Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen: On the 13th of May, A.D. 1673, James Marquette and Louis Joliet, under the direction of the French authorities of Canada, started from the Straits of Mackinaw, in their frail bark canoes, with five boatmen, "to find out and explore the great river lying on the west of them, of which they had heard marvelous accounts from the Indians about Lake Michigan."
From the southern extremity of Green bay they ascended the Fox river, and thence carried their boats and provisions across to the Wisconsin. Descending that stream, they reached the Mississippi on the 17th of June, and entered its majestic current, "realizing a joy," wrote Marquette, "that they could not express." Rapidly and easily they swept down to the solitudes below, and viewed on their journey the bold bluffs and beautiful meadows on the western bank of the stream, now revealed for the first time to the eyes of the white man. This was the discovery of Iowa.
The address then proceeds to give a short account of the first settlements in Iowa at Keokuk, Burlington, Davenport, and Dubuque, and also the settlements afterwards made at Council Bluffs and Sioux City, and cites the various treaties made from time to time between the government of the United States and the Indians, extinguishing the Indian title. It also gives something of the topography of the country, and in regard to its resources and the natural fertility of the soil it contains the following:
We have now on exhibition in the Centennial buildings 15,000 pounds of Iowa soil, selected from forty-five different counties of our state. This exhibition shows a vertical section of the natural formation of the earth to the depth of six feet from the surface. The selection has been made from five several groups of seven counties each. The counties have been classified according to their contiguity, or natural location, as the northwest, northeast, southwest, southeast, and central. These specimens of strata are exhibited just in the condition they existed in the earth. The strata, undisturbed, have been transferred to glass tubes six inches in diameter and six feet in length. These tubes are encased in black walnut, and each labeled with the name of the county from which the strata have been taken. The object has been in good faith to show the world what Iowa really is, without exaggeration, and without room for cavil. Here is the formation from nature's own laboratory. Behold, what hath God wrought!
The address also particularly gives an account of our school system, our state university and agricultural college, our benevolent institutions for the unfortunate classes, also the extent of our newspaper publications. It discusses to some extent the questions arising out of the Civil War and the heroism of our troops. On this subject the address contains the following:
It is impossible, in the reasonable length to which this paper should be limited, to write even a summary of the battles in which Iowa soldiers took part. The history of her troops would be substantially a history of the war in the south and west. To recount a portion of those battles and sieges would be to give a partial history to the neglect of others, equally deserving of honorable mention. A task alike impossible would be to give here the names of the heroes, living and dead, who distinguished themselves by their courage and valor. Our efficient Adjutant General has preserved in the archives of his department, the material from which this glorious history will one day be written, for the honor of the state and the inspiration of the generations that shall come after us. In the adjutant's department at Des Moines are preserved the shot-riddled colors and standards of our regiments. Upon them, by special authority, were inscribed, from time to time during the war, the names of the battle fields upon which these regiments gained distinction. These names constitute the geographical nomenclature of two-thirds of the territory lately in rebellion. From the Des Moines river to the Gulf, from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, in the mountains of West Virginia, and in the Valley of the Shenandoah, the Iowa soldier made his presence known and felt, and maintained the honor of the state and the cause of the nation. They were with Lyon at Wilson's Creek, with Tuttle at Donelson. They fought with Siegel and with Curtis at Pea Ridge; with Crocker at Champion Hills; with Reid at Shiloh. They were with Grant at the surrender of Vicksburg. They fought above the clouds with Hooker at Lookout Mountain. They were with Sherman in his march to the sea, and were ready for battle when Johnston surrendered. They were with Sheridan in the Valley of the Shenandoah, and were in the veteran ranks of the nation's deliverers that stacked their arms in the national capital at the close of the war.
The address concludes as follows:
Iowa hails with joy this centennial of our nation's birth. She renews her vows of devotion to our common country, and looks with hope to the future. The institution of slavery, that once rested as a shadow upon the land, that was fast producing a diverse civilization dangerous to our unity and nationality, has been forever abolished.
This centennial exhibition of our national greatness and material progress must re-awaken in the mind and heart of every American emotions of profound love for his country, and of patriotic pride in her success. Surely no American would consent that such a civilization as is evidenced here should perish in the throes of civil war. If there be anything in the history of Iowa and its wonderful development to excite a just pride, the other, and especially the older states of the Union may justly claim to share in it. Such as we are, the emigration from the other states made us. Our free soil, free labor, free schools, free speech, free press, free worship, free men and free women, were their free gift and contribution. Iowa is the thirty-year old child of the republic that celebrates the first centennial of its birth. Our state is simply the legitimate offspring of a civilization that has found its highest expression in building up sovereign states. Iowa was not a colony planted by the oppressions of the parent government, and that threw off her allegiance as soon as she gained strength to assert her independence; but she was the outgrowth of the natural vitality and enterprise of the nation, begotten in obedience to the divine command to multiply and replenish—born a sovereign by the will and desire of the parent, and baptized at the font of liberty as a voluntary consecration of her political life. Not a sovereign in that absolute sense that would make the federal government an impossibility, but sovereign within her sphere and over the objects and purposes of her jurisdiction, with such further limitations only upon her powers as render an abuse of them impossible, to the end that the personal liberty and private rights of the citizen should be more secure.
This wonderful exhibition of mechanical skill, of cunning workmanship, and of the fruits of the earth, is but the evidence of the existence and character of the people that have produced them. The great ultimate fact that America would demonstrate is the existence of a people capable of attaining and preserving a superior civilization, with a government self-imposed, self-administered, and self-perpetuated. In this, her centennial year, America can exhibit nothing to the world of mankind more wonderful or more glorious than her new states—young empires, born of her own enterprise, and tutored at her own political hearthstone. Well may she say to the monarchies of the old world, who look for evidences of her regal grandeur and state, "Behold, these are my jewels." And may she never blush to add: "This one in the center of the diadem is called IOWA."