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Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences-on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours may fall the punishment; on your unhappy State will inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the government of your country. It can not accede to the mad project of disunion, of which you would be the first victims-its First Magistrate can not, if he would, avoid the performance of his duty; the consequences must be fearful to you, distressing to your fellow-citizens here, and to the friends of good government throughout the world. Its enemies have beheld our prosperity with a vexation they could not conceal-it was a standing refutation of their slavish doctrines, and they will point to our discord with the triumph of malignant joy. It is yet in your power to. disappoint them. There is yet time to show that the descendants of the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Rutledges, and of the thousand other names, which adorn the pages of your revolutionary history, will not abandon that Union, to support which so many of them fought, and bled, and died.

I adjure you, as you honor their memory-as you love the cause of freedom, to which they dedicated their livesas you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its convention-bid its members to re-assemble, and promulgate the decided expressions of your will to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor. Tell them that, compared to disunion, all other evils are light, because that brings with it an accumulation of all. Declare that you will never take the field unless the star-spangled banner of your country shall float over you; that you will not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and scorned while you live, as the authors of the first attack on the Constitution of your country. Its destroyers you can not be. You may disturb its peace-you may interrupt the course of its prosperity-you may cloud its reputation for stability; but its tranquillity will be restored, its prosperity will return, and

the stain upon its national character will be transferred, and remain an eternal blot on the memory of those who caused the disorder.

Fellow-citizens of the United States! The threat of unhallowed disunion-the names of those once respected, by whom it is uttered—the array of military force to support it-denotes the approach of a crisis in our affairs, on which the continuance of our unexampled prosperity, our political existence, and perhaps that of all free governments, may depend. The conjuncture demanded a free, a full, and explicit enunciation, not only of my intentions, but of my principles of action: and as the claim was asserted of a right by a State to annul the laws of the Union, and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank exposition of my opinions in relation to the origin and form of our government, and the construction I give to the instrument by which it was created, seemed to be proper. Having the fullest confidence in the justness of the legal and constitutional opinion of my duties, which has been expressed, I rely, with equal confidence, on your undivided support in my determination to execute the laws-to preserve the Union by all constitutional means—to arrest, if possible, by moderate but firm measures, the necessity of a recourse to force; and, if it be the will of Heaven, that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that it be not called down by any offensive act on the part of the United States.

Fellow-citizens! the momentous case is before you. On your undivided support of your Government depends the decision of the great question it involves, whether your sacred Union will be preserved, and the blessings it secures to us as one people shall be perpetuated. No one can doubt that the unanimity with which that decision will be expressed, will be such as to inspire new confidence in republican institutions, and that the prudence, the wisdom, and the courage which it will bring to their defense will transmit them unimpaired and invigorated to our children.

May the Great Ruler of Nations grant that the signal blessings with which He has favored ours, may not, by the madness of party or personal ambition, be disregarded and

lost; and may His wise providence bring those who have produced this crisis to see their folly, before they feel the misery of civil strife, and inspire a returning veneration for that Union, which, if we may dare to penetrate His designs, He has chosen as the only means of attaining the high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire.

In testimony whereof, I have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed, having signed the same with my hand.

Done at the city of Washington, this 10th day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the fifty-seventh.

By the President:

ANDREW JACKSON.

EDWD. LIVINGSTON, Secretary of State.

:

HISTORY OF THE STATES.

VIRGINIA.

"The Old Dominion," so distinguished as being the native State of the Father of American Liberty, and the "Mother of Presidents," really seemed at one time, to be peculiarly favorable to the birth and development of statesmen. It has furnished no less than five Presidents, among whom are Washington, Monroe, Madison, and Jefferson. It was the first Colony, on the Continent, settled by the English. In 1607, a company formed under the patronage of James I, obtained a grant to make settlements in America, between the 34th and 38th degrees of north latitude. In May, 1607, a colony of one hundred and five persons, under direction of this company, arrived off the coast of South Virginia. Their intention had been to form a settlement on Roanoke, now in North Carolina; but being driven north by a violent storm, they discovered and entered the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Passing up this bay they named its capes-Henry and Charles-in honor of the king's two sons. They were commanded by Capt. Christopher Newport, an experienced and distinguished navigator. Passing James River, they arrived at a peninsula, upon which they landed and established Jamestown.

After promulgating a code of laws which had been formed. by the London company, Capt. Newport sailed for England, leaving the colony under the care of Capt. John Smith, whose subsequent relations to the settlement became so important, and without whose efforts the enterprise would doubtless have proved a failure. The colonists seem to have been very poorly adapted to the labor required at their hands. Too many of them were gentlemen, and came, it appears, only to enrich themselves by gathering gold, which, they had heard, was very abundant.

Through a series of difficulties, which it is rarely the lot of man to encounter, this colony progressed; the settlers awhile quarreling among themselves, and awhile contending against savages and famine, for bare existence, until the period of the Revolution, in which it was one of the first colonies to take active part, furnishing to the young republic many of its most efficient military chieftains and statesmen. It ratified the Constitution June 26, 1788. After the Revolution its course was for many years one of great prosperity. But, unfortunately, the year 1861 found the majority of its statesmen arrayed against the Government, on the side of secession, and on the 15th of April, 1861, she seceded from the Union. On the 17th of June, 1861, all the counties lying between the Alleghany Mountains and the Ohio River, were, by a convention held at Wheeling, declared independent of the old State government, and were organized into a new State, called West Virginia, which remains loyal. The capital of the old State was selected as the seat of government of the so-called Confederate States of America.

MASSACHUSETTS.

Massachusetts was settled in the year 1620, by the Puritans. These people, having been severely persecuted in England, had previously taken refuge in Holland; but for various reasons they determined, after remaining in Holland a season, to emigrate to the New World. Unfortunately, they started at a very unpropitious season of the year, arriving at New England in the winter. The severity of the climate, their scarcity of food at times, operated seriously against their comfort and progress. It is said that they were frequently threatened with starvation. At one time the entire company had but one pint of Indian corn, which being divided equally among them, allowed to each person eight grains. But, unlike the early settlers of Virginia, they were all working men, and good economists. From the time of the landing at Plymouth, up to 1691, this first settlement was known as the Plymouth Colony. Meantime, another settlement had been formed, styled the Massachusetts Colony. Both were for some years under the

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