To such advantages of situation, on the very
highway between two oceans, are added a soil of unsurpassed richness,
and a fascinating, undulating beauty of surface, with a health-giving
climate, calculated to nurture a powerful and generous people, worthy
to be a central pivot of American institutions. A few short months only
have passed since this spacious and mediterranean country was open only
to the savage who ran wild in its woods and prairies; and now it has
already drawn to its bosom a population of freemen larger than Athens
crowded within her historic gates, when her sons, under Miltiades,
won liberty for man-kind on the field of Marathon; more than Sparta
contained when she ruled Greece, and sent forth her devoted children,
quickened by a mother's benediction, to return with their shields, or on
them; more than Rome gathered on her seven hills, when, under her kings,
she commenced that sovereign sway, which afterward embraced the
whole earth; more than London held, when, on the fields of Crecy
and Agincourt, the English banner was carried victoriously over the
chivalrous hosts of France.
Against this Territory, thus fortunate in position and population, a
crime has been committed, which is without example in the records of
the past.
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