a compromise between it and the antagonist spirit of democratic equality and liberty; and even this latter in that day felt compelled to restrain even the assertion of itself within such cautious and timid limits, that no party in the Convention of 1787 was willing to bear the imputation, which all now affect to glory in, of the name of democratic. This influence, although defeated in the full extent of its efforts, yet succeeded in investing the Presidency with a degree of political power, and of a certain semi-regal splendor, which afforded at least a tolerable approximation towards the character it would have preferred. The length of its official tenure, doubled by re-eligibility-the vast patronage involved in the power of nomination to, and removal from, all the important employments of honor and profit in the public service-together with the prerogative of the Veto, invaluable as a conservative popular check upon legislative abuse, yet still conferring on the office a vast amount of weight and forcehave undoubtedly gone pretty far to create a result which the Hamiltonian school at its earlier period could scarcely have indulged themselves in even hoping for. And when to these substantial solids of political power, as secured by the Constitution, were added by legislation, under the pressure of the same influence, all this exterior of comparative social elevation, as involved in a "palace" of fourfold greater size and style than any private residence in the land, and in a salary fourfold greater than that of all the highest of the public officers stationed around him-we shall not be charged with an exaggeration of democratic severity when we avow a profound discontent with the present constitution of this department of our government; and a determination to make at least a strenuous effort to awaken the public mind to a sense of the growing necessity for a reform in those features in it of which we complain.

Why should there be so wide a distance, in point of recognized dignity and rank, between an Executive of the national sovereignty of the Union, and an Executive of one of the several State sovereignties of which it is composed? -of the great State in which we write, for instance; itself entitled by population to rank as a nation above

not a few of the minor kingdoms of Europe. We have never heard the question proposed before, but it is well worth asking and answering. In truth our State governments are far more important pieces of political machinery than that of the Federal Union. The legislation of the former is in general of a much higher and more interesting character than that of the latter. While the one deals with the few subjects of its action, having reference to the national character and External relations of the country,—the Appropriation Bills constituting the main bulk of its business,-the other works the whole machinery of government, in all its immediate bearing, through ten thousand ramifications, upon the whole fabric of society. The government of the country-nine-tenths of it at least

resides within the States. To any person who may entertain a higher ambition of usefulness and honor in a career of statesmanship, than the mere petty pursuit of the prizes of partizanship, a seat in the halls of the State legislation affords a far wider and a far nobler field of action than is to be found on the floors of Congress,—even were that body all that it ought to be, instead of all that it so unhappily has of late come to be. And even in the case of the respective Executives, we insist that as a magistrate, as a servant of the people, entrusted by them with high public duties and powers, the Governor of one of the great States occupies an official position which ought not to be regarded as in any sense inferior, in a just view of dignity and rank, to that of a President. And yet the Governor of New York resides in ordinary style of comfort and respectability, in a decent dwelling, which pretends to no superiority of style over a hundred neighbors; nor does the dignity of his high function suffer on the support of a salary not over onesixth of that deemed necessary to the maintenance of a President.

The only show of reason that can be put forward in support of the object of our present criticism, is that the President is the representative of the collective Union, in its relations and intercourse with foreign governments, and that therefore he ought to appear, to their resident ministers or agents, in a style worthy of the national greatness he represents, and corresponding

somewhat to the social habits of those classes at home from which these personages of the "diplomatic corps are usually chosen. A similar argument is derived from the idea of making a suitable show to the eyes of the foreign travellers who are naturally attracted to the federal centre, where they seek their first, and often, their last and only impressions, respecting the political system and genius of the country. Now it is precisely from this consideration, that we derive one of our strongest objections to this "palace," in which these classes of persons are taken to see the Chief Magistrate and Representative of the great American Union of Republics. Nothing can be more absurd than this meagre and miserable attempt to ape a little, a humble little, of that style and state with which, under political systems pervaded by a spirit the very antagonist to ours, it is deemed necessary to invest the highest functionaries of government. The external apparatus of government ought not to be out of harmony and proportion with the principles of which its various parts are the instruments, and ought to be the illustrations. One of the leading words of our theory is equality. It discountenances all other distinctions of man above man, than those of nature's own discrimination, based on the right indeed divine of moral and mental aristocracy. It refuses, alike to wealth, to office, and even to meritorious public service, any species of title or badge tending to create a classification of rank. It is hostile to all ostentatious display, or to any strongly marked assumption of superiority above the ordinary social average, growing out of the general popular diffusion of the wealth of the country, and the natural simplicity of republican habits. While it attaches a general honor to the proper performance of duty, in all or any of the thousand departments of public service, it does not elevate any of the functionaries by whom they are filled, a single hair's-breadth above the plain, common level of equal citizenship, and equal manhood, with the humblest of those upon whom their official action may be exerted. The externals of the presidential office, with its "palace," and meager stock of tinsel furniture, and its fourfold measure of salary, presumed to be applied

to those rich displays of social entertainment adapted to the style of high aristocratic habits,-the externals of the presidential office, we repeat, are surely far, very far from being in harmony with the theory of that political system of which it stands as the crowning apex.

How much more suitable to the character of our people, how much worthier of our real national greatness, would be the spectacle presented to the eye of the foreigner, who, on inquiring for the Chief Magistrate of this great confederacy of democracies, should be pointed to a simple citizen, affecting no difference in his style of life from that surrounding him on all sides,-content with the moral dignity of his glorious position, and aiming to be a real and perfect representative of his country and countrymen, in a social and domestic point of view, as well as in his official political capacity! How eloquent such a rebuke, silent and simple as it would be, to all those ideas of royal or aristocratic magnificence, of whose essential absurdity that spectacle would make the transatlantic beholder for the first time fully conscious!

But, it may be objected, the building is there-to what other purpose shall it be applied? And though it may have been a folly originally to erect it for the purpose, yet there it must stand, and nothing would now be gained by abandoning it to the owls and bats. To this we would reply, in the first place, that our criticism of "the Palace of the President," has nothing to do with the dollar-and-cent aspect of the question. To put an end to the bad influence it is apt to exert on the mind of its inmate himself, as well as on the political and general society about him, to contribute thus far toward the reform now become so necessary to lessen the importance and diminish the attractive splendors of the presidential office, to restore it to that harmony with the general theory of our system and the genius of our people, upon which it now presents an incongruity which we wish were merely useless,would well justify, we doubt not, the expense of carting its demolished materials down to the middle of the broad river which flows beneath its windows. But there occurs at this very period another appropriation which may be made of it, to which it is admirably

adapted, and for which it is urgently needed. Let it be applied to the use of the Smithsonian Institute. It will constitute a noble contribution on the part of our Government, toward the design of that noble bequest. Let the residence of the President be transferred to a more modest mansion, which may be made ample in space for all proper purposes, and which need not exhibit any externals of superiority, over those which should be also provided for the official residences of his chief cabinet officers. Let the salary of the office be somewhat more nearly equalized with those of the latter, either by lowering it to their level, or by distributing over them its present disproportionate ex

cess. The present affords a favorable moment for such a change, not likely soon again to recur. The Smithsonian Institute wants precisely such a structure,-while the healthy purity of our system of government would be in no slight degree benefited by getting rid of it. The question is yet in suspense, who may be the next incumbent to whom the application of the proposed change would of course be made. Once practically attempted, it would be greeted with an all but unanimous public approval; and the only wonder would soon come to be, how in this country we could so long have tolerated to see and hear of "the Palace of the President."

HAS the reader ever seen a Spanish bull-fight? Probably not, and he therefore will need some explanation to understand the name and duty of the matador, a functionary who comes in at the heel of the entertainment, to perform a part generally greeted with the loudest applause awarded to any of the performers in that brave though brutal pastime. The matador, then, is the person who, after the bull has afforded sufficient diversion to the spectators, in his encounters with the lances of the picadores, and the scarfs and fire-crackers and manifold torments wielded by the bandilleros, walks coolly into the arena, with a small red flag in one hand, and in the other the long shining steel of a sword of finest temper, which it is his office to plunge up to the hilt into the huge beast, as he encounters his charge in full career. The bull is always pretty well spent with his toils and wounds before he receives this compliment from a new acquaintance, which generally serves as a "finisher," bringing him down lumbering and bellowing to the ground. Mr. Webster makes a capital matador.

It was, indeed, the coup-de-grace, the late Faneuil Hall speech. When a post-mortem examination shall be had of the dead body of the Whig Party, right through the ulcerated and corrupt mass which ought to be the heart will be found, we doubt not, the path of this last wound, struck home with steady aim and no feeble hand.

We have always known that there was very little love lost between Webster and Clay; nor have we ever doubted that if fortune should bring round an opportunity to the former to prove his remembrance of all the overbearing arrogance on the part of the latter, under which he has more than once had to quail on the floor of the Senate, he would show the world that there was at least one species of debt which he both could and would pay. Mr. Clay may now give him a receipt in full.

In the great case at issue between the Whig Party and Mr. Tyler, Mr. Webster has come up as a witness for the defence; and his testimony as against the prosecution is decisive and crushing. He is a witness who cannot be either disregarded or discredited by the Whigs. He has too long in their ranks almost shared with Mr. Clay himself the post of primus inter primos. He has too recently been the object of a devotion and homage on their part which could scarce be content to see him in any secondary post of honor within their gift. He is too fresh with the stamp of General Harrison's adoption and the universal Whig applause and delight. All these facts place it altogether out of the question for even the most violent fury of Clayism to attempt to break the force of Mr. Webster's testimony, by impeachment of his character as a witness in the case.

Mr.Webster stands by the President. He interposes all the seven thicknesses

of his Telamonian shield between him and the storm of abuse raining upon him from his quondam party. So far from regarding him as that monster of treachery and ingratitude which Clayism so fiercely execrates, Mr. Webster sees nothing in the past to forfeit for Mr. Tyler his high respect and warm gratitude and attachment. He is overcome almost to tears of tenderness at one passage in his reminiscences of their official intercourse. He virtually contradicts all the statements of the retiring Cabinet, respecting the bad faith imputed to the President in the business of the Bank bills. He throws upon the factious ambition and violence of the Clay dictatorship the responsibility of the dissensions which have so convulsed and destroyed the party which it was determined to rule or ruin. The war between the President and the Party has now reached a point at which the one or the other must fall, disgracefully and irretrievably. The one or the other must be outrageously, unpardonably wrong. Their second man-in the estimation of many their first-an authority beyond challenge by themselves-now declares for the President and against the Party. We accept his testimony, the public accepts it, as good and decisive of at least that issue.

It is clear that the game is now all up with the Whigs, proper and improper.

The elections of the summer and fall have turned directly upon the main point on which they have staked their last cast, their whole organized existence-Clay. We cannot see a chance, a hope-a chance of a chance, or a hope of a hope-now left to them. Since the Ohio efection we have been reminded of the contingent nature of Mr. Clay's acceptance of their nomination; and when the further evidence reaches him from New York of its utter desperation, it is difficult to imagine that he will continue much longer a struggle himself must feel to be worse than vain. And yet if Clay abandons them-as he might well say that they deserved for their abandonment of him in 1840-who is there to constitute any rallying point of leadership to their disorganized and dissolving masses? Webster stands now out of the question, after all the violence of feeling wrought up and brought out into every form of language and action

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against the administration of which he has been a member, and of which he continues an adherent. Not till a bridge shall span the broad Atlantic, can possibility re-unite the still widening and deepening chasm which yawns between them and Tyler. Old Adams might serve again as a last resort of despair, but for the irreconcilable relations which the past few years have created between him and the united South. Can they hope to find any unworthy member of the Democratic Party available as an instrument of attempted division in our ranks? There is none such within our range of vision, of importance sufficient to be formidable, combined with laxity of principle to be within the reach of possible suspicion; and whoever should hazard the bad folly of such a treachery would quickly find his power for evil to perish on his hands in the very first act of using it. No; Clay can alone keep them together even as a minority Party; yet what the use of that attempt, even if he should be willing thus to sacrifice the lingering remnant of his old age for nothing-for so much worse than nothing!

Now we have a certain kind of sincere regard for the Whig Party. We are most unaffectedly anxious that they should hold together a year or two longer, if any process of art can rally the exhausted powers of nature. If we may borrow a pugilistic illustration, we would pick them up and hold them up on their feet a little while longer till they can be knocked down again, never again to attempt to rise. When the day at last comes when we shall have no common foe left standing in the field, as a point of union to the ponderous masses of our forces, we fear that elements enough of trouble exist within the very camp of victory, in the competing ambitions of so many worthy of its highest honors,-we have no desire to anticipate the arrival of that day. We, therefore, watch with some solicitude the course of these events, and should be glad to give the Whigs a world of good advice, if they would but believe in the sincerity of its kindness.

Meanwhile, where is Mr. Webster to go? He has himself asked that question,—and like Brutus he appears to "pause for a reply." Probably in our next, certainly in a very early Number, the answer will be given, which