Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

Viii INTRODUCTION.
leaden sway of a stationary system, are coming under the influences
of an active civilization. Freedom of speech and the press, the
trial by jury, religious equality and representative government,
have been carried by the Constitution of the United States into
extensive regions in which they were unknown before. By the
settlement of California the great circuit of intelligence round the
globe is completed. Every addition to the territory of the American Union has given homes to European destitution and gardens to
European want. From every part of the United Kingdom, from
France, from Switzerland and Germany, and from the extremest
north of Europe, a march of irmmigration has been taken up, such
as the world has never seen before. Into the United States, grown
to their present extent in the manner described, but little less than
half a million of the population of the Old World is annually pouring; to be immediately incorporated into an industrious and prosperous community, in the. bosom of which they find political and
religious liberty, social position, employment and bread."