HISTORY or OHIO.
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��part; in 1870, one-twelfth part. In addition to this, we find, from the returns of Cincinnati and Cleveland, that the value of the manufactured prod- ucts of Ohio in 1875, must have reached $400,- 000,000, and, by reference to the census tables, it will be seen that the ratio of increase exceeded that of the great manufacturing States of New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Of all the States admitted into the Union prior to Ohio, Pennsylvania alone has kept pace in the progress of manufiicture. Some little reference to the manufacture of leading articles may throw some light on the cause of this. In the production of agricultural machinery and implements, Ohio is the first State ; in animal and vegetable oils and in pig iron, the second; in cast iron and in tobacco, the third ; in salt, in machinery and in leather, the fourth. These facts show how largely the resources of coal, iron and agriculture have entered into the manufactures of the State. This great advance in the manufactures of Ohio, when we consider that this State is, relatively to its surface, the first agricultural State in the country, leads to the inevitable inference that its people are remarkably industrious. When, on forty thousand square miles of surface, three mill- ions of people raise one hundred and fifty million bushels of grain, and produce manufactures to the amount of $269,000,000 (which is fifty bushels of breadstuff" to each man, woman and child, and $133 of manufacture), it will be difficult to find any community surpassing such results. It is a testimony, not only to the State of Ohio, but to the industry, sagacity and energy of the American people.
Looking now to the commerce of the State, we have said there are six hundred miles of , coast line, which embraces some of the principal internal ports of the Ohio and the lakes, such as Cincinnati, Cleve- land, Toledo and Portsmouth, but whose commerce is most wholly inland. Of course, no comparison can be made with the foreign commerce of the ocean ports. On the other hand, it is well known that the inland trade of the country far exceeds that of all its foreign commerce, and that the larg- est part of this interior trade is carried on its rivers and lakes. The materials for the vast con- sumption of the interior must be conveyed in its vessels, whether of sail or steam, adapted to these waters. Let us take, then, the ship-building, the navigation, and the exchange trades of Ohio, as elements in determining the position of this State in reference to the commerce of the country. At the ports of Cleveland, Toledo, Sandusky and Cin-
��cinnati, there have been built one thousand sail and steam vessels in the last twenty years, making an average of fifty each year. The number of sail, steam and all kinds of vessels in Ohio is eleven hundred and ninety, which is equal to the number in all the other States in the Ohio Valley and the Upper Mississippi.
When we look to the navigable points to which these vessels are destined, we find them on all this vast coast line, which extends from the Gulf of Mexico to the Yellowstone, and from Duluth to the St. Lawrence.
Looking again to see the extent of this vast in- terior trade which is handled by Ohio alone, we find that the imports and exports of the principal articles of Cincinnati, amount in value to $500,- 000,000; and when we look at the great trade of Cleveland and Toledo, we shall find that the an- nual trade of Ohio exceeds $700,000,000. The lines of railroad which connect with its ports, are more than four thousand miles in length, or rather more than one mile in length to each ten square miles of surface. This great amount of railroads is engaged not merely in transporting to the Atlantic and thence to Pjurope, the immense surplus grain and meat in Ohio, but in carrying the largest part of that greater surplus, which exists in the States west of Ohio, the granary of the West. Ohio holds the gateway of every railroad north of the Ohio, from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, and hence it is that the great transit lines of the coun- try pass through Ohio.
Let us now turn from the progress of the arts to the progress of ideas ; from material to intellect- ual development. It is said that a State consists of men, and history shows that no art or science, wealth or power, will compensate for the want of moral or intellectual stability in the minds of a nation. Hence, it is admitted that the strength and perpetuity of our republic must consist in the intelligence and morality of the people. A re- public can last only when the people are enlight- ened. This was an axiom with the early legislators of this country. Hence it was that when Vir- ginia, Connecticut and the original colonies ceded to the General Government that vast and then un- known wilderness which lay west of the Allegha- nies, in the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, they took care that its future inhabitants should be an educated people. The Constitution was not formed when the celebrated ordinance of 1787 was passed.
That ordinance provided that, " Religion, mor- ality, and knowledge being necessary to good
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