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The tocsin of war has resounded from Mason and Dixon's line to the Gulf of Mexico, from the snow-crested billows of the Atlantic to the tranquil waves of the Pacific.War! War! War! is the battle cry of a people, who, long suffering and patient, but now, goaded to desperation and thoroughly exasperated, are determined, at all hazards, to protect the rights for which their forefathers fought, bled and died; and which their own Thomas Jefferson embodied in an instrument of writing which, for beauty of diction and wisdom of thought, will go sounding down the corridors of time, so long as time itself shall last-unequaled, unparalleled; and which was adopted without a dissenting voice by the ablest convocation of men ever assembled in national councils as their declaration of human rights and liberties.Thus, under auspices favorable to the happy and speedy development of a new and glorious country, commenced the government of the freest and happiest people on earth, under the administration of George Washington-an administration which caught the eye of the world and called forth its admiration; and which the most censorious never had the temerity to attack; an administration which secured for the country the alluring title, "The land of the free and the home of the brave." And its fame went abroad in story and in song, and every nation on earth sought its blessings and advantages, and it grew to be a mighty country.Coeval with the settlement of this beautiful continent by the white man, there came, or rather, there was brought, a race of people which needed the fostering care as well as the strong arm of slavery to kindle the latent spark of intellectual fire which had smoldered for centuries, in, as President Cleveland would say, "innocuous desuetude."