GENERAL GRANT ON EXPANSION.
President Grant in his second inaugural address, March 4, 1873, thus expressed himself: “I do not share in the apprehension held by many as to the danger of governments becoming weakened and destroyed by reason of their extension of territory. Commerce, education and rapid transit of thought and matter by telegraph and steam have changed all this. Rather, I believe that our Great Maker is preparing the world, in his own good way to become one nation, speaking one language, and when armies and navies will no longer be required.”
HAWAII, CUBA, PORTO RICO, AND THE PHILIPPINES.
These great and interesting acquisitions to our territory have not yet entered the blue field of our flag. To a great nation and to a humane people they will look for that protection which has been pledged to them; and if it is decided that these people shall live under our starry flag, no one can look back over its history and doubt the strength and breadth of its folds.
THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI.
This historic and patriotic order was named after the famous Roman Dictator and Patriot, Cincinnatus, and was founded in May, 1783, on the banks of the Hudson, by the American and French officers who had gathered there at the close of the Revolutionary war.
The resolution adopted at the forming of the society contained these words: “To perpetuate, therefore, as well the remembrance of this vast event as the mutual friendships which have been formed, of common danger, and, in many instances, cemented by the blood of the parties, the officers of the American Army do hereby, in the most solemn manner, associate, constitute and combine themselves into one society of friends to endure as long as they shall endure, or any of their eldest male posterity, and in failure thereof the collateral branches who may be judged worthy of becoming its supporters and defenders.”
Owing to the great distances between the different States, and the fact that at that time the means of transportation were slow and uncertain, it was deemed best to form societies in each of the thirteen States. This was done. One was also organized in France under the patronage of Louis XVI.
The original members included the names of Washington, Greene, Hamilton, Lafayette, Rochambeau, and Paul Jones; in fact, all the historic military and naval characters of the Revolution. Among the honorary members elected for their own lives only were the names of many signers of the Declaration of Independence.
On the pages of the country’s history appears no darker spot than that placed there by the Congress of the United States in its failure to give its soldiers the promised half pay for their services, forcing them to leave their homes and emigrate to the wild lands west of the Alleghenies, which were given to them in lieu of money. On this account several of the orders in the different States went out of existence.