In taking up the history of any one state of the Union, then, we find it impossible to confine our observation to accidental or unrelated happenings, however these happenings may find careful chroniclings at the hands of local scribes and unphilosophic writers. We see the States as a part of a physiographic area having in common with other parts the determinative elements of soil and climate which by prescribing industries, affect desires, ambitions, thought, and other forms of human activity. We study community forces and estimate their quality and intensity as they find expression in characteristic social and political institutions. We consider the people in their racial attitude, anticipate similar results from similar motives as conforming to the spirit and experience of the ethnic type to which the majority of the people stand related. We regard the State as an organic whole, a corporate being related to other similarly constituted beings. Take what position we will, there come into our line of vision ideas, origins, effects, reactions, and relations which show us that a State's history extends indefinitely into the past and in the present ramifies to every part of the larger, body-politic of which it is a constituent member. Apart from general principles there is a singular correlation between the history of this your State and the history of the one I so inadequately represent upon this occasion (First Annual Mid-Winter Meeting of the Mississippi State Historical Society). Both States were originally a part of that great continental heart of North America, that wilderness of empire-like extent, contended for by mighty nations in epoch-making struggles. Both owe their initial territorial organization to the commercial needs of the American people of a hundred years ago. Up to a certain point the history of the one is but the history of the other. The first settlement, paradoxical as it may seem, in Louisiana was made in Mississippi. De Soto crossed your State and died in ours. The same people who founded our city of New Orleans established your city of Natchez. The narratives of Bienville and Iberville are as closely associated with your history as they are with ours. The two principal Indian wars waged by the Louisiana colony were fought upon Mississippi soil. The first appointed governor of the Mississippi Territory was the first appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory. When under Spanish rule that portion of our domain known as the Florida parishes revolted, it was Reuben Kemper from your territory that rallied to the support of the revolutionists and struck such terror in the Spaniard's breast that Governor Folch of Mobile piteously appealed to the United States Government for protection. When the West Florida revolution was crowned with success and an addition of new territory to the United States resulted, Mississippi received her portion as well as Louisiana. When in the days of the