694 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



PERSIA. 



viction that, " the Federal Government is sov- 

 ereign within its proper sphere that it acts 

 not through or upon the States, but directly 

 upon individuals that the States could not ab- 

 solve the people from their Federal obligations 

 that the State ordinances of secession were 

 nullities, and therefore, when the attempted 

 revolution came to an end by the submission of 

 th insurgents, the States were as much a part 

 of the Union as they had been before ;" assert- 

 ing that the effort making by certain persons 

 " to use the power of the General Government 

 with a view to -force negro suffrage on the 

 States against the will of the people, and con- 

 trary to existing laws, is not only a high crime 

 against the Constitution, but a deliberate and 

 wicked attempt to put the States of this Union 

 all of them more or less and some of them 

 entirely under the domination of negroes, to 

 Africanize a large portion of the country, and 

 degrade the white race, morally and socially, 

 as well as politically, to the low level of the 

 black ;" pledging the party to support President 

 Johnson's reconstruction policy, " in the belief 

 that he will execute the law, the whole law, 

 and nothing but the law, in all parts of the 

 country that he will not allow the military to 

 interfere with State elections that ho will 

 punish kidnapping and robbery through the 

 legal authorities, whether committed by Fed- 

 eral officers or private citizens, and that he will 

 suffer no person to be murdered by military 

 commission ;" urging in view of the enormous 

 national debt, and the great weight of State 

 and local taxes retrenchment and economy, 

 the disbanding of the army, and the reduction of 

 the navy ; recommending such a revision of the 

 revenue laws as to make taxation equal and 

 just; expressing gratitude to the soldiers of the 

 republic, but repelling the assertion "that 

 they fought and bled and died mainly for the 

 freedom of the negro" as a "gross insult on 

 their patriotism ;" recognizing " the noble man- 

 ner in which the Democratic press of this 

 Commonwealth have contended for the liber- 

 ties of the nation ;" and reaffirming adherence 

 to the Monroe doctrine. 



The election took place on the 10th of Octo- 

 ber, and resulted in the success of the Union 

 nominees, General Hartranft, the candidate for 

 Auditor-General, receiving 238,400 rotes, which 

 gave him a majority of 22,660 over his oppo- 

 nent, Colonel W. W. H. Davis. 



At a meeting of colored men, held in Phila- 

 delphia, on the IVth of July, to take into con- 

 sideration the question of negro suffrage, the 

 following resolutions were adopted : 



Resolved, That the apparent anxiety to preserve 

 the ballot-box from the influence of the ignorance of 

 the colored man is proved, by the class of men in- 

 yited and urged to the polls at every election, to be 

 but a hypocritical and malignant subterfuge. 



Resolved, That the objection that, if enfranchised, 

 the freedmen of the South will permit themselves to 

 bj used by their former oppressors, can only be 

 founded on the fallacious presumption that he can 

 be made to do, now that he is free, what he could not 

 be forced to do when a slave. 



PERSIA, a country in Asia. It is bounded 

 on the west by Asiatic Turkey, on the north by 

 the Russian Government of Trans-Caucasia, the 

 Caspian Sea, and the Desert of Khiva, on the 

 east by Affghanistan and Beloochistan, and on 

 the south by the Arabian Sea and the Persian 

 Gulf. The sovereign (" Shah ") of Persia is an 

 absolute and uncontrolled monarch. Present 

 Shah, Nasser-eh-Din, born in 1829, succeeded 

 his father, Mohammed-Shah, in 1848; heir 

 apparent, Mouzaffer-eh-Din-Mirza. The min- 

 istry was, in 1865, composed of Mirza-Mobam- 

 med-Khan (War and Presidency of the Minis- 

 try); Mirza-Sa'id-Khan (Interior); Mirza-Yus- 

 suf (Finances). The diplomatic corps at Te- 

 heran consists of ministers plenipotentiary of 

 France, England, Russia, and Turkey. 



The army numbers at present ninety regi- 

 ments or battalions of regular infantry, at 800 

 men each ; fifty-three squadrons of regular cav- 

 alry, at 500 men each; 5,000 men, artillery, and 

 200 men, light artillery, and 30,000 cavalry. 



It is difficult to ascertain the number of in- 

 habitants, as no lists of births and deaths are 

 kept, and no complete census has ever been 

 taken. In 1859 the Shah ordered a census to 

 be taken, but it was found impossible to carry it 

 through, against the persistent opposition which 

 was everywhere made to it from religious preju- 

 dices. The nnmber of the nomadic population 

 can, however, easily be estimated, as their chief 

 (" Ilkhani ") knows exactly the number of tents 

 of his tribe. They number a little over 3,000,- 

 000. The population is about 10,000,000. 



According to descent, the population consists 

 of aborigines (Persians and Medes), Tartars, 

 Turks, Koords, Arabs, Armenians, Nestorians, 

 Jews, descendants of .Turcomanni, Russians, 

 and Poles. The Koords, who, in their physical 

 constitution, show a great similarity to the 

 Germans, and speak their own language (which 

 belongs to the Iranic family of languages), are 

 governed by a Governor (" Wali "), who is ap- 

 pointed by the Shah, though the dignity is 

 hereditary in a family, which claims to descend 

 from the house of the Sassauides. The number 

 of the Armenians, as well as their former riches 

 and commerce, have more recently been greatly 

 reduced. Tatus Khan, the Armenian Bishop 

 of Ispahan, assured Dr. Polak,* that the popu- 

 lation of his diocese, which extends from Java 

 and India to Kan 1 an Kuh in Persia, amounted 

 to only 20,000; to these are to be added a 

 small number of Roman Catholic Armenians 

 and a few hundred families in Tabris and the 

 neighborhood, belonging to the diocese of Utch 

 Miazin. Ispahan has at present the largest 



* Polak, Persien, Das Land und seine Setcohner (Lcip- 

 sic, 18(55, 2 vols.). The author of this work, from which tho 

 Information given in this article has been chiefly derived, 

 was one of six Austrians who, upon the invitation of tho Per- 

 sian Government, went in 1851 to Tcberan to establish a 

 military and a medical school. He also became the couit 

 physician of the Shah. He published at Teheran several 

 works in the Persian language; as Manuals of "Anatomy" 

 (1854) ; "Surgery" (1857). Some of his pupils wrro sent to 

 Paris, where they graduated and published medical treatises. 

 (See vol. I. p. 811.) 



