the power to do all this? The great Whig politicians. And why did they put him in the position to have that power? Because they could hope for success in their scheming only by put ting some man of that political birth and school on their ticket with their amiable old President; and since Mr. Tyler had continued with them through so much and so long, they thought that his principles, as he had learned them in that school, were as loose as their own, and like his gloves, though put on for cover and show out of doors, could easily be pulled off and cast aside as soon as they should all get "in." What was the first effect of their concealment of their true designs from the people, and the heterogeneous variety of professions and pretensions which they made to suit the different geographical and political latitudes in the country? To succeed in the election. What is its ultimate effect? Not only to cause the President of their own making to be the very means of paralyzing those plans they would have him the means of executing, but also to justify him most conclusively out of their own lips in doing so. What was the first effect of the system of tumult and crowd and excitement and clamor, which was adopted by them in the canvass, as a substitute for truth, proof, and argument? It contributed largely to elect General Harrison. What was its further effect? It wore the poor old gentleman out, so that he could not stand more than a month's persecution by the same office-seekers who had stirred up the whole, and he died on their hands, and it may be said under their hands. And what is the upshot and moral of the whole? That in politics, as in everything else, Honesty is after all the best Policy.

There has certainly never been a Congress since the foundation of the government, in which the prevailing majority has been so gross, so undisguised, so unscrupulous, in the character of a mere faction-legislating on every important measure only by the abominable and corrupt system of extra-legislative caucussing-controlling the independence of their own friends by" iron rules" of dictatorial discipline, of so tight and heavy a pressure as to extort complaints even on the public floor of the Senate-adapting their action to

objects of the pettiest personal spite or partisan policy, in laws framed by them with the unconcealed view of eliciting Executive vetoes-and, in the pursuit of these objects, and the indulgence of these passions, sacrificing alike the principles of the Constitution, the rights of common fairness and justice, and the proprieties of official decorum. We content ourselves with a brief reference to the action of the House of Representatives on the President's last Veto. On its reception, we see them disregarding the plain mandate of the Constitution, which required them to proceed to the reconsideration of the vote on its passage-for the sole purpose of making an opportunity to lay before the public, in the form of a report from a committee, a counterblast of criticism upon the reasoning of the Veto, the cogency of which might not with safety be allowed to pass unanswered. For this purpose they laid the Bill upon the table, from which there could be no other assurance that it would ever be taken up again, than perhaps an uncertain intention in the individual minds of members to do so, at some uncertain future day-then to obey the plain requisition of the Constitution for its reconsideration, which ought to have been the first action of the House on the reception of the vetoed Bill. And the Report of this Committee did as little credit to its veteran author-(why does he seem so determined to deny the world the power to say, the venerated or venerable?)-did as little credit to its veteran author, we repeat, as to the Committee which consented to it, and the House which received and adopted it. Like bad punch, Mr. Adams's report was at once very hot and very weak. It was a document of the merest partizan attack and abuse against the President. Forgetful that the occasion limited alike the duty and the right of the Committee to the consideration of the reasons of the Veto, the greater part of the Report is devoted to a general review of the President's former course on totally distinct occasions; the whole being a general philippic of party abuse, as intemperate and bitter in spirit as it was unsuitable, both to a former President of the United States, its author, and to the actual incumbent of that dignity, its object.

It must be confessed, however, that in his retort, by a "Protest" which he asked to have recorded on the Journals of the House, Mr. Tyler very fairly brought down the laugh upon his own head-in a manner for which our recollection of a few years ago, when he stood, vice versa, himself as a member of Congress in the Senate, forbids any very deep sympathy with his plight. It was an excellent legislative jokecoming in just the nick of time to rescue Mr. Botts from the ridicule of his unperformed boast-that Mr. Tyler's Protest to the House should be rejected in the identical terms in which Mr. Tyler had himself, as a Senator, voted for a similar rejection of a similar Protest by General Jackson. The case of the latter was indeed a much stronger one than that of Mr. Tyler. The Senate being the court for the trial of the Presidential impeachment, he had a far higher right to protest against a declared pre-judgment by that body, on a point which might possibly be brought again judicially before them, than Mr. Tyler could have in relation simply to the House of Representatives,-in which body the course protested against might possibly prove merely preliminary to the exercise of their right of impeachment. How on earth came Mr. Tyler, with the memory of the former occurrence yet recent and fresh,

"Quæque ipse miserrima vidi, Et quorum pars magna fui!"—

how on earth came he to do so very absurd a thing? As a sort of small by-play to the more important events in the extraordinary drama of politics now in progress, the occurrence suggests at least a passing allusion, which we cannot withhold, to the political just ice of which Mr. Tyler has received this slight taste, as a drop from the very chalice he had himself helped to drug for other lips.

One word upon the receptions to the returning members of this memorable body, which we have seen got up" with so much effort of enthusiasm, by way of salvo to the mortification which could scarcely fail to mark their first greetings with their friends and partizans at home-elaborate demonstrations of committees, steamboats, orafors, processions, and bands of music.

We have not heard whether any of these occasions, rescued from being ridiculous only by being so lugubrious, were enlivened by the usual air of "See, the conquering hero comes!"— on the wind instruments alone appropriate to such an ovation. Had it been attempted, it is much to be feared, that the notes would insensibly have flowed, in spite of the musicians' efforts to the contrary, into those of a not less familiar March,—which we would name, but for the fear that some of our friends among the unfortunate individuals thus honored, might not properly appreciate the distinction intended between personal and political "Rogues," in hinting at the suggestion. The truth is, that they go home very satisfactorily beaten and baffled; and worse,-far worse!-with the consciousness which many of them cannot wholly shut out of view, that they have very richly deserved it. To do an act of dishonesty and treachery, in politics as in the other affairs of life, must be a very uncomfortable thing at best, "per se," even when consoled by all the softest solace of success; but to attempt it, to no better end than to be defeated, detected, and derided, must be indeed unpleasant to nice moral sensibilities. In the issue between them and the President, they cannot entirely blind either the people or themselves to the truth, that the consistency and the political honesty are all on his side;—that it is they who have striven hard to carry out to its practical fruits the most abominable fraud ever perpetrated upon the flattered and betrayed confidence of a nation, by fastening upon it measures of a most obnoxious character, not only unavowed, but disavowed, before the election; and that it is he who has earned a meed of praise honorable in the present generation, and destined to brighten through future ones, by prov ing himself, in a time of no slight trial, not false to them, but true to himself and his own honor; not false to party, but true to patriotism; not false to any public interest, but true to the Constitution, to the will of the people, and to the general good of the common country of all.

All this, these unfortunate gentlemen must know and feel, with more or less distinctness, as they may be the more or less able to look calmly forth on the real merits and relations of the

case, through the bewilderment and excitement of their own exasperated passions. All this, too, they must be gin to perceive that the people like wise know and feel, from the thronging evidences already afforded in quick succession, in so many of the State

elections of the summer-evidences which we doubt not are yet so to accumulate upon them, before the period of their next re-assembling, that not a peg will be left then, on which to hang either a doubt as to the past, or a hope as to the future.

The present is the first time under our government that the phenomenon denoted by the above phrase has been witnessed. Nor is it easy to imagine any possible combination of circumstances which would be likely ever again to reproduce it-at least in a manner so remarkable as exists in the case of Mr. Tyler. That which has produced it in the present instance is peculiar, and indeed passing strange." In the first place, we see a heterogeneous party of opposition gradually accumulating against an administration in the possession of power through three Presidential terms; absorbing every fragment from time to time detached from the latter; and reflecting every new phase of local or partial discontent, naturally growing out of the infinite complexity of the operations of such a government. We see the central and chief body of this party composed of a political school odious to the great majority of the people, and hostile to the genius of its system of institutions, which is democratic, progressive, and reformatory,-yet for the necessary purpose of getting into power by the popular suffrage, forced to dissemble this character, and abstain from any avowal of any positive system of principles or intended measures;-as well from the impossibility of uniting their own loose and incoherent mass upon any such definite platform, as from the fact that the measures lying really in the thought of their leaders, and probably of the majority of their popular members, are such as they dare not avow-such as in some sections of the Union they are forced even to disclaim and repudiate. We see this body, in the selection of their ticket for the Presidential canvass, casting aside the man whom they have themselves since designated as "the life, the soul, the embodiment" of their principles, and taking up for President an old " military chieftain," of

great amiability of character and personal popularity, but of no particular political character at all; selected as a sort of " nose of wax," easily, as was supposed, to be turned and twisted to any shape or any direction that might be found desirable by the true President who was meant to preside over the President. We see them adding to his name, as candidate for the VicePresidency, that of one identified by all the ties of birth, breeding, and unrecanted professions, with the principles of a school the very opposite to that of the greater part of their own leaders. By these means, aided by exertions unprecedented alike in kind and in degree, and favored by the universal embarrassment of the times to which they held out vague but flattering hopes of immediate relief, we see them triumphant in their first main object,-the Election,-when suddenly all this skilful scheming is bafiled in the very hour of success! The President is removed by a death which should scarcely indeed be termed accidental, since it was directly produced by the very causes which had mainly contributed to place him there'; and the individual who was designed only as a serviceable candidate for the VicePresidency-an element of political strength necessary indeed to success, yet designed only for show and not for use-assumes that higher seat of office and power which he soon shows himself determined to fill in his own right and person, and not as the mere vicarious puppet of another's pleasure. We next see realized the impossibility always predicted by ourselves, of any union of such a party upon any practical system of measures; and the President happening to represent that portion of it whose original political character, yet unforgotten and unobliterated, was the farthest removed from that of the interests now dominant in the party councils, becomes personally the

pivot on which the unavoidable dissension must turn.. Bills are sent to him, which he cannot choose but veto, unless prepared to go down to posterity under a cloud of infamy, as a parricidal traitor to the memory of the great fathers and founders of his political faith. To this cause of severance is added that of the jealous resentment and hatred soon manifested by the great head and leader of the party, on perceiving symptoms of an intended competition with himself for the glit tering prize of the Succession; under the influence of which the breach widens rapidly day after day, in spite of efforts on his part to propitiate the gathering wrath, so strenuous, so humble, we had almost said,-as scarcely to be consistent with a very high dignity of conduct or manliness of self-respect. Unrelenting, unrelaxing abuse and denunciation, however, continue to be heaped upon the head of the offending chief-magistrate and the dreaded rival. A vehement opposition to his administration is actively conducted, both in the Senate, where stands the curule chair of the enraged dictator, and in the other branch of Congress, where his partizans faithfully represent alike his policy and his passions; the Democratic party naturally, meanwhile, standing aloof; frankly supporting those acts of the persecuted President which harmonize with their own principles; but neither going any farther, nor evincing any disposition to go farther. And thus is gradually evolved out of all the complex series of circumstances here rapidly reviewed, this singular political phenomenon above adverted to, of a" President without a Party."

Now, thus produced, this may be a position honorable in itself, and affording to its incumbent a fine ground for the exercise of a patriotism worthy of a nobler ambition than that of a mere re-election to his office-were such an event possible. If Mr. Tyler's motives of action are as pure and lofty as we are desirous of believing them to be, he will pursue the line of conduct appropriate to the position he has himself described in this phrase; and will both render an invaluable service to his country, and earn for himself a high historic name. If otherwise, he will utterly fail in whatever interested aspirations he may indulge, and the

next as well as the present generation will write his name in very small letters on his country's annals. Let the "President without a Party" remain so. Let him not seek to make a "party" for himself. The patronage of this government can corrupt a partycan destroy it-but cannot make one. The idea has gone abroad-we know not whether from authority, or because, with those who have propagated it, the wish was father to the thoughtthat a general sweep of the offices in the gift of the government is contemplated. We have seen of late numerous very edifying demonstrations of enthusiasm toward the potent hand that holds this cornucopia of public patronage, which seems just about to tilt over to pour its rich fruits into the expectant mouths below. Whether, in a greater or less number of instances, there is more or less of relation between these two things, as cause and effect, no one can do more than privately surmise. But at any rate we would warn Mr. Tyler against mistaking these hungry shouts for the trump of fame. We trust that he will do no such thing as he is said to contemplate, and as so many seem so disinterestedly desirous that he should do. It is bad enough when we see Presidents with Parties, forced by the irresistible pressure of influence upon them, carrying out this system of political proscription which treats the public offices as the lawful "spoils" of a sort of bloodless civil war. For heaven's sake, let us not have to witness the same spectacle gratuitously volunteered for the purpose of making a Party. We trust that Mr. Tyler will adhere to the rule of his own circular addressed to the holders of office on his first induction into his own. So long as they abstain from an improper kind or degree of interference in elections, the simple reason that they may prefer to adhere to their party, instead of accompanying Mr. Tyler in the secession from it into which he has been forced, will constitute no justification for their removal. We refer, of course, to those offices whose duties are not of a nature to make it material, for their efficient and satisfactory performance, whether the politics of the incumbents are or are not in accordance with those of their Executive head. An indecent violence of language against

the Administration on whose favor they are dependent, might fairly indeed provoke some degree of personal displeasure, and the penalty of removal; but it is not to be presumed that any considerable number can take particular pleasure in thus quarrelling with their own bread and butter; while the mere declaration of their adhesion to Mr. Clay, and consequent disapproval of the course of Mr. Tyler, ought not to come within the scope of this ground for removal. No-let them stay; and while the sighs are yet scarcely out of our ears, of so many hundreds, not to say thousands, of families cast off upon destitution by the last turn of the political wheel, let us not have another repetition of the same process of wholesale decapitation upon another set, for the mere reason that their husbands, brothers, or sons, entertain such and such opinions on the party topics and men of the day. If this threatened sweep with the broad besom of the Executive displeasure, of which we have heard so much, is really to be carried into effect, Mr. Tyler will find that, without adding any real effective strength to his government, he will have greatly impaired the moral dignity with which his present peculiar position may be surrounded. The public will then believe the charge urged against him by his foes, that it is a selfish personal ambition which has actuated his recent course, prompting him to seek to make a party for himself by means of the machinery of the Federal patronage, or to recommend himself to the Democratic Party by reopening it to them. Now, the positive injury that would result from this course to what may be termed the party morals of the country, together with the loss of the beneficial effect that might be produced upon them by a different course, would be such that, even though such a course of argument may seem to be in hostility to the interests of our own political friends, we would most earnestly deprecate it, and caution Mr. Tyler against its adoption. Let him go on and be true to our prin

ciples, because our principles are those of his own political parentage and breeding-though for so many a year, and especially in his reputed strong advocacy of Mr. Clay in the Harrisburg Convention, he has been sadly untrue to them in his party associations and conduct. But let him place his motives beyond assault, beyond suspicion. If he hopes to make a party for himself, that will be the best mode of effecting it. If he wants to win the Democratic Party to his support, they will come far more readily and warmly, of their own generous accord to sus tain an administration thus deserving it "per se," than they could be induced to come by any prospect or hope held out of the paltry "spoils of office." In the appointments that he may legitimately have to make, free as he is from party trammels or ties, let none but men of distinguished character, talent, and public service be selected, so far as such can be found. Let him repay the hollow adulation of personal and political devotion which may be clamored into his ears by servile placemen and more servile place-seekers, with a manly and just contempt. We should sincerely rejoice, for his own sake, to see him lay before the country some demonstration of not holding himself as a candidate for a second term of his elevated office. Let him pursue the course indicated in the preceding remarks. He would extort the respect and applause of no inconsiderable portion of the Whigs; he will be honored and supported by the Democratic Party in a manner which he can never attain by an equivocal and suspicious course, shadowed over with doubts of its disinterestedness; while the general moral influence of his acts and plans with the country and the world at large will be immeasurably increased; and, at the close of his term, he may with a proud and noble dignity lay down the capacity which accident may have conferred, but which merit will have adorned, of a "President without a Party."