or instituted where it has no previous existence. If the states were ever severally sovereign, they are so still, unless subjected by another state, and the American people have, as a whole, no national unity, are not politically one people. Yet, though distinct colonies, they were one people before independence, and owed allegiance to one and the same sovereign.

The danger we run is not from cæsarism, or the usurpation of power by the executive, but from the usurpation of power over the states by the general government. The party in power can hardly persuade themselves that the states that seceded, even now they are reconstructed, stand on a footing of equality in the Union with the states that did not secede. They hold them to be in some sense conquered territory, over which the general government is sovereign by the right of conquest. They do not recognize them as equal participants in the national sovereignty, and, under pretext of protecting the freedmen, they assume for congress the rights and powers of sovereignty, not only over them, but, in principle, over all the states. If the party should remain in power much longer, the real relation between the several state governments and the general government, already lost sight of in the case of the reconstructed states, would be lost sight of in the case of all the states, and the general government, which is a government of limited and express powers, would become de facto the supreme and unlimited national government. The tendency in this direction is fearfully strong, and there seems to be no party in the country sufficiently united, with the requisite strength and courage, to oppose to it any effectual resistance. The only chance of deliverance would seem to be in the discredit the party, by its frauds, jobberies, and corruption, is bringing upon itself. It has become quite reckless, and its recklessness is not unlikely to ruin it, and enable the country, if there shall be any virtue remaining in the people, to replace the government on its constitutional track.

We have attempted no analysis of the work before us. We have only taken a few points from it, as texts for some remarks of our own. Our readers, however, may be assured that the book is one of rare merit, written in clear, simple, and pleasing style, rich with information and just political thought, and throwing more light on the constitution of the American executive than any other work we are aware of, not excepting De Tocqueville's admirable work, "Démocratie en Amérique." It can be read with as much profit by

Americans as by foreigners. We most cordially recommend it to the public as the work of an author who has thoroughly studied and mastered the subject on which he writes.

We may add that the marquis has been exceedingly fortunate in securing for his work a competent translator. The work is really translated into English, not simply "done out of French into no language." It does not read as a translation, but as an original English work, and we presume, suffers little in being transferred from the author's native language to ours. Madame Dahlgren must have found the work much to her taste, and have translated it con amore. The translation proves her to be a mistress of both languages. It is, we can vouch for it, without having seen the original, faithful, exact even, free, fresh, chaste, and graceful, what we had a right to expect from the accomplished translator of that most eloquent and profound Essay on Catholicity, Liberalism, and Socialism, by the late lamented Donoso Cortés, the Marquis de Valdegamas. It requires genius, as well as learning and taste to be a good translator of a work of genius from one language to another, and that has, in no small measure, Mrs. Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren.

THE NATIVE AMERICANS.

[From Brownson's Quarterly Review for July. 1854.1

THE subject of native Americanism is one of no little interest at the present moment, and one, however delicate it may be, which, as the conductor of a Catholic review, we cannot very well avoid discussing, even if we would. It is forced upon us by the movements of our own countrymen, no less than by the movements of our foreign-born population, no small part of whom are Catholics.

Regarded as a phase of nationality, native Americanism is respectable, and we are very free to confess that we are never pleased to find our own journals sneering at "natyvism," and the "natyves," although we have as little sympathy as they with what they really intend by these terms. It is in bad taste, and, though it may please a certain class of their readers, it can hardly fail to be understood in a wider sense than in

tended, and to give offence even to those of their Catholic friends whose grandfathers and grandmothers were American-born. Nationality is a thing which foreigners are always required to treat with consideration, and it is never prudent, if peace and good-will are desired, to treat it with levity or contempt. No people in the world have a more intense nationality than our Irish Catholics, or are more sensitive to remarks derogatory to their national characteristics. No people in the world have, therefore, less right to sneer at the nationality of others. For ourselves, we respect the nationality of the Irish Catholics, who have left with bleeding hearts the land of their birth, and sought a new home in our native country, and we should be sorry to see them throwing it off and transforming themselves into native Americans the moment they land on our shores; but we do wish them to remember that we Americans, whose ancestors recovered our noble country from the wilderness and the ferocious savage, founded its institutions by their wisdom and virtues, purchased its independence with their treasures and their blood, and sacrificed cheerfully themselves that they might transmit it as the home of rational freedom to their posterity, have ourselves, strange as it may seem to them, a strong feeling of nationality, a tender affection for our native land, and an invincible attachment to American usages, manners, and customs. After God, our first and truest love has always been, and we trust always will be, for our country. We love and reverence her as a mother, and prefer her honor to our own, and though as dutiful sons we may warn her of the danger she incurs, we will never in silence suffer her to be vilified or traduced. While we respect the national sensibility of foreigners, naturalized or resident among us, we demand of them equal respect for

ours.

There is, say what you will, such a thing as American nationality. It is true that the population of the United States is composed of English, Irish, German, French, Scotch, Dutch, Welsh, Norwegians, Africans, and Asiatics, to say nothing of the aborigines; but the population of English origin and descent are the predominating class, very nearly as much so as in England itself. They were for the United States as a nation first in the field, the original germ of the great American people, and they constitute at least three-fourths of the white population of the country. They are the original source of American nationality, the founders

of American institutions, and it is through their heart that flows the grand and fertilizing current of American life. It is idle to deny it, or to be angry with it. Individuals of other races have done their duty, and deserved well of the country, but only by assimilating themselves to the AngloAmericans and becoming animated by their spirit. Other races, as long as they remain distinct and separate, remain foreigners in regard to American nationality, and they do and can participate in that nationality only as they flow in and lose themselves in the main current of Anglo-American life. Whether it be for good or for evil, the American nationality is and will be determined by the Anglo-American portion of our population. The speculations of some German writers, that it must ultimately become German, and of some Irish editors that it must ultimately become Celtic, are worthy of no attention. No nationality here can stand a moment before the Anglo-American. It is the all-absorbing power, and cannot be absorbed or essentially modified by any other. This, quarrel with it as you will, is a "fixed fact." There is, therefore, no use for any other nationality to strive to preserve itself on our soil, and there is not the least danger that our proper American nationality will be lost. The American nationality will never be Irish, German, French, Spanish, or Chinese; it is and will be a peculiar modification of the Anglo-Saxon, or, if you prefer, AngloNorman, maintaining its own essential character, however enriched by contributions from other sources.

This is to be considered as settled, and assumed as their starting-point by all immigrants from foreign countries. They should understand in the outset, if they would avoid unpleasant collision, that they must ultimately lose their own nationality and become assimilated in general character to the Anglo-American race. The predominating nationality of a country will brook no serious opposition in its own home. It knocks aside whatever obstacles it finds in its way, and, save so far as restrained by religion and morality, rules as a despot. It plants itself on its native right, on the fact that it is in possession, and will recognize in no foreign nationality any right to dispossess it or to withstand it. It is not attachment to American soil, or sympathy with the American nationality, spirit, genius, or institutions, that brings the great mass of foreigners to our shores. No doubt we derive great advantages from them, but the motive that brings them is not advantage to us or service to

our country. They come here solely from motives of personal advantage to themselves; to gain a living, to acquire a wealth, or to enjoy a freedom denied them in their own country, or believed to be more easily obtained or better secured here than elsewhere. The country, therefore, does not and cannot feel that it is bound either in justice or in charity to yield up its nationality to them, or to suffer the stream of its national life to be diverted from its original course to accommodate their manners, tastes, or prejudices. It feels that it has the right to say, in all not repugnant to the moral law: "It is for you to conform to us, not for us to conform to you. We did not force you to come here; we do not force you to remain. If you do not like us as we are, you may return whence you came.' If I from motives of hospitality open my doors to the stranger, and admit him into the bosom of my family, I have the right to expect him to conform to my domestic arrangements, and not undertake to censure or interfere with them. So it is with a nation, when from hospitality it opens its doors to foreigners exiled from their own country, or voluntarily leaving it to make their fortune. It will never be pleased to find them forgetting that they are its guests, assuming the airs of naturalborn citizens, and proceeding at once to take the management of its affairs upon themselves, or even volunteering their advice.

Here, we apprehend, is the secret of native American hostility to foreigners naturalized amongst us. We naturally regard them as our guests enjoying our hospitality, and though not to our loss, yet chiefly for their own advantage, and we do not and cannot easily bring ourselves to feel that they have the same right to interfere in our national or political affairs that is possessed by natural-born citizens. In our eyes, as in their own, they always retain something of the foreigner. If their interference works us no prejudice, and only tends to carry out our own views, we of course accept it, and find no fault with it; but if we find it against us, defeating our plans and thwarting our purposes, we are pretty sure to recollect that they are foreign-born, and to feel that they abuse our hospitality, although they may have violated the letter of no positive law of the country.

We are divided, and are likely to be divided, into two great political parties, very nearly equal in strength. If, in the contests between these parties, the defeated party finds or imagines that it owes its defeat to the votes of natural