country and government, having the same intrests and the same destiny. 16. Right here we might expand our remarks to an extent exceeding the whole contents of this volume, in tracing the causes, detailing the operations, and noticing the results of this most terrible and cruel war. Then we might dwell long upon the consequences which must inevitably follow in all coming time. But this would be foreign to our purpose. We have only undertaken to give the veriest outlines of our various wars, the time when they commenced, the time of their duration, and the results produced Just so much we will say of our civil war-between the North and the South. It was begun on the 12th of April, 1861, by the bombardment of Fort Sumpter in Charleston harbor. It was closed in April, 1865, by the surrender of Gen. Lee, the Southern commander-in-chief, with his army, to Gen. Grant, the commander-in-chief of the National forces, having lasted four years with varied success on both sides. All the details of this desperate struggle have been written and published by many able historians, to whose works I must refer the reader who wishes to peruse a complete history of this great event. 17. Here we will only add that it is impossible to say how many lives were lost in this devastating war ; 500,000 on both sides is probably as correct an estimate as can be made. Eight or nine billions of dollars is probably as near an estimate of its cost as can be calculated. Other disasters and evils almost inconceivable followed in its train. It furnished the whole world with one of the most awful examples of the folly and the wickedness of war. OUR INDIAN WARS. 18. In addition to, and in connection with the several wars mentioned in the preceding remarks, our numerous wars with the various Indian tribes should be briefly noticed. In both of our wars with England, the Indians were wheedled and enticed by presents to take sides with England and against us. This, together with their barbarous mode of warfare, and their savage cruelties, produced a strong antipathy in the minds of our people against them. This feeling was reciprocated by the Indians, and whenever any wrong was perpetrated by either party, it was an easy matter to make it a cause of war. The old animosities were there, and any offensive act from either side was almost certain to produce retaliatory acts from the other party. When the whites cheated the Indians, they in retaliation would steal from the whites. A pursuit and a massacre would follow, and then the government would be compelled to interfere. 19. From these and other causes we have had many wars with nearly all the tribes of Indians in the country. Some of these contests have been obstinate and bloody, costing many valuable lives, and a great deal of money. Any of the tribes-or all of them combined-could make but a feeble resistance to the power of the United States. Hence all our Indian wars have resulted in their final defeat, and sometimes. in their almost utter destruction; at the present time (1869) a fierce and bloody war is raging between the government and the western Indians, who inhabit the country between the Mississippi river and the Rocky mountains. Various tribes are combined to prevent the settlement of the whites upon their lands, and to prevent the construction of the Pacific railroad through their hunting grounds. 20. The Indians who remain do not exceed 300,000. They have been reduced to this small number by their frequent wars with the whites, but more especially by their almost perpetual war among themselves. Some of them have become partially civilized, and have turned their attention to agricultural pursuits, instead of wandering about on hunting excursions and warlike expeditions against each other. It is therefore to be hoped that our Indian wars will soon cease forever. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 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. 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. 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. 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. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this let facts be submitted to a candid world: He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused, for a long time after such dissolution, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislature. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. He has combined, with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation. For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us. For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment, for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States. For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies: For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally, the powers of our governments:.. For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us, |