網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

CHAPTER XII.

STATES.

ting them for legislation and government both in national and local affairs. As for A BRIEF GEOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE UNITED the larger towns, they are incorporated as cities and boroughs, and have municipal governments of a threefold kind: legisla-physical character and resources of the tive, executive, and judicial.

In like manner, a short account of the

The separation of the colonies from Great United States will be found useful to the Britain, and the reorganization of their re-reader. spective governments, produced changes allels of 24° 27′ and 54° 40′ north latitude, The United States lie between the parless essential than at first view might be sup- and 66° 50′ and 125° west longitude from posed. The King, Parliament, and Justicia- Greenwich, and are bounded as follows: ry of England were superseded by the Pres-On the east, by the Atlantic and the Britident, Congress, and Supreme Court of the ish Province of New-Brunswick; on the United States, the nature of the government remaining essentially the same. For a he-south, by the Gulf of Mexico, Texas, and reditary sovereign, we have a President, the Pacific Ocean; and on the north, by the Republic of Mexico; on the west, by chosen once in four years; for a hereditary, the British possessions, from which they House of Peers, a Senate, the members of which are chosen for six years; the powers are separated partly by the River St. Lawof the President and Senate being almost rence and the great chain of lakes that flow identical in most things with those of the into, or, rather, that form a series of excorresponding branches of the British Con- pansions of that river, and partly by a constitution. As for the several colonies, ventional line west of the Oregon Mountthese the Revolution transformed into ains, which line has not been determined. states, and the old royal charters were suThe United States' government claims up perseded by constitutions. Beyond this to latitude 54° 40', but this is resisted by there was no essential change, and but lit- England. The 49° degree of north latitude tle alteration even in forms. Instead of will most probably be agreed to, that being being appointed by the British crown, or by the latitude of the boundary eastward of proprietary companies or individuals, the those mountains to the Lake of the Woods, governors are chosen by the people themafter which it pursues a southeast direction selves. The legislative and judicial branch-through some small lakes, and across an ines underwent very little modification.

There are now in the American Union twenty-six organized states, three territories, and one district. The territories are under the government of the President and Congress of the United States, but will become states as soon as the amount of their population entitles them, in the opinion of Congress, to be represented in the National Legislature. They have a Legislature of their own, but their governors are appointed by the President. Two, namely, Wisconsin and Iowa, will soon have a sufficient population to entitle them to a place among the states. And when these are admitted, Florida will probably be so too.

Under the impression that the National Government should be removed from the immediate influence of any one state, the District of Columbia, ten miles square, was taken from Virginia and Maryland, and set apart as the seat of the National Government, and to it, that is, to the President, Congress, and Supreme Court, it is immediately subject. Experience has hardly

approved of this measure as either wise or necessary. No part of the country is worse governed, Congress being too much occupied with other matters to pay much attention to so insignificant a territory.

The preceding outline will suffice to give the reader some idea of the government of the United States, and prepare him for understanding many things which might otherwise be obscure in the farther course of this work.

tervening portage to Lake Superior, which is the uppermost of the chain of lakes through which the St. Lawrence flows.

A glance at the map will show that this vast territory consists of three grand sections, the Atlantic slope, the Pacific slope, and the intermediate Valley of the Mississippi. The whole is computed by Mr. Tanner, a distinguished American geographer, to contain 2,037,165 square miles.

The outlines of the entire territory may be given as follows:

On the north, from the mouth of the St.
Croix River to the Oregon Mountains
From the Oregon Mountains to the Pacific

Ocean

Along the Pacific, from lat. 54° 40′ to lat. 42o
Along the Mexican and Texan territories,

from the Pacific to the mouth of the Sabine
River

Along the Atlantic Ocean.
Along the Gulf of Mexico to Florida Point

Making a total outline of

Miles.

3000

600

865

2300 1100

1800 9665

[blocks in formation]

and enlarging, as it advances southward, from twenty to nearly a hundred miles broad, the latter being its width in the state of North Carolina. Between this sandy tract and the Alleghany Mountains the land is generally fertile, and produces various crops, according to the climate, such as fine wheat and the other cereal grains in NewJersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Vir

also largely cultivated, cotton in the Carolinas and in Georgia; and on the rich bottom lands along the bays and streams of the sandy tract, rice and indigo.

As we advance northward along this fertile tract intervening between the sand and the mountains, we gradually leave the region of transition and secondary rocks, and enter on that of granite, so that before reaching the State of Maine, primitive rocks abound everywhere, even on the surface of the ground.

Upon a survey of the whole of this territory, it will be found to possess physical advantages such as few other countries enjoy. While, with the exception of Florida, all parts of it comprise a large proportion of excellent soil, many exhibit the most astonishing fertility. It abounds in the most valuable minerals. Iron is found in several states in great abundance. At various points, but particularly in the Mid-gia; in which last two states tobacco is dle States, there are vast deposites of coal, which is easily conveyed by water carriage to other parts of the country. Even gold is found in considerable quantities in the western parts of North Carolina, and the adjacent parts of South Carolina and Georgia, and some in Virginia and Tennessee. The almost boundless forests of the interior furnish timber suited to all purposes. Navigable rivers everywhere present facilities for trade. On the Atlantic slope, beginning from the east and advancing southwest, we find in succession the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the Merrimac, the Connecticut, the Hudson, the Delaware, the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the James River, the Roanoke, the Neuse, the Fear, the Pedee, the Santee, the Savannah, the Altamaha, and the St. John's, without reckoning many smaller but important streams, navigable by common boats and small steamers. Many of these rivers, such as the Delaware, the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the James, and the Roanoke, expand into noble estuaries before they fall into the ocean; and the coast is indented, also, with many bays, unrivalled in point of extent and beauty. Beginning from the east, we have Portland or Casco Bay, Portsmouth Bay, Newburyport Bay, Massachusetts Bay, Buzzard's Bay, Narragansett Bay, New-York Bay, Amboy Bay, Delaware Bay, Chesapeake Bay, into which twelve wide-mouthed rivers fall, Wilmington Bay, Charleston Bay, &c., &c.

But in point of fertility the Atlantic slope bears no comparison with the Valley of the Mississippi, embracing a territory about six times as large as that of France, and likely, ere long, to be the abode of many millions of the human race. Fifty years ago it contained little more than a hundred thousand inhabitants; the population of the settled part of it amounted, as we have seen, in 1840,* to above six millions, and this, it is calculated from the data supplied in the last forty years, will have increased, in thirty-five years hence, to not much under thirty millions. By the end of the present century it will probably be not less than fifty or sixty millions.

The tabular view on page 22 shows the immense size of the eleven states and two territories already organized in this vast valley; let us now look for a moment to their natural resources.

Ohio, lying between the beautiful river of that name and Lake Erie, comprises 40,260 square miles, and a population of above a million and a half. As England and Wales have 57,929 square miles, and 15,906,829 inhabitants, Ohio, at the same ratio, would have 11,055,066. With the exception of a part of it in the southeast, on the Hockhocking River, there is little poor land in the state. Vast forests cover the greater part of it to this day. Lake Erie on the north, the River Ohio on the south, and several navigable streams flowing from the interior, both to the north and south, give it great natural advantages for

With the exception of part of the eastern coast of Connecticut, a chain of islands, some inhabited, many not, runs parallel to the shore, beginning at Passamaquoddy Bay, and extending to the southern extremity of Florida, and thence round into the Gulf of Mexico, and along its coast, to beyond the western limit of the United States. Thus are formed some of the finest channels for an extensive coasting trade, such as Long Island Sound, Albemarle Sound, Pamlico Sound, and many others. To increase these facilities, canals and rail-commerce; in addition to which, two imroads have been extended along the coast from Portland in Maine, to Charleston in South Carolina, and even farther.

Immediately on the seacoast of the western part of New-Jersey, there commences a belt of sand, which extends along the whole margin of the Southern States, covered with an almost uninterrupted forest of pines,

portant artificial lines of communication, made at great expense, traverse it from

*The exact population of the eleven states and two territories of the Valley of the Mississippi was, without including Western Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Flordia, in 1840, 6,376,972; in 1830 it was 3,342,680; in 1820 it was 2,237,454; in 1810 it was 1,099,180; in 1800 it was 385,647; in 1790 it was only 109,888.

Lake Erie to the Ohio. Cincinnati, its commercial capital, has a population of not less than fifty thousand inhabitants.

Indiana and Illinois are scarcely, if at all, inferior to Ohio in natural advantages; and considering its proportion of first-rate land, Michigan is, perhaps, the best state in the Union. Kentucky and Tennessee abound both in good land and in mineral

resources.

Missouri, one of the largest states in the Union, possesses a vast extent of excellent land, besides rich mines of iron and of lead. The two territories, Iowa and Wisconsin, lying northward of Missouri and Illinois, the former on the west, and the latter on the east of the Upper Mississippi, are large and fertile districts of country, abounding also in lead mines. Both are evidently destined to become great states. Arkansas having a great deal of inferior, as well as of fertile land, is considered one of the poorest states on the Mississippi. The large State of Alabama, with the exception of a small part in the south, about Mobile, and another part in the north, near the Tennessee River, was, in 1815, in the occupancy of the Creek, Chocta, and Chickasa Indians, chiefly the first of those tribes, but is now rapidly increasing in population. The State of Mississippi has also much land of the very best quality, and although its financial affairs are at present in a deplorable condition, from bad legislation, it may be expected, in a few years, to emerge from its embarrassments. Humanly speaking, it must be so, for its natural resources are great. And as for Louisiana, the rich alluvial soil of the banks of its rivers, and its advantages for commerce, derived from its position in the lowest part of the great Valley of the Mississippi, must eventually make it a rich and powerful state. But it would require the perseverance shown in similar circumstances by the people of Holland, to defend with dikes the southern portion of the Delta of the Mississippi, and to make the whole the valuable country into which it might be converted.

An immense tract of almost unexplored country lies to the northwest of the State of Missouri and the Territories of Iowa and Wisconsin, much of which is believed to be fertile. What new states may yet be formed there, time alone will show.

world. But besides these two great inlets from the north and south, communication with the Atlantic slope has been opened up at various points of the Alleghany chain, by means of substantial roads of the ordinary construction, and also by canals and railways. Thus a railway, above six hundred miles in length, unites the town of Buffalo on Lake Erie with Boston; a canal unites it with Albany, and from that point the Hudson River connects it with New-York. Buffalo communicates, again, with all the northern parts of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois, and with the eastern side of the Wisconsin Territory, by fifty steamboats which ply between it and the ports of those regions. To all these advantages we must ascribe the rapid appearance of so many large cities in this great Western Valley, such as NewOrleans, St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, to say nothing of smaller towns on spots which, with the exception of New-Orleans, may be said to have been covered by the forest only fifty years ago.

I conclude this chapter by remarking for a moment on the kind and wise Providence which kept the great Valley of the Mississippi from the possession, and almost from the knowledge of the colonists of the United States, for more than one hundred and fifty years. By that time, they had so far occupied and reduced to cultivation the less fertile hills of the Atlantic slope, and there had acquired that hardy, industrious, and virtuous character, which better fitted them to carry civilization and religion into the vast plains of the West. So that, at this day, the New-England and other Atlantic States, while increasing in population themselves, serve, at the same time, as nurseries from which the West derives many of the best plants that are transferred to its noble soil.

CHAPTER XIII.

OBSTACLES WHICH THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN SUPPORTING RELIGION HAS HAD TO EN

COUNTER IN AMERICA: 1. FROM THE ERRO

NEOUS OPINIONS ON THE SUBJECT OF RELIGIOUS ECONOMY WHICH THE COLONISTS BROUGHT WITH THEM.

Nearly the whole of this vast valley is SOME persons in Europe entertain the drained by one great river and its branch- idea, that if the "American plan" of supes, of which no fewer than fifty-seven are porting religion, by relying, under God's navigable for steamboats. Indeed, the blessing, upon the efforts of the people, Missouri, the Arkansas, the Red River, rather than upon the help of the governand the White River, flowing from the ment, has succeeded in that country, it has west, and the Illinois, the Ohio, the Cum- been owing, in a great measure, to the fact berland, and the Tennessee, from the north that the country presented an open field and east, are themselves great rivers. On for the experiment; that everything was the north the great lakes, and on the south new there; that no old establishments had the Gulf of Mexico, form openings into to be pulled down; no deep-rooted prejuthis vast region for the commerce of the dices to be eradicated; no time-honoured

institutions to be modified; but that all was favourable for attempting something new under the sun. Now it is hardly possible to entertain an idea more remote from the truth than this.

cles which the "American plan" of supporting religion had to overcome arose from the erroneous views of the colonists on the subject of religious liberty. The voluntary system rests on the grand basis of perfect religious freedom. I mean a freedom of conscience for all; for those who believe Christianity to be true, and for those who do not; for those who prefer one form of worship, and for those who prefer another. This is all implied, or, rather, it is fully avowed, at the first step in supporting religion upon this plan.

What follows will demonstrate that, so far from committing religion to the spontaneous support of persons cordially interested in its progress, the opposite course was pursued from the first almost, in all the colonies. In the greater number of the colonies, in fact, men looked to the civil government for the support of the Christian ministry and worship. Now what we have here to consider is not the question whether they were right or wrong in doing so, but the simple fact that they actually did so; and, accordingly, that, so far from what has been called the Voluntary Prin-ideas on the subject of religious toleration ciple having had an open field in America, in those very parts of the country which now, perhaps, best illustrate its efficiency, it had long to struggle with establishments founded on the opposite system, and with strong prepossessions in their favour.

In all such parts of the country many obstacles were opposed to the abandonment of the old system.. Good and great men made no secret of their fears that the cause of religion would thus be ruined; that the churches would be forsaken by the people, whose unaided efforts would prove unequal to the expense of maintaining them, and that they could never be induced to attempt it. In fact, as they had never been accustomed to rely upon their own exertions in that matter, and were not aware how much they could do, they were at first timid and discouraged. Another obstacle lay in the unwillingness of those who had enjoyed the influence and ascendency conferred by the old system, to surrender those advantages. Such persons were prone to believe, and naturally sought to impress others with the conviction, no doubt very sincerely, that their resistance to the proposed change was the legitimate fruit of their zeal for the cause of God, and of their dread lest that cause should

suffer.

Now it so happened-nor ought we to wonder at it, for it would have been a miracle had it been otherwise-that very many of the best colonists who settled in America had not yet attained to correct

and the rights of conscience. It required persecution, and that thorough discussion of the subject which persecution brought in its train, both in the colonies and in England and other European countries, to make them understand the subject. And, in point of fact, those who first understood it had learned it in the school of persecution. Such was Roger Williams; such were Lord Baltimore and the Roman Catholics who settled in Maryland; such was William Penn. Accordingly, the three colonies that they founded, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, including Delaware, were the first communities, either in the New or the Oid World, that enjoyed religious liberty in the fullest extent.

I am sure, indeed, that, as I have already said, the founders of the first American col-· onies, and those of New-England in particular, did as much for freedom of conscience as could have been expected, and were in that respect in advance of the age in which they lived. If they were intolerant, so were others. If they would not allow Roman Catholics to live among them, the most dreadful examples, be it remembered, of Roman Catholic intolerance were forced upon their attention, and that their policy was merciful in the extreme compared with that of Roman Catholic counOther obstacles, and those not inconsid- tries in those days. They merely refused erable, had to be encountered, all resulting to receive them or to allow them to remain directly or indirectly from the old system. among them, whereas the poor Huguenots It will be shown, in due time, that some of of France were not permitted so much as the worst heresies in the United States to retire from amid their enemies. If, in. were originated and propagated by meas- some of the colonies, Quakers were treatures arising out of the old system. What ed with great harshness and shocking inI mean to say is, that Truth has there en-justice, what treatment did the members of countered powerful obstacles, which we that sect receive at the same period in have every reason to believe would not England? If the colonists burned witches, have existed but for that union. Other was not that done also in Scotland, Engevils there might have been in the absence | of any such union; but, be that as it may, with the obstacles to which I refer, it could not be said that the field was entirely new, far less that it was open.

Still more some of the greatest obsta

land, and other countries?

I may therefore repeat, that the colonists were in advance of their contemporaries in their views of almost all questions relating to human rights, and that they maintained this advance is attested by the insti

more or less flourishes. Such of them as are not decidedly religious in heart and life, greatly risk losing any good impressions they may have brought with them, amid the engrossing cares and manifold temptations of their new circumstances; circumstances in which even the estab

tutions that arose among them. But the intolerance with which these were chargeable at first, may be traced to their opinions with regard to the relations which the Church ought to sustain towards the State. And their erroneous views on that subject created obstacles which were with difficulty overcome by the principle of leaving re-lished Christian will find much need of religion, not to the support as well as protec- doubled vigilance and prayer. tion of the State, but to the hearts and hands of persons who have truly received, and are willing to sustain it. These remarks will suffice to show that the field was not so open to that principle in America as some have thought.

CHAPTER XIV.

OBSTACLES WHICH THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM

The comparative thinness, also, of the population in the United States now is, and must long continue to be, a great obstacle to the progress of religion in that country. I have already stated, that the area of all the territory claimed by its government is somewhat more than 2,000,000 of square miles. Now, leaving out of view the vast region on the Upper Missouri and Mississippi rivers, west and north of Iowa and Wisconsin, and reaching to the Ore

HAS HAD TO ENCOUNTER IN AMERICA: 2. gon Mountains; leaving out of view also

FROM THE NEWNESS OF THE COUNTRY, THE
THINNESS OF THE POPULATION, AND THE UN-
SETTLED STATE OF SOCIETY.

A SECOND class of obstacles which the voluntary system, or, I should rather say, which religion in general has had to encounter in America, comprehends such as are inseparable from its condition as a new country.

the Pacific slope, and looking only to the twenty-six states, three territories, and one district, we have a country of somewhat more than 1,000,000 of square miles, over which the Anglo-American race has more or less diffused itself. But the whole population, including the African race among us, in 1840, was just 17,068,666. That is, upon an average, about seventeen souls to the square mile. If this population were equally diffused over the entire sur

From its very nature, the life of a colonist presents manifold temptations to neg-face of the organized states and territories, lect the interests of the soul. There is the even then it would be difficult enough to separation of himself and his family, if he establish and maintain churches and other has one, from old associations and influ- religious institutions among so sparse a ences; and the removal, if not from abun- population. Still, perhaps, it could be done. dant means of grace, at least from the force A parish of thirty-six square miles, which of that public opinion which often power- would be large enough in point of extent, fully restrains from the commission of would contain 612 souls. One twice as open sin. Now though many of the Amer-large would contain 1224 souls. But alican colonists fled from persecution and from abounding iniquity, such was not the case with all. Then, there is the entering into new and untried situations; the forming of new acquaintances, not always of the best kind; and even that engrossment with the cares and labours attending a man's removal into a new country, especially in the case of the many who have to earn their bread by their own strenuous exertions. All these things hinder the growth of piety in the soul, and form real obstacles to its promotion in a community.

though a country would be considered well supplied if it had a pastor for every 1224 souls, still the dispersion of these over seventy-two square miles would necessarily very much curtail the pastor's opportunity for doing good, and prevent the souls under his charge from enjoying the full influence of the Gospel. But the population of the United States is far from being thus equally distributed. Some of the older states are pretty densely settled; not more, however, than is necessary for the easy maintenance of churches, and of a And if such hinderances had a baneful regular and settled ministry. Massachueffect at the outset, they have never ceased setts, the most densely settled of them all, to operate injuriously down to this day. has 102 souls to the square mile; some To say nothing of the foreigners who others, such as Connecticut and Rhode Islcome, year after year, to the American and, have from seventy to eighty; othshores on their way to the Far West, thou-ers, such as New-Jersey, Delaware, Marysands of the natives of the Atlantic slope land, and New-York, will average from annually leave their houses to settle amid forty to fifty. Taking the whole Atlantic the forests of that vast Western region. slope, with the exception of Florida, which In their case there is peculiar exposure to is but little inhabited, the average is twenevil; their removal almost always with- ty-eight, while in the eleven states and two draws them from the powerful influence territories in the Valley of the Mississippi, of neighbourhoods where true religion it is less than ten souls to the square mile.

« 上一頁繼續 »