100,000 inhabitants. Every citizen is to have the right of voting, who has attained his majority, and has not been convicted of any infamous offence. Every citizen, of the age of thirty years, is eligible to office, and need not reside in the district electing him. There is to be established an Imperial Court of Justice, composed of twenty-one members. They are to receive their appointments for life-one third from the Emperor, one third from the Upper Chamber, and one third from the Lower. The Court is to hold its sessions at Nuremberg, and is to have the power of deciding upon all political and judicial controversies between the German States, and between the reigning princes; and also in certain cases between individuals and the general or State governments; and upon a variety of other matters. The time for the meeting of the Constituent Assembly having been adjourned from the 1st of May, in order to give time for completing the elections, this body was at length organized on the 18th of that month. On that day the members, having held a preliminary caucus the evening before, proceeded, under the escort of the civic guards of Frankfort, to the church of St. Paul, and made choice of Baron Von Gagern for President, and Herr Von Soizon, advocate of Mannheim, who had presided over the Committee of fifty-six, for Vice President. Both of these gentlemen are leaders of the party which is in favor of liberal monarchical institutions. The preliminary subjects of legislation having been disposed of, and time having been given for the free interchange of opinion among the members respecting the best mode of securing a new union of the States, the Assembly resolved, on the 3d of June, to appoint a commission to consist of fifteen members, nominated by the committees, for the purpose of examining the different propositions for the establishment of a provisional central power. The proposition to appoint a federal directory of three persons was discussed at length, but was finally rejected in favor of a vicar of the Empire, chosen by the Assembly. The election of this officer took place on the 29th, and resulted in the selection of Archduke John, of Austria, he having 456 votes, the President of the Assembly, Baron Von Gagern, having eighty-two, Herr von Itztein thirty-two, and twenty-five members of the extreme left declining to vote. This appointment has been favorably received throughout the country, and, all things considered, it must be regarded as a judicious one. The King of Prussia, who succeeded to the throne a few years since under so flattering auspices, has rendered himself exceedingly unpopular in Germany by his opposition to the progress of liberal principles of government, and latterly by the conflicts between his troops and the inhabitants of his capital. He had given, indeed, to Prussia a sort of political constitution, but he had not done it with a good grace. He had early adopted the imperial colors, and proclaimed himself the leader of the new German movement, but his conduct was thought-to say no more-somewhat too ambitious, and the sincerity of his patriotism was made the subject of very grave doubts. He had volunteered to defend the cause of German nationality against the Danes, and had done it at some expense of blood and money; but it seems that he has succeeded by that movement in duping, not the nation, but himself. His brother, the Prince of Prussia and heir apparent, being an enemy to constitutional forms of government, was still more obnoxious to the people. Prussia, therefore, which, under other circumstances, would have been entitled to the selection of a head for the new national government, standing, as she does, at the head of German civilization, and having done more, by the policy of the Zollverein, towards effecting the unity of the States than any other power, was obliged to relinquish her claims in favor of a rival whose legislation, for the last half century, has promoted neither the union of the country, nor the progress of liberty. But Austria was fortunate in possessing a prince who had been long disgraced at court and beloved by the people. The personal qualities of the Archduke John overbalanced the indifferent claims of his State. The Archduke is a brother of the late Emperor Francis, and an uncle of Ferdinand. At the age of twenty-seven, he excited a general enthusiasm in his favor among his compatriots, by organizing, in the Tyrol, the famous partisan war, which commenced, and, by receiving the capitulation of the fortress of Huningue, which consummated the deliverance of Germany from the French. The popularity thus acquired was more than adequate to counterbalance the reverses he experienced, when, in 1809, he was driven by the viceroy from Italy to Pesth; and was prevented, by untoward circumstances, from taking part with his troops in the fight at Wagram. Retiring from service at the close of the war, with the title of directorgeneral of the fortifications of the Empire, he incurred the displeasure of the court by his frank condemnation of the policy of Metternich, and of the intrigues of the aristocracy and the Jesuits. Forbidden to reside in the Tyrol, in consequence of his too great popularity among his old companions in arms, he retired to Styria, and occupied himself with the pursuits of agriculture and mining, the study of botany, and with following the chase. In this sport he displayed such intrepidity and hardiness as to gain the reputation of being one of the best chamois hunters in Switzerland, and, indeed, as to so awaken the fears of the great premier, that his portrait, taken in the costume of the Styrian chase, was forbidden to be sold in the print-shops of Vienna. Adopting the simple mode of life, and mingling in the rustic society of the mountaineers, he endeared himself as much to the Styrians as he had done to the Tyrolese. And well might this be the case, for he crowned his partiality for their mountains by taking to wife one of their fair damsels, the humble daughter of a maitre de poste. The marriage, though ridiculed at court, received the imperial consent, and the pretty Styrian, ennobled by the title of Baroness von Brandhof, became an Austrian Archduchess. * The following is said to be a true story of the courtship, though we do not vouch for it. There is, in the mountains of Styria, an isolated, silent post-house. One day, during the harvest, it happened that all the domestics were away in the fields. Excepting a single stable boy, no one was at home save the maître de poste, an old man suffering from the gout, and his daughter, a charming and robust child of the Alpine vales, who was sitting at her work in the chamber. Suddenly the rattling of a carriage and four broke upon the silence. Recognizing the equipage as it drew near, the old man, trembling, cried out: The Archduke John-the Archduke John-and all my boys are away!" "The Archduke John! but he can't wait," replied the young I will go with him myself." In 1842, Prince John attracted the spe cial attention of the friends of political progress by a toast given at the famous fete of the cathedral of Cologne, prepared by the King of Prussia in commemoratic of the middle ages. "No Prussia, no Austria," said he, "but a Germany strong and united." In the late revolution at Vienna, he also signalized himself by the recommendation of popular measures, and effected the resignation of Metternich by informing the people that he had resigned He is now sixty-six years of age, though apparently not more than fifty, and is stal in possession of full physical and intellec tual vigor. After having been notified of his appoint ment, the Archduke proceeded to Frank fort, where he was received with universa rejoicings, and was installed, on the 12th of July, Vicar of the Empire. The minis try, thereupon appointed by him, consists of Herr von Schmerling, of Vienna, mem ber of the Parliament, Minister of the Inte rior and of Foreign Affairs, Herr Hecksher, of Hamburg, member of the Parliament, Minister of Justice, and Major General von Poucker, of Prussia, Minister of War. On the 15th, the Vicar was obliged to leave for Vienna, in order to open the new Aus trian Assembly. After that, he will re turn and reside in Frankfort. Upon the installation of the Vicar of the Empire, the German Diet, instituted syllable, she hastened to her chamber. While the And without giving time to her father to add stable boy and the postillion of the last station we? harnessing fresh horses, the young girl disguise herself in a pretty postillion's costume, which she had worn during the fêtes of the last carnival Then descending quickly, she threw herself ist the saddle, seized the reins and whip, and drove of the Archduke most gallantly. The eyes of the traveller did not delay to fasten themselves on the genteel postillion. The slender. pliant limbs, the well-turned shoulders, the gracef figure inclosed in a scarlet uniform, somewhat s prised the prince, until engaging in conversation with his accomplished driver, the soft, fair voice the latter betrayed her secret. "But thou art a girl!" said the Archduke And the terrified postillion replied as best she could: "There was no one else at the house of father when you arrived, and your imperial high ness could not wait." The Archduke banished the fears of the amiable child, whom he found as intelligent as pretty, and at the moment of separation, said to her: "Since you have made yourself a man for my sake, it is no more than fair that I should make you back a womau (wife.)" The young girl had no objections, and the prince. after having obtained the consent of the Emperor to his marriage, received her as his bride. 1 by the Congress of Vienna, composed of plenipotentiaries of the governments of all the States, and which, for thirty-two years, has been the grand agent of the Metternich policy in restricting the freedom of the press, and checking the progress of constitutional liberty, ceased from its labors. May it rest in peace. The Parliament is proceeding slowly in the formation of a national constitution, following out the plan, and generally adopting the provisions, recommended by the provisional assembly. It is also about to make large additions to the numbers of the federal army, and has voted six millions of dollars for laying the foundations of a national navy. It is not improbable, from present appearances, that all the forces and money which can be obtained will be needed in the settlement of the Schleswig-Holstein difficulty. General Wrangel, commander of the Prussian army, having refused to sign the articles CONGRESSIONAL ORATORY. SOME remarks were not long since offered to the public in the National Gazelle, upon the comparative dispatch of business in the British Parliament and the American Congress; and the editor decided, upon very just grounds, we think, in favor of the superior method, order and industry of the English Legislature. He proposed, as one means of inducing a greater atten tion to their duties on the part of our Representatives, that the desks at present attached to their seats in Congress should be removed, or disallowed; as it is well known that they contrive to transact at these very convenient bureaus nearly as much private* as public business, in the *This hall is a great business room, a place to write letters to their constituents, to draw bills of exchange, to settle accounts, and to do business. He proposed that the desks be all removed. could not consent to abolish the hour rule without removing these desks. As a matter of economy it is a great reform; and I tell the gentleman from North Carolina, who is always in favor of economical reform, remove the desks and you shorten the session two months, and save twenty thousand dollars of the public money.—Ibid. *He had scarcely ever heard any (speech) for which one hour would not have been sufficient, if all had been omitted which ought not to have been-Ibid. delivered. He had listened also to the debates I have seriously reflected on this subject. I in the French Chambers, and the British Houses of Lords and Commons. He had heard the peeches of Sir Robert Peel, Lord Stanley, the Earl Grey, and other distinguished statesmen, on very important subjects; and there, in the Legislature of a nation having its armies and territoies in every part of the globe, in the course of wo years, he rarely ever heard a speech exceed Forty or fifty minutes. But here, every subject, on every occasion, must be discussed at immoderate length, and a morbid taste was generated hroughout the land.-Mr. Thompson's Speech, 21st December, 1847. "As a mere sanitary regulation, to prevent members who desire to speak from bringing upon themselves, by too long continued exertion of the organs of the voice, that prevalent disease, the bronchitis, he was strongly in favor of the measure."-Mr. Pollock's Speech, 21st December, 1847. an course of a session. The measure thus | Athens, every stone, stick, or brichtss suggested appears to us peculiarly recom- which had been the means of injuring a mendable and expedient, and promises citizen in life, limb or property, was form some advantages which the editor has not ly tried, condemned, and hurled forth be adverted to, and which render its adop-yond the limits of the republic. The et tion not only highly desirable, but, as we or of the National Gazette proposes a fe conceive, absolutely necessary. The pub- ther measure of replacing the desks bra lic, we believe, are well aware that when-tribune or rostrum, similar to the ever a member has the intention, and has rangement adopted in the French Chambe "bent up his faculties" to the terrible feat of Deputies as the speaker, by this mes of making a set-speech, this may generally would not only be cut off from his be ascertained, and is in a manner zine of documents, notes, &c., but be sub nounced beforehand to the House, by cer- jected to an insulation and exposure d tain preparations and prognostics with person that could not but tend great which it is but too fatally familiar-such check the loquacious, and restrain the as an unusual accumulation of notes, books, cursive propensities of even the most documents, &c., upon the desk of the orator; veterate prosers. This measure is al a frequent and ominous hem, or clearing of worthy of consideration in an economie the throat; and lastly, by the appearance point of view, (the only one likely to atof a copious supply of the true pabulum of tract Jonathan's attention,) by substituting debate, in the shape of a vessel of water, one rostrum or stand for the one hund brought in by the door-keeper of the House, and fifty at present so constantly in reca and placed at his side. These formal and sition, or by the saving both of money and formidable preparations never fail to be fol- time, by which it would be attended. T lowed by a regularly arranged harangue, species of retrenchment would, we are s or composed speech, of interminable prolix- isfied, have a salutary effect upon the c ity, volume and verbosity, of many hours' tory of the House, and tend to abate the and often of many days' duration. The disputation and evil speaking to which is desks of the House, therefore, form, as will members are now so terribly given; wh be seen, an important part of the machine- it might produce incidentally a further ry employed in the speech-grinding pro- benefit to the public, by operating as a dis cess, now brought to such dread perfection couragement to Cabinet-making, an art and by our orators, or serve as a species of craft for which Congressmen evince the conduits, for conveying to the exhausted same childish predilection as a cert receiver, or fainting speaker, an inopportune sovereign of Europe did for the lofty em supply of that deleterious and washy fluid ployment of moulding sealing-wax, n which has been noted through all time for which he is said to have arrived at a hiri its specific action upon the loquacious fac- degree of proficiency and perfection. Tx ulties, and above all, for its tendency to water itself, which the desks thus conduct provoke constradiction, to promote intem- to every seat, being emphatically the bever perance in debate, and weaken the judg- age of debate, and a necessary refreshment ment of the deliberate body. This noxto the public speaker, its total ablation, or ious article of furniture, then, which thus a rigid denial of its use, to the members of forms so important a spoke (a word which the House-by which they would be left we unwillingly use from the unpleasant dry, and in a manner run aground—13 associations which it calls up) in the orator's wheel, or which may be variously likened to a fountain playing through a leaden spout; a reservoir of gas; or lastly, a spinning-jenny, by the aid of which the practised debator is enabled to draw out a yarn of endless length and tenuity. This Pandora's box, we say, ought therefore, without any ceremony or delay, to be eliminated from the House, and cast into the Tiber creek-as by an ancient law of *The late Emperor of Austria, Francis the Second, is said to have been skillful in the mante treaty of Campo Formio, he was observed to facture of this article. When about signing the pause, from a natural reluctance, as was supposed war with which the instrument was sealed whe be considered as a somewhat harsh, if not unmerciful measure, while it might otherwise diminish, rather too suddenly perhaps, that tide of eloquence which at stated periods (viz., those fixed by the Constitution, for it has no other limits,) overflows the capital, inundates the newspapers, and spreads far and wide over the land. We must nevertheless say, that our aversion to this element, merely as a part of speech, and from the unpleasant associations which its inherent fluency and expansive tendency so naturally suggest, amounts to an uncompromising hostility, which we should suppose must be participated in, to a degree little short of hydrophobia, by every one who ever had the misfortune of listening to or reading a Congressional debate, or who has any regard for his suffering country, or for the peace of the world. proscription of this thin potation seems, indeed, to be otherwise called for from its evident effect, not only on the quantity but the quality of our Congressional eloquence, which both in poverty and abundance bears so close an analogy or resemblance to this flattest and most insipid of fluids, that something like a connection of cause and effect in the case seems but too probable, and is, in fact, plainly traceable. The editor of the Gazette complains of members often absenting themselves during debate, (no wonder,) and this even when questions of the greatest moment are under discussion, or pending before the House. A We are not ourselves, however, much inclined to consider this as an evil, or a practice very ehemently to be depreciated, as it unforunately happens that but too large a proportion of our enlightened Representatives re much more out of place in the House han anywhere else; the absence of the ody being a much less evil than the bsence of mind, or want of talent, which ney so often exhibit when at their posts; hich they much more generally run their eads against than fill with honor to themelves, or advantage to their country. As e idle are apt to busy themselves about e concerns of others, and are particularprone to take the public interests and eneral welfare under their especial care ed protection, we have propounded the regoing views, in the hope that they ay meet with attention in the proper arters, and lead to the adoption of some stringent measure or effective plan for reforming the oratory of the great council of the nation, and correcting the prosing habits of its members-whose services, whatever estimate they may themselves put upon them, are not, we apprehend, of such unspeakable importance as to render an interference with their privileges, or with that wide license of debate in which they at present indulge, either treason to the people, or an invasion of their imprescriptable rights. The custom that prevails in the British Parliament of coughing down those speakers who unnecessarily consume the public time by protracted harangues, appears to be approved of by the editor of the Gazette, while it is seriously reprehended by the editor of the National Intelligencer, as savoring too much of boisterousness and indecorum. We confess we are rather inclined to think with Mr. Gales, that coughing and scraping, as parliamentary methods for restraining loquacious speakers, would scarcely answer in so pugnacious an Assembly, or in the case of so irritable and important a busy Body as Congress. Our orators, besides, so far surpass those of England in wind, or as jockies phrase it, bottom, that much disorder and confusion would probably be occasioned by any attempt to introduce a check of this kind, or to naturalize this strangulatory and arbitrary custom among If, as we have seen to be the case, from the statement of Dr. Ware,* referred to at the commencement of these remarks, there are those who will even go the length of talking themselves into a consumption, and speak until they spit blood, and bring on asthma and homoptesis, as if resolved to spend their last breath in the public service; we much fear that the coughing of others would be but little efficacious towards restraining such desperately disposed prosers within the limits of a reasonable brevity. In the first place, those who might endeavor to effect this purpose would probably have to cough themselves. into a consumption before they could succeed in attaining the desired object; and us. *The paragraph here referred to has been public speakers are more frequently attacked omitted. It merely contained the statement that with homoptesis, or bleeding of the lungs, than any other persons, or class of patients. |