ent war with Mexico; and that we are impressed with the unalterable conviction that a regard for the fair fame of our country, for the principles of morals, and for that righteousness which exalteth a nation, sanctions and requires all constitutional efforts for the abolition of slavery within the limits of the United States, while loyalty to the Constitution, and a just self-defence, make it specially incumbent on the people of the free States to co-operate in strenuous exertions to restrain and overthrow the "Slave Power."

In the spring of 1847 Sumner prepared for a legislative committee an elaborate report, his authorship of which does not seem to have been known at the time, on the Mexican war and the duties and responsibilities of citizens as to the institution of slavery. It reviewed the events connected with the annexation of Texas and the war, set forth in vigorous language the pro-slavery purposes of their authors, denounced the war as waged "against freedom, against humanity, against justice, against the Union, against the Constitution, and against the free States," called for the withholding of supplies and the withdrawal of our troops from Mexico, and briefly urged strenuous and combined efforts for the restraint and overthrow of the slave power. The four resolutions which accompanied the report summarized its conclusions. The majority of the committee, of which Hayden, editor of the Atlas, was chairman, had been dilatory in taking any action, and finally agreed upon a report which was thought to be wanting in spirit and directness. Edward L. Keyes, of Dedham, from the minority of the committee, submitted the report and resolutions which Sumner had drawn. There was a contest in the House, attended with considerable excitement and lasting for several days. The resolutions reported by Keyes were, on the motion of C. R. Train, substituted for the majority report by a considerable majority, and were then passed by a vote of more than two to one. With a slight amendment, they then passed the Senate with no serious opposition. Sumner's resolutions thus became the declared opinions of the State. The anti-slavery Whigs, after their defeat at the State convention in September, took great satisfaction in this result, which, as they felt, put Massachusetts again right on the record. Life of Sumner, by Edward L. Pierce.

"My name," wrote Charles Sumner in a certain autobiographical pas-age, "is connected somewhat with two questions, which may be described succinctly as those of peace and slavery." He began his public life by what he called a "declaration of war against war," his great oration in Boston, July 4, 1845, on "The True Grandeur of Nations." In that address there were references to the complications in Texas and Mexico, already serious and threatening, out of which came so soon afterwards the Mexican war. The political

policies and situations preceding and accompanying the Mexican war furnished, therefore, the first distinct battle-ground in his lifelong war with slavery; because it was as a deliberate movement to expand the slavery area and increase the slave power that the anti-slavery men of the North viewed the Mexican war, which they felt to be unprovoked and unnecessary. Sumner's first political speeches and letters were in opposition to the war and its pro-slavery purpose. These will be found in the first volume of his collected works. The report printed in the present leaflet, prepared by Sumner for a committee of the Massachusetts legislature, is not there given, but is here published separately for the first time, copied from the original document. There is no better brief review of the war and its objects from the anti-slavery standpoint. For a complete record of Sumner's course during the Mexican war, see Pierce's Life of Sumner, vol. iii.

The speeches of Clay, Giddings, and others, as well as of Sumner, in opposition to the war, should be read; also, opposing it strongly from a quite different standpoint, the speeches of Calhoun (in his Works, iv., 303, 396, etc.) The biographies and speeches of Webster and Robert C. Winthrop should be consulted; with Winthrop Sumner had some controversy. See Schurz's Life of Clay and Von Holst's Life of Calhoun, in the American Statesmen Series. Von Holst's Constitutional History of the United States, vol. iii., contains a very full and searching discussion of the causes and motives of the war, in accord with Sumner's view. Briefer discussions in Schouler's History of the United States, iv. and v., and Henry Wilson's History of the Slave Power, ii. Perhaps the best statements of the administration position concerning the war are President Polk's own messages to Congress, which were most carefully prepared, and should be carefully read. See also George Ticknor Curtis's Life of James Buchanan, i. 579, etc. William Jay's little book on the Mexican War is the eloquent sermon of a pronounced peace man upon what he regarded as one of the wickedest of all wicked wars. Major R. S. Ripley's "War with Mexico," in two vols., is a military history. The lives of Generals Taylor and Scott give accounts of the campaigns. See also General Grant's Memoirs. Many of the generals of the Civil War had their first military experience in the war with Mexico. The war stirred most of the anti-slavery orators and poets to significant utterances, which form an important part of the literature of the subject. Most important is Lowell's "Biglow Papers," the first series of which relates entirely to this period.

Citizens of Alaska, Fellow-citizens of the United States: You have pressed me to meet you in public assembly once before I leave Alaska. It would be sheer affectation to pretend to doubt your sincerity in making this request, and capriciously ungrateful to refuse it, after having received so many and varied hospitalities from all sorts and conditions of men. It is not an easy task, however, to speak in a manner worthy of your consideration, while I am living constantly on shipboard, as you all know, and am occupied intently in searching out whatever is sublime, or beautiful, or peculiar, or useful. On the other hand, it is altogether natural on your part to say, "You have looked upon Alaska: what do you think of it?" Unhappily, I have seen too little of Alaska to answer the question satisfactorily. The entire coast line of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, is 10,000 miles, while the coast line of Alaska alone, including the islands, is 26,000 miles. The portion of the Territory which lies east of the peninsula, including islands, is 120 miles wide. The western portion, including Aleutian Islands expands to a breadth of 2,200 miles. The entire land area, including islands, is 577,390 statute square miles. We should think a foreigner very presumptuous who should presume to give the world an opinion of the whole of the United States of America, after he had merely looked in from his steamer at Plymouth and Boston Harbor, or had run up the Hudson River to the Highlands, or had ascended the Delaware to Trenton, or the James River to Richmond, or the Mississippi no farther than Memphis. My observation thus far has hardly been more comprehensive.

I entered the Territory of Alaska at the Portlan‹. canal, made my way through the narrow passages of the Prince of Wales Archipelago, thence through Peril and Chatham Straits and Lynn Channel, and up the Chilcat River to the base of Fairweather, from which latter place I have returned through Clarence Straits, to sojourn a few days in your beautiful bay, under the shadows of the Baranoff Hills and Mount Edgecombe. Limited, however, as my opportunities have been, I will, without further apology, give you the impressions I have received.

Of course, I speak first of the skies of Alaska. It seems to be assumed in the case of Alaska that a country which extends through fifty-eight degrees of longitude, and embraces portions as well of the arctic as of the temperate zone, unlike all other regions so situated, has not several climates, but only one. The weather of this one broad climate of Alaska is severely criticised in outside circles for being too wet and too cold. Nevertheless, it must be a fastidious person who complains of climates in which, while the eagle delights to soar, the hummingbird does not disdain to flutter. I shall speak only of the particular climate here which I know.

My visit here happens to fall within the month of August. Not only have the skies been sufficiently bright and serene to give me a perfect view, under the sixtieth parallel, of the total eclipse of the sun, and of the evening star at the time of the sun's obscuration, but I have also enjoyed more clear than there have been cloudy days; and in the early mornings and in the late evenings peculiar to the season I have lost myself in admiration of skies adorned with sapphire and gold as richly as those which are reflected by the Mediterranean. Of all the moonlights in the world, commend me to those which light up the archipelago of the North Pacific Ocean. Fogs have sometimes detained me longer on the Hudson and on Long Island .Sound than now on the waters of the North Pacific. In saying this, I do not mean to say that rain and fog are unfrequent here. The Russian pilot, George, whom you all know, expressed my conviction on this matter exactly when he said to me, "Oh, yes, Mr. Seward, we do have changeable weather here sometimes, as they do in the other States." I might amend the expression by adding the weather here is only a little more changeable. It must be confessed, at least, that it is an honest climate; for it makes no pretensions to constancy. If, however, you have

fewer bright sunrises and glowing sunsets than southern latitudes enjoy, you are favored, on the other hand, with more frequent and more magnificent displays of the aurora and the rainbow. The thermometer tells the whole case when it reports that the summer is colder and the winter is warmer in Alaska than in New York and Washington. It results from the nature of such a climate that the earth prefers to support the fir, the spruce, the pine, the hemlock, and other evergreens rather than deciduous trees, and to furnish grasses and esculent roots rather than the cereals of dryer and hotter climates. I have mingled freely with the multifarious population,- the Tongas, the Stickeens, the Cakes, the Hydahs, the Sitkas, the Kootznoos, and the Chilcats, as well as with the traders, the soldiers, the seamen, and the settlers of various nationalities, English, Swedish, Russian, and American,- and I have seen all around me only persons enjoying robust and exuberant health. Manhood of every race and condition everywhere exhibits activity and energy, while infancy seems exempt from disease, and age relieved from pain.

It is next in order to speak of the rivers and seas of Alaska. The rivers are broad, shallow, and rapid, while the seas are deep, but tranquil. Mr. Sumner, in his elaborate and magnificent oration, although he spake only from historical accounts, has not exaggerated—no man can exaggerate the marine treasures of the Territory. Besides the whale, which everywhere and at all times is seen enjoying his robust exercise, and the sea-otter, the fur-seal, the hair-seal, and the walrus, found in the waters which embosom the western islands, those waters, as well as the seas of the eastern archipelago, are found teeming with the salmon, cod, and other fishes adapted to the support of human and animal life. Indeed, what I have seen here has almost made me a convert to the theory of some naturalists, that the waters of the globe are filled with stores for the sustenance of animal life surpassing the available productions of the land.

It must be remembered that the coast range of mountains, which begins in Mexico, is continued into the Territory, and invades the seas of Alaska. Hence it is that in the islands and on the mainland, so far as I have explored it, we find ourselves everywhere in the immediate presence of black hills, or foot-hills, as they are variously called, and that these foot-hills are overtopped by ridges of snow-capped mountains. These