mw^mf iiii' 'WmM' ' ''L£AA '^i'.'.'.'.'*,'A^.'V''.Af1.''Y.'t cl^ 4 CLCCC cjfcrcc > <^<: <^-A'^ ^ i«^''i^ <=^*^ <^' car -c ' <: '(V<©7<^><%.g c «:^e • ounda- ries of New Mexico. Mr. President, when I see gentlemen from my own pari of the country, no doubt from mo- tives of the highest character, "and for most conscientious purposes, not concurring in any of these great questions with myself, I am aware that I am taking on myself an uncommon degree of responsibility. The fact that gentlemen with whom I have been accustomed to act in the Senate took a difTerent view of their own duties in the same case, naturally led me to reconsider my own course, to re-examine my own opinions, to re-judge my own judgment. And now, sir, that 1 have gone through this process, without prejudice, as I hope— and certainly I have done so imder the greatest feeling of regret, at being called upon by a sense of duty to take a course which may dissatisfy some to whom 1 should always be desirous of rendering my pub- lic course and every event and action of my public life acceptable — yet I cannot part from my own settled opinions. I leave consequences to themselves. It is a great emergency, a great exigency that this country is placed in. I shall endeavor to preserve a proper regard to my own consistency ; but I shall, nevertheless, perform what ! believe to be a high duty, proi\iptly and fearlessly. And here let me say, that neither ]tre nor elsewhere has any thing been ad- vanced to show that on this subject I have said or done any thing inconsi.steilt, in the slightest degree, with any speech, or sentiment, or letter, or declaration that I ever delivered in my life ; and all would be convinced of this, if men would stop to consider, and look at real differences and distinctions. But where all is general denunciation, where all is clamor, where all is idle and empty declamation, where there is no search after exact truth, no honest disposition to in- Cjuire whether one opinion is different from the other— why, every body, in that way of proceed- ing, may be proclaimed to be inconsistent. Now, sir, I do not take the trouble to answer things of this sort that appear in the public press. I know it would be useless. Those who are of an unfriendly disposition would not publish my explanations or distinctions, if I were to, make them. But, sir, if any gentle- man here has any thing to say on this subject- though I throw out no challenge— yet, if any gentleman here chooses to undertake the task— and many there possibly are, who think it an easy task — to show in what respect any thing that I said in debate here on the 7th of Maph, or any thing contained in my letter to the gentlemen of Newburyport, or any where else, is incon- sistent with any recorded opinion of nrine, since the subject of the annexation of Texas began in 1837, r will certainly answer him with great respect and courtesy, and shall be contertt to Btand or fall by the judgment of the country. Sir, my object is peace. My object, is reconciliation. My purpose is, not to make up a case for the North, or to make up a case for the South. My object is not to continue useless and irritating controver-sies. I am against agitators, North and South. I am against local ideas, North and Snuth, and ag-ainsi all narrow and local contests. I am an American, and I know n> locality in America tluit is my country. My heart, my sentiments, my judgment, demand of me that I shall pursue such a course as shall promote the good, and the harmony, and the Union of the whole country. This I shall do, God willing, to the end of the chapter. The honurabie Senator resumed his seat amidst general applause from the gallery. CORRESPONDENCE. To THE Hon. Daniel Webster: The subscribers, inhabitants of the cities and towns on Kennebec river, though not your im- mediate constituents, yet, as citizens of our common Republic, cannot refrain from expressing to you the deep'sense of the obligation which you have conferred upon the whole country, by your recent effort in the Senate of the United States to allay the spirit of sectional strife which threatened the destruction of our Union. No cont"ederate I States, either in ancient or modern times, have been preserved from intestine commotion and civil war. If, as some suppose, we are confederated States, still we are only an exception to the general rule, and it is but a short time since that the slavery question threatened to bring those evds upon us; and should the South and the North be separated, no human wisdom could predict the evils that would follow. We have been induced to offer this expression of our feelings from observing the obloquy cast upon you by a portion of the press in this State. The press may convey the excited feelings of the moment, but those feelings frequently arise from an ardent desire to effect what is deemed a great good, irrespeciive of consequences; but we teel confident that reflecting minds, and those which permanently guide public opinion, will eventually have their influence, and that the patri- otism.and courage of that statesman will be generally acknowledged, who, regardless of conse- quences to himself, l)oldly threw himself into the breach, and brought back his coumrymen to feel the invaluable blessings of the Union, and the duty imposed upon tiiem for its preservation. Gardiner, April, 1850. R. FT. Gardiner, A. T. Perkins, Samuel B. Tarbox, H. Tupper, John Merrick, Jesse Aikin, W. S. Marshall, C. H. Strickland, Eben Horn, William Woart, J. J. Eveleth, Allen Lambert, G. W. Stanley, Wra. Led yard Ebenezer Clap, J. C. L. Booker, J. H. McLellan, William Morse, John P. Hunter, Wm. H. Byram, Benjamin Shaw, G. W. Bachelder Jas. Sherburne, A. Pease, Peter Atherton, J. S. P. Dument, •V. M. Vaughn. Hanson Baker, J. A Thompson, D. VVilliams, William Bryan, Jonathan Hyde, Gilbert Trufant, Henry Hyde, B. C. Baijey, John E. Brown, E. G. Byram, F. Allen, f F. P. Theobald, , F. K. Swan, Hallowell. Thos. B. Brooks, James C. Dwight, J. Gardner, T. M. Andrews, AuGDSTA. Thos. Lambert, Geo. W. Morton, D. C. Stan wood, Jonathan Hedge, Bath. J. W. Ellingwood, Geo. F. Patten. R. H. McKown, Thos. M. Reed, F. Clark, Edward Swan, L. Clay, Saiiiuel C. Grant, Arthur Berry. Rufus R. Page, John Johnson, S Davenport, F. Glazier, Henry Williams, James Bridge, Cyrus Briggs, David Fales. Wm. D. Sewell, John Patten, John H. KiinbalL, Alden Morse, Wm. M. Roirers. Reply of Mr . Webster. Washington, June 17, 1B50. Gentlemen: Your friendly and acceptable letter of April was received. It is true, gentlemen, that I have made an effort in the Senate " to allay the spirit of sectional strife, which has threatened the destruction of our Union;" and such efforts i shall continue to make, earnestly, and with whatever ability 1 possess, under a deep conviction that that "spirit of sectional strife," if not checked, will ere long drive the country into a lamentable and disas- trous condition. It is exceedingly to be regretted, that any part of tlie public press in the State in which you reside, or elsewhere, should discourao^e, and, as it often does, denounce all attempts at reconciliation and peace; and should contribute, by its daily effusions, to promote ill-will, re- sentment, and angry contests between the North and South. That all' this is done by a por- tion of the press, both North and South, is but too true. The conductors of these presses would seem to have lost all sense of ii common country, a'l sentiments of patriotism, unless there may be patriotism in those local feelings, in which the great Father of his Country s« alTectionately admonished us never to indulge. That the coniluclors of these presses mistake the opinions of the people, to a very considerable extent, 1 doubt not; but wliile they are so- active and so zealous, who ca* tell how far, or how fast, their sentiments may sprraii.' It is no longer to be doubted, that there are persons bo;h in the North and in the South, who are opposed to the existence of the )irescnt Constitution of the United States, and would gladly see it brought to an end. Some in both extremes openly avow this wish, and others conceal it under very thin disguises. Nevertheless, the great body of the people. North and South, are firmly attached to the Union; their hearts ;u-e for it, and with it, and they will defend it against ail open attempts for its overthrow. This is my decided opinion. The Urnon, therefore, we may hope, will not be rudely broken up; but this spirit of sectional strife, if it be not effectually rebuked, will produce mfinite mischiefs, by embarrassing the Government, thwarting and de- feating useful legislation, and increasing, more and more, feelings of discord and alienation. Who does not see, already, the alarming consequences provoked and produced by these dissen- sions.-' We are now in the seventh inonth of the session of Congress, and what hiis lieen done.' Even the ordinary annual appropriation bills have not been brought forward, or advanced a sin- gle stage. They are at least four months liehind the proper time. It has at last become indis- pensably necessary, it seems to me, that men of sense and intelligence, who are really lovers of their country and its Union, should open their eyes to the state of things. There will be, there must be, it is in the naiure of tljings that there should be, some shock, some cessation in the movemetit of the Government, some disreputable irregularity, now not fiir ahead, unless the good men of the country, in all its parts, will rou.se themselves to the performance of the "duties which the exigency demands. While so many persons and so many presses in "the North maintain sndi loud and bitter C(miplaints against the Simth, and while so many persons and so many presses in the South utter complaints equally loud and bitter asainst the North, neither the North nor the South states, definitely atid precisely, any actual grievanc(\ such as could justify, in any reasonable man's o|)inion, the most distant idea of disunion. For the most part, these mutual complaints are general, indeterminate, uttered in angry terms, but placed on no specific ground. In the speech to which your letter refers, I have mentioned what i think to be the real ground of mu- tual or reciprocal complaint; but, beyond all these, there is kept up a general cry of one party against the other, that its rights are invaded, its honor insulted, its character assailed, and its just participation in political power denied. Sngacious men cannot but sus|>ect, from all this, that more is intended than is avowed; and that there lies at the bottom a purpose of the separa- tion of the States, for reasons avowed or disavowed, or for grievances redressed or unredressed. This purpose, be it remembered, I do not consider os pervading large masses, but of its existence among tlie Exlremisls, on both sides, I cannot entertain a question. In the speech to which you refer, it was my purpose, among other things, to show that a peaceable secession of some States from the rest, or a peaceable separation of them all, was aiYiong the most improbable of imaginable events ; that nature, the seas, the gulfs, the lakes, and the rivers, bound us together by ties nearly impossible to be broken; that no tnan could make any plan of secession or separation satisfactory to others; and, more than all, that no man could discern any thing as likely to arise to any State, from secession or separation, not fraught with political evil of every description, and every degree. And notwithstanding the influence and the opinions of which I have spoken, 1 believe that the sentiments of the great mass of Southern men concur with my own. Many have contemplated separation as a probable result; some certainly have desired, and do desire it; but, so fiir as I have observed, when the question is put directly home to the people, notwithstanding whatever certain presses and cer- tain politicians say to the contrary, the people of the South are still for the Union by immense majorities. Wherever there is a truly American heart, the love of the Union is entwined in its iiUTiost fibres. It is our duty to encourage and applaud this popular feeling ; to respect it our- selves, and to take care that, by no denial of justice, by no unnecessary di.scussion of exciting but abstract questions, by no threat or menace to interfire loitli what, does not belong to us, we do not weaken that attachment to the Union which is so indispensable to the happiness of all. And what is the duty of the North, in this respect, is equally the duty of the South. All sides are called on to exercise a far greater degree of forbeanmce and modriation, if we mean to trans- mit to the next generation the blessings enjoyed by this. I shall do all I can to warn the country against" the dangers of this intestine strife; to call both the South and the North back to a sense of their true duties and their true interests. And if I cannot allay the evil, I shall at least do nothing to promote it. I shall do nothing lo cause jealousy, heartburning, and animosity, among those whose country is one, whose interests are one, and whose destiny, whatever any of them may think of it, is, in my opinion, one ; one now, and one hereafter. Gentlemen, one of the excitins: questions of the present moment respects the necessity of ex- cluding slavery, by law, from the territories lately acquired from Mexico. If I believed in any such necessity, I should, of course, support such a law. I could not do otherwise, consistently with opinions very many times expressed, and which opinions I have no inclination to change, and shall not change. But I do not believe in any such necessity. I have studied the geogra- phy of New Mexico diligently, having read all that I could find in print, and inquired of many intelligent persons who have been in the country, travirsed it, and become familiar with it. ' New Mexico may be considered as divided into two parts : one lying on the oast side of the Rio Grande, below the Paso del Norte — this is claimed by Texas; the other extends along the river, on both .sides, from Paso del Norte to the forty-second degree of north latitude, or the boundary of Oregon. Of this part, also, that which lies on the eastei-n side of the river is claimed tiy Texas. The whole extent of both parts can hardly be less than one thousand miles, and by the windings of the river much more. The southern part is far less mountainous than the northern ; it has, nevertheless, mountain peaks and mountain ridges. From San An- tonio de Bf xar, which is a hundred miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, and near the western line of the actual settlements in Texas, it is five hundred and .seventy miles to Paso del Norte, by a track or road, recently explored, keeping east of the Rio del Norte, and south of the Gua- dalupe mountains; the general direction of which road is west by north. This whole country is of very little value. The 'mountains are barren, and a great portion of the more level country is a mere desert of rocks and SHiid. Sometime.^ prairies are met with, producing grass in more or less abundance; but the decisive and fatal characteristic of the country is the want of water. In traversing this region, travellers not unfrequently find themselves without water for twenty or thirty miles, and sometimes even for longer distances. 1 think an exploring expedition, which within the last year pas.sed along this route, found no water for seventy miles. It may be truly said, that here is a country of six hundred miles in extent, which, in its general character, must be described as a barren desert. I agree, that in a considerable part of this desert, African slave labor is not necessarily excluded by the law of climate ; the climate is mild enough ; but, then, all labor, free or slave, all cultivation whatever, is excluded, for nil time, by the sterility of the soil, throughout th s vast arid region. There may be trifling exceptions here and there on the banks of some of the streams ; but the general character, without doubt, or question, is such as I have represented it. Major Gaines, a very intelligent gentleman, lately a member of Congress, and now Governor of Oregon, traversed a part of this country during the Mexican war, and this is his description of it : "The country, from the Nueces to the valley of the Rio Grande, is poor, sterile, sandy and barren, with not a single tree of any size or value on our whole route. The only tree which we saw was the musquit tree, and very few of these. The musquit is a small tree, resem- bling an old and decayed peach tree. The whole country may be truly called a perfect waste, uninhabited and uninhabitable. There is not a drop of running water between the two rivers] except in the two small streams of San Salvador and Santa Gtirt'rudus, and these only contain water in the rainy season. Neither of them had running water when we passed them. The chaparral commences within forty or fifty miles of the Riii Grande. This is poor, rocky, and sandy; covered with prickly pear, thistles, and almost every sticking thing, constituting a thick and perfectly impenetrable undergrowth. For any useful or agricultural purpose the country is not worth a sows. " So far as we are able to form any opinion of this desert upon the other routes which had been travelled, its character, everywhere between the two rivers, is pretty much the same. We learned that the route pursued by General Taylor south of ours, was thiough a country similar to that through which we passed ; as also was that travelled by General Wool from San Anto- nio to Presidio, on the Rio Grande. From what we both saw and heard, the whole command came to the conclusion which I have already expresseil, that it was worth nothing I have no hesitation in saying, that I would not hazard the life of one valuable and useful man for every foot of land between San Patricio and the valley of the Rio Grande. The country i.s not now, and can never be, of the slightest vnlue.'" The most lamented and distinguished gentleman and olficer, the late Colontl Hardin, of Illi- nois, entirely concurs with Major Gaines. Here is his account: " The ivkolc country is miserublij watered. Large districts have no water at all. The streams are small, and at gnat distances apart. One day we ma died, on the road from Monclova to Parras, thirty-Jive miles without loater ; a pretty severe day's march for infantry. "Grass IS very scarce ; and, indeed, there is none at all in many regions for miles square. Its place is supplied with |)rickly pear and tlim-ny bushes. There is not one acre m two hun- dred — more probably not one in five hundied — of all the land we have seen in Mexico, winch can ever be cultivated ; the greater part of it is the most desolate region I could ever have inia- * 6 gined. The pure granite hiils of New England are a paradise to it, for they are without the thorny briars and venomous reptiles which infest the barbed barrenness of Mexico. The good land and cultivated spots in Mexico are but dots on the map. Were it not that it takes so very little to support a Mexican, and tliat the Irmd which is cultivated yields its produce wiih little labor, it would be surprising how us sparse population is sustained. All the towns we have visited, with, perhaps, theexceplion of Parras, are dcpnpulaiing, as is also the whole country." The country higher up, that is, along the Rio del Norte, from Paso del Norte to Sar.ta Fe and Taos, is different in this respect. Tlirouijh this part of New Mexico the river runs between im- mense mouniams, with strips or ribands of land along its banks, not always c uninunus, hut which are cultivated with grains, but only by means of irrigation. Allow me, gentlemen, to lay before you the creditable, the exact, (he authoritative description given by Air. Smith, the delegate from New Mexico: "New Mexico is an. exceedingly mounlainous country, Santa Fe itself being twice as high as the highest p unt of the Alle^liaiiies, and nearly all the land capabli> of cultivation is of equal height, though some of the valleys have le.-s altitude above the sea. The country is cold. Its general agricultural products are wheat and corn, and such vegetables as grow in the Northern Sta'es of this Union. It is entirely unsuited for slave labor. Labor is exceedingly abundaiit and cheap. It may be hired for three or four dollars per month, in quantity quite sufficient for carrying: on all the agriculture of the Territory. There is no cultivation except by irrigation, and there is not a sufficiency of water to irriijaie all the land. " As to the existence, at present, of slavery in New Mexico, it is the general understanding that it has been altogether abolished by the laws of Mexico; but we have no established tribu- nals which have proimunced, as yet, whai the law of the land in this respect is. It is universal- ly considered, however, that the Territory is altogether a free Territory. I know of no per- sons in the couiury who are treated as slaves, except such as may be servants to gentlemen visiting or passing through the country. I may add that the stronges-t feeling against slavery universally prevails through the whole Territory, and 1 suppose it quite impossible to convey it there, and maintain it by any means whatever." My speech was delivered on the 7lh of March. Speaking of what I thought the impossibil- ity of the existence of African slavery in New Mexico, I said: " 1 would not take pains use- lessly to reaffirm an ordinance of naiuie, or to re-enact the will of God." Everybody knew that, by the "will of God," 1 meant that expression of the divine purpose in the worfc of crea- tion which had given such a physical formation to the earth, in tins region, as necessarily to exclude African slavery from it forever. Everybody knew I meant this, and meant nothing e'se. To represent me as speaking in any other sense was gross injustice. Yet a pamphlet has been put into circulation, in which it is said that my remark is "underlakins; to settle by mountains and rivers, and not by the Ten Commandments, the question of human duty." "Cease to tran- scribe," it adds, "upon the statute book what our wisest and best men believed to be the will of God, in regard to our worldly affairs, and the passions which we think appropriate to devils will soon take possession of society." One hardly knows which most to contemn, the non- sense or the dishonesty of such commentaries on another's words. I know no passion more appropriate to devils than the passion for gross misrepresiuitation and libel. And others, from whom more fairness might have been expected, have not failed to represent me as arguing, or affording ground of aryunit^nt, against human laws to enforce the moral laws of the Deity. Such persons knew my meaning very well. They chose to |:>ervert and misrepresent it. That is all. In classical times, there was a set of small, but rapacious critics, denominated caplatores verbo- rwn, who snatched and caught at particular expressions; expended their strength on the disjecta membra of language; birds of rapine, who preyed on words and syllables, and gorged them- selves with feeding on the garbage of phrases, chopped, dislocated, and torn asunder, by them- selves, as flesh and limbs are by the claws of unclean birds. Such critics are rarely more dis- tinguished for ability in discussion, than for that manly moral ffeling which disdains to state an adversary's argument otherwise than fairly and iruly, and as he meant to be understood. But other gentlemen, of much more acquaint:ince with New Mexico, than I can pretend to, have exfiressed the same opinion as I have done, in respect to the natural causes which must forever exclude slavery from that country ; and it has I'een thought remarkable that an intelli- gent field officer in the American army, in writing a private letter to a friend here, dated at Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, two days before my speech was delivered, that is, on the 5th of March, should have used this language: " We have no papers later than the President's message. I fancy Congress is debating aliout slavery in New Mexico, wharc sldvery is proliibilcd by a stronger than all human laws — the law nf climate, and production, and self-interest- Not more than a hundredth part of New Mexico could ever be cultivated, if water were ever so plenty, such is the soil, topography, and rock of this land. But in the centre of a vast area, witliout large bodies of water, the rocky surface send- ing what little water falls upon it rapidly down to the ocean, under an atmosphere ever thirsty, into which evaporation is marvellously rapid, not more than one part in two hundred and fifty can ever be improved.'' And now, gentlemen, I have one other consideration to hrinj; to your minds; and that is, that the slavery of tlie African race does not exist in New Mexico; that it is altogether abol- ished ; that there is not a single Afiican slave to be found among any of its mountains, or in any part of its vast plains. And the [teople of Mexico, to a man, are opposed to slavery; their State of society rejects it; the use of cheaper labor rejecis it ; the opinions, the sentiments, and feelin£;s of the people, all reject it, as warmly and decidedly as it is rejected by the people of Maine. And it appears to me just about as probable that African .slavery will be introduced into New Mexico, and there established, a.'^ it is that the same slavery will be established on Mars' Hill, or the eide of the White Mountains. Among the maxims left us by Lord Bacon, one is, that when seditions or discontents arise in the State, the part of wisdom is, to remove, by all means pos.sible, the causes. The surest way to prevent discontents, if the times will bear.it, he says, is to takeaway the matter of them; for if there be fun] prepared, it is hard io tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire. So counsels Lord Bacon; but with us there are other advisers. Although the dispute be obvi- ously altogether unimpm'tant, and although ifce times will well bear the tajving away of the mat- ter of it, their patriotic ardor still admonishes us to continue the contest — to fight it out; if the oyster be gdiie, still to make fierce battle for the shell; nor give up the warfare, till we obtain a joyful victory, or shall nobly fall. Gentlemen, I will conclude this letter by a short reference to one other topic. A good deal of complaint has been manifested, as you know, on account of the opinions expressed in my speech respecting Texas, and the legal construction and etlecl of the resolutions by which she became annexed to the United States. Surprise and astonishment, and all the eloquence of capital let- ters ami notes of admiration, have been summoned to mark the utterance of such new and start- ling sentiments. The truth is, however, that there is nothing new in the whole matter. The same view, substantially, of the resolutions of annexation had been taken, again and again, by myself and others. Gentlemen, 1 voted against the treaty by which these Territories were ceded by Mexico to the United States; nnd in open Senate, in a speech made on the 23d of March, 1848, 1 referred to Texas and to the resolutions of annexation. The speech was published in the newspapers, and circulated in pam[ihlet form, and read by every body who chose to read it. In that speech you will find the.se words : " Now, sir, I do not depend on theory. 1 ask you and I nsk the Senate and the country to look at facts, to see where we were when we made the departure three years ago, and where we now are, and I shall leave it to imai{ination to conjecture where we shall be. ■■ We admitted Texas as one Stain for the present. But if you will refer to the resolutions providing for the annexation of Te.xas, you will find a provision that it shall be in the power of Congress hereafter to make /our other new States out of Texan territory. Present and pros- pectively, therefore, /iue new Stales, sending ten Senators, may come into the Union nut of Texas. Three years ago we did that. Now we profiose to rnnke two States ; for, undoubtedly, if we take what the President recommends, New Mexico and California each will make a State ; so that there will be four Senators. We shall have then, in this new tcrriiory, seven Stales, sending/oiir/ccn Senators to this chamber. Now, what vv\\\ be the rolaiion between the Senate and the people, or the States from which they come.'" You will see ihat here is the same opinion of the meaning of the Resolutions of Annexation, expressed nearly in the same words, as are contained in my speech of the 7th of Mar'h last. And this only two years ago. But nobody then expressed either surprise or astonishment. There was no call to arms, no invocation of the Genius of Liberty, to resist a false construction of an act of Congress; no siirriiPig and rousini:: paragra|.hs in the liewspafiers; no patriotic ap- peals to the people, and no insane declarations, such as we now hear, that the Texan Resolu- tions are utterly void. But, gentlemen, I will pursue no further a topic of some little interest to myself, but of no great importance to you. or the couiTtry. I leave it, with the single remark, that what was true, in respect to the consiruction of an act of Congress in 1848, must be true, in the same case, in 1850 ; and if an individual, on his own anihoriiy, may declare one act of Congress void, he may. with equal profirieiy, alisolve himself from ihe obligations imposed on him by all other acts : and his OHth binds him only to the observance of sueh laws as he himself approves. How far .such a sentiment is fit to be acted upon by men, or to be instilled into the minds of youth, the coun- try must judge. But you, and the whole connti y, gentlemen, arc interested most deeply, in knowing what is the prospect of a settlement of exi.stinic difficulties. On this point, I am happy to say, that I can speak with hope, if not with confidence. I think 8 I see indications that the public judgment will, ere long, be brought to bear upon these trouble- some and exciting questions, and that the voice of a majority of the people will hush other dis- cordant voices. How soon this will happen, I cannot say ; but I fully believe that the floods will yet subside, that the troubled waters will return within their banks, and the current of pub- lic affairs resume its accustomed and beneficial course. I am, gentlemen, your obliged fellow-citizen and obedient servant, DANIEL WEBSTER. Robert H. Gardiner, esq., and others, Gardiner, Maine. 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