CHAPTER I. The United States. On the fourth day of July, 1776, a number of delegates from thirteen British Colonies in North America, assembled together in Philadelphia, and after some deliberation upon the oppression and wrongs which the mother country had for many years inflicted, drew up and signed a paper, in which they enumerated the various acts of the King of England, George the Third, by which he and his ministers had deprived the people of these Colonies of their just rights, and oppressed them by acts of tryanny and injustice. They declared that these acts had been continued for several years, that they had become intolerable, and that the King and his ministers would neither hear their just complaints, listen to their remonstrances, nor regard their petitions for redress; and that all their acts combined constituted a just cause for the Colonies to rebel against the authority of England, and to maintain their rights by force of arms, as they found it impossible to obtain them in any other way. They also declared that a Sovereign who would so rule and govern his subjects was utterly unworthy to rule over them, and that they had the right to throw off his authority and to establish a government for themselves. These declarations they printed, and sent forth to the world on the day before named, in justification of the accompanying DECLARA TION OF INDEPENDENCE; after this they positively refused any further obedience to him or to the laws of England. The 4th of July, 1776, has for this reason been styled the birth-day of our nation, and has since been celebrated as such on every annual return of it. For seven years after this event, the people underwent a hard and bloody struggle to maintain the position they had taken; nor was it until the year 1783, that our independence was acknowledged by England, or that we were recognized by other governments as one among the family of nations. Not until 1789, did the people of these Colonies, [now States,] organize a government, and take rank among the other governments of the world, with all the attributes, powers and rights of a distinct political power. Here are three events:-First, the Declaration of Independence;-Second, the close of the Revolutionary war; and Third, the Inauguration of the United States government. It is now but ninety years since the first, eightythree since the second, and seventy-seven since the third. The longest period is less than a century, and is but as an hour in the world's history. And now, without tracing the successive steps by which this nation has advanced from thirteen feeble Colonies to thirty-seven States, [some of which have more wealth, population, and power, than the whole thirteen had in 1776,] and from less than four, to thirty-five millions of people, with equally rapid strides in the arts, sciences, education, inventions and general progress, no thoughtful mind can refrain from looking |