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CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

STATE PAPERS.

See INDEX at the close of the volume.

T

NOTES ON NEW YORK.

NOTES ON NEW YORK.*

NEW YORK is situated between 40° 30′ and 45° of north latitude, and between 5° 5' of east and 2° 55′ of west longitude from the city of Washington. The state includes an area of 46,200 square miles, divided into fifty-nine counties, and subdivided into nine cities, eight hundred and thirty-five towns, and one hundred and forty-five incorporated villages; and contains 2,428,921 inhabitants; of whom 2,378,890 are free white persons, and 50,031 are free colored persons. The government is a representative republic, with a written constitution, which was framed by a convention in 1821, and approved by the people in a popular election in 1822. The few remaining descendants of the aborigines are neither enumerated, nor admitted to citizenship. Persons of African descent, possessing freeholds worth two hundred and fifty dollars, enjoy the right of suffrage. Aliens are excluded until they become naturalized according to the laws of Congress, after five years' residence in the United States. male citizens who have attained the age of twenty-one years, and resided in the state one year, vote for all officers elected by the people, and may be chosen or appointed to places of trust or profit; but the governor must be a native citizen of the United States, and a freeholder, aged not less than thirty years, and must have been an inhabitant of this state five years previously to his election, unless absent on public business; and only freeholders can be elected senators. Elections are conducted by ballot. The constitution guaranties the franchises of citizenship to every member of the state, unless he be deprived of them by

All

*This work constitutes the Introduction to the Natural History of New York published by the legislature in 1842.-Ed. U. S. census, 1840.

In 1850, the total population was 3,097,394.-Ed. See NOTE on page 665.

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