country, the original Mecklenburg paper, which was not a Declaration of
Independence at all, but simply patriotic resolutions similar to those
which were published in most of the Colonies at that time.

"And so the Mecklenburg Declaration takes its place with the stories of
Pocahontas and of William Tell."--Boutell.




THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.

In effecting the purchase of Louisiana, Mr. Jefferson has thus been
eulogized by James G. Blaine, in his "Twenty Years of Congress:"

"Mr. Jefferson made the largest conquest ever peacefully achieved, at
a cost so small that the sum expended for the entire territory does not
equal the revenue which has since been collected on its soil in a single
month, in time of great public peril."




JEFFERSON AND BENEDICT ARNOLD.

Benedict Arnold, with the British troops, had entered the Chesapeake in
January, 1781, and sailed up the James River. He captured Richmond, the
capital, then a town of less than two thousand people, and destroyed
everything upon which he could lay his hands.