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nue is chiefly derived from duties on imports, the sales of public lands, bank-stock, post-offices, lead-mines, &c. The revenue on imports is the most important.

The receipts into the treasury of the United States during the year 1836 amounted to 47,691,898 dollars; those from duties, 22,523,151; those from lands, 24,000,000, and the residue from miscellaneous sources. The expenditures for all objects during the year are estimated at 32,000,000 dollars. Balance in the treasury on the 1st January, 1837, 41,723,959 dollars, which, with the exception of 5,000,000 dollars, are to be transferred to the several States, in accordance with the act regulating the deposites of the public money. The second great source of revenue is the national domain, or public lands, which consists of tracts of territory ceded to the general government by the several States; of the lands in the territory of Louisiana, purchased from France; and those in Florida, acquired by treaty from Spain. A vast portion of this land is occupied by the Indians, who are considered as proprietors of the soil, till the government extinguish their title by purchase. A General Land Office at Washington directs the sale of these territories. All the lands are surveyed before sale; they are divided into townships of six miles square, which are subdivided into sections of one mile square, containing each 640 acres, and sold in sections, half, quarter, and half-quarter sections. The minimum price is fixed by law at a dollar and a quarter. All sales are made for cash. Salt-springs and lead-mines are reserved, but may be sold by special orders from the President. One section of 640 acres is reserved in each township, as a fund for the perpetual support of schools. Five per cent. on all sales of land are reserved, three-fifths of which are expended by Congress in making roads leading to the States in which the lands are situated, and two-fifths are expended by the States for the promotion of learning. In the year 1820, the sales of the public lands produced 1,167,225 dollars, which had increased in 1834 to 6,099,981, in 1835 exceeded 12,000,000, and in 1836 had increased to the astonishing sum of 24,000,000 dollars. The increase of population in the Western States, the extensive introduction of steam-vessels on the rivers and lakes, and the increased facilities of intercourse and transportation by rail-roads and canals, have concurred with the extraordinary high price of cotton in producing this wonderful result. The whole quantity of pubin lands sold is 44,500,000 acres; quantity granted for various purposes, 16,040,624 acres; unsold, within the limits of the States and Territories, at the end of 1835, 220,000,000 acres; beyond those limits, 750,000,000; whole quantity surveyed, 122,300,000: total cost of the lands, 58,438,824 dollars; total receipts thus far, 64,029,496 dollars.

The War Department was created in 1789: to this department belong the direction and government of the army; the erection of fortifications; the execution of topographical surveys; and the direction of Indian Affairs. Attached to it are a Requisition Bureau, a Bounty-Land Bureau, a Pension office, an office of Indian Affairs, an Engineer office, a Topographical office, an Ordnance office, &c.

The Army of the United States consists of 2 regiments of dragoons, 4 of artillery, and 7 of infantry, containing, at the commencement of 1837, an aggregate amount of 6283 men, including a corps of Engineers, Topographical Engineers, and Ordnance department; the whole being under the command of a Major General and two Brigadier Generals. The expenditure of the year 1836, for the military service, including fortifications, ordnance, Indian affairs, pensions, arming the militia, and internal improvements, was 20,322,083 dollars and 19 cents.

The office of Secretary of the Navy was created in 1798; and there is a Board of Navy Commissioners, established in 1815, attached to the department. The navy, though on a small scale, acquired great reputation during the three years' war, when the American ships successfully encountered those of the mistress of the ocean. Much has since been done, both in enlarging the number of vessels, and extending and constructing suitable dock-yards; but the naval force is not considered adequate to the exigencies of the country. It consists of 53 vessels, of which there are 13 ships of the line, 16 frigates, 2 barques, 1 steam frigate, 14 sloops of war, 2 brigs, and 5 schooners. Of the above, there are on the stocks, 5 ships of the line, 7 frigates, 2 barques, 1 steam frigate, and 1 schooner: total 16. In ordinary, 7 ships of the line, 4 frigates, and 5 sloops of war: total 16. In

commission, 1 ship of the line, 5 frigates, 9 sloops of war, 2 brigs, and 4 schooners; total 21: besides materials for 4 ships of the line, 8 frigates, and 6 sloops of war. The naval appropriation for the year 1837 was 5,167,290 dollars, and for the surveying and exploring expedition, 346,431 dollars. There are seven navyyards belonging to the United States, viz.: at Portsmouth; at Charlestown, in Boston Harbour; at Brooklyn, on Wallabout Bay, opposite New-York; at Philadelphia; at Washington; at Gosport, opposite Norfolk, Virginia; and at Pensacola, Florida. There are graving or dry-docks at Charlestown and Gosport, and a third is constructing at Brooklyn.

The General Post Office is under the superintendence of a Postmaster General, who has the appointment of the postmasters throughout the country, and the power of making contracts for carrying the mail. The post routes cover an extent of 118,264 miles, on which the mails are carried 27,578,620 miles a year. The number of post-offices is 11,100; the revenue of the department for the year 1835 was 3,398,455 dollars; the expenditure, 2,755,623 dollars, 75 cents.

The office of the Mint of the United States was established at Philadelphia in 1792, and in 1835 an act was passed for establishing a branch in New Orleans, for the coinage of gold and silver, and branches at Charlotte, North Carolina, and Dahlonega, Georgia, for the coinage of gold; the general direction being under the control of the Director of the Mint at Philadelphia. The coinage is executed by machines propelled by steam-power; the value of the coinage during the year 1835 was 5,668,667 dollars, comprising 2,186,175 dollars in gold coins, 3,444,003 in silver, and 39,489 in copper, making 15,996,342 pieces of coin; and in the year 1836, from January 1st to November 1st, the coinage amounted to 6,496,440 dollars, of which the gold was 3,619,440, and silver 2,877,000 dollars.

The chief agricultural occupations in the eastern states are grazing and the dairy. The middle states are principally devoted to the cultivation of wheat and Indian corn; the southern to that of tobacco, cotton, sugar, and rice; and the western to Indian corn and wheat. Slave labour is chiefly employed in the southern and in some of the middle and western states. The cotton crop, in 1836, was estimated at 480 million pounds, of the value of 80 million dollars. Tobacco 80,000 hogsheads, of the value of 6 million dollars; of rice to the amount of 2 million dollars; and of sugar and molasses, of the former 100,000 hogsheads, and of the latter 63,000 hogsheads. The amount of wheat, rye, Indian corn, &c. raised in the country, it is impossible to estimate with any degree of certainty, but it no doubt amounts to several million barrels.

The manufactures of the United States are considerable, and gradually increasing. The eastern and middle states, which are most abundantly supplied with water-power, are most extensively engaged in manufactures, especially of cotton, woollen, iron, glass, paper, wood, &c. In 1810, the value of manufactures in the United States was estimated at $172,762,676. The present annual value is computed at $350,000,000; and the capital invested in all the manufactories of the Union is estimated at more than 1000 millions. Most of the American manufactures are designed for home consumption; yet, in 1834, domestic manufactures were exported to the amount of $8,567,590.

The manufactures of cotton goods amount to about 50 millions of dollars; woollen 70 millions; leather and its manufactures 45 millions; hats, caps, bonnets, &c. 15 millions; cabinet-ware 10 millions; cables and cordage, paper and glass-ware, each 6 millions; soap and candles nearly 12, and of manufactured tobacco and refined sugar, each about 2 millions of dollars. In 1810 there was above 20 million gallons of spirituous liquors distilled from corn and rye, and upwards of 5 million from molasses; and, although it is stated that, in 1835, 4000 distilleries had been stopped by the progress of the temperance reform, vast quantities of these poisonous liquors are still prepared.

The commerce of the United States is, next to that of Great Britain, the largest in the world. It consists principally in the exchange of agricultural produce, for the manufactures of other countries, and the productions of tropical climates. All vessels engaged in the foreign trade are registered by the collector of the district to which they belong, and those employed in the coasting trade and fisheries are

enrolled and licensed by the same officer. At the commencement of the year 1835 there was of registered tonnage 857,438, including 108,060 tons employed in the whale-fishery; the enrolled and licensed tonnage amounted to 783,618, and fishing-vessels 117,850; total 1,758,907; and, during the year 1834, there was built in the United States, registered tonnage 52,622, and of enrolled tonnage 65,707; total 118,330: the number of vessels built amounted to 957, including 88 steam-boats. The number of vessels and tonnage entering the ports of the United States, during the year 1835, was 11,292 vessels, amounting to 1,993,963 tons; of which 7023 vessels, and 1,352,653 tons were American, and 4269 vessels, of 641,310 tons, foreign: cleared, during the same period, 11,515 vessels, of 2,031,341 tons; of which 7285 vessels, and 1,400,517 tons, were American, and 4230 vessels, of 630,824 tons, were foreign. The value of the imports of the year 1836, ending on the 30th of September, is estimated at 173,540,000 dollars; showing an increase, compared with the preceding year, of 23,644,258 dollars. The exports, during the same period, are estimated at 121,789,000 dollars; of which 101,105,000 dollars were domestic products, and the residue foreign; exhibiting an aggregate increase, compared with the preceding year, of 35,423 dollars, and an amount exceeding the average of the last three years by 5,829,150 dollars.

The most important article of export is cotton; of which there were sent to Europe, in 1835, of the value of 64,961,302 dollars; of tobacco there was exported 8,250,577 dollars; of flour, wheat, corn, rye-meal, rice, &c. 8,383,977 dollars; of cod-fish and the produce of the fisheries, 2,174,524 dollars; of staves, shingles, naval stores, oak bark, &c. 4,542,091 dollars; of beef, pork, horses, and mules, and other agricultural products, 2,901,896 dollars; of cotton goods, 2,858,681 dollars; the other principal articles of export are skins and furs, flax-seed, soap and candles, manufactures of leather, of iron, of household furniture, &c. &c.

Most of the fisheries are carried on from the New England states, and in New England ships. The whale-fishery is prosecuted in the Atlantic ocean, chiefly south of the line, for the right or black whale, and in the Southern, Indian, and Pacific oceans, for the spermaceti whale. In the year 1835, 108,060 tons of shipping were employed in this business; and in the course of the year 1835, spermaceti and whale oil was brought home, of the value of about 6,500,000 dollars. Seal oil and furs are also obtained in the Antarctic seas by these adventurous seamen. The fishery is carried on chiefly from the ports of Nantucket and New Bedford, and also, but on a less scale, from New London, Sag Harbour, Warren, Bristol, Hudson, &c. About 10,000 men are engaged in it, and the seamen are paid, not by fixed wages, but by a certain share in the profits of the voyage. Those in the Pacific and Southern oceans are generally absent from two to three years at a time.

The cod-fishery is pursued on the banks and coasts of Newfoundland, and on the Labrador coasts. It employs upwards of 60,000 tons of small craft, some of which make several trips a year; those on the coast-fisheries generally remain longer. The produce of this fishery may be estimated at from 1,200,000 to 1,500,000 dollars a year. The mackerel fishery employs about 50,000 tons of shipping, and produces about 2,000,000 dollars annually.

No part of the world presents such an extensive river commerce. Steam vessels, a grand improvement, first introduced in America, ply on all the principal streams, and of upwards of 100,000 tons of this species of craft belonging to the United States in 1834, almost the whole was on the interior waters. On the Mississippi and its tributaries alone, an extent of 8000 miles was traversed by 230 steam-boats. Neither the States nor individuals have been slow in improving and extending these natural advantages; and the spirit with which they have undertaken, and the perseverance they have shown in executing the most magnificent plans, have shed a lustre on the American name. The great land-locked bays of the coast have been connected by a chain of canals, affording a safe internal water-route from Narragansett Bay to Albemarle Sound. The eastern and western waters have been united by several channels, which either turn the Alleghanies or surmount their summits. The waters of the lakes and the Mississippi

have been connected at various points, and the obstacles in the navigation of the most important rivers have been overcome by removing the bars or ledges which obstructed their channels, or by side-cuts, locks, and dams. The whole length of this artificial navigation is not less than 3500 miles; all of which, with one or two trifling exceptions, has been executed in the short space of 20 years. These great works have already given fresh life to manufactures, and encouraged the establishment of new ones; invigorated, and in many places created, internal trade; promoted agriculture, which requires a cheap and easy transportation for the bulky articles which it consumes and produces; and developed, in an astonishing degree, the mining industry of the country.

The Americans have equally surpassed all other people in the number and extent of their rail-roads, having, in less than ten years, constructed nearly 1500 miles of these artificial levels, over which carriages are propelled by locomotive steam-engines at the rate of from 20 to 30 miles an hour. Although this contrivance is less adapted than canals to the conveyance of bulky articles, yet it possesses some advantages over that mode of transportation, such as that of not being interrupted by ice, and of being suited to certain localities in which artificial water-communication would be impracticable.

To the State Governments is committed that branch of legislation which relates to the regulation of local concerns. These bodies make and alter the laws which regard property and private rights, appoint judges and civil officers, impose taxes for State purposes, and exercise all other rights and powers not vested in the Federal Government by positive enactment. They are, in their composition, very similar to the Federal Government. The legislature consists always of two branches, both of which are returned by the same electors; and these electors may be said to comprise the whole adult white population, the usual qualifications being citizenship, with one or two years' residence, and payment of taxes. In North Carolina, representatives are chosen by the whole resident free citizens who pay taxes, but senators only by freeholders; in New Jersey and Virginia, the right of suffrage for both houses is limited to persons holding a small amount of landed property; in Maryland the senators are chosen by delegates named for the purpose by the people.

In all the States, the period for which the representatives serve is either one or two years. The elections are biennial in Delaware, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas, and annual in the other States.

The shortest period for which the senators serve, in any State, is one year, and the longest five. In Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Georgia, the senators hold their office for one year only; in Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan, for two years; in Mississippi, Alabama, and Indiana, for three years; in New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas, for four years; and in Maryland, for five years. Except in Maryland, when the Senate of any State serves for more than one year, it is renewed by parts or divisions, one-third of the members going out annually when they serve for three years, and one-fourth when they serve for four. In some cases, however, when the senators serve for four years, the renewal is by halves every two years.

The United States are more distinguished for the general diffusion of knowledge, than for eminence in literature or science. The means of common education are widely extended, and there are numerous seminaries of learning throughout the country, though there are no literary establishments on so large a scale as many in Europe. As a general government, the United States have done but little for the interests of public instruction, except that they reserve for this purpose one section in every township of their new lands, besides other reservations for colleges. This highly important subject has, perhaps, been better attended to, by being left to the individual States and to private citizens. The first settlers of New England paid a very laudable attention to this important subject. As early as 1628, a law was passed for the instruction of every child in the colonies; and

in 1647, a school was established by law in every town or neighbourhood of 50 families, and a school for the higher branches, for every 100 families.

The number of colleges in the United States is 68; of medical schools 23; of law schools 9; of theological seminaries 37. The country does not yet, however, furnish the scholar with those facilities for a finished learned education which are afforded by the scientific and literary establishments of Europe, and the want of good libraries is sensibly felt by every one who has attempted much learned research. The largest collection of books in the United States does not contain 50,000 volumes, and there are few which even approach that number. The Philadelphia Library has 42,000 volumes; the Cambridge University Library about the same number; the Boston Athenæum 30,000; the New-York Society Library 22,000; and the Library of Congress 20,000.

Most of the States of the Union have made some legislative provision for com. mon school instruction, and in some States (especially in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New-York, and Virginia), large funds are set apart for this purpose. Private schools and academies of the higher order are quite numerous, especially in New England; so that few grow up without enjoying the means of elementary instruction, or, if they desire it, of a more extended liberal education. In the Sabbath-schools of the United States, which are doing much for the intellectual as well as moral improvement of the young, about 600,000 children are weekly instructed by more than 80,000 teachers.

There is no established church in the United States, religion being left to the voluntary choice of the people. No sect is favoured by the laws beyond another; it being an essential principle in the national and state governments, that legislation may of right interfere in the concerns of public worship only so far as to protect every individual in the unmolested exercise of that of his choice. Nor is any legislative provision made for the support of religion, except that, in Massachusetts, the legislature is enjoined to require, and in New Hampshire is empowered to authorize, the several towns and parishes to make adequate provision, at their own expense, for the support of Protestant ministers. The same was the case in Connecticut, until 1818, when it was abolished by the new constitution. But in all the other States, the support of religion is left entirely to the voluntary zeal of its professors.

The numbers of established churches, or congregations, are estimated at over 15,000, and the ministers at about 12,000. The Presbyterians, including Congregationalists, are the most numerous denomination. The Baptists are estimated as second in numerical amount; and the Methodists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Universalists, Lutherans, Christians, German Reformed, and Friends or Quakers, probably rank in point of numbers in the order in which they are mentioned. Other sects, respectable in amount of numbers, are Unitarians, Associate and other Methodists, Freewill Baptists, Dutch Reformed Menonites, Associate and Cumberland Presbyterians, Tunkers, and many others. In fact, almost all the sects of Christianity are represented in our country.

There are no early enumerations of the population on which much reliance can be placed; but, in 1753, the number was estimated at 1,051,000. A regular decennial census, taken since 1790, gave, at that period, 3,929,827; in 1800, 5,305,925; in 1810, 7,239,814; in 1820, 9,638,131. It is most interesting to consider, as the immensity of unoccupied land leaves full scope for this power of multiplication, how vast the future numbers may be with which this region will be peopled, and which will render it much the greatest state that ever existed in ancient or modern times. It is calculated, upon good grounds, that in a century it will contain 160,000,000; and still, being only half as populous as Britain or France, leave ample scope for future increase. The Americans, should they continue united, would then become the greatest nation in the world; and the most powerful states of Europe would rank as secondary to them.

The population, exclusive of the aboriginal races within the United States' limits, whose numbers are not comprised in the above statements, consists of three classes: whites, free coloured persons, and slaves, whose relative proportions at five different periods are here given :

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