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which indicates a large population in the future. The city contains the Capitol, in which are rooms for each house of Congress, for the Supreme Court, and for other purposes. The entire length of this building is 751 feet, and its greatest depth is 324 feet. The district contains also the executive mansion, often spoken of as the "White House," and buildings for the several departments of government; for the patent office, the post office, and the Smithsonian Institution. There are also a national observatory, a national printing-office, a navy yard, armory, military asylum, and many other public buildings.

We here close our brief account of the States and Territories comprised within the United States of America. A learned lawyer in Virginia, in his commentary on Blackstone, said, in 1803: "The whole number of senators is at present limited to thirty-two. It is not probable that it will ever exceed fifty!" Now it is seventyfour. Let us also contrast the position which this country held among the nations of the world when the constitution was formed, with that which it holds now. At that time, Jay, Madison, and Hamilton wrote the papers which were afterwards published as "The Federalist." There could be no higher authority than that of these three men. In No. 62, this is the description of our country. "She finds that she is held in no respect by her friends; that she is the derision of her enemies; and that she is a prey to every nation which has an interest in speculating on her fluctuating councils and embarrassed affairs." Compare this with the description which would be given of her now, even by those who were least disposed to speak well of her! How much of this wonderful growth in strength and prosperity do we owe to our admirable constitution?

We cannot read the future; but of this we may be sure: if we grow proud of our prosperity as if it were our own work; if the people of this country think they have the right to indulge their passions, prejudices, and fantasies, because they have the power to do so; if their liberty is corrupted into license; if different localities. and different interests contend for special advantages, forgetting the equal rights of their brethren and neighbors, all the lessons of history must be false, and all the teaching of buman experience vain, if a sure and swift retribution does not overtake us, and our decline and decay tell to all coming ages a story as marvellous as that of our past progress and our present prosperity.

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Let us hope for better things. Let us hope, and each one, in his place and way, strive, to do what will best secure and promote this

prosperity. Let us guard our freedom from corruption, never forgetting that the only way to preserve our freedom is to use it aright. So let us do; and it may well be that we have yet seen only the morning brightness of a day of which the meridian splendor will surpass anticipation, and whose sun will not go down.

Table VII., annexed to this chapter, gives the square miles of surface of each State, its population in 1870, its population in 1790, its rank in population in 1780, its rank in population in 1870, and the present number of representatives in Congress to which it is entitled.

The table permits many interesting comparisons of the States with each other, and of the present with the past. It shows the vast disparity between the States in extent, Texas, the largest, being more than two hundred times as large as Rhode Island; and in population, New York, the most populous, having more than one hundred times the population of Nevada. It also shows the great and rapid increase of population through the whole country; and the rank of the States when measured by population, and the changes which have taken place in this rank in the last eighty

years.

It will be seen that the population of the States was, in 1790, 3,942,270; there were then no territories. In 1870 the population of the States was 38,115,641, and of the territories, 442,730, making the whole population of the United States 38,558,371; showing that the increase of the population in these eighty years was almost eightfold. When the first House of Representatives was organized, the whole number was 65, now it is 292.

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BOOK SECOND.

THE PERSONAL RIGHTS OF A CITIZEN OF THE

UNITED

STATES.

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