Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 148, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 January 1904 — THE WEEKLY HISTORIAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE WEEKLY HISTORIAN

One Hundred Years Ago. The Legislature of South Carolina passed a bill allowing the free importation of negroes. The national debt of the United States was reported at 180,427,120. Irish convicts who had been deported to New South Wales started an insurrection which was suppressed by British troops. Gen. Jean J. Dessalines, successor of Toussaint I’Overture, was declared governor for life of the new republic of Hayti. Resolutions were introduced in Congress imposing a tax of $lO on every slave imported into the United States. Seventy-five Years Ago. One of the first transatlantic steamship lines began operation between Ireland and Halifax, N. S. Hundreds of protests were filed in Washington agaiust the dispatch or delivery of mails on Sunday. Congress considered plans for a territorial government in the extreme northwest territory. Over 200 slave owners notified the American Colonization Society they would free their blacks if the latter would emigrate to Liberia. President John Quincy Adams declared that troops would have to be stationed on the Niagara frontier to prevent smuggling under the new high tariff law. The total consumption of sugar in the United States was reported at 120,000,000 pounds yearly, with 18,000,000 gallons of molasses. i Fifty Years Ago. Congress approved the “Gadsden purchase,” which included 45,535 square miles of Mexican territory tn the Southwest, costing $10,000,000. --- Proposals were asked for the construe® tion of a railroad across the isthmus of Panama. ( Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois reported in the United States Senate a bill for the organization of Nebraska territory, with amendments questioning the validity of the famous Missouri compromise. The new railroad between Chicago and Rock Island was reported built to within twenty miles of the latter city.

Forty Years Ago. Gen. U. S. Grant was brought oat by the New York Herald as Democratic candidate for President against Lincoln, and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. CJiase was proposed by Horace Grssley in the New York Tribune, also In opposition to Lincoln. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler urged President Lincoln to issue a call for 100,000 volunteers to march ou Richmond, Va., k and liberate the thousands of Union prisoners there. Andrew Jackson Donelson, adopted son of former President Andrew Jaeksoa, was arraigned at Richmond, Ya., for saying that Jefferson Davis could not be trusted farther “than a blind mule could kiek.” The Illinoiis State Teachers’ Association. in session at Springfield, took the oath of allegiance to the United States on request of Gov. Yates, Sr., who declared that it would the soldiers in the field. Thirty Years Ago. Agitation was begun in Chicago, Pittsburg and elsewhere which led to ths great railroad strikes of 1873. President Castelar of the (then) Spanish republic was outvoted by the Cortes, or Parliament, and Gen. Pavia, his friend, occupied the Madrid government building with 14,000 troops, to prevent an insurrection. » President U. S. Grant created excitement by going to the capitol at Washington, sending for members of the Senate individually, and urging them to support the nomination of Attorney General Williams for chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, which nearly all of them refused to do. Twenty Years Ago. The British cabinet decided to continue its government in Egypt "until certain reforms had been effected," in spite of Gladstone’s opposition. Henry George was welcomed to London by immense crowds, to whom he declared that the world was on the ere of a single tax revolution. r Benjamin F. Butler's career a* a public official, which had begun during the presidency of Martin Van Buren, finalby rnded With the expiration (ft his term As’ Governor of Massachusetts. Gen. “Chinese” Gordon, then en route to succeed Henry M. Stanley as agent of the Congo country, was offered command of the Egyptian forces in the Soudan, where hg nret death a year later. Ten Years Ago. The ’national income tax , bill was agreed on by the Democratic ways and uieans committee at WashingtW/persona earning oyer *4.000 to be taxed 2 per cent. Evety citizen of Chicago was asked by the Central Relief _ Association to contribute one day's wages to the thousands of unemployed workingmen. Six thousand retail clerks In Chicago were diachargad because of the prevail'og hard time*. ’’l' ■” * ’ ’’k