Table showing the period of Missionary Service and its Values, as it has been estimated and paid for in the United States.

598 years,

costing $269,100

to the pious contributors in the United States, and not costing one rial to the Hawaiian people, who had received all the benefit of their zealous services.

VIII.

EXTRACTS FROM A SPEECH OF MR. WASHBURN, OF MAINE, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 4, 1854, IN COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON THE STATE OF THE UNION, ON THE MOTION TO REFER THE PRESIDENT'S ANNUAL MESSAGE TO THE APPROPRIATE COMMITTEES. MR. CHAIRMAN: I have taken this opportunity to express some opinions which I have formed in reference to a question of considerable magnitude and increasing interest, now engaging the atten

tion of the American people, and which must, in the progress of opinions and events, become, at no distant period, a practical question for the action of this government. I speak of the annexation of the Sandwich Islands to the United States. The interest of the state which I in part represent upon this floor-the largest shipbuilding, and one of the most important commercial states in the Union-in this question, must plead my excuse, if any be necessary, for occupying a portion of your time this morning in its consideration. With the doctrines of "manifest" destiny in the raw and rampant forms in which they have been advocated so frequently of late, I trust I need not say I have but little sympathy. There is a school of statesmen, or politicians, in this country, which teaches in effect, if not in words, that the time has come in our history when our chief business as a nation is territorial expansion-when, to borrow the current phrase, it is our special "mission" to overrun and annex, with little or no regard to time, manner, or circumstances, whatever territories or possessions of other nations we may have the wish and the power to grasp. Of this school I am not a disciple. So far from being so, I have thought that our leading thought and purpose should be to learn and practice whatever would most certainly contribute to our domestic well-being and internal growth; to develop the resources, and cultivate to the highest the capabilities which are already ours; to strengthen the foundations where we stand; to fix our institutions so firmly upon our own land, and give them root so deep, with fibres so numerous and tenacious, in the soil of material, political, and social interests, that they will stand securely under all the pressure of rivalries and unfriendly interests and influences to which they may be exposed from without, and in all the storms of passion and faction that may and will arise within.

Policy and duty alike require that we should look more at home and less abroad than I think we are in the habit of doing. I have, therefore, been unable to yield my assent to the doctrines which deny the right of the general government to protect and encourage by its legislation the home interests of the country; as, for instance, to remove obstructions in the great rivers of the Mississippi Valley, for the advantage of commerce in a vast section of the Union; and, to the same end, to improve the harbors of our inland seas; to arrange and adjust the duty on importations, so as to aid the industry of the country rather than oppress it; to construct, directly or indirectly, a rail-road upon its own land, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, which shall connect the east, the centre, and the west-unite them by the ties of acquaintance and good neighborhood, of a common interest and feeling beyond the danger or the desire of separation. Sir, it is difficult to agree with those who see no power under

the Constitution for expansions and conquests like these, which are not material only, but social and moral also, and which, in the language of an English republican, adopted with a single variation, "require no garrisons, equip no navies, and might extend from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle, leaving every American at his own fireside, and giving earth, like ocean, her great Pacific," yet who can readily find constitutional warrant for territorial acquisitions, whenever, wherever, or however they may seem desirable, whether by the purchase of a Louisiana, which Mr. Jefferson thought to be of more than doubtful authority, or by the annexation of a Texas by a joint resolution, the most palpably unconstitutional act of this government. I do not mean, here and now, to object to any acquisitions of territory that have been made. Some of them were indispensable to our commercial independence, and were, I think, justifiable, having been made by treaty, and without the practice of injustice upon any party. But I do intend to question the policy of regarding our first things as furthest off, and to express my doubts as to the soundness of those principles which the President, in his message at the commencement of the present session of Congress, speaks of as constituting "the organic basis of union," and which are to be found, as I understand him to suggest, in the Virginia and Kentucky, resolutions of 1798 rather than in the Constitution. Sir, with all respect for "the fathers of the epoch of 1798," I must be permitted to go behind them and their time, to the epoch of 1788 and the framers of the Constitution, and to their work, for "the organic basis of union." And here I find language like this:

'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

And in the light it imparts, I do not find it easy to believe that the central idea of this government has regard only to what is outside of us- —that the Constitution pretermits or rejects the ordinary domestic duties and functions of civil government. On the contrary, I have seen no reason to doubt that it was adopted in part, and in no subordinate or incidental sense, for the sake of justice and domestic prosperity-for the general welfare-to secure the blessings of liberty, by assisting us to cultivate the arts which are her constant companions.

The Spaniards claim that Gaetano discovered one of the Sandwich Islands as early as A.D. 1542; but the claim has not been generally acknowledged, though it has received the sanction of Humboldt.

The honor of the discovery must, it is believed, be awarded to Cook, who visited them in 1778, and, in honor of his patron, the Earl of Sandwich, gave them the name by which they have since been known. His tragical fate upon returning to the islands is well known, and the spot where he fell is still marked, and was visited by Wilkes in 1840.

For twenty years after the death of Captain Cook, the islands were visited but a few times, and it was not till near the commencement of the present century, when American whaling ships and furtraders began to frequent those seas, that they attracted more than the passing notice of the civilized world. Since that time, however, they have become the depôt of a large and rapidly-increasing trade, and the theatre of patient, persistent, and, on the whole, highly beneficial missionary operations. They are now the residence of an enterprising and influential American population.

The climate, though warm, is equable and salubrious. "The heaven's breath smells wooingly" through the year, the mean temperature being about seventy-five degrees, and the general range for the year from seventy to eighty. The soil is rich in those parts of the islands which have long been free from volcanic eruptions. Their productions and capabilities are very great; and with the spur and direction of Anglo-American enterprise, the benefits of American trade and protection, they would be equal to those of any country, although half, at least, of the whole area is incapable of cultivation.

Independent of kalo—an article of food so readily grown that the entire population might be maintained, in health and vigor, upon the product of six square miles, from which it will be seen how easily human life may be sustained in these islands-the chief products are sugar, silk, tobacco, cotton, coffee, arrow-root, indigo, rice, ginger, oil, salt, pearls, sandal-wood (nearly exhausted, it is to be hoped), woods adapted to ship-building and cabinet-work, some of them of beautiful grain, and nearly as hard as mahogany, skins and hides, wheat, potatoes, and fruits of various kinds. Of the articles of commercial value, the most important is sugar, as, from the proximity of the islands to California and other markets, the demand and prices must be such as to warrant its production in large quantities, for which the soil and climate are very favorable. More than ten years ago, Messrs. Ladd & Co. raised an average of a tun and a half to the acre, a rate at which one thousand square miles would yield nearly a million tuns, or four times the total supply of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Sir George Simpson was of opinion that the islands might "supply with sugar nearly all the coasts of both continents above their own latitude, California, Oregon, the Russian settlements both in Asia

and America, and ultimately Japan;" and, he continues, “should they be secured in this trade, they could hardly be dislodged from it by any rival so long as they enjoy the advantage of being the great house of call both in the length and in the breadth of the Pacific Ocean." The most reliable accounts since received confirm his opinions as to the value and promise of this crop. It is not unknown that our late commissioner (Hon. Luther Severance) has never failed to urge its importance upon our government and people, and when his caution, soundness of judgment, and means of information are considered, this fact speaks with great force for the present and possible magnitude of this interest. The markets which these islands would occupy are so remote from our sugar-fields on this side of the continent as to preclude injurious competition.

Silk may be cultivated to advantage in certain sheltered localities, and is believed to have even fewer obstacles to surmount than sugar. It yields six crops in the year, and may be produced at rates which will allow it to be sold at remunerating prices in England and the United States.

Coffee, said to be equal to Mocha, is among the products of the islands that may be cultivated successfully, and raised in sufficient abundance to be sent with advantage to almost any part of the world.

Mr. Chairman, this people are capable of doing more and better for themselves and the world than they have heretofore, as inhabitants of remote and isolated islands, known or conceived. They have claims upon Christendom for better government, laws, and institutions than they possess. For their own sake, they should be protected, held up, and sustained by one of the stronger and more advanced of the civilized powers. Only by the multiplied means of education and discipline which such connection can give, can depopulation, and the vices and wrongs which induct it, be entirely and speedily stayed, and long and weary years of pupilage and preparation abridged.

Opposed, sir, as I am to annexation, where it is sought for the mere purpose of extending boundaries and dominion, and without regard to our wants and actual requirements as connected with all the interests of the country; and fearing, as I have said, the consequences to be apprehended from the doctrines now so zealously, and, it seems to me, thoughtlessly taught, yet, when a case occurs where it manifestly may be employed as a means to the noblest ends, and humanity demands it, and our national and domestic interests will be served by it, and justice waits upon it, I shall not hesitate to yield it the best advocacy of my mind, as it will compel that of my heart.