Litchfield enquirer., 1875-12-16
Extracts from the Presidents Mes -- sage. s
To the ssnate and House cf Representa-

. To the ,Senate aud House of Representa- tiUes q.
 In submitting my seventh annual mes sage to Congress in this centennial year of our national existence as free and in0e- pendent people, it affords me great pleas; ureto recnr to the advancement that has been made from the time of the colonies, one hundred years ago. We were then a people numbering only three million now We number more than forty million. Then industries VI ere confined almost ex- clusively to the tillage of the soil. Now manufactures absorb much of the labor of the country. Our liberties remain un- impaired, and our bondsmen have been freed from slavery. We have become possessed of the respect if not of the friend ship of all civilized nations. and our prog ress has been great in all the arts, in sci ence, agriculture, commerce, navigation, mining, mechanics, law, medicine, &c., and in general education the progress is likewise encouraging. Our thirteen states have become thirty eight. including Colo rado. which has taken the inahguratOry steps to become state, and eight territo- ries including the Indian territory and Alaska and excluding Colorado, making a territory extending from the Atlaptic to the Pacific. On the south we have ex- tended to the gulf of Mexico, and in the vest from the Mississippi to the Pacific. One hundred years ago the cotton gin ,the steamship, the railroad, the telegraph, the reaping, sewing and modern printing ma- chimes, and numerous other inventions of scarcely less value to our business and happiness were entirely unknown. In 1776 manufactures scarcely existed even in name in all this vast territory. In 1870 more than two millions of persons were employed in manufactures, producing more than $2, 100, ,OUO.OO worth of prod ucts in amount annually nearly equal to our national debt From nearly the whole of the population of 1776 being engaged in the one occupation of agriculture, in 1870 so numerous and diversified had be- come the occupations of our people that less than six millions out of more than forty millions were so engaged. The ex- traordinary effect produced in our country by a resort to diversified occupations has built market for the products of fertile lands distant from the seabord and the markets of the world. The American sys- tenn of locating various aud extensive man. ufactories next to the blow and pasture, and adding connecting railroad and steam boats, has produced in our distant interior country a result noticeable by the intelfi gent parts of all commercial nations. The ingenuity and skill of American mechan- ics have been demonstrated at home and abroad in a manner most fiattering to their pride. But for the extraordinary genius and ability of our mechanics, the achievements of our agriculturalists. man. ufacturers and transporters throughout the country would have been impossible of attainment.
 The progress of the mines has also been great. Of coal, our production was small. Now, many millions of tons are mined an- nually. So also with iron, which formed scarcely an appreciable part of our prod- ucts half a century ago; while we now produce more than the world consumed at the beginning of our national existence. Lead, zinc and copper; from being arti- cles of import. we may expect to be large exporters in the near future. The devel- opment of gold and silver mines in the United States and territories has not only, been remarkable, but has had large iils fuence upon the business of all commer- cial nations. Our merchants in the last hundred years have established Q reputa. tian for enterprise, sagacity, progress and integrity, unsurpassed by the peoples of the older nationalities. This "good name'' is not confined to their homes, but goes out upon every sea and into every port where commerce enters. With equal pride we can point to our progress in all of the learned professions. As we are now about to enter upon our second centenni- al, commencing our manhood as nation, it is we'll to look back upon the past and study what will be best to preserve and advance our future greatness. From the fall of Adam for his transgression to the present day, no nation has ever been free from threatened danger to its prosperity and happiness. We should look to the dangers threatening Us. and renedy them so far as lies in our power.
 UNsEcTARIAN EDUCATION.
 as good as another before the law. Under such form of government it is of the greatest importance that all should be pos- sessed of education and intelligence enough to cast vote with right under standing of its meaning A large associa- tiOn of ignorant men cannot for any con- siderable period oppose a successful resis- tance to tyranny aud oppression from the
 
 acquiesence to the will of intelligence. whether directed by the demagogue or by priestcraft. Hence the education of the masses becomes of the first necessity for the preservation of our institutions. They are worth preserving because they have secured the greatest good to the greatest proportion of the population of any forms of government yet devised. All other forms of government approach it just Tn proportion to the general diffusion of ed- ucatlon and independence of thought and action. As the primary step, therefore, to our advancement in all that has marked our progress in the past century suggest for your earnest consideration and most earnestly recommend it that constitu- tional amendment be submitted to the legislatures of the several states for ratifi- cation, making it the duty of each of the several states to establish and forever maintain free public schools adequate to the education of all the children in the ru- dimentary branches within their respec- tive limits, irrespective of sex, color, birth place, of religious belief, forbidding the teaching in said school or religious, athe- istic or pagan tenets, and prohibiting the granting of any school funds or school taxes or any part thereof, either by legis- lative. municipal or any other authority, for the benefit or in aid, directly or indi- rectly, of any religious sect or denomina- tion. or in aid or for the benefit of any other object of any nature whatever.
 TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY.
 In connection with this important ques- ton would also call your attention to the importance of correcting an evil that if permitted to continue will probably lead to great trouble Tn our land before the close of the nineteenth century. It is the accumulation of vast amount of untaxed church property. In 1850. believe. the church property of the United States which paid no tax, municipal or state, amounted to about $S3 900, 900. In 1880 the amount had doubled. Tn 1875 is is about Sl 900, ,000, ,0Ov. By, 1900, without any check, it IN safe to say this property will reach a sum exceeding @, 900. .OO0, 900. So vast a sum receiving all the protection and benefits of the government without bearing its proportion of the burdens and expenses of the same will not be looked