than two years (1804-6) and crossed the continent from the Mississippi to the mouth of the Columbia. Thirty years later (1838-42) an exploring expedition, consisting of several vessels under the command of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, and carrying a corps of scientific men, sailed on a long cruise through the Antarctic and Pacific Oceans. Lieutenant William F. Lynch, of the navy, made exploration of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, (1847.) Two Grinnell expeditions, so called from Henry Grinnell, through whose liberality they were mainly fitted out, sought for the English voyagers under Sir John Franklin, then missing in the Arctic Seas. The first was commanded by Lieutenant De Haven, of the navy, (1850–51;) the second by Dr. Kane, also of the navy, who had served on the first as surgeon, (1853-5.) A squadron, under Commodore Perry, brother of the Perry of Lake Erie, was sent to Japan to negotiate a treaty, by which the ports of that country were opened to American commerce, (1852–4.) Later expeditions explored our western and south-western territories, or traversed Central America and the Isthmus of Darien, with the view of cutting a canal to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific. Of all the expeditions, none have honored the nation or humanity more than those which carried succor to foreign lands. When Ireland was starving, in 1847, Madeira, in 1852, and the cotton manufacturing shires of England, in 1862, supplies were sent from our people as to fellow-countrymen. In some of these succors the government shared by providing vessels from the navy to carry the food furnished by private benevolence. Charities. Our national charities began at home. Societies to relieve the poor, the sick, and the prisoner, existed in the foregoing century; they were largely extended in this. Schools and asylums were opened for all suffering classes, beginning with the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb in Hartford, (1817,) the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind in Boston, (1832,) and the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feebleminded Youth, also in Boston, (1848.) Associations for the care of destitute or vicious children, erring women, and the aged of both sexes, have done their various work in all quarters. Missions to the ignorant and outcast have been unwearied in reclaiming them. Bible and tract societies have distributed their publications wherever an opening could be found. Besides these organizations, individuals have labored, openly or secretly, in relieving the spiritual and physical necessities of their neighbors. Could it be fairly described, the ministry to every form of want and crime would make the best pages in our history. Draw- To all this national development there have been, backs. and there still are, very serious drawbacks. They spring, to a great degree, from the development itself. Corruption follows hard upon growth in society, as in nature, and its effects are as fatal in one as in the other. Wealth grows, and the passion for it grows faster. Labor struggles not only with capital, but with labor; trade is tainted with dishonest practices; life itself is lowered by the readiness with which men forsake its higher callings because they are less lucrative than the lower. Power increases, and the lust for it increases likewise. Candidates for office stoop to mean conditions. Office-holders stoop yet lower, and whether in town or city, state or national government, degrade themselves and their authority. For some of our forms of disgrace, new words, or words with new meaning, are required, and strangers and children ask what is a ring, or a lobby, and sometimes fail to understand it when explained. If the results of political corruption were confined to those who indulge in it, the injury would be far less formidable. But they spread on every side, they infect our institutions, they poison the spirit of our people. These evils are not new. They were lamented when the nation was born, in the very throes of the revolution, while such as loved the country were pledging to it their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors, and others were making money out of its trials, or turning its agonies to their own preferment. It is only that the evils are more apparent than they used to be. They have a larger area, a more numerous following; and so the shadows which they cast seem to shut out more of the light that should be shining. There is but one way to dispel them by consecrating the nation to a higher service, and giving ourselves to it, one and all. INDEX. A. Abenakis, 49, 99, 101, 128, 130. Abolitionists, early, 369. Adams, John, 177, 183, 184, 202, Adams, John, President, 305, Adams, John, afterwards, 352. Adams, John Quincy, President, Adams, Samuel, 179, 183. Britain, 168, 184, 195. Alabama, 122, 351, 414, 475. Albany Convention, 414. Allouez, Claude, 120. American Association of 1774, American system, 362. André, Major, 232. Andros, Sir Edmund, 88, 90, Antietam battle, 438. Arizona, 408. Arkansas, 352, 378, 423, 475. Army of the Potomac, 432, 436, Arnold, Benedict, 191, 196, 209, Art Museums, 485. 493 |