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to the abolition of slavery, to different questions which arose from the reconstruction of the terribly shattered Union, and to the enfranchisement of the negroes and former slaves.1

1 The proclamation issued by W. H. Seward, as secretary of state, in pursuance of a law of April 20, 1818, announcing that the thirteenth amendment had become a part of the constitution, was dated December 18, 1865. The seceded states had been notified by congress and the president, that the adoption of this amendment was a condition precedent to their re-admission into the Union. The reconstruction bill was sent to the president just before the close of the session. It was not signed by him, but in a proclamation dated July 8, 1864, Lincoln declared himself to be in substantial accord with its provisions. It may be said with considerable confidence that even without this compulsion the necessary number of states would have approved the amendment, but yet it is not to be questioned that the consent of part of the states was obtained under a certain compulsion. So, too, it must be recognized as an anomaly that states which were actually at the time neither full members of the Union, nor entitled to equal rights under it, voted upon an amendment to the constitution.

The definitive proclamation about the fourteenth amendment was dated July 28, 1868. A proclamation of July 20 had declared the amendment adopted if the ratifying resolutions of Ohio and New Jersey were to be considered as of full force and effect, although these states (in January and April respectively) had rescinded these resolutions. Congress was not content with the form of this proclamation. It passed a resolution July 21, which declared that the amendment had been adopted, and named Ohio and New Jersey among the ratifying states. Thereupon Seward issued his second proclamation with express reference to the resolution of congress. The question whether a state has a right to recall its consent as long as an amendment has not yet become an actual part of the constitution has not yet been fully decided. For judicial decisions "in a somewhat analogous case," holding that the approval once given remains binding, see Cooley, The General Principles of Constitutional Law in the United States of America, p. 204. In the fourth edition of Story's Commentaries, edited by Cooley, II., pp. 652, 653, the learned judge shows himself decidedly inclined to the opposite opinion. Oregon's recall of her approval was evidently of no effect.

Other amendments to the constitution have often been proposed, but these have failed to receive the necessary number of votes, either in congress or among the states. Experience has shown that the provisions of the constitution about amendments are sufficient on the one hand to meet the demands of development, and on the other to put so strong a curb upon a restless search after novelty that the democratic republic has been more conservative in its fundamental law than any state whatever of the European continent.

$6. THE TERRITORY OF THE UNION AND ITS CONSTITUENT MEMBERS. The original boundaries of the territory of the Union could not exactly be defined, because the provisions about them in the charters of a part of the colonies were decidedly vague. Even the treaty Even the treaty of peace was not entirely clear on this question. The United States have repeatedly been involved in disputes about boundaries with England. Part of these disputes were of a later origin. All of them, however, have been peaceably settled, which is equivalent to saying that the claims of the United States have not always been completely granted. This was especially so in the compromise which brought to an end the controversy of many years over the Oregon boundary. They accepted a very small part of their original claim.' But if they could not obtain everything which they believed might be claimed as their own, or might be got, yet their territory, by purchase, by the provisions of treaties of peace and other treaties, and by annexation, grew to an amazing extent. While the

because it did not take place until after the issue of Seward's proclamation.

The fifteenth amendment was declared adopted by a proclamation of March 30, 1870.

1 See my Constitutional History, vol. III., chaps. 2, 6, 8 and 13.

thirteen original states, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, have within their present boundaries only 325,065 square miles, the whole territory of the Union, according to the latest figures, now contains 3,602,990 square miles. The states which have been made out of the lands ceded to the Union by the original states, and out of the territory more lately acquired, contain 1,761,695 square miles. There are twenty-five of them, which have been admitted into the Union in the following order:1 Kentucky, February 4, 1791 (June 1, 1792); Vermont, February 18, 1791 (March 4, 1791); Tennessee, June 1, 1796; Ohio, April 30, 1802 (November 29, 1802); Louisiana, April 8, 1812 (April 30, 1812); Indiana, December 11, 1816; Mississippi, December 10, 1817; Illinois, December 3, 1818; Alabama, December 14, 1819; Maine, March 3, 1820 (March 15, 1820); Missouri, March 2, 1821 (August 10, 1821); Arkansas, June 15, 1836; Michigan, January 26, 1837; Florida, March 3, 1845; Iowa, March 3, 1845 (December 28, 1846); Texas (resolutions of annexation were passed March 1, 1845), December 29, 1845; Wisconsin, March 3, 1847 (May 29, 1848); California, September 9, 1850; Minnesota, May 4, 1858 (May 11, 1858); Oregon, February 14, 1859; Kansas, January 29, 1861; West Virginia, December 31, 1862 (June 19, 1863); Nevada, March 21, 1864 (October 31, 1864); Nebraska, February 9, 1867 (March 1, 1867); Colorado, March 3, 1875 (August 1, 1876). The Union, therefore, consists, at the present time (1886), of thirtyeight states, with an area of 2,086,760 square miles. The remainder of the national territory contains nine organized

I give the date of the act of admission, and, if the actual entry into the Union took place later, I give that date also in parenthesis.

territories, the Indian Territory, which has no territorial government, and the District of Columbia, the seat of the federal government. The territories were organized in the following order: New Mexico and Utah, September 9, 1850; Washington, March 2, 1853; Dakota, March 2, 1861; Arizona, February 24, 1863; Idaho, March 3, 1863; Montana, May 26, 1864; Wyoming, July 25, 1868; (Alaska, July 27, 1868). The population of the United States, according to the census of 1790, was 3,929,827 souls. According to that of 1880 it was 50,155,783.2 Alaska and the Indian Territory are not included. The

1 Organized not as a territory but as a collection district. The object of the law, according to its title, is "to extend the laws of the United States relating to customs, commerce and navigation" over Alaska. Statutes at Large, XV., 240.

2 Since, in the part of this work devoted to the constitutional law of the single states, they cannot be all separately treated, it seems proper to give here their area and population according to the census of 1880:

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view almost universally accepted by the founders of the republic, that the federal principle could last only as long as the federal state did not grow beyond certain bounds, has therefore been overthrown by experience. But without doubt this is mainly, if not exclusively, on account of the many-sided changes which the life of civilized people has undergone, through the development in modern times of means of communication. No one now doubts that the Union to-day is far stronger than if it counted. only thirteen states, and that it grows stronger with each passing year.

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According to race, the population is divided into 43,402,970 whites, 6,580,793 negroes, 105,607 Chinese, and 66,407 Indians, exclusive of the wild tribes, and of the Indian population in the Indian Territory and in Alaska. About one-eighth of the population (6,679,973) are of foreign birth.

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