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longest life-time a person counting out the dollars one by one, at the rate of sixty a minute, could not get through even a third of it.

Before all the soldiers had been sent home we had paid off over $30,000,000. Since then we have paid about $1,700,000,000 more. Should we continue to reduce our debt at the same rate we shall finish paying it in about fourteen years. No country in Europe has ever settled such a debt.1 To-day our credit should stand higher than that of any other nation on the globe.

366. Summary. During President Johnson's administration six of the seceded states were re-admitted to the Union; but Congress and the President did not agree, and Congress attempted by impeachment to remove the President from office.

Three amendments to the Constitution were made during Mr. Johnson's presidency. The first declared the negro free, the second made him a citizen, the third, a voter.

The other important events were: 1. The full pardon of all persons who had fought against the Union. 2. The beginning of the payment of the national debt. 3. The laying of the Atlantic cable. 4. The purchase of Alaska.

ULYSSES S. GRANT.

367. Grant's Administration (Eighteenth President, Two Terms, 1869-1877); Completion of the Pacific Railroad; what Railroads and Telegraphs have done for the Union. A little over two months after President Grant3 was inaugurated,

1 Between 1871 and 1873, or in less than three years, France paid Germany a war claim of $1,000,000,000, but this payment was not voluntary, but made by the French to rid their soil of the presence of German troops.

2 The first of these amendments had been passed by Congress in February, 1865, and was ratified by the necessary number of three-fourths of the states by December of that year. The two other amendments were passed by Congress during Mr. Johnson's term; the last was ratified during the next administration, 1870.

3 General Ulysses S. Grant of Illinois (Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, Vice-President) was elected President by the Republicans in 1868, over Governor Horatio Seymour of New York and Francis P. Blair of Missouri, the Democratic candidates.

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RELIEF MAP OF THE UNITED STATES AND PART OF BRITISH AMERICA.

COMPLETION OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.

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the last spike of a line of railroad1 connecting the Atlantic coast with the Pacific was driven at Ogden, Utah (May 10, 1869). The blows of the sledge-hammer which drove that spike — completing the greatest work of the kind in the world were telegraphed, as they fell, throughout the Union.

Between Omaha and San Francisco the railroad crosses nine mountain ranges, including the Rockies and the Sierras, climbing, and then descending, over eight thousand feet. In point of time, it is now no farther from New York to San Francisco than it was in the days of the Revolution from New York to Boston. Then it took our forefathers between five and six days to go by wagon somewhat less than two hundred and fifty miles; now, in that time, we can cross the entire continent.

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The result of this rapid means of travel is of the greatest importance to the republic. Once, members of Congress laughed at the idea that California and Oregon would be added to the United States. They said that it would be practically impossible for such states, if added, to send representatives to the national capital, because it would take them the greater part of a year to get to Washington and back. For that reason, they believed that

He was re-elected in 1872 (Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, Vice-President), over Horace Greeley of New York and B. Gratz Brown of Missouri, the candidates of the Liberal Republicans and the greater part of the Democrats united.

1 The Union Pacific Railroad, begun during the Civil War, was built westward from Omaha on the Missouri to Ogden, Utah, a distance of 1029 miles; there it met and connected with the Central Pacific Railroad, which was pushed through at the same time, from San Francisco, a distance of 878 miles. The total distance from New York to San Francisco, by this route, is 3322 miles. The Northern and also the Southern Pacific Railroads have since been built.

In 1872 the Credit Mobilier, a company that had been engaged in the building of the first Pacific Railroad, became involved in a lawsuit in Pennsylvania. It was shown in the course of the suit that some members of Congress secretly held stock in the company, and it was supposed that the stock had been given them in order to secure their votes in behalf of the railway. After an investigation by a congressional committee, the House passed resolutions censuring two of its members; the matter was then dropped.

2 Before the completion of the Pacific Railroad, a pony express, followed by a line of stage-coaches, carried the mail across the country from St. Joseph, Missouri, to San Francisco.

the people who settled the Pacific coast would form a separate and independent republic. The railroad and the telegraph have changed all that. They have connected the farthest extremities of the country so closely that they have made it possible for us to extend and maintain the Union from ocean to ocean.

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368. Effect of the Pacific Railroad on Commerce with Asia, and on the Growth of the Far West. - But this is not all. The building of the Pacific Railroad entirely changed our relations with Asia. Teas, spices, and silks formerly reached us from China and from the East Indies by ships sailing round Cape Horn. Goods might be five or six months coming that immense

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distance.

Where some of our Western Railroads go.
Marshall Pass, Colorado.

Now, many of these goods are shipped by steamer to San Francisco, and thence by rail across the country to the East. In a little over a month from the time a cargo of tea leaves China, it can be delivered in New York. The old navigators spent their lives in trying to find a short route to Asia; we have found it, though in a totally different way from what they expected.

Last of all, and most important as well as last, the Pacific Railroad, and the lines since built, have opened the rich country of the Far West-as the region west of the Mississippi is called.

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