Year: 1875

To the Senate and House of Representatives !:


In submitting my seventh annual message
to Congress in this centennial year Of our ma
tional existence as free aud independent peo-
advancement that has been made from the
time of the colonies, one hundred years ago.
We we're then people numbering only three
millions. Now we number more than forty
millions. Then industries were confined al
most exclusively to the tillage of the soil ; now
manufactures absorb much of the labor Of
thecountry. Our liberties remain unimpaired; 4;
the bondsmen have been freed from slavery.
We have become possessed of the respect, if
not the friendship, of all civilized nations.
Our progress has been great in all the arts, in
science, agriculture, commerce, navigation,
mining, mechanics, law, medicine, ETC., and in
general education the progress is likewise en-
couraging. Our thirteen States have become
thirty-eight, including Colorado, which has
taken the initiatory steps to become State,
and eight territories, including the Indian Ter
ritory and excluding Colorado; making ter
ritory, extending from the Atlantic to the Pa
ci6c. On the south we have extended to the
Gulf of Mexico, and in the west 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 machines, and numerous other inven-
tions of scarcely less value to our business and
happiness, we're 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 $780,
100000 of products in amount annually;
nearly equal to our national debt. From near
ly the whole of the population of l776 being
engaged in the one occupation OF agriculture,
in 1870, 80 numerous and diversified had be-
come the occupation of our people, that less
than six millions, out of more than forty mil
lions, were 80 engaged The extraordinary ef-
feet produced in our country by a resort to
diversified occupations has built market for
the products Of fertile lands distant from the
seaboard and the markets of the world. The
American system of locating various and ex-
tensive manufactures next to the plow and
the pasture, and adding connecting railroads
and steamboats,, has produced in our distant
interior country, result noticeable by the In
telligent portions of all commercial nations.
The ingenuity and skill Of American mechan-
les have been demonstrated at home and
abroad in manner most fatterng to their
pride. But for the extraordinary genius and
ability of our mechanics, the achievements of
our agriculturists, manufacturers and trans
porters throughout the country would have
been impossible of attainment. The progress
of the miner has also been great. Of coal, our
production was small. Now many millions of
tons are mined annually So with iron, which
formed scarcely an appreciable part of our
products half century ago, we now produce
more than the world consumed at the begin
ming Of our national existence. Lead, zinc,
and copper, from being articles of import we
may expect to be large exporters Of in the
near future. The development of gold and
silver mines in the United States and Terrific
ries has not only been remarkable, but has
had large influence upon the business of all
commercial nations. Our merchants, in the
last hundred years, have had a success, and
have established a reputation for enterprise,
sagacity, progress and integrity unsurpassed
by people of 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 the learned profess
sions. As we are now about to enter upon our
second centennial, commencing our manhood
as q 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 hap
to fha do hot
threaten US and remedy them so far as lies in
our power Weafe Republic, whereof one
man is as good as another before the law.


SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION.


Under such form of government it is of
the greatest Importance that all should be
possessed of education and intelligence enough
to cast vote with right understanding of
its meaning. A large association of ignorant
men cannot, for any considerable period, op-
pose a successful resistance to tyranny and
oppression from the educated few, but will
inevitably sink to acquiescence to the will of
intelligence, whether directed by the dema-
gogue or by prestcraft; 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 portion of
the population of any form of government
vet devised. All other forms of government
approach it just in proportion to the general
diffusion of education 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 Ha earnestly recommend that coustitu-
tional amendment be submitted to the legsla-
lures ofthe several States for ratification, ma
king 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 rudimentary branches, with
in their respective limits, irrespective of SEX
color, irth.place or religions, forbidding the
teaching in said schools of religious, atheistlc
or pagan terets and prohibiting granting OF
any school funds, or school takes, or any part
tborooe o;tha. bu lor;elot;yo pnuoinipol Or