English mind, and with all due respect to their political skill, shown under the trials of a revolutionary and famishing age, let us for a moment compare the position of the English thinker, artist, scholar and politician with their brothers on this side the water, and if we find in it any singular facility or advantage, then let us concede it them; but by no means give up the point of native intelligence; for in courage, ardor, endurance and originality of design, we hold our own good minds to be equal to the best of these days. laws of Moses and the Songs of David, to the pictures of Angelo the friend of Savonarola, have been produced under influences conducive to, and establishing, liberty. Great artists, orators and poets, address themselves not to princes and priests, but to the people. Their works have the air not of a eulogy or a dedication, but of a national song of triumph. In comparing our condition with that of England, we seem therefore, by the analogy of history, to discover a difference in favor of our own. That liberty should favor arts and letters, seems to be not wonderful, or accidental, but in the plain course of nature; since the prosecution of a liberal art requires the same steady, and almost scornful, reliance upon native force, and the same familiarity with the first principles and facts of nature, that is seen in the lawgiver and the soldier of freedom. Nor are those imitative and subordinate epochs of art and letters, without a tincture of liberality. German literature drew its inspiration from the freest intelligence of England and Greece. Latin letters, always imitative, grew out of the Republican Greek; Boileau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and their compeers, strove to reproduce the literature of Rome. Look where we may, liberty and art are sisters, and the most perfect liberty has given posterity the most beautiful monuments of its power. As in giving their due honor to the works of former ages, it is almost infinitely difficult for the imagination to separate what is excellent in them, from what is merely antiquated and conventional; and this difficulty increased to a degree that becomes infinite, by the early prejudice and bias of country, which creates in us, towards the religious ceremonies, the laws and the manners of our ancestors, an affectionate and erring veneration, necessary, indeed, but still tinctured with a false enthusiasm; it has happened that great epochs of advancement in the arts, either of language or design, have come about either at the birth of liberty and self-reliance, in a people; when they began to throw off old prejudices, and think less of their past, and give the rein to hope and exultation; or when, turning away from the models of their own history, they fixed a gaze of emulation on the arts and genius of some Standing, therefore, as we do, aloof other race. Arts began to flourish in from the old world, and now, by our exAthens after the battle of Marathon; the ample, dictating constitutions to the peomost admirable poems of the Hebrews ple of Europe; in eloquence, the greatest were composed when they had thrown off of the arts, without a rival; with a govthe yoke of Egypt, Sidon, and the Em-ernment almost planetary in its power and pire; eloquence arrived at its height in simplicity, controlling an empire as easily as England after the expulsion of the Stew- it does a village ;-a government not built arts; and in France and America, since the on theory, but wrought out of the practical wars of their revolutions. The literature instincts of freedom; it would show but of Germany sprang into sudden and vigor- little faith in the laws of nature, and the ous life during the prevalence of revolu- course of Providence, were we to deny tionary principles, from the day of Voltaire ourselves the hope of a glorious career in to the death of Goethe: with the aristo- art, in science, in letters, and in all that cratic re-action it sunk again and disap- human genius, guided by liberty and sinpeared. Even the greatest epoch of Eng-cerity, can produce. Fearless in spirit, inlish letters, called the Elizabethan, or Shaksperian, epoch, was during the rise of puritanical liberty; and the age succeeding it, that of Milton, Butler, and Cowley, was an age of Republicanism. Universally, the greatest models of human art, from the ventive, and thoughtful, we need only to recognize our powers and to use them. The true thinker, and the artist, have but two patrons, God and the People: their appeal is from the one, and to the other. In answer to the somewhat tedious in quiry, why we have no grand school of let- | kind which shines in great poems and ters in America, there is a double reply works of art; so that of the former a to be given: first, that like the solidifica- celebrated person said: "Let us have tion of the government, it requires time, poems for men and laws for children." conjoined effort, and the sympathy of an educated class; second, that the question may be asked as well of other countries as of this, and the inquiry made why it is that no nation at present discovers a grand originality in art. Poets we have, and admirable in their way; prose writers, extremely elegant and studied; and so, too, has England; Mendelssohn is but just dead in Germany, Irving and Dana are still living in America, and Tennyson, Thackeray, Napier and McCauley in England. There is no dearth on either side the Atlantic, of elegant and powerful writers, and in oratory there are some living who have been compared, however justly, with the ancients. But still the question, as it was meant, is not answered. To recur, then, again, to history. Literature and art being products of intellect, are necessarily founded upon philosophical thought. A great poet or orator is a great thinker. Shakspeare and Bacon were contemporaries; so were Socrates and Sophocles. Solon, the philosophical legislator, was also a poet. Milton has written the most exquisite eulogy of philosophy. Cicero studied in all the philosophical schools. Schiller and Goethe were Kantians. Shakspeare's sonnets and early poems may be regarded, in great part, as rhymed disquisitions upon the laws and motives of human nature. Michael Angelo and Da Vinci were Platonists, and the latter a savan, and a very inventive mechanician. Philosophy, either of science or of criticism, shines like an animating soul in every immortal work, be it an oration against tyranny, a picture of the crucifixion, or a poem on the fall of man. Perhaps it may be necessary to caution the less informed against confounding with what is here meant by philosophy, that dry bones of logic and metaphysic which goes by the name in our school and college text-books; by the philosophy to which we are now alluding, is intended the science of human nature in its principles, as they appear in laws, in morals, and in religion; that philosophy of which the church, the free State, and the Social System are, humanly speaking, the immediate illustration. It is this In the absence, therefore, of an authoritative guide to lead us toward great achievements in arts and letters, we may perhaps with safety fall back upon the examples of the past, and instead of wasting our energies in mere admiration, conclude that we have to begin the work of literary and philosophical, as we have that of political criticism, at the very roots and principles. It is a common error to suppose that great advances in arts, letters, and philosophy are made by the isolated labor of a few astonishing individuals, who spring up here and there in spite of fate, at long intervals of time, as if by miracle. On the contrary, a careful study of the great epochs will show that for one great light there have been thousands of inferior magnitude; that a great intellect rather represents, than creates, the spirit of the age he lives in. Of what avail would have been the hero-, ism and the virtue of Washington in a nation uninspired by the same spirit? The predecessors and contemporaries of Shakspeare composed a grand constellation of wits, critics, writers, and scholars. What can a great actor, orator, or preacher accomplish, without an audience educated, and by nature adapted, to understand and feel their excellence? The native wit and freedom of Corwin, the severe dignity of Webster, the sense of Crittenden, the condensation and fire of Calhoun, require appreciative, American audiences; they succeed best with those that best understand them. Brummagem operatives would hardly listen to Agassiz. The public mind, ear, eye, requires preparation and use; subtle principles of art take their first rise in the mind of the solitary thinker, pass gradually into the popular mind, and have the effect of instinct. Tammany Hall understands and applauds, where Faneuil sees no merit. In Caffraria, the Cartoons would pass, perhaps, for tent-covers. Men read Shakspeare and Milton, and the Scriptures, more as they acquire experience. As of individuals, so perhaps it may be said of a people, that they come to the appreciation of a good by slow degrees; given the ground-work of a free and sensible nature, and a nation may be gradually brought up by repeated experiences to appreciate the Parthenon, to delight in Raphael, and to taste the elegance and feel the deep sentiment of Shakspeare. For nearly twenty years the admirers of Wordsworth were a sect; but now his beauties and his faults are in every one's mouth. That writers so obscure, so subtle, and singular, nay, so utterly dark and metaphysical, for the most part, as some of our own, and who address a rare and inexplicable phase of the national, or rather of the Puritanical character, whose sayings touch and exacerbate, if they do not heal, one of the most secret and hidden motives of the human heart, (we say this neither in praise nor condemnation,) in a style, too, intolerably loose, affected, and sententious-that such writers should ever have become popular, may serve to encourage originality at least, and to teach the artist that there is nothing so remote or refined, the Saxon mind will understand it if he will be at the pains to express it. The music of the great Mendelssohn, of which extreme delicacy, and that quality which musicians call learning, are the characteristics, is listened to with delight, and leaves a deeper impression than the most superficial popular melodies. Singers of negro music must black their faces and perform extraordinary antics, as some painters set off bad colors with black shadows; but Handel and Mozart are sung year after year without weariness and without soot, and the English Liturgy is as sublime and perhaps as popular, as in the days of good Queen Bess. Eugene Sue may have made two or three booksellers' fortunes, but Homer and Virgil have made a thousand, and may continue to for ever. Were the Scriptures of the Old Testament ill written, low, and coarsely expressed, then it is not perhaps irreverent to say, that they could not continue long to be the book of the people. When men can read nothing else, even in the article of death, they will have Job or the Psalms read to them. The fact that the Divine Spirit in communicating with man has preferred the language of pure poetry, a language fitted to be sung, and actually chanted to a set music; that beauty of form and feature were stamped upon the Divine Incarnation; -these facts may lead to the inference, that the prevailing affected contempt for art and for the beautiful, in comparison with the useful, among ourselves, if not a deficiency in nature, is merely a defect in our philosophy; for, strange as it may seem, we have, as a people, a very dry and abstract philosophy; we philosophize daily, even in the petty details of the counter and the household. We are all educated and trained at school by philosophers, of less or greater calibre; we hear the vast and solemn dogmas of the Aristotelian schools, mingled with the truths of divine reason, delivered to us once, twice, or oftener in each seven days of our life, from the pulpit. It behooves us therefore to be very careful, in speaking of these things, not to think, because we are unlearned, that therefore we have no philosophy and no principles of taste. The merchant who kneels down in the morning after reading a chapter of Hebrew poetry, and composes or recites a prayer, full of Christian truths and Calvinistic logic, is, unknown to himself, uttering a most abstruse and profound system of philosophy, the very bones of Greek logic and Catholic reason. A people who philosophize in the law courts, who philosophize in their business, who philosophize in the church, and who extemporize philosophy in prayer; a people who are for ever asking, with a keen look, "What's the principle?" are not the people who should smile at philosophy, or neglect philosophers: philosophy is the thing they live by; and it were strange indeed if such a people, living under a perfectly philosophical religion and law, should not produce great thinkers and critics in every department of industry, whether of elegance or of utility. Nor is it possible to believe that in such a nation, full of wealth, and fond of home enjoyment, not expending their energies on foreign wars, or wasting their superfluous riches in the vulgar fopperies of courts, can remain long at the dead level of mediocrity and imitation. Genius will burst forth in every shape, and the taste of the people will gradually rise. A little encouragement to art and letters, will act upon them, as it has already upon other departments of industry, and a body of national taste and criticism demand higher and higher grades of skill. Great minds will begin to think that there are other fields besides those of business and politics, where wealth and honor may be achieved; until the hoped for few, who are to stand for ever as the representatives of their country to the coming time, shall appear and terminate the gradual pyramid of genius with a crown of light. If, however, it is a merely enthusiastic sentiment that suggests these hopes of our progress in the more difficult and more delightful arts, we may without danger, and not without a proud feeling of confidence, predict, that in the arts of utility and of polity, at least, we have a grand and a consoling prospect. Not withstanding all the efforts of a sophistry suggested by foreign interest, that would persuade us to remain in the subordinate position of a colony, for the aggrandizement of foreign commerce, the old democratic doctrines of protection for the people, and national independence, are steadily gaining ground, and have effectually a majority of the nation on their side. The time cannot be far distant when they will become a part of our national polity, and reckoned among the natural defences of our freedom. Nor is the Constitution itself less firm than at any previous period. The greatest danger it has incurred, from the sudden increase of the executive power, seems to be at least temporarily averted. The confidence of the people is for a time restored. The right idea seems destined to prevail by its native force. The spirit of the government loses nothing in the conflict of the parties. "As the natural dispositions of men are altered and formed into different moral characters by education, so the spirit of a constitution of government, which is confirmed in power, and strengthened by a course of events, and especially by those of fruitless opposition, in a long tract of time, will have a proportionable influence on the reasoning, the sentiments, and the conduct of those who are subject to it. A different spirit and contrary prejudices may prevail for a time, but the spirit and principles of the constitution will prevail at last. If one be unnatural, and the other absurd,—and that is the case in many governments-a vigorous exercise of power, equal rewards, equal punishments, and a variety of other secondary means, which in such constitutions are never wanting, will however maintain, as long as they are employed, both the spirit and the principles; but if the spirit and the principles of a constitution be agreeable to nature and the true ends of government, which is the case of the present constitution of the (United States,) they want no such means to make them prevail. They not only flourish without them, but they would fade and die away with them. As liberty is nourished and supported by such a spirit, and such principles, so they themselves are propagated by liberty. Truth and reason are often able to get the better of authority in particular minds; but truth and reason, with authority on their side, will carry numbers, bear down prejudices, and become the very genius of a people. The progress they make is always sure, but sometimes not observable by every eye. Contrary prejudices may seem to maintain themselves, in vigor, and these prejudices may be kept up long by passion and by artifice. But when truth and reason continue to act without restraint, a little sooner, or a little later, and often when this turn is least expected, the prejudices vanish at once, and truth and reason triumph without any rival."-Bolingbroke, Dissert. of Parties. ORIGIN OF THE TWO PARTIES. CONTRAST OF THEIR DOCTRINE.-SPEECH OF MR. JOHN P. KENNEDY, AT HAGARSTOWN, MARYLAND, SEPT. 27TH, 1848.* Ir is very generally acknowledged by those who have made a study of our political history, that the principles and feelings of democracy have gained ground, in this country, notwithstanding all the changes of party, since the era of the Revo lution. The great doctrine that political power emanates, or should emanate, from every citizen within the limits of sanity and honesty, has come to be recognized and understood by all classes. That this doctrine is in acordance with the laws of reason and the maxims of experience, needs no longer to be argued, as the belief of it is constantly acted upon. The ancient rule of legislators, that every power in a nation must be represented in its government, if that government is intended to be a firm and lasting one, free from internal disturbances, when applied to the legislation of a free people, leads to the establishment of what is sometimes (though absurdly) called universal suffrage;" for as, where opinion and mind are free, every citizen is, or may make himself, a "power" in the state, it becomes necessary that every citizen should have his due share and influence in public affairs. "Universal suffrage" is thus seen to be founded upon a law of nature and a maxim of the oldest experience. Every real power in a state must have an influence in its government. Hence it happens, that a nobility, a clergy, castes, orders, states, the judiciary, in short all evident and known "powers have their place in that central body which stands for the power of the whole. But with us, where there are but two recognized powers, that of the individual, and that of the state; we being strictly and really a free people, these two, and these only, reappear, as parts in the government of the centre. The republican doctrine of universal suffrage is seen thus to be no theoretic conclusion; nor is it an invention of human ingenuity, but a growth of mere necessity,-the necessity of preserving internal peace. Each real "power," that is to say, each active and competent citizen, must be allowed his direct influence by a vote, or he becomes, or is able to become, a disturbing power, and by free opinion to excite discord and war. Democracy, therefore, had no inventors, or originators; but arose gradually, like all real and stable institutions, out of the concourse of many wise heads, applied to circumstances of which they themselves were a part. The same reason that shows us, that every real and just power should have its influence, shows also that it should have its due influence; that the weaker should not overrule the stronger, or a power of one kind supplant, or usurp upon another. If two powers are of the same kind and opposite, the stronger must lead; else would follow anarchy, and intestine war. Hence the democratic doctrine of majorities. minor. The major number must lead the The party which has taken the name of Whig Party, as distinguished from that which came into power with the administration of Jackson, claims to be the supporter and representative of the doctrines of individual and national independence, of free suffrage, of progress, and of conservative measures; meaning by this latter term, a policy, proceeding strictly from the real majority of competent citizens, through their lawful representatives. How it stands contrasted with the opposite party, or combination of parties, (for on that side we have Barnburners, Old Hunkers, Calhounites, conquest-schemers, * National Intelligencer, Oct. 18th, 1848. |