proposed, and General Meade, in his report to General Grant, stated that the proposed constitution failed to receive a majority of registered votes, and was, therefore, rejected under the terms of the very act which, it was claimed, gave the election vitality.

The Senate Committee on Fees and Salaries reported on the House bill in regard to the pay of members and officers as follows: chaplain, $4; secretary, $10; assistant secretary, $8; clerk, $8; page, $4; doorkeeper, $6; president, $12; members, $8; sergeants, $6; mileage, 80 cents; which was passed, but vetoed by the Governor, as the pay of members was fixed by the law of 1861, and the constitution forbade an increase of pay during the sitting of the Legislature.

The Legislature also passed a bill, giving to itself the power of casting the electoral vote of the State for President of the United States, which was vetoed by Governor Smith. In his veto, dated August 12th, he said:

After the most mature reflection, I am forced to the conclusion that the bill is wrong in principle, and that it would be a dangerous precedent in a republican government. As my judgment does not approve the bill, it is my constitutional duty to return it to the Senate with my objections. It cannot but be regarded as remarkable that the first Legislature convened in Alabama shall, in face of the principles of its organization, which every republican professes to hold dear, deny not only to the colored but the white man the right, by his vote, to indicate his choice

for President and Vice-President of the United States, and take the matter in its own hands. What excuse can there be for it? Is it mere party expediency? If so, then it is an abandonment of the principles and an acknowledgment that the material out of which the Republican party is composed cannot be trusted. In other words, it is to say that colored men will not do to be trusted. This action of the General Assembly will be regarded as still more remarkable when it is considered in connection with what seems to have been the almost unanimous opinion of the leading members of the Republican party of Alabama.

On the 11th, the Senate passed the following bill for the removal of disabilities, which was not adopted in the House:

Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Alabama, That all the disabilities imposed by the

second clause of the Third Section of Article Seven of the constitution of the State of Alabama, shall be and the same are hereby removed, as fully to all intents and purposes as though no such disabilities had been imposed, from all citizens who shall file an application with the Judge of Probate of the county in which such citizens may reside, in the following

terms, to wit: I,

-, a citizen of

county,

State of Alabama, do make this application for relief from the disabilities imposed upon me by the second clause of the Third Section of the Seventh Article of the constitution of the State of Alabama and to be restored to the rights of citizenship.

SEC. 2. Be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the Probate Judge to file all applications made in pursuance of the provisions of this act in his office, but he shall not be entitled to any fee or charge for receiving or filing such application.

Several unimportant measures were adopted, and on the 13th of August the Legislature adjourned until the 1st Monday in November. But it was again convened on September 16th,

by a proclamation of the Governor, chiefly to provide for the registration of voters at the presidential election. A committee of seven was appointed to consider that part of the Governor's message relating to registration. On the 21st September a joint resolution and memorial to the President of the United States passed the Legislature, calling upon him to detail a sufficient force of troops for the State, to secure protection, as the laws were neither respected nor obeyed, and violence had been committed, in many cases, upon human life. It stated that officers had been intimidated from the discharge of their duties, and many forced to resign.

No action was taken on the petition of the Legislature. On the 1st October, the registration bill passed both Houses, and subsequently received the Governor's assent. It empowered the Secretary of State to appoint one registrar in each county, who would have the power of appointing deputies. A bill providing for the election was passed. An amendment of the Senate made it a misdemeanor for any person to challenge a voter.

The political canvass for the presidential election was vigorously carried on by both parties throughout the State; clubs were organized, meetings held, and the greatest excitement and enthusiasm prevailed. The Legislature, which had adjourned after passing the registration law, met again on November 1.

The Governor's message chiefly dwelt upon the resources of the State, and the importance of encouraging Northern capital to develop them. It called attention to the outrages perpetrated by secret societies, particularly in Northern Alabama, and recommended a limited appropriation to the State agricultural fair to open at Montgomery on the 18th of the month.

The presidential election passed over more quietly than was anticipated from the strong feeling on both sides. The Democrats carried the State by a majority of about 40,000 votes; even a large number of blacks voted that ticket.

The financial condition of Alabama appears to be gradually improving. The indebtedness of the State consists of bonded, trust fund, and miscellaneous. The bonded indebtedness amounts to $4,726,200; the trust fund and miscellaneous to $3,051,746. Total, with temyear ending September 30, 1868, were $1,577,porary loans, $7,904,116. The receipts for the 144; of which there was collected from general taxes and licenses, $726,327. The total assessment of real estate for the same period was about $98,908,572, and of personal property, $26,037,572.

The cotton returns for the year were also satisfactory. The three last years show that the supply is on the increase. The receipts at domestic and foreign ports were, for 1866, 429,102 bales; in 1867, 329,516 bales; in 1868, 400,000 bales. The tax on the cotton of Alabama, for the year 1868, at $12.50 per bale, amounted to about $5,000,000.

ALASKA. The treaty with Russia for the transfer of this territory to the United States, and the payment of $7,200,000, in coin, were executed in full during 1867. The new northwestern boundary of the United States, established by this treaty, may be described as commencing at a point betwen the Diomede Islands, nearly in the middle of Behring's Straits, about one degree south of the Arctic Circle, in latitude 66°; it reaches from thence on the meridional line of 168° 50′ W., toward the North Pole of the earth; thence south to the shore of the Arctic Ocean, at about longitude 143° west, and latitude 69° 30', including Kotzebue Sound, Cape Lisburne, Icy Cape, Point Franklin, Point Barrow, Sinith's Bay, and other points which are regarded as historical in Arctic exploration, within the territory of the United States. From the Diomede Islands in a southwesterly direction, it extends to latitude 50° in longitude about 168° east, being about 30° of longitude farther to the west than the Sandwich Islands.

So that, at the present time, the territory of the United States extends in an east and west direction from longitude 67° west (at Eastport, Me.), to longitude 168° east, in the North Pacific Ocean (beyond the most westerly island of the Aleutian group), equal to 125° of longitude, which, on a parallel of 45° north, would be equal to about 5,303 geographical or 6,187 statute miles.

The population of Alaska is reported by the military commander to be 8,000 whites and 15,000 Indians. By an act of Congress the country is made a revenue district of the United States, and Sitka established as the port of entry. The military force of the United States in the territory consists of two full regiments of infantry and nine companies of cavalry.

The representatives of the Federal Government, when they went to Sitka to receive a transfer of the territory, were accompanied by scientific explorers, of whom Professor Davidson has made some interesting statements of his investigations to the Academy of Natural Science at San Francisco.

After describing the geographical features of the country visited by the Coast Survey party under his charge, the marks of glacial action, volcanoes, etc., he described the influence of the great current of warm water which crosses the Pacific Ocean from the coasts of Formosa (in latitude 22°, longitude 238° west) and the easternmost point of Japan, and strikes upon the coast of North America south of Sitka. It is this great, warm river of the ocean which gives the mild climate to Alaska, as the Atlantic Gulf stream makes Great Britain and Norway inhabitable.

This great, warm stream leaves the coast of Japan about latitude 35°, and passes eastward to the latitude of 48° and longitude 148°, where one branch turns sharply toward Sitka, and the greater volume of water passes southward along the coast of Queen Charlotte and Van

couver islands, and the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California.

The warm stratum of air above this vast mass of warm water is necessarily laden with aqueous vapor, and, coming in contact with the colder air from the continent, a condensation of vapor and precipitation of rain is the consequence. This humidity of the climate sustains the immense growth of timber with which the whole country along the seaboard abounds. The largest trees climb the steepest mountain-sides to elevations of two thousand five hundred to three thousand feet. The Sitka spruce was cut and measured four feet diameter and one hundred and eighty feet long, and others determined to be two hundred and fifty feet high and six feet diameter. The yellow cedar (Cupressus sitchensis) was found six feet in diameter and estimated to be one hundred and fifty feet high; it commences about latitude 54° 34′ and extends throughout the archipelago from 54° 40′ to 59° 15'-how much farther north was not examined.

This is the best wood on the coast for shipbuilding and cabinet-work. Specimens of this wood from a wrecked vessel of the RussianAmerican Company were shown. The vessel had been built thirty-two years, and lying a wreck for six years, yet the timbers and kelson were as sound as the day when the vessel was built, and the iron and copper bolts were unoxidized, and the wood around them well preserved. Under ground its preservative qualities are equally remarkable, as was illustrated by timber at Fort Simpson, that had been under ground twenty years, and taken out as sound as the day it was cut.

When it is known that the shore line of the islands, bays, inlets, and straits of the archipelago amount to seven thousand eight hundred and sixty statute miles, the inexhaustible supply of this part only of the territory may be readily comprehended. For comparison it was stated that the shore line of Washington Territory, from Columbia River to the northern boundary, including Washington Sound, Admiralty Inlet, Puget's Sound, and Hood's Canal, amounted to only two thousand and twenty-eight statute miles. Temperature and rainfall, etc., at Sitka, from fourteen years' observation at the Imperial Observatory at New Archangel.

second President of Dartmouth College. In 1816 the Legislature of New Hampshire altered the charter of Dartmouth College and made it a university, of which Dr. Allen was in 1817 appointed President, as successor to his father-in-law. When the legislation of the State of New Hampshire in the famous "Dartmouth College Case" was annulled in 1819, by the Supreme Court of the United States, and the rights of the college were maintained, Dr. Allen was appointed President of Bowdoin College, in which office he served from 1820 till 1839, when he resigned and removed to Northampton. In 1831 he was subjected to serious embarrassment in his official relations in consequence of certain acts of the Maine Legislature, touching colleges, which virtually took from him the office of President for about two years; but the subsequent action of the Supreme Court restored him to his place, and he continued to discharge his duties with all fidelity, till impaired health rendered a change necessary.

During his residence at Northampton, a period of nearly thirty years, he was constantly engaged in literary pursuits, but for some years preached occasionally in that and the adjacent towns. In all the benevolent enterprises of the day he was actively interested, especially in the cause of foreign missions, being a corporate member of the American Board, and the senior member of that body at the time of his death. He was an earnest advocate of peace, and represented the American Peace Society at the International Peace Congress, which assembled at Paris in 1849. He defended the rights of the African race throughout the world. He believed in the utility of planting colonies of free colored emigrants in Africa, as a means of redressing the unutterable wrongs done to that quarter of the globe by Christian nations, while he favored the speediest possible emancipation of every slave on earth. He was a careful observer of public affairs and political parties. He sympathized warmly with every token of progress in the antislavery movement of the present century, his memory covering the whole period of its his tory. His labors as a student and author were such as few men have been able to perform, and were undoubtedly too great for his health. He was an elegant classical scholar, and well versed in physical science, his knowledge of mineralogy and botany in particular being very thorough. Few men were more completely masters of English politics, history, and literature, than he, while his familiarity with modern languages enabled him to comprehend and enjoy the politics and literature of the Continental nations. In 1832 he published a revised and enlarged edition of his American Biographical Dictionary, in which the number of biographical sketches exceeded eighteen hundred, and in 1857 he issued a third revision, including seven thousand names. The preparation of such a work, involving as it did an immense

correspondence, was itself the sufficient labor of a lifetime; but Dr. Allen's intellectual activity enabled him to accomplish a vast amount of additional labor. In 1828 he published an elaborate essay entitled "Junius Unmasked," in which he attempted to demonstrate that Lord Sackville was Junius. In 1845 appeared his "Memoirs of Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, D. D.,” the first President of Dartmouth College; in 1848 his Historical Discourse at Dorchester, on the Fortieth Anniversary of the Second Church; in 1853 a "Memoir of John Codman, D. D.;" in 1854 an "Address at the Close of the Second Century since the Settlement of Northampton;" in 1856, “Wunnipoo, a Tale of the Hoosatunnuk; " in 1860, "Christian Sonnets; " in 1866, "Poems of Nazareth and the Cross; and in 1867, "Sacred Songs." In addition to these, he had compiled a collection of "Psalms and Hymns," many of the latter original, long in use in Massachusetts; contributed at various times to Webster's Dictionary more than ten thousand words not found in other dictionaries of the English language, and had published at various times thirty-five other sermons, addresses, essays, and extended poems, besides numerous contributions to the Panoplist and other periodicals. "He was," says an intimate friend, “a thorough gentleman of the old school, a devout Christian, an old-fashioned New-England theologian, an antislavery republican, a wide and faithful student of NewEngland history, and a good and warm-hearted laborer in every true word and work."

ALLIANCE, EVANGELICAL.* At the general meeting of the Evangelical Alliance, held at Amsterdam, in 1867, an invitation was presented on behalf of the American branch, to hold the next meeting in New York. The invitation was favorably received, and a desire was generally expressed to hold the next meeting after a shorter interval than usual. The British branch, in particular, urgently recommended the holding of the next meeting in the year 1869. At a meeting held in London on July 8th, a series of resolutions to that effect was adopted assigning, among others, the following considerations, as having influenced their opinion:

1. The Council have rejoiced much in the laudable readiness which has been of late manifested on both sides of the Atlantic to seize upon every occurrence in the ordinary course of Providence, that might be improved for the purpose, to elicit the kind and generous sentiments cherished by the people of the two countries toward each other; and they cannot but think that the Alliance will be wise to take advantage of this state of public feeling, and by holding their meeting sooner, perhaps, than was at first contemplated, contribute all the more certainly, under the divine' blessing, to strengthen and render it perma

nent.

2. The Council cannot look without anxiety on the state of the European Continental nations, and the many causes which, unless restrained by the Almighty arm, may in an unexpected moment disturb the pres

*For a brief history of the Evangelical Alliance, see the ANNUAL CYCLOPÆDIA for 1867.

ent tranquillity, and endanger the peace of the world, and thus prevent the possibility of the intended conference being held.

3. The attitude of the Papal power toward nations which have recently asserted the right of selfgovernment, and are in various ways breaking off its yoke, and have proclaimed religious liberty to their subjects, together with its vigorous activity in Protestant countries, and the growth and prevalence still further of various forms of intellectual infidelity and practical atheism in all nations, strongly impress the Council with the conviction that evangelical Christians must be more than ever united and active, nor be slow to fulfil the great duties to which the times so loudly call them.

4. And, finally, the Council would be ungrateful not to recognize the manifold and rich blessings by which all the General Conferences of the Alliance have been attended and followed, thus leading to and justifying the inference, both that they are signalized by the approbation of our Divine Redeemer, and that their recurrence, as often as Providence permits, is pleasing to Him and tends to advance His glory.

For these and similar reasons, the council of the English branch inquired whether the autumn of 1869 might not be looked to, on the supposition that circumstances in the United States and in Europe should favor it, as the probable time of holding the conference.

The American branch, in compliance with this request, resolved to hold the next General Conference of the Alliance in the city of New York, in the autumn of 1869.

AMERICA. The transfer of the extensive possessions of Russia in Northwestern Ameries to the United States, which had been provided for by the treaty of the 29th of March, 1867, was in 1868 ratified by the Senate of the United States. Thus the area of the independent American States has been considerably enlarged. The purchase of the two Danish islands, St. Thomas and St. John, was ratified by an almost unanimous vote of the inhabitants, but no action was taken upon it by the Senate of the United States. In Cuba, a war for establishing the independence of the island broke out in September, and at the close of the year the insurgents still held control of the town of Bayamo, and a considerable portion of the Eastern District. In Nova Scotia, the popular dissatisfaction with the establishment of the Dominion of Canada was so great that annexation to the United States was generally declared to be preferable to a union with Canada.

The war of Brazil, the Argentine Republic, and Uruguay against Paraguay, continued throughout the year. The progress of the allies was slow, and at the close of the year President Lopez was still a formidable opponent. Imprudently, President Lopez got into 8 serious difficulty with the minister of the United States in Paraguay, Mr. Washburn; but when the successor of Mr. Washburn, General McMahon, called upon him, he guaranteed full atonement for any outrage that might have been committed upon the American flag. (See PARAGUAY.)

No acts of hostility took place between Spain and the allied Republics of Chili, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, although a formal peace

had, at the close of the year, not been concluded. The provisional government of Spain showed, however, a desire to come to an understanding, and it was announced that, in accordance with the proposition made by the Government of the United States, a peace conference, attended by representatives of all the belligerent powers, would meet, in the course of the winter, in Washington.

The number of civil wars in Spanish America was as great as ever. The established governments were overthrown in San Domingo, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Peru, and Uruguay. In the last-named state, President Flores lost his life together with his office. Civil wars also raged in Mexico, Hayti, and in the United States of Colombia. In Ecuador, the President was censured by Congress, and resigned.

Bloody wars with the Indians had to be sustained by the governments of the United States, Mexico, the Argentine Republic, and Chili; and in neither of these states is there yet a prospect of lasting peace.

The establishment of a regular monthly steamship line between the United States and China and Japan, the rapid progress of the Pacific Railroad, which it is thought may be complete in the course of the year 1869 or 1870, the connection of the United States with Cuba, are prominent events in the commercial history of America. The importance of these agencies of modern civilization is everywhere recognized. All the independent governments of America have directed their attention to the encouragement of new steamboat and telegraph lines, and to the increase of railroads; and the time seems to be very near when the capitals of all the American States will be connected by telegraph. Immigration also is encouraged by all the American states, though many of the South American states cannot expect to obtain any considerable results so long as they are not willing to establish religious toleration.

In the United States considerable agitation was kept up by a diversity of opinion between the President and the majority of Congress, relative to the reconstruction of the Southern States, and the constitutionality of some of the acts passed by Congress on this subject. In the progress of this conflict, President Johnson was impeached, but acquitted. The presidential election resulted in the triumph of the Republican party, and the choice of General Grant for President. At the close of the year, all the Southern States except three-Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas-having complied with the conditions demanded by the congressional Acts of Reconstruction, were represented in the national Congress. In December, President Johnson issued a proclamation of universal amnesty. At the beginning of the year 1869, the internal condition of the country was more quiet than at any previous period since the beginning of the civil war in 1861. (See UNITED STATES.)