quackery, and tyranny, of whatever kind; in less than an age, the Union would be settled upon eternal foundations, and the men of this age be remembered as the second founders of the Republic. Men do not respect that which is a growth of accident or fortune, and could they bring themselves to regard the institutions of their fathers as the fruit merely of happy concurrences, they would despise their very liberty, and wish to defy fortune, and let her do her will. Regarding the Union as transitory and fortuitous, we are less grieved with the thought of corruption in the general state: we become accustomed to contemplate its decay, and are less indignant when it is proposed to reduce it to an association for gain. That despair, too, which sometimes affects good men of a feeble temper, may well spring out of this opinion, that we lie at the mercy of chance. To know the obstacle is half to conquer it; to know the danger is almost to escape it, with a spirit of that temper of which freemen are made. Let it, therefore, be fairly seen and defined: different men will see it differently and with different degrees of apprehension; but he cannot be esteemed worthless, or unserviceable, who gives his sole attention to that shape of the public danger which affects him most, and which threatens the most immediate peril. The Senator has distinctly indicated the present danger of the Republic-" the increasing power of the Executive," its assumption of an authority and an influence beyond the spirit, if not beyond the letter of the Constitution, its aggression upon the liberties of the States and of the nation. It is discovered at last, that in our own, as in the English Constitution, the only effectual control over an Executive backed by a powerful minority, is by the refusal of supplies, or by the affixing of conditions to appropriations. but because it is in human nature to err. It is, therefore, always necessary for a free people to watch their rulers, and check the career of their ambition. We, the private citizens, must make the man in place respect and fear our free vote, and our free opinion. On perpetual vigilance, and not on a curiously adjusted system of checks and balances, must we rely for the vindication of our rights. But first, before attempting to check or limit any power, it is necessary to know, to feel, its exact weight and importance. It is idle to argue against it, or pretend not to see it-to smile at, or disrespect it; we must estimate it, measure it, take its full dimension, compare it with others and with itself, and finally, consider its growth, permanency, and tenacity of life. A dry study of the Constitution, or of historical commentaries, will not give a true idea, much less a true feeling, of the central power. It springs from each one of us, as from millions of living roots. We concede to it, in the economy of the whole, a power original and forever established; it is the most efficient and unobstructed Executive Power in the world, and able, by keeping a vast number of persons in the hope, or in the fearful and conditional enjoyment, of office, to exercise a direct personal power over one half the people. When supported by a strong minority in Congress, it can initiate any law it pleases, and suppress any which it thinks may be injurious to itself. It is not afraid of impeachment, for it will always control a strong minority in the Senate and the House. It is not disposed to encroach openly upon the Constitution, but has always advocates and excuses to defend itself against the direct charge. It is instinctively ingenious with the people, and takes care never to seem to injure the landed interests. It never touches, or seems to touch, the liberty of the individIt is necessary to thelife of all great pow-ual, or of the State, of which the northern ers, that they should tend to burst their bonds, and seem continually to threaten tyranny: the power of wrong must be coincident in them with the power of right; and few men there are-there is no man, of a spirit fit to be the chief servant of the nation, who will not sometimes encroach upon liberty; not because he does not love liberty, or that he means to be tyrannical, and southern Democracy are so exclusively jealous; but it reaches over the heads of both, and eludes both. Its immense power rests unmoved upon the tumultuous sea of opposing interests and passions; the small waves (if we may so speak) of local tumults cannot overturn it. The broader the base the more securely it stands; and should its power ever be extended over both continents, and over the islands, it would almost inevitably perpetuate itself and rise to an imperial height. The first symptom of the rise of an imperial power is in the ambition of conquest. The ambition of the people is roused, a secret influence every where urges them. It emanates from the Central Power, and the body of intriguers which sustain and use it. The head wishes to feel itself the head, and out of an ambitious wantonness, puts the body in motion. The evil passions of the multitude respond to the ambition of the central faction, and the whole force of the government is precipitated upon enterprises of war. This it does without impairing the liberties of the States, or of the citizens; but these powers forget, that as the head is exalted the body is diminished and debased. Government is in its very nature aggressive and usurping; tending toward unlimited power and unlimited territory. The checks which hem it in and restrain it, require to be kept up with a lively jealousy. Weaken or impoverish your aristocracy, and your king becomes a despot; yield the powers of the House and of the Senate in the least particulars, and your President has moved so far toward supreme authority. The limitation of the Presidential term to four years is no security against the steady increase of the power, in the hands of a succession of intriguers, usurpers, and well-managed weaklings. The party now effectually in power have maintained a succession of Presidents, who have each added a little to the power of the office. This party, the original opposers of the Constitution, always insisting upon State rights and democratic liberty, has elected a series of Presidents who have made every use of the Central Power, and showed the greatest readiness to abuse and extend it. Democracy, meanwhile, wisely jealous for its individual rights, but near-sighted, has not observed, and perhaps cannot perceive how the stature of the Executive swells It cannot ratify treaties without the consent of two-thirds of the Senators pre sent. Its patronage may be diminished by Congress, who have power to vest the appointment of inferior officers in the courts of law, or the heads of departments. It is liable to impeachment; and the power to be taken away by the decision of the Senate. It is founded on an oath, by which it swears to become the defender of the Constitution. These defences are such as would be erected against a power naturally inclined to become absolute. The conflict in future is not to be that old traditional one of State Rights. What do those vast crowds of foreigners, and migratory persons that people the new lands of the West, know or care about the old jealousies of State Rights? They are under the protection of the Central Government, and their first desire and respect is toward the nation; the State with them is secondary; their sons may understand it, but they never will. Every foreigner who sets foot upon this continent, increases the importance of the Central Government, and diminishes the jealousies of the States. We repeat, that it is our firm belief, that the danger with us lies not in the fear of a revolt of individual States-our Union having at length become, or fast becoming, a nation--but in a want of perception and foresight, to guard against the excessive influence of the Executive itself. Under such convictions, what are we to think of the party now in power? That their policy and doctrines will defend us against evils approaching from that quarter? They know that it is necessary for a nation to be engaged in great enterprises, but they prefer the enterprises of war, and turn the forces of government upon foreign objects. They cry out against a paper currency, against credit, and indirect taxation; while they are issuing millions of Treasury Notes, secured only by the credit of the nation, and dare not propose a tax adequate to the payment of the mere interest of the public debt. They oppose the creation of a Bank for the economical management of the public funds, while they are creating a bank of the worst character, founded on the issue of depreciated paper. They contend for the Sovereignty of the People, (which no man denies,) while they are engaged in destroying the sovereignty of a neighboring people, and would force a sister Republic to cede, not only her territory, but her citizens, as political slaves. They talk of progress, and the advance of liberty and enlightenment, nay, even of Christianity; which progress, enlightenment, and liberty, nay, which Christianity, they are eager to force upon their neighbors at the point of the bayonet. can draw after it every individual citizen as by a line of fate. The millions of lines meet in the hand of the Central Power. Along them moves taxation, the call to arms; influence, fine but sure, moves along them. The people reciprocate influence with their head; but while each one of them knows him alone and his will, he knows them all, and by a superior wisdom can rule one by the knowledge he has of another-by many he can rule one, and this in a thousand ways. By the artifices of the politician, the whole nation is moved through these lines. It is the duty of the people to watch, each man his own, and reciprocate, meeting the worse by a better will. We are no advocates for political consistency in the abstract; as though it were Government is in its very nature aggresnot sometimes the part of a wise man to sive and usurping. So well persuaded are change his course, and in view of impend-all men of this, it has become a maxim ing ruin to his country, oppose a policy advocated by a party once his own, but ceasing to be his when they depart from principles upon which he has taken his stand; but when it appears that every act of a party in power is at variance with some principle which themselves claim, are we not to regard their inconsistency as a proof that they employ their principles as à veil to their purposes? Let us never listen, then, for an instant, to their protestations, but watch their measures. The measures of the party now in power, are the measures of unjust men: they are employing the Executive power of the Union, in a way to give it an unnatural and despotical authority; they mean to give it all the vigor necessary to carry out their designs; they care not for the Constitution, nor for the principles of private and public liberty of which it is the sole existing charter. Can we refuse to listen to the warning"Who talks of liberty now?" Aye! who? It is time then to begin to talk about liberty. State Rights have had their defenders. The States know very well how to defend their own rights. They know the limits of their own sovereignties, and will defend them. But who will defend the rights and sovereignties of the people? Every member of this Republic is connected by a slender thread with the Central Power. This thread passes through and above the system of the State, scarcely touching it. By this the Central Power with politicians, that every great authority in the State should be left open to impeachment, and where impeachment is not allowed, the government is either despotic, or it is nominal-the real power, as in the English Constitution, being in other hands. But it is hardly possible to conceive of an Executive Power more crescent and cumulative in its character than our own; forto say nothing of its being only apparently subject to impeachment-a vote of twothirds of the Senate being required for conviction of treason, which would scarcely be obtained against a President supported by a strong party; and unless so supported, he would not venture upon violations of the Constitution-a succession of enterprising usurpers, such as have governed this country since the election of General Jackson, have it in their power to create the popularity, and the popular opinion, upon which they rest. Nay, it is not yet certain, whether a power completely efficient for the demoralization of the nation might not be created within the limits of the Constitution itself. Government is not a machine; after all the barriers that political science can devise have been erected about a moral power, disposed to be arbitrary and usurping, it will still, within these formal limits, continue to be arbitrary and usurping; it will still continue to be necessary THAT REALLY GREAT AND TRIED MEN SHOULD BE ELECTED. The usurpation of the war power, granted by the Constitution to Congress alone, is at all times easy for an Executive supported by a war-making party. It would be as easy for the present government to involve this country in a war with Great Britain as with Mexico; the means of exciting such a war are fully within the power of the Executive. "None but a people advanced to a very high state of intellectual improvement are capable, in a civilized state," says Mr. Calhoun, "of maintaining a free government; and amongst those who have had the good fortune, very few indeed have had the good fortune of forming a Constitution capable of endurance. It is a remarkable fact in the history of man, that scarcely ever have free popular institutions been formed that have endured." They have lapsed first into a democratic anarchy, and then into despotism. Their destroyers begin with engaging the people in unjust wars, by which that tender and virtuous regard for liberty is sapped and destroyed having become tyrants, they are now ready to become slaves, and need only a master. The despot is always ready, under the cloak of the demagogue. He is the man who confines himself theoretically within the limits of the Constitution, until he has succeeded in destroying its ground-work in the hearts of the people-until he has succeeded in intoxicating them with the consciousness of freedom, and in leading them on to the commission of national crimes, under the names of patriotism, glory, and enterprise. He is no conscious destroyer, but only a godless skeptic, smooth and fluent in speech, active in talent, and simply cold-blooded and dishonest when he dares be so. His tools are, perhaps, men superior to himself in dignity of character, and in obstinacy of purpose, whose narrow understandings he knows well how to darken with sophistries and flatteries. In his own opinion the demagogue is not a bad man; he means only to use the natural and customary means toward influence and wealth. The Union to him is a kind of firm, a combination of great powers for the purposes of defence, enrichment and aggrandizement; in enriching and aggrandizing himself at the expense of this corporation he seems to commit no sin. The Supernal Powers have denied him the knowledge of the true glory of humanity; he does not care to guide he has not the power of guiding the nation, in the path of justice and honor; he is unconscious of these principles-he regards them as fragile moral formularies, for the better management of fools and children. A formalist in his religion, it is very like he delights in long prayers; a formalist in behavior, it is very like he is a man of smooth and polished address. Or if his game be of a ruder sort, he is ready for the fierce extremes-roughness, cruelty, and profanity of conduct. Yet, under all disguises, the demagogue is one and the same; a liar in his heart, a deceiver of the people, an adroit manager of men in place, a giver of gifts, a maker of promises, a busy, smooth, eloquent, cautious, well-trained, place-seeking, wealthloving, power-grasping, ape of virtue. By one mark we are to know him— namely: That he earnestly professes one thing, and assiduously practices another. He professes to economize for the people, and loads them with expenses. He professes free trade, and advocates an indiscriminate Tariff. He professes to be jealous of liberty, and goes on to swell the power of the Executive. He professes a great tenderness of national honor, and plunges the nation into wars of mere robbery. In a word, he is consistent in his conduct with none of the principles he professes; and he professes those which he thinks will sound best in most ears. Under favor, therefore, it seems that Mr. Calhoun has not indicated the true causes of the decline of liberal institutions when he says that they are established, and must fall, by good or evil fortune. It would seem rather that not fortune but influence, is the cause of the rise and decline of free institutions. Given a people wise enough to know a demagogue from a statesman, there were no danger to be apprehended, that their institutions would ever fall into anarchy. The causes of the rise of free institutions are to be sought in the character, and not in the fortune of the people. The Athenians, a tribe of forty thousand luxurious democrats, governing half a million of slaves, gradually wrested power from the hands of the few, and as gradually lost it when their manners became corrupt. The Romans, a clan of ambitious gentlemen, ruling with difficulty a rude but valiant populace, regarded their state as an engine of conquest, and themselves the predestined governors of the world. They gradually dwindled, and were dissolved and lost in the multitude of their subjects, and the power they had organized passed into the hands of men of other nations, trained in the Roman discipline. The Greek and Roman republics cherished in their laws none of those sacred principles which can alone give duration to republics. They never dreamed of educating the people-of securing every man his perfect liberty-of the freedom of political opinion, freedom of religion, international equity. In a word, the safety of the Commonwealth is in the election of such men as represent its principles in their characters: if these are weak, false, narrow, sluggish, or knavish, the machine of government will always work badly; it is a moral, not a mechanical power; its springs are in the hearts and minds of those who move it; their integrity or dishonesty, makes the nation fortunate or unfortunate; their wisdom and moderation saves it; their honor keeps it pure and respectable. Let us, therefore, the people, in selecting our CANDIDATE, ask ourselves, with Jefferson, is he capable, is he honest? Is he a man of grand ability, of tried honesty, of unquestionable courage; open of heart and hand; of a great reputation; able to rule, faithful to his trust? Above all, does he scorn intrigues and private schemes? If he is all this, and no man more so, then is he our CANDIDATE; and if we, the citizens, who profess Whig principles, will unite upon him, laying aside all small fears and trifling doubts, who doubts our ability to elect him? SONNET.-MIDNIGHT. Now Melancholy with pale Sorrow sits, |