J. W. Hawes

“ Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. ”

“ That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; that, as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that ‘no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,’ it becomes our duty, by legislation whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the constitution against all attempts to violate it ”

“ Slavery is prohibited by the thirteenth amendment of the constitution. All persons born or naturalized in the United States are declared to be citizens thereof, and every state is prohibited from making or enforcing any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of such citizens. New states may be admitted into the Union by congress, but no new state can be erected within the jurisdiction of any other state, nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of congress. ”

“ If a vacancy occur in the senate when the legislature of the state interested is not in session, it may be filled by appointment of the governor until the legislature next meets, when a senator is chosen for the unexpired term. The vice president of the United States is president of the senate ex officio, and the senate elects a president pro tempore to serve in his absence; the vice president has only a casting vote. A senator must be 30 years of age, nine years a citizen of the United States, and at the time of his election resident within the state for which he is chosen. ”

“ Not the least interesting among the picturesque features of the country are the remarkable channels cut by some of the rivers through ranges of hills or rocky ridges. Such are the passage of the Hudson through the Highlands of New York; the Delaware Water Gap; the passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge at Harper's Ferry; the “gates of the Rocky mountains” on the upper course of the Missouri in Montana; the deep cañons of the Colorado of the West; and the “cascades” where the Columbia river breaks through the Cascade range on the boundary between Washington territory and Oregon. ”

“ All powers not expressly granted by the constitution to the federal government, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. The government consists of three branches, the legislative, executive, and judicial. The executive power is vested in a president, who together with a vice president is elected for four years by a college of electors, each state returning as many electors as it is entitled to have senators and representatives in congress. ”

“ That when the settlers in a territory having an adequate population form a state constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and, being consummated by admission into the Union, they stand on an equal footing with the people of other states; and the state thus organized ought to be admitted into the federal Union, whether its constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery. ”

“ They were descended for the most part from intelligent and enterprising ancestors, who had emigrated from the old world either to secure to themselves greater freedom to worship God or better opportunities to acquire competence or wealth. The passage across the Atlantic was tedious and expensive, and life in the new settlements hard and perilous. The lazy, the timid, the improvident, the brutally ignorant, shrank from the terrors of the sea and the wilderness, and the vast majority of the emigrants were of the respectable and energetic middle class. ”

“ That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. ”

“ The Pacific slope, embracing the greater part of California, Oregon, and Idaho, with Washington territory and Arizona, and parts of New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, is generally sterile. That part however between the Coast range and the ocean, and the valleys between the Coast range and the Cascade range and Sierra Nevada are very fertile; and the same may be said of a few other valleys and mountain slopes, though these are commonly better adapted to pasturage than to agriculture. ”

“ We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ”

“ When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. ”

“ Upon the Pacific coast, the most prominent introduced plants are mostly valuable ones; the wild oat (avena fatua) , which covers such wide ranges to the exclusion of all other vegetation, is a European species; and bur clover (medicago) and alfilaria (erodium) , which in certain seasons are the main reliance of stock growers, are both weeds introduced by the early Spanish settlers.—The zoölogy of the United States is essentially that of North America, nearly every species found on the North American continent having its habitat in some part of the states or territories. ”

“ For several months thereafter the British government did little toward counter hostilities. But although the United States had the advantage that the main force of their enemy was occupied by the great European conflict, their own preparation for the contest was in every respect inadequate. The treasury was almost empty, the revenue having been nearly ruined by the non-importation acts and embargoes; the army at first numbered but 10,000 men, half of them raw recruits, and was very deficient in officers of experience; while the navy comprised only eight frigates, two sloops, and five brigs. ”

“ A free-soil or free democratic party was formed, and Martin Van Buren was nominated for president and Charles Francis Adams for vice president. A platform was adopted, declaring that the new party was formed “to maintain the rights of free labor against the aggressions of the slave power, and to secure free soil to a free people; that slavery, in the several states of this Union which recognize its existence, depends upon the state laws alone, which cannot be repealed or modified by the general government, and for which laws that government is not responsible ”

“ The smallest of our ferns is schizæa, very local in New Jersey, and one of the most striking is vittaria, an epiphyte in Florida, the fronds of which are more like a tuft of grass than a fern. The Pacific coast, the Rocky mountains, and even the desert region of Arizona, have their peculiar species. In mosses and hepaticas the country is very rich, and in these as well as in lichens the few botanists who devote themselves to their special study are continually adding to the number of known species. ”

“ The northern states, east of the Mississippi, from the northern border to Virginia and Kentucky, present a flora essentially European in its general aspects, though it is largely wanting in the alpine and subalpine plants so common in northern Europe. Our alpine or arctic flora (excepting that of Alaska) is confined to the limited areas presented by the tops of the higher mountains of New England and New York; and of the little over 30 species found on these, only 4 are peculiarly American. The trees of this division are largely of European genera ”

“ They too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. ”

“ The president and vice president must be native-born citizens, 35 years of age, and 14 years resident within the United States. The president is assisted by a cabinet of seven ministers, called the secretaries of state, of the treasury, of the interior, of war, and of the navy, the attorney general, and the postmaster general, who are nominated by him and confirmed by the senate. They receive $8,000 a year each. These are the heads of the seven executive departments of the government, viz., state, treasury, interior, war, navy, justice, and post office. ”

“ The Mississippi valley occupies more than two fifths of the area of the republic, and extends from the Allegheny to the Rocky mountains, and from the gulf of Mexico to British North America, thus including parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Dakota, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and all of Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Indian territory, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. ”

“ When the election results in no choice for vice president, that officer is chosen by the senate from the two who have received the highest number of votes. In 1837 Richard M. Johnson was thus chosen vice president by the senate. The president may be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. He is commander-in-chief of the army and navy, and of the militia of the several states when they are called into the actual service of the general government ”

“ As, by the terms of the Kansas and Nebraska act, the people of those territories were to be left free to determine for themselves whether or not slavery should be tolerated there, a struggle soon began in Kansas, to which chiefly emigration was directed, between the anti-slavery and pro-slavery parties, which, after many acts of violence and a long period of confusion amounting almost to civil war, terminated in the adoption by the people of Kansas of a state constitution excluding slavery. ”

“ The mountains afford a rich and varied flora; here are found a great variety of pines, spruces, and firs, and above them a truly alpine region, which has enriched our flora with a long list of choice species. 5. The Pacific coast, with the neighboring mountain ranges, within the influence of the mild atmosphere of the ocean, has a wonderfully varied flora. Among trees, maples, buckeye, cherry, buttonwood, oaks in great number, chestnut, birches, willows, and others of genera common to the northern states of the east, are here represented by species peculiar to the coast. ”

“ There is reason to believe that these savages were not the first occupants of the land, in almost every part of which, and especially in the valley of the Mississippi, are found monuments consisting of mounds and other earthworks of great extent, which must have been erected by an unknown and long extinct race. In physical appearance, manners, customs, religion, and social and political institutions, the Indians were so strikingly alike as to form but one people ”

“ Congress can make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. It has passed general laws of bankruptcy and for the protection of inventions, copyrights, and trade marks. (See Bankrupt, Patents, Copyright, and Trade Mark.) The judiciary comprises a supreme court, circuit courts, district courts, and the court of claims. ”

“ These societies relied exclusively on moral and religious influences to promote emancipation, and avoided political action, affirming that congress had no right to interfere with slavery in the states, though they petitioned that body to abolish slavery in the territories, in the District of Columbia, and wherever else the federal government had constitutional jurisdiction. ”

“ Inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the democratic party as to the nature and extent of the powers of a territorial legislature, and as to the powers and duties of congress, under the constitution of the United States, over the institution of slavery within the territories ”