the Pacific at a latitude of 10° above its entering point on the E. The summer thermal of 70° tends N.W. from New York to a point in the interior, far north of the United States' frontier, whence it descends S.W. to below the southern boundary of the Pacific coast, showing much greater heat in the interior and much less in the W. than prevails in the extreme E. The winter thermal of 32° tends S.W. from New York, crossing the greater part of the E. at a lower parallel, declining somewhat in the interior, but rising on the western side of that division, and not entering the Pacific regions within the limits of the United States. As regards the different months of the year, Mr. Blodget observes, in his Climatology of the United States, "In the greater part of the country, there is a regular curve of differences in the successive months of the year, as follows:—January is coldest; February, 2° to 4° warmer; March, 8° to 10° warmer than February; April, 10° warmer than March, and nearly at the mean for the spring and also for the year; May, 9° to 12° warmer than April; June, 7° to 9° warmer than May; July, 4° to 6° warmer than June; August, 1° to 3° less than July; September, 5° to 8° less than August; October, 8° to 10° less than September, and near the mean for autumn and the year; November, 10° to 14° less than October; and December, 10° to 15° less than November. This curve diminishes at the S., and in the tropical and semi-tropical districts, and it is less on the Atlantic coast than in the interior; less sharp also about the great lakes, and increasing rapidly in its measures of difference W. and N. towards the interior." The following table is condensed from the same work:

| Place | Winter Minimum | Vernal Equivalent | Summer Maximum | Anomalous Equivalent | |----------------|----------------|-------------------|---------------|---------------------| | Boston | Jan. 25 | April 23 | July 25 | Oct. 23 | | Philadelphia | ... | ... | ... | ... | | Baltimore to Beaufort | ... | ... | ... | ... | | Charleston to Pensacola | ... | ... | ... | ... | | Mobile to New Orleans | ... | ... | ... | ... | | Natchitoches | Dec. 23 | ... | ... | ... | | St. Louis | Jan. 8 | ... | ... | ... | | Cincinnati | ... | ... | ... | ... | | Mackinac | ... | ... | ... | ... | | Fort Snelling | ... | ... | ... | ... | | Minn. | ... | ... | ... | ... | | New Mexico | ... | ... | ... | ... | | San Francisco | Dec. 28 | ... | Sept. 21 | Nov. 10 | | Int. California| Jan. 1 | ... | July 18 | Oct. 25 | | Puget's Sound | ... | ... | ... | ... |

Disease.—It is difficult, in fact impossible, to obtain any general statistics of mortality. In some States a system of registration prevails, which furnishes local statements, but what is true of one part of the country, may or may not be true of another part. The following figures are from the Registration Reports of Massachusetts, for a period of nearly seventeen years, ending with 1857. Of the total deaths in that State, there were—

- 22·15 per cent of Consumption, 4·42, Scarletina. - 6·49 " Dysentery, 2·38, Dropsy. - 6·23 " Typhus, 2·35, Croup. - 5·87 " Infantile diseases, 2·32, Cholera infantum. - 5·64 " Old age, 2·24, Heart disease. - 4·42 " Pneumonia, 2·14, Hydrocephalus.

No other proportion, save that of still-born, amounting to 2 per cent (2·46). Throughout the E., the prevailing diseases are of three general classes, the malarious, the epidemic, and the pulmonic. The first class comprises those fevers, principally intermittent, to which the Statistics. settler is exposed in new districts; and if a stranger, also in the old. Wherever they abound, humidity is found to be the predominant characteristic of the climate. The second class consists of epidemics and infections, none of which are entirely regular in their appearance or effect. The yellow fever, for instance, appears every year, but not always in the same places or with the same results. It has visited the Atlantic coast as high up as New Hampshire, but of late years its ravages have been confined to the Southern cities, one of which may be most severely visited one year, and another the next. The third class of diseases is much the most prevalent in the eastern States, as the Massachusetts Reports bear witness. But Massachusetts and its neighbourhood exhibit the maximum, rather than the average, of mortality, from these diseases. While the percentage of the entire mortality in that section, arising from all pulmonary complaints, is not far from 30, that in California is but about 10. The two leading diseases of this class are consumption and pneumonia, and these exist in very different proportions, according to their districts. Consumption is five times more destructive in Massachusetts, while pneumonia is nearly three times more destructive in South Carolina. The Census of 1850 gives the following table of deaths from June 1849 to June 1850:

| Under 1 | 54,353 | |---------|--------| | From 1 to 5 | 68,858 | | 5 to 10 | 21,424 | | 10 to 15 | 13,244 | | 15 to 20 | 15,449 | | 20 to 30 | 37,758 | | 30 to 40 | 29,184 | | 40 to 50 | 22,076 | | Total | 323,972 |

The population in 1850 having been 23,191,876.

Population. We pass over much that would require development in this article, but for the details in other parts of the Encyclopaedia, to some considerations touching the population of the United States. Its density is very variable; greatest in the Middle States, least in the South-western. "Taken together," says the Census of 1850, "the States [i.e., excluding the Territories], have a density of about sixteen to the square mile; excluding Texas and California, their density is over twenty-one to the square mile: the Territories have one inhabitant only to every sixteen square miles." Of the free population, we must observe several classes. The free blacks and mulattoes amounted in 1850 to nearly 435,000, or more than one-seventh of the then existing slave population. The ratio per cent, at the same period, of foreign born to total white and free coloured population was 11:06. The number of foreigners arriving was 279,980 in 1850, 368,643 in 1854, 123,126 in 1858. "It appears," says the Census of 1850, "there were in 1850 within the United States 961,719 persons born in Ireland; 278,675 in England; 70,550 in Scotland; 29,868 in Wales; making a total for Great Britain and Ireland of 1,340,812, which is considerably more than half of the total foreign-born residents of the country. If British America be added (147,711), there will be a total of 1,488,523, which is two-thirds of the total foreign born." The largest proportion of the above total is, as will be remarked, from Ireland; the next largest proportion of the entire foreign born is from Germany, which is the native land of no less than 584,720, or more than one-fourth of the foreign born in the United States. The number of Indians within the national territory is now estimated at 350,000.

The constitution of the United States forbids Congress to make any "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It also declares that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." We are, therefore, to inquire into the existing condition of religion in the country, as the result of popular or individual thought and action. The variety of communions or organizations strikes us at once. Not only are the leading denominations in existence, but their subdivisions are various and generally active. Thus the Baptists, who claim to be the most numerous of all religious bodies in the United States, are divided into ten separate schools—Regular, Free Will, Free Communion, Old School or Anti-Mission, Six Principle, German Brethren, German Seventh Day, English Seventh Day, River, and Christian Connection. Besides the organizations that claim the name of Christian, others like the Spiritualist, the Jewish, and the Mormon exist, each with its churches and its ministry. The following table, compiled from the latest accessible data, gives some idea of the principal bodies professing to be Christians:

| Church Body | Clergy | Churches | Communicants | |-------------|-------|----------|--------------| | Baptist (Regular) | 7,590 | 12,163 | 992,851 | | Methodist Episcopal, North | 14,082 | ... | 956,556 | | Do., South | 7,755 | ... | 699,164 | | Presbyterian, Old School | 2,577 | 3,487 | 279,639 | | Do., New do. | 1,558 | 1,648 | 137,990 | | Do., Cumberland | 650 | 650 | ... | | Roman Catholic | 2,342 | 2,566 | ... | | Congregationalist | 1,922 | 2,369 | 230,023 | | Lutherans | 792 | 1,441 | 146,062 | | Protestant Episcopal | 2,073 | ... | 135,767 |

Other bodies, more or less numerous, are all comparatively inconsiderable. Most of the larger bodies are engaged in missionary, educational, and charitable labours, some separately, others in connection with other organizations. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, under various management, report 26 missions, 127 stations, and 131 out-stations, with 896 ministers and assistants, at an annual expenditure of about £83,000. The Methodist Episcopal Missions employ about 149 missionaries and assistants in foreign, and 503 in domestic service. The Protestant Episcopal Church has missions in Greece, Africa, China, and Japan, besides a large number of domestic missions, the appropriations for which reach from 150,000 dols. to 200,000 dols. (£31,250 to £41,700). The most extensive association supported by various denominations is the American Bible Society, the total receipts of which for the year ending May 1859 were upwards of £83,000. The report of the Society shows an issue of 271,000 Bibles and 505,200 Testaments in the European, Oriental, Indian, and other languages, including volumes in raised letters for the blind, at a cost of nearly £62,500 sterling. The Roman Catholic institutions of charity are the most numerous, including more than 100 asylums, chiefly orphan, with various other agencies for the relief of the erring, the infirm, and the poor. We add a few observations from the Census of 1850—"The average value of churches in the United States would seem to be 2357 dols. (£491); their average capacity of accommodation, 376 persons. There are about five churches to every 3000 of the total population, and every 2600 of the white and free coloured; 619 persons in every 1000 of the whole population of the United States, and 72 in every 100 of the whites and free coloured, can be accommodated at one sitting in the churches. The Methodists have one church for every 1739 of the total population; the Baptists, one for 2478; the Presbyterians, one for 4769; the Episcopalians, one for 15,874; the Roman Catholics, one for 18,901; and other sects, one for 2923." Of course the church accommodations are most abundant in the large cities, and most deficient in the newly-settled portions of the country. The United States government now employs, as chaplains in the army and navy, 28 Episcopalians, 6 Presbyterians, 5 Methodists, and 4 Congregationalists. This is the only trace of an establishment. The different religious organizations are entirely voluntary; whatever views of their sanctity may be entertained by their members, none claim the power of enforcing their support upon those who are not members. Churches that are free, in the sense of being open to all worshippers without rate or contribution, are very rare; but the day seems not far distant when they will be multiplied. The revival system, on the other hand, is on the wane, though it is urged by its followers with as much confidence as ever. As a general rule, the religious observances of the different Christian bodies are quiet and orderly, and the tone of their worship, though often lowered by political and other secular intrusions, is usually earnest and elevated. Externally, the great difference between religion in the United States and religion in Europe is the extreme rarity, in the former country, of any architectural beauty or vastness in the church buildings. Not a single cathedral exists, except in name, nor are there more than a very few really large parish churches.

So far back as 1619, the London Company instructed the governor of Virginia to take care that "each town, borough, and hundred, procured by just means a certain number of their children to be brought up in the first elements of literature;" and within two or three years the first free school was established in Charles city. Free schools are mentioned in the earliest history of Massachusetts, and the first volume of the town records of Boston, under date of 1636, contains a subscription "towards the maintenance of a free schoolmaster." The same year, the legislature of Massachusetts founded a college, afterwards Harvard College, at Cambridge. While education was thus provided for, it was not intended to be gratuitous. A subscriber to the endowment of a school had certain privileges as a subscriber, which might, and in some cases did, secure the free instruction of his children or wards; but no one else could send a child to school without paying a fee or rate, greater or less, according to the extent of the endowment. This endowment, sometimes from individual donors, sometimes from the public treasury, was not designed to make the school free in the sense of gratuitous, but free in the sense of independent—that is, independent of the fees or numbers of its pupils. Such were the beginnings; and we may trace in them that principle of public responsibility which has since been developed, until, as at the present time, instruction at least in "the elements of literature" is provided, free of charge, throughout the country, though not with equal liberality in every part.

The total number of public schools in the year 1850 is reported as 80,978; of their teachers, 91,966; of their pupils, 3,354,011. At the same date, we find reported 239 colleges and 6085 academies; teachers in colleges, 1678; in academies, 12,260; pupils in colleges, 27,821; in academies, 263,096; and to these numbers large additions must be made for private schools, as well as for charitable and reformatory institutions, some of which have attained to great importance. But, to confine ourselves to the public schools, as the only sources of what can be called national education, we find them very variously organized, administered, and supported. Where the system is comparatively mature, there are various grades, as primary, grammar, high, and normal—the last being intended to train teachers for the rest. There were, in the four normal schools of Massachusetts in 1858, 531 pupils—108 males and 423 females (113 of the 531 receiving state aid). The administration of the schools is primarily in the hands of school committees or superintendents, serving for the district or the town, above whom there is, in several States, a board of education, with a secretary or superintendent for the State. Nothing, however, like centralization is tolerated, the schools being administered, after all, by their teachers, if these are capable persons, rather than by any boards or committees. To support the schools, upwards of two millions sterling are annually required, nearly as much more being expended in academies and colleges. The amount for the schools (two-fifths of the sum being from three States alone—New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts) is derived from various sources, such as lands, stocks, taxes, and rates of different kinds and degrees. "It has been uniformly a part of the land system of the United States," says an eminent American authority, "to provide for public schools;" and, on this principle, nearly forty-nine million acres were granted (to 1854) to sixteen States and two Territories by the Federal Government. These lands, as they are sold or rendered productive, constitute the greater portion of the school funds established in the several States, and amounting in 1859 to forty million dols. (£8,333,000).

If now the question be asked, Of what result is all this school system? the answer is not ready. As a matter of course, the character of instruction varies according to circumstances—much better in some places than in others, much better in the same place at some times than at others—always varying, because always dependent upon the teacher rather than upon the system, which, however celebrated, is far from mature in any part. The proportion of scholars at schools to the whole population is reported, in 1850, as one scholar to every 4·9 persons, or, including slaves, one to every 5·6 persons; but the number of natives unable to read or write amounted, in the same year, to 858,306. A grave defect, as many regard it, in the school system is the almost entire absence of religious culture; and one of the questions agitated at present relates, not to the revival of religion in education, but to the retention of the little that remains—as whether the Bible shall continue or cease to be read in the schools.

A very important element in the national education The Press is the press. The number of newspapers and periodicals published in 1850 is given as 2526, and the annual number of copies printed as 426,409,978; but even these aggregates fall short of the truth. The lists are not made up of publications in English alone; between forty and fifty are in German, and half as many more in other European languages. Few, comparatively, of the twenty-five hundred above mentioned exert much influence or enjoy much circulation. Some of the New York daily papers, a few weekly papers, and one or two monthlies, have a large subscription list; but the power of the press, as a whole, is scattered among local or exceedingly limited publications. The book-trade is confined chiefly to a few large cities. 730 books were published in 1853, 278 being reprints of English works, 35 translations, and 417 original productions. Successful publications attain to very large circulation, perhaps larger than is at all familiar to European publishers; but data upon these points are very uncertain. As a general rule, a book sells better in the United States than it does in Great Britain, and many British productions have a much larger circulation in the United States than in Britain; Statistics, but there are many exceptions, and some works which are remunerative in Europe have but a very feeble circulation in America. The largest editions by far in the United States are those of school-books, of which the copies issued are often counted by the million. Besides the books printed in the United States, great numbers of volumes are imported from abroad, as various in character as those of home publication.

Libraries. The United States contain no single library of any magnitude. A few collections, such as the Public Library of Boston and the Astor Library of New York, have been begun with every promise of future importance; but they are mere beginnings, compared with the great libraries of Europe. Nor is the aggregate of the United States libraries at all considerable, comparatively speaking. The public libraries in Paris contain a million and a half of volumes; all the 12,000 libraries of the United States contain, or ten years ago contained, less than thrice as many. But numbers alone do not bring out the difference. The rare and costly volumes of European collections are to be found, even a few of them, in but a very small proportion of the American collections, most of which, as will appear from the statistics to be given presently, are made up of ordinary books from the current or common standard literature. But while the United States libraries must hide their heads before the European in every other point of view, there is one in which they may bear comparison with any collections, however vast or valuable. This is the use or circulation of the volumes. The Public Library of Boston, a very favourable instance, contains, in addition to its library of reference, a library of circulation, amounting in the year 1859 to 15,819 volumes; and the report for the year shows that 149,468 volumes had been taken out in ten months by the frequenters of the library, representing all ages and all classes of the population. Nor is this all that may be said in favour of the American libraries, or of those who use them. It has been found by experience that volumes of high price may be safely lent, and that in the mass of common books borrowed from the better libraries, very few, indeed the merest fraction, are injured or lost. Public and private libraries are both on the increase, and the census of 1860 will add largely to the numbers which follow here. In 1850—

| Libraries | Vols. | |-----------|------| | 39 State libraries | 288,937 | | 126 Society | 611,334 | | 126 College | 586,912 | | 142 Students' | 254,639 | | 227 Professional and academic | 320,909 | | 34 Scientific and historical | 138,901 | | 9505 Public school | 1,552,332 | | 1988 Sunday | 542,321 | | 130 Church | 58,350 |

12,317 | 4,354,635

As the smiling field has taken the place of the primeval forest, and the hum of industry has filled the once silent air, though much yet remains uncultivated and unvisited in the vast expanses of America, so human culture has sprung up, and the results of thought and of intellectual energy have spread throughout the nation. The close of the colonial period witnessed some remarkable achievements in literature and science. Jonathan Edwards, of whom Dugald Stewart said, "that in logical acuteness and subtlety he does not yield to any disputant bred in the universities of Europe," wrote his essay on Freedom of Will; Benjamin Franklin proved the identity of lightning with electricity, and wrote various practical treatises of great influence among his countrymen; the Bartrams, father and son, published their observations and travels, by which large additions were made to the natural history of the continent. Such were the germs. The developments of the national period have been various and fruitful. No single name stands pre-eminent in theological literature; but works on the Evidences and Interpretation, translations of the Scriptures, controversial writings, sermons and periodical publications, bear witness to the general interest in theology and its connections. Political literature is quite rich; it opens with the constitutional writings of Washington, Adams, and Hamilton, and continues with the legal productions of Kent, Story, and Wheaton. Oratory has her Fisher Ames and her Webster; poetry her Hillhouse and her Percival; fiction her Cooper; history her Prescott and her Irving, the last of whom is eminent for his success in lighter literature. We pass over the living in our enumeration; were they added, it would perhaps give a better idea of American culture as it is; but the names of the dead are sufficient to suggest its character. Science has advanced with equal rapidity. Physics and the mathematics have received considerable contributions from individuals, of whom the departed Audubon, illustrator of American natural history, and Bowditch, translator of the Mécanique Céleste, may stand as representatives. The formation of scientific collections upon a large scale has but begun, yet there are already one or two of much more than merely national importance. Art was hardly even born when the colonial period came to an end. Its early votaries, West and Copley, made their way to England, in search of more propitious skies than those of their native land. But the United States now boast of a line of artists, whose excellence is not merely one of promise. Stuart, Allston, and Cole, all three great painters, but the second the greatest of the three; Greenough and Crawford, sculptors, the latter perhaps possessed of more creative power than any of his contemporaries,—these head the rolls on which other bright names are already inscribed. It is still early for the formation of galleries or schools of art; but there are some, though on a very small scale. Architecture is altogether in the background; the genius of the nation seems to run to works of engineering, and architectural enterprises are few and far between.

No statistical table, however carefully prepared, can be entirely accurate with regard to the occupations of the people, whose first characteristic is mobility, or constant transition from one pursuit to another. Such as they are, the following statistics may be of some service, suggesting at least the variety and the magnitude of occupations in the year 1850. It appears from the census of that year, that of the free male population of the United States, over fifteen years of age, there were employed,—2,400,583 in agriculture, a proportion of 45·69 per cent to the whole number employed. 1,712,606 in manufactures and commerce, including mechanic arts, mining, trade, and navigation, a proportion of 31·89 per cent to the whole number employed. 993,620 in labour not of agriculture, manufactures, or commerce, a proportion of 18·50 per cent to the whole number employed. 190,329 in professional or educational pursuits. 30,336 in government service. 44,402 in domestic service and other occupations. 5,371,876 in all.

But to this total, as to the separate items entering into it, large additions should be made for women, and for boys as well as girls under fifteen years of age. Then there still remains the slave population, a very large proportion of whom, male and female, old and young, are actively employed. We have no data, however, for making these statistics complete. Individual States may be described according to the occupations of their inhabitants, but the entire nation cannot be.

The money value of wages indicates comparatively little unless we know the money value of articles which wages may be devoted to purchase. We find on examining such statistics as exist, that the "monthly wages to a farm hand with board" averaged some years ago, throughout the United States (with the exception of the Pacific coast, where prices were wholly exceptional), about £2 : 7s. Daily wages to a labourer, without board, averaged 3s. 4d. To estimate these facts, and others connected with them, we must understand the natural standard of wages, and the character or position of those who work for wages in the United States. Speaking generally, the standard is not only that sum which will support the labourer and his family, but that which will also enable him to lay by something, every month or every year, and so raise himself, if he is not already raised, to the position of the small capitalist, or of one not entirely dependent upon his wages. What was mentioned in the preceding paragraph as the mobility of the people of the United States, has a strong tendency to keep up wages; it leads those who work for wages to new employments, and to new places of residence, and thus effectually resists the influences which constantly tend to depress the rate of wages.

With all these advantages, however, pauperism exists, and resists the various efforts that are made to suppress it. It is not solely, or even chiefly, on account of the immigration from abroad; on the first of June 1850, there were a little more than 50,000 paupers in the United States, and nearly 37,000 of these were natives. The returns of the whole number of paupers, partly or wholly supported, during an entire year, showed a proportion greater on the foreign side, more than half of the whole number (135,000) being foreigners. No complete returns, however, are to be had on this subject. The number of paupers in some of the States is carefully registered, but it is impossible to draw any general deductions from them. At the end of 1858, New York was supporting 13,422 paupers; Massachusetts, 4,194; during the year, New York had aided 261,155, and Massachusetts, 41,986. The system of relief varies in different States; in some, the State is the principal or the sole agent; in others, the counties, or towns, or both, bear the chief responsibility. In some, a bond or commutation money is required from immigrants, to indemnify the State for the possible necessity of supporting them. One of the improvements most needed throughout the country, is a better system with regard to the whole subject of public charities.

The number of farms and plantations in the United States was about a million and a half in 1850. It must have increased considerably since that time. To each farm there were then estimated to belong a little more than two hundred acres on the average, less than half being improved land; the average value of each being £470, and the average value of farming implements and machinery £11. "It would seem," says the census, with reference to the amount of improved land, "that only about one-thirteenth of the whole area of the organized States and Territories is improved, and about one-eighth more is occupied and not improved. The whole number of acres occupied is nearly 300,000,000, or nearly one-sixth part of the national domain. In New England about 26 acres in the one hundred are improved, in the south 16 acres, in the north-west 12, and in the south-west 5. In the south the number of acres to the farm is largest, but the value per acre is most in the Middle States. The average value per acre, for the Union improved and unimproved, is 11·14 dols." (£2 : 6 : 4). The agricultural capacity of the country is very remarkable. Maize, or Indian corn, though of tropical origin, may be successfully cultivated as far north as the United States extend. Other tropical growths, like cotton, sugar-cane, rice, and tobacco, flourish in the same northern latitudes. The native grape, not the European, but a hardier and coarser fruit, grows abundantly throughout the country. Some of the grains, as wheat and oats, are dispersed over similar extents, but others are confined to the districts of lower temperature. The grasses have a narrower range, the summer temperature being extreme in some quarters, the winter in others, and the soil being comparatively unfavourable to their cultivation. But the making and preservation of dried grasses or hay are greatly favoured, which is the more desirable on account of the long winter of the north. We have recourse to the Census of 1850 for the value of the various agricultural products. First of all stands Indian corn, estimated at nearly £62,500,000 for the year; next, with a long interval, is wheat (£20,850,000); close upon which follow cotton (£20,625,000), and hay (£20,188,000); then, with another interval, butter (£10,415,000), potatoes (£9,375,000), and oats (£9,167,000); no other crop being estimated as high as £4,167,000. The annual product of live stock over one-year old is £36,458,000, and that of animals slaughtered, £11,450,000. Large additions must be made to all these sums, in order to appreciate the agriculture of the present day, but the relative proportions of lands or crops would be found substantially the same, though their amounts would be much increased. Improvements in agriculture are constantly attempted, and frequently made; societies, State and corporate, have their regular meetings and exhibitions; and agricultural schools and colleges are organized and developed in various parts of the country. Constant efforts are made to introduce new articles of cultivation, and within the last ten years the culture of the vine and of tobacco has attained to fresh importance in various quarters. The latest experiment is the culture of tea, which, according to apparently careful statements, may be grown to great advantage, and, as the Commissioner of Patents reports in 1858, "at an expense less than the actual cost of similar preparations in China."

The Pre-emption Act of 1841, by no means the first, but the most liberal in its provisions, is declared in the Agricultural Report from the U.S. Patent Office (1857) to have "probably done more towards the promotion of settlements in the vast regions of the west and north-west, and in the development of their agricultural resources and interests, than all other causes combined." Its purpose is, that every head of a family, whether a man above the age of twenty-one, or a widow, should have the right to take any number of acres, "not exceeding 160 in one body," of the public domain, before the land they thus occupy is actually offered for sale, on condition that when it is offered they pay the minimum price of the land (5s. 2½d. per acre) to the United States, and on the further condition of inhabiting the land. A vast extent of public land is constantly open to purchase or to occupancy. The gross amount of lands sold during the five quarters ending September 30, 1859, was 16,618,183 acres, concerning which we find the following information in the Report of the Secretary of the Interior:-"4,970,500 acres were sold for cash yielding £438,957; 3,617,440 acres were located with bounty land warrants; 1,712,040 acres were approved to the several States entitled to them, under the swamp grants of 1849 and 1850; and 6,318,203 acres..." certified to States, as falling to them under the grants for railroad purposes. During the same period of time, 18,817,221 acres were surveyed and prepared for market, and 16,783,553 acres proclaimed and offered at public sale." We quote further from the same report:

"Grants of a general character have heretofore been made to States for objects of public benefit—for schools, for internal improvements, for the reclamation of swamps, and the construction of railroads and public buildings; and the principle on which this policy has been inaugurated and sanctioned is, that the United States, as a proprietor, receives from the application of the grants to the prescribed uses, a compensation in the enhanced value and salability of the remaining lands. Congress has also, from time to time, authorized the issue of bounty land warrants for military services rendered. Adherence to this policy has strengthened the military power of the republic, and encouraged a prompt response to all calls for volunteers in time of war. Special donations of land have heretofore been made in Florida, in Oregon, and Washington, and in New Mexico, with a view to the early establishment of a population there which would strengthen the frontier and serve as a military defence of the country."

The census of 1850 reports the gross annual product of "Manufactures, Mining, and the Mechanic Arts," as upwards of £208,300,000; 121,855 establishments, individual and corporate, are reported employing 719,479 males and 225,512 females. Imperfect returns tend to show that the products of cotton manufactures are the most valuable, those of iron coming next, then those of wool. The tariff on imports serves but in slight measure to protect home manufactures, the earlier policy of strong protective duties having been long since invaded and abandoned. A report from the Secretary of the Treasury for the year ending June 30, 1859, gives the following summary of exports of the leading articles of manufacture:—Cotton, £1,732,544; iron, £1,146,595; tobacco, £694,666; spirits of turpentine, £272,146; oil cake, £249,702; household furniture, £222,330; no other manufactures being exported to one million dollars (£208,000). In connection with this subject we should notice the returns of the Patent Office, as throwing light not only upon the ingenuity and enterprise of the people, but also upon the favourite objects of manufacture. The report of the Commissioner of Patents gives the following items for the year 1858:

| Number of applications for patents | 5864 | |-----------------------------------|------| | patents granted | 3710 |

Of which number (3710),—

For inventions relating to agricultural implements and processes | 561 | For reaping and mowing machines | 152 | For planting machines | 63 | For ploughs | 55 | For improvements in railroads, cars, etc. | 198 | Sewing machines | 116 |

The above-mentioned patents were all granted to citizens of the United States, with the exception of twenty to subjects of Great Britain, and twenty-two to other foreigners. "It is a fact," says the Commissioner, "as significant as it is deplorable, that of the 10,359 inventions shown to have been made abroad during the last twelve months, but forty-two have been patented in the United States. The exorbitant fees exacted of the foreigner, and the severity of the offensive discrimination established to his prejudice, afford a sufficient explanation of this result."

We pass to that great branch of industry developed by the very character of the country,—its long coast lines, and its vast ramifications of navigable waters in the interior. A report from the Registrar of the Treasury gives us an account of the commerce and navigation of the United States for the year ending June 30, 1859, and from this document we derive our best statistics:

1. **Tonnage**—The total amount of registered tonnage on the above date was 2,507,402 tons, of which 185,728 tons were employed in the whale fishery, the far larger proportion, 2,321,674 tons, being employed in the foreign trade. The total amount of enrolled and licensed tonnage was 2,637,685 tons, of which we find in the coasting trade, 2,480,529 tons; in the cod-fishery, 129,636; and in the mackerel fishery, 27,070. We find employed in steam navigation, of the registered tonnage, 92,747 tons; of the enrolled, 676,005—total, 768,752. The aggregate amount of the entire tonnage was 5,145,037 tons.

2. **Shipbuilding**—89 ships and barques, 28 brigs, 297 schooners, 284 sloops and canal boats, 172 steamers—a total of 870 vessels, with a total tonnage of 156,602 tons, were built in the year. The State of Maine leads in shipbuilding, followed at considerable intervals by Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania.

3. **Entries and Clearances**—The number of vessels entering from foreign countries was 22,567. Of these, 12,085 were American, with a tonnage of 5,265,648 tons, and with crews amounting to 155,698 men and 434 boys; 10,532 were foreign vessels, their tonnage 2,540,387 tons, their crews 109,989 men and 1123 boys. On an analysis of this foreign tonnage, it appears that much the largest single proportion belongs to Canada, 957,063 tons; the next to England, 414,470; and the next to other British North American possessions besides Canada, 411,432,—these three amounts leaving to all other countries but one-fourth of the whole foreign tonnage entering the United States. The total number of vessels clearing for foreign countries was 22,704; 12,227 were American, their tonnage 5,297,367 tons, their crews 157,094 men and 909 boys; 10,427 were foreign, their tonnage 2,618,388 tons, their crews 109,180 men and 1114 boys. Of the foreign tonnage cleared, 1,083,566 tons were of Canada, 516,646 of other British North American possessions, and 413,360 of England, these three sums amounting to nearly four-fifths of the whole.

4. **Imports**—The total value of imports, about two-thirds of which (value) were brought in American vessels, was £70,576,692. One-third of this amount was in miscellaneous articles, none ranging above 5,000,000 dols. (£1,041,700); the other two-thirds may be enumerated as follows:—Wool, chiefly manufactures, £687,500; silks, £586,300; cotton manufactures, £541,700; linens, £208,300; hides and skins, £270,800; leather and manufactures of leather, £185,400; iron and steel and manufactures of the same, £354,200; sugar, £635,400; coffee, £520,800; wines and spirits, £166,700; tea, £145,800; tobacco, £125,000; molasses, £104,200.

As to the countries from which these imports are drawn, England supplies merchandise to the value of £24,583,300; Scotland, £145,800; Canada, £291,600; other British North American possessions, £125,000; British West Indies, £41,600; East Indies, £181,200; other British possessions, £35,400—a total for Great Britain and her dependencies, of £25,403,900, or nearly one-half of the whole value of imports. France sends merchandise to the value of £854,200; Spain and her colonies (Cuba, £708,300) £916,600; Brazil, £457,800; Germany, £384,100; and China, £229,100.

5. **Exports**—The total value of exports was £74,331,136. Part of this, or £4,355,138, was the value of merchandise of foreign countries exported from the United States. exports of the growth, produce, and manufacture of the United States amounted to £69,977,998 (more than two-thirds in American vessels) which was made of the following items:

| Product of the Sea: fish, oil, etc. | £929,785 | |------------------------------------|-----------| | Forest: wood, stores, furs, etc. | 3,018,625 | | Agriculture: animals | £3,232,545 | | vegetable food | 5,009,840 | | cotton | 33,632,275 | | tobacco | 4,482,824 | | seed, etc. | 167,538 | | | 46,539,022 |

Coal: 136,152 Ice: 34,287 Raw produce, various: 387,124 Manufactures (see preceding paragraph): 7,053,790 Gold and silver coin: 5,035,925 Bullion: 6,943,720

Nearly two-thirds of the entire value of exports went to Great Britain and her dependencies; thus, to England, £22,267,500; Scotland, £625,000; Ireland, £625,000; Canada, £3,958,000; other British North American possessions, £2,088,000; British West Indies, £228,300; East Indies, £1,041,600; Australia, £625,000; other possessions, £416,600—a total of £44,791,500. To France went £9,150,000; to Spain and her colonies (Cuba, £2,500,000), £4,582,000; to Germany, £3,220,000; to China, £1,458,300; to Brazil, £1,250,000.

The length of the railroads in operation in the United States in 1859 is variously estimated, at nearly 27,000, and at nearly 28,000 miles, the longest road being the New York Central, 556 miles. The cost of these roads is not far from £208,000,000, about one-half of which is still a debt from the different companies. As a general rule, the system of constructing and managing these roads is far from complete; they are built with little preparation, comparatively speaking, and usually require more or less reconstruction. If they are built merely upon speculation or credit, as is frequently the case, they are apt to involve their originators in large losses, in the course of which much of their nominal value disappears. Vast grants of land have been made by the Federal Government to many railroads in the Southern and Western States, amounting to nearly twelve millions of acres in all. A railroad is now projected from the Mississippi or its tributaries to the Pacific Ocean. For this, several routes have been surveyed, each about 2000 miles in length, and likely to cost at least £32,000,000 sterling. Nature has facilitated the communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific, vast as is the intervening barrier of the Rocky Mountain system; for in the Chippewayans, the chief rivers or streams pass around the terminations of ridges, rather than force a way through their centres, and in the Western or Pacific ranges, the mountains are "breached to their bases," in opening a way to the streams which flow westward from the centre of the system. The length of the canals in the United States is computed (1858) at a little more than 5000 miles. The length of the telegraphic lines is computed (1858) at 35,000 miles, the cost of which has been about £850,000.

The constitution gives Congress the power "to establish post offices and post roads." The number of post offices in June 30, 1859, was 28,539; that of post roads 8723, extending in all 260,052 miles, of which 26,010 miles were travelled by rail, 19,209 by steamboat, 68,041 by coach, and the much larger proportion of 151,792 by what are called "inferior modes." The following figures from the Postmaster-General's Report, give the annual transportation of mails, their mode, their extent, and their cost:

- Railroad: 27,268,384 miles, at £675,825, about 5.9 d. a mile. - Steamboat: 4,569,962 " 241,214 " 12.6 - Coach: 23,448,398 " 652,634 " 6.68 - Inferior Modes: 27,021,658 " 402,674 " 3.27

Total, 82,308,402 " 21,972,647

The amount of receipts for the year ending June 30, 1859, was £1,660,100; that of expenditures and liabilities, £3,117,600. To account for this large deficit, there are many reasons—one, that some of the mail routes, as those to and from the Pacific States, involve an annual loss of nearly £420,000; another, that the franking privilege of members of Congress and other officers of government, costs the post office department more than £420,000 annually. The rates of postage within the United States, as established by the Act of 1855, are for a letter sent under 3000 miles three halfpence; over 3000 miles fivepence; for a newspaper or printed matter, not exceeding three ounces in weight, one halfpenny; and for every additional ounce, one halfpenny; for books not weighing over four pounds, under 3000 miles, one halfpenny per ounce; over 3000 miles, one penny. The Postmaster-General reports the whole number of dead letters for the year at 2,500,000, or, with certain deductions, about 2,000,000 letters "actually conveyed in the mails and failing to reach the persons addressed;" and he remarks that, "in the large majority of cases, the fault is with the writers themselves, either in misdirecting or illegibly directing their communications." He adds that "the migratory habits of the people must also be considered among the prominent causes of the accumulation of dead letters, more particularly in the western or newer portions of the country." The number of dead letters returned to foreign countries during the year was 133,981, of which nearly one half went to England. The amount of letter postage on mails exchanged with Great Britain during the year was £160,433.

There being no Bank of the United States, and no Bank and general law regulating banking in the different States, the Mint, there is no such thing as a common banking system. Returns made about the beginning of 1859 exhibit nearly 1500 banks, with a capital of more than eighty-five millions; but much of this must be fictitious. The "specie funds," so styled, and the specie in the banks, amount together to twenty-seven millions sterling; the specie itself to little more than twenty millions; and the deposits reach nearly fifty-four millions. The circulation is upwards of forty millions; loans and discounts, one hundred and thirty-seven millions. The Mint of the United States is national; its chief office is at Philadelphia, with branches at New York and in parts of the country where gold is found. Any person may bring gold and silver bullion to the Mint to be coined, free of charge, except that one-half of one per cent is charged upon gold. The total gold coinage for the year ending June 30, 1859, was £6,250,000; the total silver, nearly £1,458,300; the total copper, £62,500. The whole number of pieces coined was 53,500,000. The deposits of gold and silver, during the same year, were of about the same amount as the coinage. The entire deposit of domestic gold, from the establishment of the Mint to 1859, was £97,900,000, of which more than £93,750,000 came from California.

The constitution gives Congress the power "to lay and Taxation, collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises." It limits this power, in one respect, by the provision that "no capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census," or "apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers." The only taxes levied by the general government at present, Statistics, as for a long course of years, are duties upon imports, the amount of which will be mentioned hereafter. State, county, and town taxes are levied by the local authorities in various ways and to very various amounts. As a general rule, the State lays taxes of its own, besides assessing its counties or its towns for a portion of its revenue; the county taxes and makes a demand upon the towns within its limits; and the town taxes its inhabitants to meet the drafts upon it from above, as well as its own expenditures. Town taxes are generally upon polls, personal estate, and real estate. State taxes are laid upon stocks; insurance, manufacturing, and other companies; banks; roads, turnpike and rail; canals; lotteries and auctions; licenses; inspections; alien passengers; stamps; and a few other objects of taxation. Taken throughout the country, taxation may be said to be light; but in some places, especially in the larger cities, it is exceedingly burdensome, and the more burdensome it is, the less productive it appears to be—that is, the less productive of security or comfort to those from whom it is exacted. The taxes in the city of New York are about as large as the taxes in Paris; but one looks in vain for the public works or decorations of the French city in the American. It is difficult to obtain statistics which throw light upon the actual character of taxation. The national taxes being all indirect, affect different parts of the nation very differently, while the local taxes are modified by State Funds, State Debts, and other circumstances of varying nature and influence. Such as they are, however, the following figures exhibit the amounts of taxation in the largest, and also in one of the more recently organized States, for the year 1858-9:

| Population | Share of National Debt | Amount of Local Taxation | Tax per Head | Tax in proportion to Taxable Property | |------------|------------------------|--------------------------|-------------|--------------------------------------| | New York | 3,500,000 | £1,354,000 | £3,021,000 | 25 0 | | Wisconsin | 550,000 | 177,000 | 49,500 | 8 4 |

The public or national debt consists of two parts—one the debt proper, amounting (July 1859) to £9,683,584; the other, the amount of Treasury notes, £3,157,110; total, £12,240,694. But, in addition to these national obligations, the States, with six exceptions (Connecticut, Delaware, New Hampshire, Oregon, Texas, and Vermont), have each a debt of its own, as appears from the following list, made up to January 1, 1859:

| Alabama | £1,062,082 | Mississippi, | £1,514,936 | | Arkansas | 621,066 | Missouri, | 3,966,249 | | California | 842,391 | New Jersey, | 19,790 | | Florida | 329,166 | New York, | 6,758,735 | | Georgia | 698,904 | North Carolina, | 1,496,232 | | Illinois | 2,320,508 | Ohio, | 3,569,000 | | Indiana | 1,532,721 | Pennsylvania, | 8,180,854 | | Iowa | 26,667 | Rhode Island, | 80,480 | | Kentucky | 1,161,297 | South Carolina, | 1,290,152 | | Louisiana | 2,229,507 | Tennessee, | 3,467,930 | | Maine | 215,472 | Virginia, | 6,876,072 | | Maryland | 3,094,622 | Wisconsin, | 20,833 | | Massachusetts | 1,315,302 | Total, | £53,230,055 |

The annual interest on that part of this debt which is absolute (£40,237,895) is £2,306,687. Part of the

State debts is due only to the States themselves—that is, to certain funds or accounts (e.g., school funds) of their own; but the larger part is due to the holders of their stocks, bonds, or obligations of any kind. The debts of many of the States are nominally covered by securities; the State credit has been lent for a public work, or to enable associations or individuals to execute works of public importance; and these works, or mortgages upon them, or notes of individuals, are retained as securities; but these securities are often comparatively valueless.

The following table gives some idea of the revenues and expenditures of the national government for the year ending June 30, 1859:

### 1. Receipts

| Source | Amount | |-------------------------|--------| | From customs | £10,326,210 | | From public lands | 365,974 | | From miscellaneous sources | 433,864 | | **Total** | £11,126,048 |

Balance in Treasury, July 1, 1858: £1,332,981 Treasury notes: 2,014,041 Loan: 3,879,188 **Total**: £18,352,258

### 2. Expenditures

| Item | Amount | |-------------------------------------|--------| | Civil List | £1,242,455 | | Foreign intercourse | 215,802 | | Miscellaneous, including expenses on customs, lands, lighthouses, public buildings, &c. | 3,465,866 | | Department of the Interior, including Indians (see paragraph below) and pensions | 990,408 | | War department | 4,842,460 | | Navy do. | 3,065,125 | | **Total** | £13,822,116 |

For public debt: £3,626,098 **Total**: £17,448,214

Balance in Treasury, July 1, 1859: £904,044

The nature of the United States' government is differently regarded according to the different interpretations of the constitution under which it is established. One school of jurists maintain the doctrine that the constitution is a contract to which the States are parties, and that the government created by it is that of a confederacy, each member or State of which retains its independent sovereignty. The other great school take a larger view; they assert that the constitution is, as its name denotes, and as its own terms declare, "the supreme law of the land," and that the government established by it is supreme, not without qualifications in favour of the State governments, but certainly without any that transfer the sovereignty, nationally speaking, from it to them. Both views are consonant with the clauses in the constitution which place restrictions, some qualified, others unqualified, upon the States; with those which provide that the United States shall guarantee a republican form of government to each State, and protect each against inva-

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1 The total value of imported merchandise paying duty was £53,968,125; of merchandise free of duty, £18,608,573. 2 The total number of pensioners was 11,585; 10,667 from the army, and 918 from the navy. There remain only 165 pensioners of the war of independence. The total amount of pensions for 1859 was £215,000. Statutes and domestic violence; and with that which declares that the "powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people." For the difference between the two interpretations of the constitution lies behind its own clauses, at least to a great degree; it springs from the opposite theories which are entertained with regard to the grounds upon which the constitution was framed, as well as the parties by whom it was framed; one theory attributing the impulse, the purpose, and the result of the transaction to the States separately, the other to the people collectively. Thus, therefore, the government is maintained on one side to be a government of States, that is, a compact; on the other, a government of the people, that is, an actual Union.

The constitution begins by defining the legislative powers of the general government, and the body by which they are exercised, "A Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." Something more than the so-called bicameral principle was at the bottom of this division; the Senate being organized as a federal house, in which each State has two senators and an equal vote, while the House of Representatives is a national House, or one in which the people rather than the States are represented according to their numbers, the senators, moreover, being chosen for six years by the State legislatures, the representatives for two years by the popular vote. The Senate has sixty-six members at present; the House of Representatives two hundred and thirty-seven, besides five delegates, one from each of the territories, who may speak, but not vote with the representatives. The number of representatives is determined by apportionment among the States on the present basis of one member for every 90,000 inhabitants. The powers of Congress are those of a sovereign legislature, checked by the co-ordinate branches of government, as well as by the State authorities; but for details on this point, we must refer to the constitution. Members of Congress receive a regular salary of £1250 for each session, or, as the session is of two years' length, £625 per annum, in addition to which they are entitled to mileage at the rate of 1s. 8d. per mile travelled on the usual route in going to and returning from the seat of government at Washington. The President of the Senate is the Vice-President of the United States, in whose absence a President pro tempore is chosen from and by the senators themselves. The presiding officer of the House of Representatives is a Speaker elected from and by the representatives. Both these officers, the President pro tempore and the Speaker, receive a salary of £1250 per annum.

The executive power is vested in a President, elected for four years by electors who are chosen by popular vote in each State, the number of electors being equal to that of the senators and representatives to which the State is entitled. The theory of this mode of election, that an intermediate body between the people and the person or persons proposed for the chief magistracy, would secure greater prudence in selection and greater calmness in decision, was soon proved to be merely a theory. The President of the United States is virtually elected neither by the electors nor by the people, but by a party convention which, assembling a few months before the time of election, makes a nomination, and if the party has a majority, effects the choice of electors, who throw their votes for the designated candidate. If the electors fail to choose a President, the choice is made by the House of Representatives voting by States. A Vice-President, chosen for the same term, and in the same manner as the President, succeeds the President in case of disability or death. The authority of the President, both military and civil, is very large, but his power to veto the acts of the legislative body is limited, unless his party have the majority in Congress, a two-thirds' vote being sufficient to pass a law notwithstanding his objections. His salary is £5200, the Vice-President's £1660.

The executive is aided by a cabinet or ministry, of his own appointment, who preside over the various departments of government, but without seats in either House of Congress. The Secretary of State has the charge of foreign affairs; the Secretary of the Treasury of the finances; the Secretary of War of the army; the Secretary of the Navy of the navy; the Secretary of the Interior of the public lands, of patents, of pensions, and of the Indians; the Postmaster-General of the Post Office; the Attorney-General of the legal relations of the government. Every year the heads of the departments present a report of their proceedings to the President, who submits them with a message of his own to Congress; special reports and messages being communicated as the public business may require.

The only point in the preceding enumeration of affairs that seems to require explanation is the charge of the Indians committed to the Secretary of the Interior. This is a very important responsibility of the government. The number of Indians within the territory of the United States has already been stated as 350,000. A Commissioner of Indian Affairs, aided by about 100 superintendents and agents, conducts the complicated relations between the government and the Indians. The department of the Interior holds in trust for various Indian tribes stocks to the amount of £750,000 sterling, and the United States are liable for annuities to the Indians, in return for lands ceded by them, to the amount of four and a half millions as principal, all permanent annuities being funded at five per cent interest. The average annual expenditure of the government on Indian account is upwards of £625,000, to which must be added a large proportion of the four odd millions expended by the War Department. The Indians are neither citizens nor subjects, but rather dependants, with large reservations of territory upon which they dwell beneath such institutions as they possess, but under the oversight of the government, and in constant relations, pacific or hostile, with missionaries, adventurers, or traders, from among the citizens. "At present," says the Secretary of the Interior, in his Report for 1859, "the policy of the government is to gather the Indians upon small tribal reservations, within the well-defined exterior boundaries of which small tracts of land are assigned in severalty to the individual members of the tribe, with all the rights incident to an estate in fee-simple, except the power of alienation. This system, wherever it has been tried, has worked well, and the reports of the superintendents and agents give a most gratifying account of the great improvement which it has effected in the character and habits of those tribes which have been brought under its operation. The internal struggle which the red man necessarily undergoes in adopting the resolution to throw away the blanket, the scalping-knife, and the implements of the chase, and, in lieu thereof, to wear a dress, and devote himself to pursuits which he has been taught to consider degrading, is terrible; and if he emerges from it victorious, he becomes a new man. Wherever separate farms have been assigned, within the limits of a tribal reservation, to individual Indians, and the owners have entered into possession, a new life is apparent; comparative plenty is found on every hand, contentment reigns at every fireside, and peace and order have succeeded to turbulence and strife."

Returning to the branches of government, we find the judicial power vested in a Supreme Court established by Statistics, the constitution, with various inferior courts established by Congress. The independence of the judiciary is secured by a clause in the constitution that "the judges, both of the Supreme and Inferior Courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office." The general extent of the judicial power is, as described in the constitution, "to all cases in law and equity arising under this constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made under their authority." The Supreme Court meets annually in Washington; it consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices, appointed by the President. The members of the Supreme Court hold circuit courts twice a year for each State within the circuit, there being nine circuits, with one additional for the extreme west. There are also fifty districts, with forty-three district judges to hold district courts from time to time throughout the country. A Court of Claims, consisting of three judges, sits at Washington to adjudicate in cases of claims against the government.

The military divisions of the United States are the seven departments of the East, the West, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, and California, the head quarters of the army being in the city of New York. The army-list (1859) shows (exclusive of brevets), one major-general, four brigadier-generals, two inspector-generals, a quartermaster-general, a commissary-general, a paymaster-general, a surgeon-general, a chief engineer, a chief topographical engineer, and a chief of ordnance, as general officers; a corps of engineers, a corps of topographical engineers, a corps of ordnance, two regiments of dragoons, two of cavalry, one of mounted riflemen, four of artillery, and ten of infantry; the whole number of commissioned officers being 1084; of non-commissioned officers, musicians, artificers, and privates, 11,859—total, 12,943. The military academy of the United States, at West Point, supplies most of the officers of the army, who obtain their rank without purchase. The non-commissioned officers and privates are from various classes of the population, generally from the least industrious and capable. But the insignificant numbers of the army are far from comprising the military strength of the nation. The regular force is universally regarded merely as a nucleus, around which large additional forces, volunteer and militia, are to gather in the hour of need. The larger proportion of the troops engaged in the war with Mexico, the last foreign war of the United States, consisted of volunteers from all parts of the nation; many of whose officers were graduates from West Point, who had left the army for civil life in time of peace, but who returned to it in time of war. The Army Register for 1859 gives the total of the militia force as 2,727,486. Congress has power, under the constitution, "to provide for calling forth... for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia." The Navy List shows six squadrons in service, the Home, the Brazilian coast, the Pacific, the Mediterranean, the African coast, and the East Indian. There are 10 ships of the line, 10 frigates, 21 sloops of war, 3 brigs, 1 schooner, 8 screw steamers, 1st class; 6 screw steamers, 2d class; 14 screw steamers, 3d class; 2 screw tenders, 3 sidewheel steamers, 1st class; 1, 2d class; 3, 3d class; 2 side-wheel tenders, and 3 store-vessels. To support this shadow of a navy, the United States have always relied upon privateers in time of war. The number of naval officers is as follows: captains in active list, 80; on reserved list, 20; commanders active, 114, reserved, 16; with lieutenants, surgeons, chaplains, professors, pursers, masters, midshipmen, and others. A marine corps numbers about 1200 rank and file. The Naval Academy of the United States is at Annapolis, the Naval Asylum at Philadelphia.

There are ten foreign countries to which the United States send envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary—Great Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and China; nineteen to which ministers resident are accredited; one to which a commissioner is appointed; and besides these representatives, there are none but consuls and commercial agents. The whole diplomatic establishment is upon a small scale; its salaries very considerable, the minister to Great Britain being paid only 17,500 dols.; its members chosen without reference, as a general rule, to their training or their capacity; while there is an entire absence of all system in promotion as well as in appointment.

The citizens of any State at the time of the adoption of the constitution at once became citizens under the national government or of the United States. It would appear from the language of the constitution, as well as from the practice under it, that it remains with the States to decide what natives shall be their citizens and consequently citizens of the United States. But with regard to aliens, Congress received the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, according to which any free white alien can be naturalized after a residence of five years; but he cannot be a representative until seven years, or a senator until nine years have passed, and he never can be President. With this uniform rule, as adopted by Congress, many of the States have interfered by rules of their own, sometimes to extend and sometimes to reduce the term prescribed as necessary for naturalization; but their action on this point cannot legally affect the possession of national citizenship. A question that rose at an early time has recently acquired new importance; it is whether free negroes can be considered as citizens of the United States. No one urges that they can be naturalized so long as the present law of naturalization is in force; but it is urged that if they are natives of the United States they are citizens, for the simple reason that they were citizens in some of the States when the constitution was adopted. They are still allowed to vote at State elections in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and (if freemenholders) in New York. An opposite view has been taken by the Supreme Court, or rather by some of its members, who insist that the intent of the constitution, according to the most authoritative interpretations, was to exclude negroes from citizenship. Another point to consider is the value set upon the electoral franchise by the citizen. If the numbers of the census of 1850 are correct, there were then about 4,700,000 "white males, 21 and over;" about 380,000 being naturalized, and about the same number foreigners not naturalized, so that the total entitled to vote was about 4,300,000. Two years after, in 1852, the vote at the presidential election reached a little beyond 3,000,000, but we must remember that by this time the number of those entitled to vote must have been much larger than in 1850. The vote at the election of 1856 was more than 4,000,000.

The constitution follows the great principle that slavery slavery exists only by municipal or local law. It recognizes what the States or any of them recognize, leaving consideration entirely to them to create the status of servitude. The historical portion of this article touches upon the adoption of those clauses in the constitution by which slavery is recognized; in one, the existence in the States of "other persons" than "free persons" is acknowledged; in another, "the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit," referring to the slave trade, is authorized until a certain date; in a third, "persons held to service or labour in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another," are prohibited from being discharged, such persons being bound apprentices and slaves. Here the constitution leaves the whole matter, saying nothing of the right or wrong of slavery, neither establishing it, nor opposing it, but considering it as entirely at the discretion of the respective States.

Our survey of the United States government will not be complete without a glance at the State constitutions which are of the utmost importance to the nation as well as to the States themselves. The electoral franchise is confined by most of the State constitutions to free white males of twenty-one (paupers, persons under guardianship, imbeciles, and criminals excepted), who, being native or naturalized, have resided in the State for a certain time, from ten days to six months. The payment of a State, county, or town tax is implied in the condition of residence, or formally expressed as a condition by itself. There are other conditions of an exceptional nature, such as quiet and peaceable behaviour (Vermont), good moral character (Connecticut), or freehold property; this last being required of naturalized citizens in Rhode Island, of voters for senators (the upper house) in North Carolina, and, in the improbable event of non-compliance with other conditions, of voters generally in Connecticut and South Carolina. The right of suffrage in several States, instead of being confined to whites, is extended to Indians, if taxed, and to free negroes, as has been observed; but these are exceptions to the more general rule. As to the manner of voting, the rule is by ballot, the exception is vice versa. In a very few States a majority of the votes thrown is required to elect an election; but throughout the country, the principle of plurality prevails, it may be said necessarily. The government of the States is always divided into three branches: an Executive, consisting sometimes of a governor, lieutenant-governor, and council; a Legislature, always of two houses, the members of which are elected by districts or by towns, and the sessions of which are annual or biennial; and a Judiciary of two or more courts, the judges in which are variously appointed, as will be mentioned presently. To these various offices there are some general qualifications, such as age, residence, citizenship, property; and some special, such as not being a minister of the gospel (in eleven States), or, on the other hand, not being an Atheist (in Tennessee). Salaries of course vary, but all officers, executive, legislative, and judicial, are paid either by fees or by stated rates. Terms of office are not uniform; governors are chosen for one, two, three, or four years; legislators for the same, but the two houses are generally elected for different terms (senators for the longer term), thus, for two years and one year, for three and one, for four and two. Judges are appointed by the governors (with or without council) of Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New Jersey (five States); by the Legislatures of Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Vermont (nine States); Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Vermont, having also some judges elected by the people, who elect in all the remaining States. The judicial tenure is "for good behaviour" in the two Carolinas, Delaware, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, with some limitations of age; until removal by resolutions of the legislature in Rhode Island; and from various periods from one year (Vermont) to fifteen years (Pennsylvania Supreme Court) in the other States. With regard to public credit, the constitutions of some States, especially those more recently formed, forbid the Government to loan the credit of the State, or to incur a debt sometimes with, sometimes without, discretionary power. The later constitutions generally provide that banks and other corporations must be organized under general and not special acts. Slavery, forbidden in the majority of the States, is expressly retained in others, and in some the legislatures are prohibited from passing laws to abolish it or to emancipate slaves, while they may exclude free negroes from the State. No religious test is recognized except in the constitution of New Hampshire, which provides that the executive and legislative must be of the Protestant faith; nor is any religious establishment provided for, except that the legislature of New Hampshire may authorize, and that of Massachusetts must require, the parishes, or towns, or districts in the State to support Protestant teachers or ministers of the Gospel.

"The Congress," says the constitution, "shall have Territorial power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States;" under which clause all the Territorial governments from the foundation have been formed. An Act of Congress organizes the Territory; the President then appoints a governor, three judges, and other officers, leaving it to the inhabitants of the Territory to elect their own legislature. The vexed question of the day with regard to the Territories, is in relation to the power of Congress over them. It is urged, on one side, that this power is entire, covering all the municipal relations of the inhabitants; on the other, that the power is limited, and that all local institutions and interests must be left to the inhabitants of the Territories. When a Territory, having sufficient population, adopts "a constitution of State Government which is republican in form, and in conformity with the constitution of the United States," and applies for admission into the Union, it is for Congress to grant or to refuse admission.

The city of Washington, on the Potomac river, built upon a site selected by him whose name it bears, has been the seat of the national government since the year 1800. Planned upon a large scale, it has never reached its intended proportions, but remains as it was long since described, "a city of magnificent distances," with a population of not more than 55,000. We do not advert to it for the sake of entering into a topographical description, but that the mention of some prominent points may give an idea, not so much of the city itself, as of the government, its public offices and institutions. By far the most conspicuous feature of Washington is the Capitol, which, when its present extension is completed, will be over three hundred feet in height, nearly seven hundred and fifty in length, while it will cover 62,000 square feet of ground. The architecture of this building is imposing, though by no means faultless; its centre is surmounted by a dome of large proportions, on which a colossal statue of America crowns the entire structure. In the Capitol, the Senators have their chamber, the Representatives theirs, and the Supreme Court of the United States theirs. The Executive has his residence on the opposite side of the city, in the so-called White House. In the same neighbourhood are most of the Department Offices, some of which are exceedingly insignificant, while others, especially the Treasury and Patent Offices, are of a higher architectural character. The Patent Office is a striking testimony to the inventive tendencies of the nation; its museum, overrunning with models and plans, to which the yearly additions are constantly on the increase. There are other offices; an arsenal; a navy yard; an observatory, to which science, as well as the United States marine, is largely indebted; an office of the Coast Survey, a work of more than national importance, started half a century ago, and prosecuted with increased activity and breadth during the last fifteen years, involving great skill and energy in the survey, as well as great expense to the government; a building called the Smithsonian Institution from James Smithson of England, who bequeathed to the United States, for the purpose of promoting knowledge, the sum of half a million dollars, but the effect of the institution is thus far very inconsiderable. Such are the chief objects to arrest attention in the national capital, and they illustrate perhaps better than any general summary, the varied character of the national Government, its vast material resources, and its rising interest in intellectual and scientific operations. It need not be said that the sketch embraces but a small proportion of the public works of Government; to enumerate them we should have to follow the coast and traverse the interior, to count the forts, arsenals, and navy-yards, the custom-houses and other national offices, the lighthouses, breakwaters, and other improvements, external and internal, many of which may be compared with the public works of any nation.

Part II.—History.

To understand the present position of the United States, we now return to the past, tracing the history of the nation according to the successive steps by which it has advanced. The most natural division is into two periods; the first, Colonial, from about 1500 A.D. to 1776; the second, National, from 1776 downwards. Of these periods, we have at least space enough to sketch the outlines.

I. Colonial.

The first portion of the Colonial period extends to the year 1689, distinguished in European as well as American annals, and in the latter for the beginning of the great colonial wars between England and France.

It opens with the efforts of the Spaniards to colonize the territory. Ponce de Leon led the way to Florida, a name stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of St. Lawrence (1512). But no settlement was made until the year 1565, when Melendez de Aviles founded St. Augustine, the oldest town in the United States. The next oldest is Santa Fe in New Mexico, founded by Don Espejo in 1581, the name of New Mexico covering the entire country of the interior. More than a century elapsed before Pensacola was built and fortified upon the Gulf of Mexico (1690), so slowly did the Spanish colonies extend themselves. A few towns, a few forts, a few missionary stations, were all that supported the claim of Spain to the United States territory.

The colonies of France were far more widely spread. The early settlements of her Huguenots in the present South Carolina and Florida, were abandoned almost so soon as formed (1562-5). Other attempts in the North were not more successful. But the name of New France, bestowed upon the Continent in 1524, was not forgotten, and when the French obtained a foothold in Acadie and Canada, to the north of the present United States frontier, they crossed it towards the south, and occupied with missions, trading posts or forts, many places now comprehended in the limits of Maine, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Texas, and were still spreading at the close of the period in review (1689).

Father Marquette, of the Michigan mission, reached the Mississippi (1673); La Salle, once a Jesuit, afterwards an adventurer, descended the river to its mouth, and claimed possession of the neighbouring territory under the name of Louisiana (1682). But though the French colonies thus stretched from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, far round by the Western waters to the Gulf of Mexico, they were everywhere feeble and transitory, except in parts of Acadie and Canada.

The centre of colonization upon United States territory was held by England. First of all to reach the continent, the Cabots having discovered it at Labrador (1497), a year before Columbus beheld it on the South American coast, near the island of Trinidad, the English were not the first to occupy their discovery, nor were their efforts, made under Sir Walter Raleigh and others, at all successful. Raleigh gave the name of Virginia to the territory of which he had obtained a grant, but it was only a name, when, discouraged by the loss of life and of capital, he abandoned his enterprise (1584-9). The name was preserved in the patent of Virginia, issued by James I., and conveying the territory from the present Maine to the present North Carolina to two colonies or companies, the northern called the Plymouth Company, the southern the London Company (1606).

Under the latter, the first permanent settlement of the Virginia English was made at Jamestown, in Virginia (May 13, 1607). The adventurous spirit of both company and colony has its representative in the famous John Smith; their religious spirit, proved by self-sacrifice and by devotion to the wants of natives as well as colonists, is represented by Robert Hunt, the chaplain, first of a line of faithful men by whom the Gospel was preached in America as in the Church of England. A college was designed, partly for the Indian youth, but though large subscriptions were made in the mother country, the plan fell through. Politically and physically the colony was very feeble; but some seeds were sown to bear fruit in later times; a representative assembly was established; and when the London Company came to an end (1624), the sole colony which it had planted continued as a royal province, sometimes thriving, sometimes failing, but strong enough to live through the revolutions of both England and America.

The next permanent settlement was made by a band of Puritans at Plymouth, in the part of America which Massachusetts had called New England. It was not made under the Plymouth Company, now changed to the Council of Plymouth for New England; but a grant was obtained from the council to establish the colony after it was founded. The day on which the one hundred and two passengers of the Mayflower, Pilgrims or Forefathers as they are generally styled in New England, December 11 O.S. (21 or 22 N.S.), has been made as much of as if it had begun the colonization of the country. But the Puritans were not the first colonists, or the first believers, to come from England; nor can they be allowed by the historical inquirer to be distinguished above other settlers, except by their comparative independence, politically and individually. Another settlement, or group of settlements, soon followed, but under a separate organization, as the colony of Massachusetts Bay, Boston being the principal town (1629-30). This colony possessed a charter, granted to an English company, but transferred, on a bold venture, to the colony itself; under which a colonial government was formed, its offices all filled by the colonists, and independent save of a general allegiance to the government of England. Massachusetts took the leading position among the early colonies. Her provision for education, the foundation of Harvard College (1636), the establishment of primary and grammar schools (1645-7), the printing press at Cambridge (1639), a great advantage, though much diminished by restrictions: all these developments were, for a long period, peculiar to Massachusetts. As a state, Massachusetts headed the united colonies of New England, an inefficient confederacy, of which the other members were Plymouth and the Connecticut colonies (1643). New Hampshire and Maine, both in New England, were both generally dependent upon Massachusetts, if not actually annexed to it, and even Plymouth was at length incorporated with the stronger colony (1691). At the same time, however, the Massachusetts charter, concerning which there had long been a controversy between the Crown and the colony, was altered in such a manner as to curtail the previous privileges of the colonists, though they still continued far in advance of most of their neighbours. But the weak point with them had appeared long before; bitter Puritans, they persecuted Churchmen, Baptists, Quakers, and witches, notwithstanding the remonstrances of their own friends; they contended even with the Crown against the toleration of the Book of Common Prayer, and yielded, only under royal command, the simplest religious liberty to those who differed from them. But religious liberty had a very insecure foothold throughout the colonies, and Massachusetts, though prominent in persecution, was far from being alone in it. On the other hand, we are to take into account such movements in Massachusetts as those of Thomas Mayhew and John Elliot, who devoted themselves to missionary labours among the Indians, supported chiefly from the mother country, but not without some countenance from the colony (1643-90).

New Hampshire, a private grant, was settled first at Portsmouth and Dover (1623), afterwards at other places, but not extensively or vigorously. Sometimes a royal province, sometimes, as has been stated, a mere dependency of Massachusetts, it was never distinguished among the colonies.

New York. New York was not an English colony until after being wrested from the Dutch in 1664-74. The earliest Dutch post was on Manhattan Island (1613), but the earliest colony was on the western end of Long Island, where a band of Protestant Walloons made a feeble settlement (1624). New Amsterdam, now New York, was begun two years later, and other positions were occupied, some by colonies, some by trading or military posts, from the Connecticut to the Schuylkill rivers, that is, through the present Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, as well as New York. But though thus and otherwise extended, the Dutch domain, called New Netherland, governed by a company in Holland, and settled chiefly by colonists intent on trade, was held so insecurely as to fall without resistance into the hands of the English. It was then called New York from the Duke of York (afterwards James II.), to whom it had been granted by Charles II., and by whom it was organized as a proprietary province.

Maryland. An earlier form of the proprietary organization occurs in Maryland, a tract upon the Potomac, of which Sir George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, was declared "lord and proprietor" by the Crown (1632), and in which the first settlement was made at St. Mary's (1634). In this government the proprietor took the place of the company under which other colonies, as Virginia, had been founded, or, to a certain extent, of the Crown, to which, when Virginia became a royal province, she was directly subordinate. Under the proprietor, as under other authorities, the colonists had their local rights, their assembly, in which they could give or refuse "advice, consent, and approbation." A common error that the Maryland charter secured liberty of religion has been more than once effectually refuted. The colony increased slowly and amid various conflicts, some of them with the proprietor whose rule was at one time formally cast off (1689), to be restored, however, at a later day.

There were at first three Connecticut colonies—Connecticut, centering at Hartford (1635), Saybrook (1635), and New Haven (1638), all of English settlers, but some coming from Massachusetts, and others from England, some independently, and others under English proprietors. Saybrook was united with Connecticut in a few years (1644); New Haven not until 1665, when a charter, previously procured, came into operation throughout Connecticut, investing its freemen with large political liberties.

Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations, originally (1636-38), two colonies, were united by their founder Roger Williams, under a charter (1644). Even Rhode Island, when united, they occupied less territory than any other English colony; but Rhode Island possesses a higher title to eminence than territory can give, in being the only colony to recognize even an imperfect liberty in religion.

The land lying west of Delaware Bay, though claimed Delaware, by the Dutch, was not actually colonized until the arrival of a handful of Swedes, who built a fort near the present town of Wilmington, and gave the name of New Sweden to the adjoining territory (1638). Their effort at colonization was of the most transitory nature, and New Sweden, seized first by the Dutch (1655), then by the English (1664-74), became a dependency of New York, afterwards of Pennsylvania, finally attaining to some share of independence as the colony of Delaware.

Within the later limits of North Carolina, a Virginian Carolina, settlement was the first to be made (1665); the first in South Carolina was a Massachusetts settlement (1660). Carolina as a whole, extending between Albemarle Sound and St. John's River, was granted to the Earl of Clarendon, then prime minister, and seven associates, as a proprietary province (1663). It was for these proprietors that Locke drew up his "grand model," or "fundamental constitution," a singular proof of the impossibility of manufacturing a constitution of any practical value. The province was variously settled, its best colonists being the Huguenots, emigrating from France after the Revocation of the edict of Nantes. But troubles abounded, and at length North and South Carolina were organized as royal provinces (1729).

The Duke of York conveyed away that portion of his New Jersey domain which lay between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers, where some scattered settlements of Dutch and English already existed. The name of New Jersey was given to the province, and Elizabethtown was founded (1665). A few years later, the province was divided into East and West Jersey, both of which were purchased by companies consisting chiefly of Quakers, by whom they were finally surrendered to the Crown, whereupon they were reunited as a royal province (1702), at times dependent upon New York.

One of the Quaker proprietors of the Jerseys, William Penn, obtained a grant of the territory lying beyond them in the interior, under the name of Pennsylvania (1681). To the few settlements already there, Penn soon made large additions, chief of which was Philadelphia (1683). The usual troubles of a proprietary government arose; Penn was deprived of his province, and when restored to it, was so wearied by its cares, as to propose to surrender it to the Crown. The proprietorship remained, however, with him and his heirs.

We pass entirely beyond the limits of our period (to Georgia, 1689) in taking account of the last of the thirteen English colonies, and one not settled until more than half a century after Pennsylvania. A grant of the land between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers, under the royal name of Georgia, was made to certain trustees, much the same as the proprietors of earlier colonies. All England was stirred by the project of a settlement designed, partly to protect the southern frontier of her American colonies, and partly to provide a place to which the inmates of her crowded and ill-managed prisons could be transported with some hope of their reformation. James Edward Oglethorpe, member of Parliament, a military man, and a philanthropist, led the expedition by which Savannah was founded (1733). Twenty years later, the colony having disappointed almost every idea of its proprietors, became a royal province. Any view of the English colonies taken together, will embrace the most striking point in relation to them all, that, though weak and far from mature in any respect, they are in a state of progress, not falling back, but pressing forward. Numerically less than 250,000 in the year 1689, the colonists are made up of what may be styled the best stock of Europe. Politically, they occupy no post of magnitude or conspicuousness, and yet, in all their forms of government, charter, provincial and even proprietary, the germs of a national liberty may be detected without an effort. Such general governments as were devised in order to restrain them, like that of Andros over New England, New York, and New Jersey, they were strong enough to throw off when the news of the Great Revolution in the mother land inspired them with the determination to prove themselves worthy of her liberties (1689).

To this point the colonies had made their way amid many difficulties, both external and internal, but none greater than the wars with the Indians, a race with whom few of the English sought to be on other than hostile terms. Beginning in Virginia (1622), and continuing with much greater violence in New England, where the Pequot war (1637) was followed by King Philip's war, which spread from the tribes of the Connecticut Valley on the west, to those of the Atlantic coast on the east, so serious as to have "drained the Massachusetts towns of men" (1675-6), these hostilities would have been fatal to the colonists, but for the divisions, and the want of arms and discipline by which their foes were paralyzed.

The second portion of the colonial period is distinguished by the wars between the French and the English in America. Both nations were extending their possessions; the English generally concentrated along the seaboard, the French scattering their colonies, or rather posts, wherever the fancy of discovery or settlement happened to direct their steps. The wars with the French were not the only conflicts in which the English were involved; the Spaniards on the Southern border, and the Indians throughout the interior, being repeatedly arrayed in arms. But the French wars were far the most serious, and the issue of them was far the most influential upon the destiny of the English colonies.

After various encounters of no abiding importance, the great war which William III. led against Louis XIV. in Europe, extended to the colonies of England and France in America. It lasted eight years (1689-97), and though involving both sides in losses, and what was worse than losses, the employment of Indian allies, and Indian butcheries, it resulted in nothing decisive as to the difficulties between the contending colonies. Throughout its continuance, the colonies of England had relied upon themselves, the colonies of France upon the mother country, comparatively speaking.

King William's war, as the English colonists termed it, was soon followed by Queen Anne's. Its origin was European; England, with numerous allies, arming to prevent the attempt of Louis XIV. upon the Spanish crown. Its character was less Indian and more European than that of the previous war; New England alone sending two considerable expeditions into Acadie. After twelve years (1702-13) of war, the treaty of Utrecht, deciding for America that the French and the Spanish colonies should not be united against the English, also decided the cession of Acadie to England. It was a turning point in the colonial strife.

After more than thirty years, during which peace was frequently threatened, King George's war, so styled in America, broke out (1774). In the second year, Massachusetts, with the aid of six other colonies, organized the most important colonial operation as yet attempted, and sent a force which, supported by an English fleet, succeeded in reducing Louisburg, the great fortress of the French on the ocean side of their American dominions. On the termination of the war, however, the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle restored Louisburg to France (1748). But it could not restore confidence to the French colonists, or deprive the English of their natural sense of superiority.

A brief interval ensued, and a fresh struggle began on the isthmus of Nova Scotia (1750), and in the west of Pennsylvania, where George Washington first appears in war, the leader of a Virginian force, sent to protect the claims of the English against the French (1754). The following year (1755), a year before the formal declaration of war (the seven years' war in Europe), America was resounding with arms. The efforts of the English were not at first successful; Braddock was defeated in Pennsylvania, Lyman and Johnson won a barren victory at Lake George (1755); the forts at Oswego and Lake George were taken by Montcalm (1756-7), and not until a vigorous effort was made both by England and by her colonies, did the fortunes of the conflict turn. Then (1758) Louisburg and the Gulf of St. Lawrence were seized; and the next year Wolfe defeated Montcalm on the plains of Abraham, and Quebec fell into the possession of the English (1759). This decided the war, and peace soon followed. The treaty of Paris (1763) surrendered all the French possessions in America save the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off Newfoundland. New Orleans and the territory west of the Mississippi were transferred to Spain, who had been the ally of France in the last year of the war. All east of the Mississippi was ceded to England.

A large share of the victories achieved in America was due to the exertions of the English colonists. They gave their fortunes and their lives to a cause that was as much theirs as it was the mother land's; and when they conquered, they felt that it was for the colonies as well as for England to profit by the victory. Not so thought many Englishmen, especially among those in power. They considered that the war had been waged for England and at the expense of England, and that the colonists owed a debt to the mother-country, both pecuniary and political, which they must be led, or if necessary, forced to discharge. Meanwhile, the colonies had increased in many ways; their physical and intellectual resources were enlarged, and if they were able to contribute more to the mother country, they were also able to resist any undue demands of hers more effectually. The effect of the late wars was thus enhanced by the previous developments of times of peace.

It was not now for the first time that the colonies and the mother country came into collision. From very early years, the authority of the English Government had been called into question. "Appeals to your authority," says the Massachusetts legislature to Parliament, "cannot stand with the liberty and power granted us by our charter" (1646). To the power which Parliament, on the other hand, asserted and exercised in such measures as the Navigation Acts (1651-60-63), the laying of duties upon exports and imports from colony to colony (1672), as well as to the various administrative bodies acting under Parliament, as the Board of Trade (1696) and the Royal African Company, the colonists never hesitated to oppose a steady resistance. Governor after governor, official after official, representing the authority of the English rulers, were met face to face, baffled, and actually turned back by those whom they were sent to reduce to submission. Parliament, roused by this course of things, asserted its supremacy, especially in the Molasses Act, by which duties were laid on molasses and other articles, and "the colonists," as one of their agents in England declared, "were divested of their rights as the king's natural-born subjects" (1733). Advantage was taken of the French war to appoint a commander-in-chief for the colonies, upon which the demand was made to provide for his expenses (1755). Writs of assistance, to authorize search after merchandise imported contrary to parliamentary enactment, were demanded by the Custom-house officers, and though vigorously opposed, were granted by the royal authorities in Massachusetts (1761). New York received a still more serious blow in the appointment of a Chief Justice, whose commission was to continue "at the king's pleasure" (1761).

It will appear from the foregoing enumeration of facts how erroneous is the common idea, that the single point at issue between England and her colonies was taxation. A great deal of stress was laid upon taxation; it was divided into two parts, taxation for the regulation of trade, and taxation for revenue; and the controversy was sustained with regard to both, though the colonists were willing to allow, as a general rule, that they might be taxed for the regulation of trade. The key-note with regard to this single question may be found in the words of James Otis, a Massachusetts lawyer and public man, who wrote a pamphlet to prove that "by the British constitution every man in the dominions is a free man, and that no part of his Majesty's dominions can be taxed without their consent." But these very words show how far the matter in dispute extended beyond mere taxation. "Every man in the dominions is a free man," that is, every English colonist was still an Englishman, vested with the rights and liberties of the Englishman, and among those, with that cardinal privilege of the English constitution, that the Englishman can be governed only by a body in which he is represented. "If the Parliament of England," said Edward Winslow, agent for Massachusetts in England more than a century before (1646 or 7), "should impose laws upon us, having no burgesses in the House of Commons, nor capable of a summons by reason of the vast distance, we should lose the liberties and freedom of Englishmen indeed."

So in the eleven years (1764-74 inclusive) during which one Act of Parliament succeeded another in the attempt to reduce the colonists, taxation was the subject of but three Acts, while nearly thrice that number related to altogether different matters. The Sugar Act, laying duties on sugar and other articles, was expressly designed to raise a revenue in the colonies (1764); the Stamp Act required a stamp upon business and newspapers (1765); the Tea Act laid duties on tea and other articles (1767). Of these three Acts, the Stamp Act naturally produced the greatest sensation, leading to measures of resistance to which we shall presently revert. Acts relating to other subjects than taxation were the Quartering Act, demanding quarters and other supplies from the colonies for the British troops; the Admiralty Act, as it may be styled, a portion of the Stamp Act, extending the Admiralty jurisdiction over many cases heretofore tried by jury (1765); an Act suspending the New York Assembly until that body conformed to the Quartering Act (1767); two Acts concerning trials, one, that cases of treason should be tried in the mother country (1769), the other, that incendiaries of royal stores or ships should be tried there likewise (1772); three Acts intended to chastise Massachusetts and its chief town, Boston, for their prominent parts in the general opposition,—first, the Boston Port Bill, closing the harbour; second, the Massachusetts Government Bill, depriving the colony of many of its political liberties; and third, the Murder Bill, as it may be called, providing that persons accused of murder in supporting the authority of the mother country should be tried in another colony or in England; finally, in the same year (1774), the Quebec Act, organizing the Northern provinces, lately French, in such a way as to keep them distinct from the old English colonies. One other subject of difference added greatly to the dissension between the mother country and the colonies, the former opposing all efforts of the latter to repress the growing slave trade.

Against grievances so various as these, the colonists, divided among themselves in principle, and differently affected by different Acts of Parliament, opposed the most various measures. Some men were for giving way altogether; others for remonstrating merely, or doing whatever they could as faithful subjects of Great Britain; these were the loyalists. Others were for organized effort, for conventions and congresses, for decisive though peaceful and constitutional action; these were the patriots, or the firm adherents of colonial rights and liberties. A third class went to an extreme, and professing the loudest devotion to the American cause, supported it by riot, violence, and bloodshed; these were the lower classes, as a general rule, with some leaders from the higher. The course resulting from these varying and conflicting views was by no means, as may be supposed, a consistent or an effective one, compared with what it might have been, had the colonists been united. But, interrupted as it was, it led to great results for the colonists, delivering them from at least a portion of the pressure upon them at the time, and preparing them for bolder measures in the future.

No action of theirs was more striking than that of Congress of their first Congress, which met at New York in October 1765. Nine colonies were represented; two more promised adhesion to the measures of the Congress; and the remaining two, though silent, were known to be full of sympathy. A petition to the King, addresses to the Lords and to the Commons of Great Britain, were adopted by the Congress; but a far more important document was a "Declaration of Rights and Liberties," the leading clause of which was this—"That His Majesty's liego subjects in these colonies are entitled to all the inherent rights and liberties of his natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great Britain." The violations of this principle by the British authorities are then set forth in moderate but weighty terms, and the declaration concludes with asserting it to be "the indispensable duty of these colonies . . . . to endeavour to procure the repeal of . . . . the late Acts."

Nine years after, another Congress, now called the Continental Congress of Continental, assembled at Philadelphia in September 1774. Most of the great patriot leaders were there,—John Adams from Massachusetts, John Jay from New York, George Washington (already described as "unquestionably the greatest man on that floor, if you speak of solid information and judgment") from Virginia, with others of various powers and various purposes. A body of Articles, styled the American Association, was drawn up, the chief object being to put an end to all commercial intercourse with Great Britain, until Parliament saw fit to repeal its obnoxious statutes, much more obnoxious now, as must be remembered, than when the previous Congress had altered its remonstrance. A declaration of rights, a petition to the King, and addresses to Great Britain and her other colonies were adopted, and the Congress separated to meet in the spring, if affairs demanded further action. It seems to have been generally thought that the mother country would give way to the demonstrations that had been made throughout the colonies as well as in the Congress at Philadelphia.

But of the comparatively small body of Englishmen Views in England. that took any concern in American matters, the majority, especially in Parliament, was decidedly against the claims of the colonists. The petition of the Congress to the King was refused a hearing; the New England Restraining Act was levelled at the commerce of New England, and then extended against other colonies; and rebellion was declared to exist in Massachusetts, whose people had now armed themselves in preparation for the impending conflict. Dean Tucker of Gloucester made a proposal which excited little attention at the time, but provokes reflection now, that Parliament should declare the colonies separated from the mother country until they were ready to acknowledge her authority.

The first collision between the British troops and the American troops took place at Salem in Massachusetts, February 1775. Within a few weeks thereafter the first actual conflict in arms occurred at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts (April 19). The next month (May), Ticonderoga and Crown Point, on Lake Champlain, were taken by a party from Connecticut and Vermont; the next (June 17), the battle of Bunker Hill, near Boston, was fought to the nominal advantage of the British, but to the real advantage of the Americans. Two days before this battle George Washington was commissioned by the Continental Congress, then sitting at Philadelphia, as commander-in-chief of the Continental army, consisting of the militia gathered from different parts of New England to the neighbourhood of Boston. Washington issued his first order to "the troops of the United Provinces of North America" on July 14th.

A year was still to pass before the Americans declared their independence. During this interval war was constantly waged.—Washington besieging and recovering Boston,—an American force taking Montreal, but failing before Quebec; while various operations were attempted or executed upon the seaboard, from Maine to Carolina. At the close of the twelvemonth Washington was in New York, fortifying it against an expected attack from the enemy.

Meanwhile the accession of Georgia, hitherto delaying, had completed the line of the thirteen united colonies (Aug. 1775). Congress took the reins of government, organized an army and a so-called navy, created a treasury department, issued Continental bills, appointed a Committee of Secret Correspondence with Europe, and sent forth addresses to Great Britain, with one last petition to the king. It urged the colonies to set up local governments for themselves, and finally (May 15, 1776), voted "that the exercise of every kind of authority under the Crown should be totally suppressed." It must not be supposed that these steps were simple or easily taken. On the contrary, divisions existed; the colonies felt their want of material resources, their insecurity of position in a political point of view, and shrank, even with arms in their hands, and blood upon their garments, from measures that were irrevocable.

It was clear, however, to what point they were hastening. As early as May 1775, a convention of Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, declared their independence of British authority; but the assertion found little favour and no support beyond the limits of the county. For it was not until after the last petition of Congress to the king had been rejected, that any general movement in favour of independence began. In May 1776, the Virginia delegates were directed to propose a declaration of independence to Congress; in June, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, seconded by John Adams of Massachusetts, moved a resolution—"That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." The resolution was at once opposed on the ground of its prematureness; but when it was brought up a few weeks later, it was passed, though not without signs of a want of unanimity. A committee, previously appointed to frame a declaration in accordance with the resolution, had already reported a document drawn up by Thomas Jefferson; it was now brought forward, amended, and formally adopted. The date of the resolution is July 2, that of the declaration July 4, 1776.

With this the colonial period of United States history closes, and the national period begins. "As free and independent States," thus ran the declaration, "they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do." No longer colonies, but States, and United States, the new nation took its place among the powers of the earth.

The first portion of the national period is occupied by the war of independence. Beginning in the year 1775, as has appeared, the war was already of a year and a quarter's duration, when the declaration of independence was adopted. It lasted, nominally, seven years; but actually, little more than five years longer, or about six years and a half in all, from April 1775 to October 1781. To facilitate the understanding of events, it is well to divide the war into two separate parts; one, from the beginning to July 1778, during which the Americans were without allies, while the chief operations were in the North; the other from July 1778 to the close, during which the more important campaigns were in the South, and the French were in alliance with the Americans.

The conflict, renewed on Long Island (August 1776), was marked by American losses. New York, its neighbourhood, the Lower Hudson, Lake Champlain, as well as Newport in Rhode Island, were taken by the British, and the American army, reduced to a handful, was in full retreat, when Washington turned the tide by the most brilliant feat of arms that had yet been attempted, crossing the Delaware amid the ice, and capturing a large detachment of Hessians at Trenton. The next year (1777), New Jersey was evacuated by the British, and a British army under Burgoyne, after attempting to conquer the Upper Hudson, was compelled to surrender near Saratoga. Lower down the Hudson, the Highlands were lost, while farther south, Philadelphia and the Delaware fell into the hands of the British, after various unsuccessful attempts of Washington to defend them. At the beginning of the following year (1778), an alliance was formed between the United States and France, the first fruit of which was the evacuation of Philadelphia by the British. Thus, at the close of this portion of the war, the British retained no other conquests than New York and Newport, with the neighbouring country.

On the arrival of a French force, land and naval, an attempt to recover Newport was made without success. The main operations were then transferred to the South. Georgia was invaded by two British forces, one from New York, the other from Florida, at the close of 1778, and the State was soon in the possession of the invaders. Charleston, in S. Carolina, was defended against the victorious British, but an attempt to recover Savannah in Georgia, though supported by the French, was totally unsuccessful (1779). The next year (1780) Charleston was again attacked and lost; the greater part of S. Carolina falling at the same time into the power of the British, and when the Americans rallied, it was only to sustain further disaster. But as the conquerors were pressing on against N. Carolina, a detachment encountered a signal defeat at King's Mountain, near the border of that State, and the British advance was instantly checked. At nearly the same time, Washington appointed his best general officer, Nathanael Greene, of Rhode Island, to the command of the Southern army. The wisdom of the appointment was proved in the following year (1781), when Greene, aided by his admirable officers, gave battle at Guilford in N. Carolina, and after various reverses as well as successes, the British being generally the nominal victors, he recovered the interior, not only of both the Carolinas, but of Georgia likewise. Meanwhile the British were engaged in executing an able design of seizing the Central States, and thus separating the Southern from their confederates. "Our affairs," wrote Washington, as troops from both North and South were concentrating in Virginia, "are brought to an awful crisis." He did not shrink from meeting it; but leaving the neighbourhood of New York, where he had long kept his head quarters while watching the main army of the British, and directing various movements of the Americans, he marched to Virginia with all his available troops, supported by an effective force, land and naval, of the French. Cornwallis, the British commander in the South, lay strongly fortified at Yorktown and Gloucester. It was impossible for him to resist the much larger numbers brought against him, and after a three weeks' siege, he surrendered (October 19). "It is all over," said the prime minister of Great Britain on hearing the intelligence.

It is difficult, in a few words, to convey any idea of the embarrassments amidst which the Americans and their great leader had forced their way to this decisive victory. The magnitude of the result, the humiliation of Great Britain, or of her ruling men, by a few colonies, is apt to conceal the scanty means and feeble resources by which it was attained. Without a thoroughly organized army; without any real harmony between it and Congress; without efficiency in the government, in fact without any government at all except a Volunteer Congress, until the adoption of "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States," a few months only before the surrender of Cornwallis; without money and almost without credit; things being so desperate at times, that even Washington could say, "we are at the end of our tether;" thus it was that the Americans fought their war of Independence. But they did not fight it alone. When Lafayette came to their aid (1777), he found them so beset with difficulties, that nothing, but aid from abroad could carry them through; and when the treaty with France was made, it depended upon the execution of the treaty whether they were really to succeed at the last,—"Send us troops, ships, and money," wrote the French commander Rochambeau to his government, "but do not depend upon this people or upon their means." The entrance of other nations into the war with Great Britain, Spain in 1779, and Holland in 1780, though neither was an ally of the United States, was of course greatly favourable to the struggling nation. After all, however, that can be said of the weakness of the Americans, or of the assistance which they received, it must be confessed that the strength of their cause, the devotedness and the varied ability of their unparalleled Washington, proved to be, under the guidance of Providence, their best supports through the dark valley which they had been obliged to cross in arms.

A change of ministry led to the instructions from England that the United States territory should be evacuated by the British troops. This was slowly done, partly in 1782, partly in 1783; hostilities being declared terminated in the spring (April 8-19) of the latter year. The preliminaries of peace between Great Britain and the United States were signed in November 1782, and followed up by formal treaty in September 1783, confirmed by Congress in January 1784. It need scarcely be said that there were serious differences to be overcome before the final step was reached, or that it would not have been reached as it was, had Great Britain been able to deal with the United States alone, instead of being encumbered by her negotiations with other European powers. The war with the United States, like the peace concluding it, had been but a small part of the general conflict in which so much of Europe was interested, and of which Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as North and South America, were the battle grounds. Nowhere was peace more welcome than in the United States, where new difficulties in the government and the army had arisen since the suspension of conflict. A few troops alone remained in arms, when Washington resigned his commission into the hands of Congress (December 23, 1783).

A new division in the national history of the United States opens with the peace of 1783. Its earlier years are occupied with the formation of a constitution, its later with the setting the constitution in operation. No more important movements than these are touched upon in the present article, and if they are treated summarily, it is not because they are depreciated.

The pressure of a perilous war had kept the governments of the United States in some sort of form and of existing activity; its withdrawal seemed to leave them tottering and crumbling in every part. We speak of the governments rather than the government, for, though there was a national authority, under the Articles of Confederation, it depended upon the separate States, whose consent to any measure was indispensable, and whose power, so far from being confined to local concerns, was continually exerted over national affairs. This would have been fatal to the nation, as a nation, in any circumstances; it was especially threatening in the existing condition of things, the States being excessively burdened, enfeebled, and convulsed. A rebellion, for instance, and it is but an instance of occurrences elsewhere, broke out in Massachusetts; its object was to prevent the collection of taxes and debts of any kind; its supporters were two thousand men in arms, backed, as was understood, by many thousands more, and, though it was suppressed, it shook not only Massachusetts, but other States to their very foundations. Various disputes among the States, differences between the United States and foreign powers, especially with Great Britain—these and other disturbing causes reduced the various governments to a still lower degree of feebleness.

As early as 1780, Alexander Hamilton, aide-de-camp to Washington, suggested "a convention of all the States, with full authority to conclude finally upon a general constitution." The idea was warmly received in private and in public, the legislature of New York supporting it in 1782, and that of Massachusetts in 1785. That same year commissioners appointed by Maryland and Virginia, to devise some rules concerning the navigation of the Chesapeake and the Potomac, assembled at Alexandria, and their report, acted upon by the Virginia legislature, led to a second convention of commissioners from five States, at Annapolis, in the following year (1786), their subject being the trade of the United States. This Annapolis convention, adopting a proposal of Alexander Hamilton, united in recommending a national convention to be held at Philadelphia, "to take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further provisions as shall appear necessary to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." This recommendation, first adopted by Virginia, was followed by other States, and by Congress, though Congress gave a different turn to the proposal by limiting the Convention to "the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation."

The Convention assembled, after some delay, and choosing Washington President, proceeded to the momentous work before them. They were the best men of the country, the well-known Franklin among the older members, the almost equally well-known Hamilton among the younger ones, men of experience and judgment, generally speaking, whose great object was to frame a government under which they could possess the peace for which they had struggled through conflict and calamity. Differences arose at once, especially upon the powers possessed by the Convention; one side maintaining that they could do nothing beyond revising the Articles of Confederation, the other insisting on their being able to set aside the Articles, and organize an entirely new government.

The question was decided in favour of the latter view, but other questions, some of theory, others upon practical points, and all involving more or less excitement and danger of separation, were already before the Convention. The great compromises, as they are commonly styled, of the constitution, are three in number; the first gives an equal vote to the States in the national Senate, but retains an unequal vote, or in proportion to population, in the national House of Representatives; the second allows three-fifths of the slave population to be included in the apportionment of representation; the third, allowing the slave-trade to continue for twenty years, forbids it from the expiration of that period (1808). These great difficulties being removed, it was comparatively simple to deal with others, and at last to adopt the constitution as it stands. But it had been a constant struggle between opposing views and conflicting interests, and when the members were signing the instrument which they had agreed upon, the venerable Franklin remarked, pointing to a sun painted on the chair occupied by the President, "I have often, and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that sun, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting." We refer the reader to another part of this article, for a sketch of the government created by the constitution.

But the battle was not yet won. Many members of the Convention went home dissatisfied, to find themselves surrounded by others still more dissatisfied, because they knew nothing of the complications in which their delegates had been involved. The chief point in the controversy now spreading throughout the nation, was the strength of the government proposed; the Federalists, so styled, insisting that it was no more than what was absolutely essential, while the Anti-Federalists denounced it as excessive, and resolved to defend themselves from threatened oppression. Calm and comprehensive arguments were brought to bear in favour of the constitution; Dickinson of Pennsylvania wrote under the signature of Fabius; Hamilton and Jay, with Madison of Virginia, published the more thorough essays of The Federalist; while Washington and his correspondents were all alive to the importance and the solemnity of the crisis. At length, Delaware gave her assent to the constitution (December 1787), and, following her, State after State, some by a large, some by a small majority, gave way, till, with the exception of Rhode Island and North Carolina, all were ready for the first elections under the new system.

The sense of the necessity of organization appears in other movements. Congress, for example, inserted upon almost every subject of national consequence, adopted an ordinance under which the vast lands beyond the Ohio were organized as the North-west Territory (1787).

The various ecclesiastical bodies were taking measures to defend and to establish themselves; conspicuous among which were the successive proceedings of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the history of whose early bishops and conventions runs side by side with that of the political events here described.

Washington consented to what he termed his "last great sacrifice," and accepted the presidency of the United States, to which he was unanimously called. John Adams was elected vice-president; a large number of able men sat in the two houses of Congress; the judiciary was organized with John Jay as chief justice; and the cabinet offices, or secretaryships of the different departments, were filled by Jefferson, Hamilton, and other eminent persons. Thus far the government was organized and in operation at New York by the autumn of 1789. But the real difficulties of the movement were not yet overcome, and long debates, occasionally very much embittered by local or political differences, preceded the decision of such essential questions as the revenue and the debt. The latter point was perhaps the most vital of all; for upon it, or upon the manner in which it was determined, all parties saw that not only the strength of the government, but its fidelity to public obligations, at home and abroad, especially depended. Yet it was not till the summer of 1790, or nearly a year and a half after the nominal commencement of the new government (March 4, 1789), that the funding of the domestic and foreign debt was completed, and the government put in full operation.

Washington's administration was eight years in length, as he was re-elected to the Presidency at the close of his first term of four years. During the earlier part of this period, he was generally sustained by other members of the government, as well as by the nation at large; but during the later part, owing to foreign rather than domestic causes to which we will revert, a violent opposition in Congress and out of Congress, in the State Legislatures, and among the people everywhere, was directed against his leading measures, and indeed against his motives and principles. Even at the very close, when his approaching retirement from public life might have softened the feelings excited against him, he has to write: "To the weary traveller, who sees a resting-place, and is bending his body to lean thereon, I now compare myself; but to be suffered to do this in peace, is too much to be endured by some." The Farewell Address to the people of the United States, dated some months before, was prepared and published amid abuse of which it is very hard to conceive, now that the character of Washington is almost universally regarded as a sacred possession of his countrymen. But so it was; and reference to any detailed history will show the fact that Washington's administration was marked by great dissensions throughout the nation.

We can present only the salient points in the policy which, it is not too much to say, secured the establishment of the United States government. The opening question alluded to having been disposed of, it remained for Washington to carry out the general work of strengthening the government, and insuring its impartial administration. He was no party man, but he did not conceal his prepossessions in favour of the Federalists, or the supporters of a central system, comparatively speaking in contrast with the Anti-Federalists, Republicans, and Democrats, who maintained what may be called a local system, reserving as much power as possible for the States, and yielding as little as possible to the federal or national authority. Such was the prevalence of the local theories, at least in some parts of the country, that an armed convention, seven thousand in number met in Western Pennsylvania, in order to resist the excise laid by the general government upon domestic distillation (1794). Washington instantly issued a proclamation against the insurgents, called out a large force of militia, or State troops, and took the field himself, but finding that the Pennsylvanians had dispersed, returned to the seat of government, then at Philadelphia. He had met the doubts of friends and the sneers of foes with regard to the efficiency of the national power. It was a part of his domestic rather than his foreign policy which we have to notice in his treatment of the Indian tribes. Obliged to send troops against such of them as were in arms, he made favourable treaties with them, while for those who were at peace he instituted various measures designed to promote their civilization. The United States were now (1796) sixteen in number—North Carolina and Rhode Island having acceded, and Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee having been admitted to the Union. The total population was not far from five millions.

Washington's foreign policy was much more complicated, not in consequence of its own nature, but through the convulsive passions which rose around it. The French Revolution, beginning at the same time that Washington assumed the Presidency, led to new points of controversy, the Republican party devoting itself and the country to the support of the Revolution, while the Federalists took the opposite ground, and denounced the French excesses in unmeasured terms. On the declaration of war by France against Great Britain, a large number of the Americans were ready to join in the strife, very few if any, however, on the British side. Washington instantly issued his proclamation of neutrality (April 1793), to the effect, "that the duty and interest of the United States require that they should with sincerity and good faith, adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial towards the belligerent powers." He explained his purpose at a later time in these words:—"I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves, and not for others. This, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad, and happy at home; and not, by becoming the partizans of Great Britain or France, create dissensions, disturb the public tranquillity, and destroy, perhaps for ever, the cement which binds the Union."

In the execution of this system, Washington opposed the proceedings of the French envoy, who undertook to commission privateers, and to establish prize courts in the ports of the United States. He had then to deal with the greater difficulties arising from the invasion of American neutrality by both France and Great Britain, in consequence of which war with the latter power was openly talked of and prepared. To avert this great calamity, Washington sent Chief Justice Jay on a special mission to London, where, after much trouble, he succeeded in negotiating a treaty, by which some of the sharper points in controversy were smoothed down (1794). But it was not until a year and a half later that the treaty, though ratified by the President and the Senate, was fully accepted by the government of the United States; nor would it have been accepted then but for the subsidence of the popular commotions that had been roused against it. When the treaty was confirmed, and not before then, Washington felt that his great principle of neutrality had prevailed. But though the threatened war with Great Britain was averted, relations with France continued in a disturbed state, and led to fresh menaces of conflict under the next administration.

What Washington was able to check, broke out with renewed violence under his successors. John Adams, president for four years (1797-1801), Thomas Jefferson, president also for eight years (1809-17), were all absorbed in contention with either France or Great Britain during the greater part of the period formed by their administrations. But for the excitement between the two parties, federalist and republican, the former of which declining towards the close of Washington's presidency, sank under Adams, while the latter rose to power with Jefferson and Madison—but for these parties and their strifes, the questions involved in foreign relations would have been less embittered. The federalists, however, were strong against France, the republicans equally strong against Great Britain, and upon these prejudices and animosities, points of domestic, as well as of foreign policy, were made to depend; and to such a degree, that constitutional theories, territorial acquisitions, and other matters of the greatest importance to the nation, were debated and decided in the light, or rather in the shadow of merely European relations. It is not one of the bright pages of United States history that we are turning.

We can but advert to some of the domestic questions belonging to the period. One was, with regard to slavery, particularly in the Territories formed out of hitherto Louisiana, unoccupied parts of the country. Before the government was organized under the constitution, and at the very time that the constitution itself was in process of formation (July 13, 1787), the ordinance for the North-west Territory already alluded to, prohibited the introduction of slavery there. In Washington's time, Congress organized the Territory S. of the Ohio, according to the terms on which N. Carolina had ceded her western lands, namely, that nothing should be done by Congress "tending to the emancipation of slaves" (1790). Eight years later, the Mississippi Territory was organized upon the same terms, but as there was no stipulation from a state in this case, an attempt was made in Congress to prohibit slavery, but in vain. Another question, arousing much greater vehemence on both sides, sprang from the acquisition of Louisiana, a name then extending over an indefinite tract to the W. of the Mississippi, purchased by Jefferson's administration from France, to which power the territory had been restored by Spain (1803). Jefferson allowed that he had performed "an act beyond the constitution," and the party in opposition made the most of it against him; but the importance of possessing the mouth of the Mississippi was so great as to outweigh all appeals to the letter of the constitution, especially when made by a party hitherto urging the most liberal interpretation. The new domain was organized as two Territories, one of Orleans, the other of Louisiana, but for the successive additions to the Union we refer, once for all, to the table at the beginning of this article.

The missions to France under both Washington and War with Adams having utterly miscarried, in consequence of the French demands, Adams recommended Congress to put the country in a proper state of defence (March 1798). The federalist majority responded by organizing a provisional army, of which Washington was appointed Commander-in-Chief, and by establishing a department for the navy; the President being authorized to employ the national vessels in capturing any armed vessels of the French. American privateers were soon swarming the seas, and the few ships of the navy cruised in various directions, but without any actual engagement except between the Constellation and L'Insurgente (Feb. 1799). A new mission was then sent to France, despite all party clamours, and the war, if war it can be called, came to an end. It left its traces upon the Americans, especially from the lengths to which their parties had gone, the administration adopting extreme measures in support of the war, the opposition proceeding even to nullification of the acts of government. It is worth while, in order to understand the strain upon the United States during these years, simply to mention that the Bey of Tripoli, from whom, as from the Dey of Algiers, peace had been purchased, declared war, and kept it up for four years (1801-5); that the Dey of Algiers did the same for three years (1812-15), though actual hostilities were confined to the last of the three; and that the Indian tribes of the N.W., before (1811), as well as during the war with Great Britain, to be presently mentioned, were in arms, to the great peril of the frontier.

All other contentions, however, sank into insignificance compared with the growing dissensions with Great Britain. That power, interfering with the neutral trade, and claiming the right of impressment from American national vessels as well as from merchantmen, was first addressed by a mission, attempting the negotiation of a treaty on these disputed points (1806). The negotiations failing, and a collision on the subject of impressment having taken place between the American frigate Chesapeake and the British frigate Leopold (1807), the American government made a faint effort to assert its prerogatives. But from Great Britain there had already opened that series of attacks upon neutral rights, known as the Orders in Council (1806-8), in retaliation for which Napoleon issued his equally aggressive decrees (1806-10). An embargo was declared (1807), then revoked (1809) by the United States government; non-intercourse, or non-importation acts with regard to Great Britain and France, sometimes suspended, never effective, were tried; until, in the spring of 1812, a new embargo was laid as a measure preparatory to war. It was attempted to treat France exactly as Great Britain; but as some negotiations were then on foot at Paris, the actual declaration of war was made against Great Britain alone (June 1812).

No nation professedly united was ever more divided on any point than the United States on this war with Great Britain. It was considered by the opposition to be a mere administration measure, resistance to which argued no want of patriotism, but quite the contrary; and so, from the beginning to the close of the hostilities, the federalists, especially in New England, did all they could to stay the course on which they thought the government was driving to destruction. The Hartford Convention, a prominent body in the political history of the United States, yet little known even in its own country, met at the very end of the conflict, to express the sense of New England, and to attempt redress of existing abuses as well as preparation for future reforms. The legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut, the leading States in the Convention of Hartford, went so far as to nullify an act of Congress regarding enlistments. Meantime the nation had suffered for the want of resources, which nothing but unanimity could supply, even if they were to be supplied at all. The army was but a handful, and the militia, instead of coming forward in large numbers, stayed to attend party meetings, and discuss the right of Government to call them out; the navy was inconsiderable; the supply of war material very scanty, and the treasury reduced almost to its last dollar, despite direct taxation and repeated loans. But for the fact that Great Britain was absorbed in her war with Napoleon, the war with the United States would have soon terminated.

As it was, the war lasted two years and a half. Its principal scene of operations was the Canada frontier, from Michigan to New York, where a series of actions, inconsiderable in proportions and results, took place; the only engagements of more than local importance being a victory won by the American commander, Perry, over a British squadron on Lake Erie (1813), and another naval conflict in which the American captain, McDonough, came off conqueror on Lake Champlain (1814). On the line of the Atlantic coast, blockaded and frequently invaded by the British, no event of any general moment occurred until the capture of Washington and Alexandria (1814), immediately after which Baltimore was successfully defended. A few months later, General Jackson conducted the defence of Louisiana against a large force, the decisive defeat of which occurred at New Orleans. On the sea, the few vessels of the American navy began by achieving remarkable successes (1812), but reverses followed (1813), nor was it till the close of the war that the British again suffered defeat on what their historian calls "their own element."

At length, Great Britain offered to enter into negotiations for peace, which resulted in a treaty restoring the conquests made by either belligerent, and providing for commissioners to confer upon some disputed points; but the great questions for which the United States had professed to take up arms, the British claims of impressment and of the control of neutral trade, were not determined, though they had been modified in some respects by other action on the part of the contending nations. The issue of the conflict was as undecisive, as might have been expected from the insignificant scale upon which it had been waged. The treaty was signed by the negotiators in December 1814, and ratified by the United States in February 1815.

From the year 1815, when the total population amounted to about eight millions, and the total area of the nation to about one million seven hundred thousand square miles, the United States have passed through a period of forty years and more, at the close of which the national proportions are, as the table at the beginning of this article indicates, of much greater magnitude. We propose to touch upon the more important occurrences of the period.

The purchase of Florida from Spain, between whom and the United States there had been many difficulties, of Territory, chiefly on the score of this very territory, was made in 1819. The annexation of Texas in 1844, the treaty with Great Britain concerning the Pacific boundary between her possessions and the United States in 1846, the treaty in which Mexico ceded New Mexico and California in 1848, and the purchase of 23,000,000 acres in Northern Mexico in 1854, were much larger territorial acquisitions. They were not made without controversy with foreign powers, nor have they been occupied without domestic dissensions of a far more serious character.

When Missouri Territory, a part of the Louisiana acquisition, was seeking admission into the Union, it was urged in Congress that slavery should be prohibited in the proposed State, either at once or at some definite day in the future. The question was argued, or rather fought over, for many months both in and out of Congress,—the Northern States generally insisting that Missouri must be free, the Southern that she must remain exactly what she then was, slaveholding. Finally, a plan was brought forward in Congress, by which the North yielded its claim upon Missouri, at the same time that the South gave up that vast portion of the Louisiana territory as yet unorganized; a line being drawn across it at the latitude of 36 deg. 30 min., south of which were the State of Louisiana and Arkansas Territory, both slaveholding, while north of it, Missouri only excepted, extended the track now to be devoted to freemen. This was the Missouri compromise, an act variously interpreted and regarded both then and since, but always prominent in the history of that slavery question which divides the American Union. It was passed in 1820.

James Monroe succeeded Madison in the presidency, Doctrine. and retained it for eight years (1817-25). Towards the close of his administration (1823), in compliance with the suggestion of his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, he introduced into his message to Congress—adverting to the purpose of the European allies of Spain to assist her in subduing her revolted colonies in Central and South America—the assertion of "a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent position which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power," continues the message, "we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States."

Congress took no action upon the communication, but the spirit of that body, as of the nation, was favourable to the so-called Monroe doctrine. It has been much misunderstood, but the extract just given shews precisely what was intended, first, placing the American continent in the same position as Europe; and secondly, protecting the Spanish colonies against the violence with which they were threatened.

During the administration of John Quincy Adams, who succeeded Monroe (1825-29), a very serious controversy arose between the national government and the State of Georgia. The State authorities demanded that the government should hasten the execution of a compact, according to which it had bound itself to extinguish all Indian titles to Georgian territory, and on the government's continuing to consult the Indian as well as the Georgian interest in the matter, the governor called upon the adjoining states "to stand by their arms," and warned the national authorities that they might be "treated as a public enemy" (1827). This storm having slowly blown over, another arose in the succeeding administration of Andrew Jackson (1829-37), when, after much previous altercation on the subject, South Carolina pronounced the national tariff, by which protective duties were laid, to be "unauthorized by the constitution, . . . null and void, and no law, nor binding upon the State of South Carolina, its officers and citizens." These words were followed up in the same assembly by others, declaring that the people of South Carolina would never submit to the national government, and that any attempt to enforce the tariff would be "inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union" (1832). But, as the insurgent State found none to join her, and as the national government, though firm in its determination to uphold the laws, consented to modify the tariff (1833), South Carolina returned to her allegiance. It still remained, and it remains to the present day, an open question in many parts of the United States, how far the State, and how far the National Government, is sovereign; in other words, whether the State is subordinate to the Nation, or the Nation to the State. The greatest interpreters of the United States constitution insist upon the supremacy of the nation, but it is by no means the prevailing doctrine in times of sectional difference or strife.

At the very time that President Jackson was dealing with South Carolina, he was creating another cause of general altercation in pressing the removal of the Treasury deposits from the United States Bank. Congress declining to decide, he took the decision upon himself, and ordered the deposits to be removed, on the ground, first, that the bank officers had been intriguing against him, and then, that as the bank charter was about to expire, some new place of deposit and management must be provided for the public funds (1833). Old parties had long since disappeared, and the dividing line between those now in existence was but ill defined, when Jackson suffered this opportunity to present itself to the opposition. They used it freely, and laid such stress upon executive usurpations, as to stir the whole nation to side with the attack or with the defence, according to their different relations and inclinations.

A movement, very variously estimated, both in and out of the United States, began under Jackson's administration. The abolition of slavery was no new question; it had been brought before Congress during Washington's presidency, and often revived in subsequent years. At this time, however, a more systematic attempt was made to promote it; and though those who engaged in the enterprise were of little influence, and though they professed, with few exceptions, to be full of moderation, a great excitement arose at the North as well as at the South, and many acts of positive riot ensued (1835). Whatever view may be taken of abolitionism, in its earlier or its later days, two things are to be mentioned in this brief narrative as historical; one that it checked every movement in slaveholding States towards the removal of slavery; the other, that it widened the division between the free and the slave States, to a degree that has never since been repaired.

We pass over many transactions that would require to be dwelt upon in a more extended article, and arrive at a dark era in this history. Just after Martin Van Buren succeeded Jackson in the presidency (1837), a financial tempest, long gathering from many quarters, broke upon the country involving some sections in losses from which there was no immediate recovery. Its effects were most severe among the State governments, many of which had been running into debts far beyond their existing means to meet, and they now failed to pay even the interest upon the stocks which they had issued. One State, Mississippi, took advantage of an alleged illegality in the sale of one million sterling of her bonds, and, led by her governor, repudiated the entire debt (1841-2). Florida Territory followed her example; indeed, it may be said to have been approved of by the nation, or by the national authorities, who, three years afterwards, admitted Florida, still repudiating her debt, into the Union (1845).

Before some of the last-mentioned transactions took place, the interests of political affairs began to centre in the relations of the United States with Great Britain. An insurrection in Canada, to which some United States citizens gave their sympathy and aid (1837), led to disturbances in the intercourse of the two nations, which were enhanced by the British exercise of the right of visit, as well as by conflicting claims on the subject of the boundary between the north-east of the United States and the British possessions. These various differences were happily allayed by the treaty of Washington, negotiated by Webster, secretary of state under President Tyler (succeeding Harrison, who had followed Van Buren in 1841), and Lord Ashburton, special envoy from Great Britain (1842). A few years later, another negotiation concerning the boundary between Oregon on the north-west, and the British possessions, was peacefully terminated (1846). May all succeeding questions between the two nations, whether of boundaries or of more intricate relations, be brought to equally peaceful issues!

The inhabitants of the Mexican province of Texas, chiefly emigrants from the United States, had declared of Texas and maintained their independence of Mexico in the year The next year they presented their State as a candidate for admission into the American Union, but in consideration of Mexico and her claims, the offer was declined. It was only deferred; the desire of the Texans being no stronger than that of many Americans, particularly in the Southern States, that the annexation should be consummated. An additional motive was brought forward in the report that Texas, if kept at a distance by the Union, would turn to Great Britain or to France for the purpose of placing herself under foreign protection. As far as the United States were concerned, however, the question turned chiefly upon slavery; the south advocating and the north resisting the admission of Texas as a slave-holding State. Finally, a compromise was hit upon; whatever territory Texas contained north of the Missouri compromise line of 36° 30', was closed to the introduction of slavery, while the territory south of the same line might be open to slavery, or not open to it, exactly as its inhabitants should determine at a later day. Resolutions to this effect having passed both houses of Congress, Texas assented, and was soon afterwards admitted to the Union (1845).

The inevitable result, a war with Mexico, soon followed, James K. Polk being President of the United States. The Mexican government declared it their "only recourse;" the United States government, adverting to Mexican spoliations long unrepressed, and claiming for the newly acquired territory a boundary against which Mexico particularly protested, ordered the advance of the American troops to the Rio Grande, where battles on a small scale were won by the American General Taylor (May 1846). The conflict extended at different points along the Mexican frontier; California was conquered on the western coast, while the eastern was partially blockaded. In the spring of 1847, the Americans took Vera Cruz, and thence marched, under the command of General Scott, fighting as they went, until they entered the city of Mexico in the early autumn. This remarkable campaign decided the war, though peace was not made until some months afterwards, when the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded the whole of Texas, New Mexico, and Upper California to the United States (1848). The war had been significant chiefly in its development of the military element in the victorious nation. Apart from the army and its operations, but very little interest had been felt in the war—that is, as a war; the large majority of the people regarding the cause as trifling, and the issue unimportant.

The people of the United States were soon engaged in fighting other battles, as passionate, if not as bloody as those that had occurred in Mexico. The enormous addition of territory on the Southern frontier had given new impetus to the alterations on slavery. As early as the summer following the outbreak of the Mexican war, the Wilmot proviso, so called, had been urged and partially sustained in Congress, to the effect that slavery should be prohibited in any territory that might be conquered (1846). As soon as the war was over, domestic strife set in, the North attempting to restrict, the South to extend the area of slavery, amid animosities and recriminations on both sides. General Taylor, becoming President (1849), issued instructions that the people in the new territories should make some political organization for themselves, whereupon California adopted a State constitution, by which slavery was formally prohibited. Her application for admission was a sort of turning point in the struggle with regard to the character of the newly conquered territory. It was at length assented to, New Mexico and Utah being at the same time constituted Territories without any provision for or against slavery, while an indemnity was paid to Texas for part of the region included in New Mexico. Other measures, suppressing the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and securing the rendition of fugitive slaves by the Northern States, completed the compromise of 1850, as it was styled, in which two of the chief American statesmen, Clay and Webster, had been prominently engaged.

The strife regarding slavery did not subside. Millard Fillmore had succeeded Taylor (1850), and Franklin Pierce followed Fillmore in the Presidency (1853), when a new Act was passed by Congress, repealing the Missouri compromise of thirty years before, and throwing open the whole territory not included in the States already organized, to slave-holders as well as to non-slave-holders (1854). The principle of this measure, as stated in the Act itself, was that "of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Territories," and its object, as the Act further declares, was "not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions their own way, subject only to the constitution of the United States." It immediately became a matter of life and death with the more extreme parties at the North and South, to secure on the former side the prevention, on the latter the introduction of slavery into the Territory of Kansas, the southern portion of that vast region to which the Act applied. But instead of accomplishing their purpose by legal means, both parties resorted to violence and bloodshed, the consequences of which are still felt, though the centre of contention is no longer Kansas. Over these later events, it is fortunate that the chronological limits of our article compel us to draw a veil.

Our narrative has been confined to civil and political occurrences, but it ought not to be terminated without a glance at the general growth of the nation during the period under review. The statistical portion of this article, shewing the physical and intellectual condition of the country, as it is at present, suggests the rapidity and the extent of the national development; the various results that have sprung from it, and the various points to which it appears to tend. We need not repeat the commonplace reflections upon facts which, however remarkable, are not wholly unparallelled; other nations besides this have grown from small beginnings, possessed themselves of immense resources, and looked forward to unending achievements of wealth, power, and prosperity; but when all proper comparisons and qualifications have been made, the United States will present a spectacle so striking, that it may be called one of the phenomena of history. To no single race belongs the praise; if the English planted, others planted likewise; and if the growth has been English in its general character, there has been constant and copious admixture. Hence may be traced not only the helps to the national advancement, but also the hindrances to it, the different interests and passions to be reconciled, the controversies of the past and the present to be stilled, before the future is secure.