Mexico weekly ledger., 1890-07-10
"GRAND OLD
A Prominent New Workers. Eu.
lOgy On the Fifth State In
the UniOn-SOme In
teresting Facts.

teresting Facts.
The following extracts are from
an address entitled missouri"
delivered before the Alumni of the
State University at Columbia July |
4. by Hon. l.. NJ. Lawson, of New
York:
1t was on her soil that old John
Brown began his fight upon slav-
cry in the States where it already
existed. and lighted the fismes of
war, those fierce flames which en-
veloped the whole country in their
wrath, and consumed the letters OF
every slave. And it was upon her
coil that the first slaves that were
forcibly emancipated by the Fed.
eral government were set free, and
that the doom of slavery was ire.
vocably pronounced.
THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE WAR.
1t was in Missouri, too, that the
first battle of the war was fought,
and that the frst blood was shed;
and hers in the sad distinction to
be the only State 10 which battles
were fought between armies com.
posed wholly of her own citizens.
It was Missouri that settled Ore
gon and gave to California the bes,
of her pioneers and her first Gov.
ernor; and there ia not a State OF
Territory between the Mississippi
and the Pacific which does not
eve to Missouri a great part of Its
prosperity. 1t was Missouri's grea,
senator, Thomas 81. Benton, who
was the foremost champion Of the
West in Congress, and its most
powerful advocate in the country,
and who was the protector and
earliest advocate of a railroad to the
Pacific, and it is her hardy sons
whose adventurous footsteps mark
ed out the historic trails across the
great PLAINS and indicated the route
for those iron trails that penetrate
Mexico and extend to the Golden
Gate, and who have made the
name OF Pike famous Throughout,
call the broad border, "and synony.
NOUS with everything that is
brave and manly, and with every
virtue that adorns the frontier.
During this same time Missouri
has grown to the fifth State in the
Union in point of population, and
one of the very foremost in all thai
constitutes a great and prosperous
commonwealth. During this per
iod, also, the Valley of the Mis-
sissippi has become the centre Of
the Union.
Even now, in her youth, there
are only four of all the States
which have IS many inhabitants:
OILY two that have as many acres
of land under cultivation; not one
which expends as much money an.
nually for the education of hel
children, and not one which ii
more prosperous, or whose peopl.
r more %contented and happy. II
all the Union there is not a State
nor in all the wide world a coun
try, which can boast a more fertil.
soil or better climate, or such ma
jestic rivers; and what praise ii
there we might not lavish on he
people? Coming hither with al
the Saxon's love of liberty, all hi
indomitable pluck and enterprise
the English-speaking c%onquerors o
the great West felt from the begin
ming, and have always felt, the hu
MANNING influence Of that graceful
French civilization which had al
ready taken possession of Missouri
and the blended races have pro
duced apeople who have every trai
that distinguishes Saxon or Celt
Engiishman or Frenchman. Alont
with these are all of those hardy
American virtues which are our pc
culiar heritage. chief among which
is that sense of the dignity of maj
which makes it impossible fol
Americans to acknowledge tealty t.
any living master, or to be subser
Went to any privileged caste, bu'
prompts them to claim and main.
tain that all men were createG
equal.
Let US remember, too, one great
moral and political fact-the uni
form tendency of all great rivers te
bind together politically, com.
mercially, and socially all the peo'
pie that live upon their banks. II
has been SO during all the ages oil
which we have any historical &C.
count. We see it demonstrated
during our great civil war, when
the rivers of the West held the
States together IN their ~endearing
clasp. We see it every day, and
all of US feel the tightening of the
embrace of those rivers, as they
bind us day by day and year by
year more closely and more firmly
to our sisters of the valley. I'm.
like the "dissociabilis oceanus'' Of
Horace, they do not divide and
discover, but they bring together
and hold in an i~ndissoluble Union
the people who live in their val.
leys.
n~xrnoorpr,o nrcrrrv