436* The English! took fourteen 1 London, forty entire kingdom, tion, is estimat rural districts t tious notions a courtship and r main. "Thus a yo know somethin destined for h was out of bre notes of the cu her shoe, she color with that ed to see his hemp seed on : lover, in a rhy. and behold, on would see him Valentine's m girl accidental tined husband pare a pippin, on falling it had two love by burning t seeds on her longest." All these serve to ker Conceited a rather Eng selves, it cre that uncomf simple the " grandfather few hundre no want of ticular kin Queen Vic towards th Compared of making The Libra This vo Richardso and of S rop. Go southern of the me tory of S land, his country is old. He studied at Nassau Hall, and in 1776, while a student, served as a volunteer in the vicinity of New York. He afterwards became *The reader will remember the Fair Maid of Perth. well engraved portrait of Mr. Big an old picture, and is marked by the neatness and typographical accuracy by which the books of the Messrs. Little and Brown can be generally distinguished. that, precede it, unless it be Sunday, for a month. And thus our Republican King is chosen. At the proper time, with simple ceremonies, he is installed in office, when he enters on his high trusts, and moves forward in the majesty of as much power, to say the least of it, as any mortal man ought ever to be clothed with. This, we say, is a great moral spectacle-this matter of electing, in this quiet way, our own Chief, our own ruler and monarch, for the time For a monarch he is, and a great potentate, as experience has abundantly shown, whose will, or whose caprice, directs the most important and eventful public measures, and shapes the career and destiny of the country. THE period has come when the country is about to enter on another Presidential canvass, or campaign, as it is usually called. The canvass, of course, does not actually begin till candidates are put in nomination, and are in the field. But already there is a hum of busy preparation all over the land. Parties are beginning to marshal their forces, and count their numbers, and there is an active inquiry everywhere after the great Captains who are to lead out these hosts to the sanguine-being, from out of the body of the people. not sanguinary-encounter. Truly, these Presidential elections of ours in this country are great political, and great moral spectacles. The President of the United States, though we call him our Chief Magistrate, as if he were only our principal Justice of the Peace, is, nevertheless, a great potentate, and actually exercises more power than the Sovereign of Great Britain, the head of the most powerful empire in the world. And yet we elect our Sovereign every fourth year by universal suffrage, without tumult, without confusion, without civil commotion. The people go to the polls in their respective districts, and deposit their ballots, and the thing is done. The people stay at home and do this thing. The day of voting, when it comes, is usually a more quiet day, except perhaps in the great cities, or in particular localities, than many of the days A President of the United States, even when he keeps himself within the letter of the Constitution, rises as the chief executive officer of the nation, to the height of tremendous power. He is invested with many of the higher attributes of sovereignty in government, as such sovereignty is commonly exhibited in the persons of monarchs in other countries-at least where constitutional limitations have found any place whatever. It is worth our while to refer for a moment to some of these attributes of eminent power. The President may take the Initiative in Legislation, under the clause of the Consti tution which requires him to "recommend to Congress such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." He is not merely to recommend subjects to their consideration, but "measures;" and there is nothing to hinder him from causing the measures he recommends to be put into form, and sent in in the shape of Legislative Bills, through the agency of the Executive Departments. This, it is well known, is not at all an uncommon thing in practice. And without the agency of these Departments, a legislative committee, if of his own party and principles, answer his purpose just as well. Nor is the initiative in legislation an unmeaning or unimportant thing. It is a substantial power, of great scope and magnitude. It is a power in legislation, if the President chooses to exercise it at least it may be so under circumstances only a little less controlling and absolute than that of nomination in appointments to office. Under this very power, to name a single case by way of illustration, the President wrung from Congress a recognition of his war with Mexico-in effect a declaration of warwhen if Congress, composed though it was in both Houses of his own friends and party, in large majorities, had been allowed to deliberate, and the members to inform themselves of the true state of things, by the reading and consideration of the public documents in the case, nothing more would have been done, at that time, than to authorize the President to repel any invasion of our proper soil and territory, and for which purpose alone supplies and means would have been placed at his disposal. Instead of this, a war of invasion and conquest on our part, begun by him, was adopted and sanctioned by Congress, and even a legislative declaration obtained, dictated in hæc verba by the Executive, that the war existed "by the act of Mexico!" The President has the power of the Veto -a negative which the Constitution, in terms, makes equal to the affirmative votes of two-thirds of the members of both branches of the Congress, but which practically, as experience shows, is little less than an absolute negative on any and all legislation with which he chooses to interfere. He is, like monarchs under other systems, the fountain of appointment and of honor. He cannot confer a patent of nobility, but | he can confer a patent of office, a much more substantial thing, and quite as much coveted and hankered after, and prized when obtained, in this country, as titles of nobility ever were in any other country. Official rank and station, in truth, constitute our republican noble orders, and are, of course, the only noble orders we have according to law. Our Excellencies and Honorables receive, too, by their commissions, the estate along with the title, which the Peer of other countries, at least in modern times, does not always receive with his new dignity. The President creates his own ministry, and changes them at his will. His will in regard to his ministers is altogether more independent and more absolute than that of the King or Queen of England in the same matter. The Queen cannot keep a ministry in place for a day after the Commons have declared against them upon any important part of their policy of government. A declaration of "want of confidence" by the Commons puts an end to them and their policy. It must be this, or there must be an immediate appeal to the country in a new election. The Queen, or King, reigns, but does not govern, as the French maxim has it. If there be not an agreement between the Commons and the ministry, the government does not go on. It must take a new tack. It is different here. With us the ministers must take care to be in accord with the President if they mean to keep their places--and generally they do mean to keep their places. If he be a man to have a will of his own, it is his will that governs. President Jackson declared that these cabinet officers were only his agents and instruments, to aid him in his government of the country. This makes the President and his cabinet together "a unit," and gives him the virtual command of all the vast patronage of the Executive government in all its departments, in addition to his own direct power of appointment. And with such a power as this in his hands, he knows well enough how to manage a reluctant or refractory Congress. I have found, sir," said Mr. Webster, in his late noble speech on Mexican affairs, “in the course of thirty years' experience, that whatever measure the Executive Government embraces and pushes, is quite likely to succeed. There is a giving way somewhere. If the Executive Government acts |