United States Books

CHAPTER I. THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. It was a beautiful evening at the close of a warm, luscious day in old Spain. It was such an evening as one would select for trysting purposes. The honeysuckle gave out the sweet announcement of its arrival on the summer breeze, and the bulbul sang in the dark vistas of olive-trees,—sang of his love and his hope, and of the victory he anticipated in the... more...

Chapter I INTRODUCTORY.1. Plan of the Monograph.2. The Rise of the English Slave-Trade.1. Plan of the Monograph. This monograph proposes to set forth the efforts made in the United States of America, from early colonial times until the present, to limit and suppress the trade in slaves between Africa and these shores. The study begins with the colonial period, setting forth in brief the attitude of... more...

INTRODUCTION The romantic and thrilling story of the southward and westward migration of successive waves of transplanted European peoples throughout the entire course of the eighteenth century is the history of the growth and evolution of American democracy. Upon the American continent was wrought out, through almost superhuman daring, incredible hardship, and surpassing endurance, the formation of a... more...

THE FLAG GOES BY HATS off!Along the street there comesA blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,A flash of color beneath the sky;Hats off!The flag is passing by! Blue and crimson and white it shines,Over the steel-tipped ordered lines,Hats off!The colors before us fly!But more than the flag is passing by.Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,Fought to make and to save the State.Weary marches and... more...

I purpose this evening to call the attention of the Club to the state of anti-slavery opinions in this country just prior to the year 1800. In this examination I shall make use of a very rare pamphlet in the library of General Washington, which seems to have escaped the notice of writers on this subject; and shall preface my remarks on the main topic of discussion with a brief description of the... more...

I. During the session of Congress of 1849-1850, the peace of the Union was threatened by problems centering around slavery and the territory acquired as a result of the Mexican War: California's demand for admission with a constitution prohibiting slavery; the Wilmot Proviso excluding slavery from the rest of the Mexican acquisitions (Utah and New Mexico); the boundary dispute between Texas and... more...

CAPTAIN RICHARD INGLE, THE MARYLAND “PIRATE AND REBEL.” In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the American colonies, from Massachusetts to South Carolina, were at intervals subject to visitations of pirates, who were wont to appear suddenly upon the coasts, to pillage a settlement or attack trading vessels and as suddenly to take flight to their strongholds. Captain Kidd was long celebrated... more...

CHAPTER I.BRIEF HISTORY OF NEGRO SLAVERY.—ITS INEVITABLE EFFECT UPON ALL CONCERNED IN IT.The lot is wretched, the condition sad,Whether a pining discontent survive,And thirst for change; or habit hath subduedThe soul depressed; dejected—even to loveOf her dull tasks and close captivity.Wordsworth.My ear is pained,My soul is sick with every day's reportOf wrong and outrage, with which this... more...

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, my colleagues in the Congress, our distinguished guests and my fellow Americans: To address a joint session of the Congress in this great Chamber in which I was once privileged to serve is an honor for which I am deeply grateful. The State of the Union Address is traditionally an occasion for a lengthy and detailed account by the President of what he has accomplished in the... more...

eorge Washington, the Father of his Country, is equally the Father of Pittsburgh, for he came thither in November, 1753, and established the location of the now imperial city by choosing it as the best place for a fort. Washington was then twenty-one years old. He had by that time written his precocious one hundred and ten maxims of civility and good behavior; had declined to be a midshipman in the... more...