mighty disciples, the Miltons, the Machiavels, the Sidneys, the Harringtons-who, "as a guard cherubic placed," have defended through all time, with a flaming sword of genius and eloquence, this goodliest heritage of man. We shall confine ourselves in the few remarks which we have to make upon this subject, to things as they exist around us—to our own hearths and altars. "What we have spoken," however, to borrow the awful and prophetic words with which Milton closes his last appeal on behalf of the Commonwealth of England, then drawing towards its dissolution, while we abominate the augury from the bottom of our hearts: "What we have spoken, is the language of that which is not called amiss The Good old Cause;' if it seem strange to any, it will not seem more strange, I hope, than convincing to backsliders. Thus much I should, perhaps, have said, though I were sure I should have spoken only to trees and stones; and had none to cry to, but with the prophet 'O earth, earth, earth!' to tell the very soil itself, what her perverse inhabitants are deaf to. Nay, though what I have spoken should happen (which thou suffer not, who didst create mankind free, nor thou next, who didst redeem us from being servants of men) to be the last words of our expiring liberty. But, I trust, I shall have spoken persuasion to abundance of sensible and ingenuous men; to some, perhaps, whom God may raise up to these stones to become children of reviving liberty, and may reclaim, though they seem now choosing them a captain back for Egypt, to bethink themselves a little and consider whither they are rushing; to exhort this torrent also of the people not to be so impetuous, but to keep their due channel; and at length recovering and uniting their better resolutions, now that they see already how open and unbounded the insolence and rage is of our common enemies, to stay these ruinous proceedings, justly and timely fearing to what a precipice of destruction, the deluge of this epidemic madness would hurry us, through the general defection of a misguided and abused multititude." It is a shrewd observation of Machiavel,t that those who find fault with the tumults occasioned by the differences between the nobility and the commons at Rome, quarrel with the main cause of all her freedom and power. These superficial thinkers, he adds, attend only to the din and uproar of the mighty conflict, instead of looking at its influence in forming the balance of the constitution, and in effecting the conquest of the world by the enthusiasm which it kindled, the energies which it called forth, and exercised the vivifying impulse which it communi*The Ready and Easy Way to establish a Free Commonwealth. t Discorsi, lib. i. c. 4, et seq. cated to the minds of men, and the salutary jealousy which it kept awake between the various orders of society. This remark is an answer to all Captain Hall's complaints. The great maxim of all popular government is ex fumo dare lucem. It is a mighty maze, but not without a plan. Like the system of the universe, to whose laws it seems most conformable, its partial evil is universal good, its discord only a more perfect, because more complicated harmony, while all its ceaseless vicissitudes eventuate in order and uniformity. If plagues and earthquakes break not heaven's design, Our test of excellence in politics, is the same as Paley's in morals-utility in the long run. We believe, that under a wellbalanced popular government, a greater sum of happiness and improvement is produced than under any other kind of polity, a greater number of the people made "in mind, body and estate," what their Creator intended them to be, and that those who take the lead among them, must, in general, be indebted for it to mere dint of superior energy and usefulness, to illustrious service, to cultivated genius, or to exemplary virtue. It is true, and not more true, perhaps, than desirable, (for some such spur is always wanted) that unworthy persons do frequently thrust themselves forward into more conspicuous places than they have accomplishments to grace; and such objects are sure to be the first to attract a stranger's observations. But nothing is more shallow and absurd than to draw inferences from such partial appearances. It is the French way of criticising Shakspeare. They have no conception at all of the comprehensive unity of design which harmonizes these apparent irregularities. They acknowledge no genius that is not every where stately, decorous and elegant. It is in vain that you appeal to nature that you dwell upon all that makes the peerless bard a standing intellectual miracle. They answer your eulogies upon Hamlet, by a jest upon the grave-digger's buffoonery, and think of nothing in Macbeth but the absurdity of a plot concocted in the witches' cauldron, and consummated by the march of a forest to take a castle by storm! The best of it is, that England—cette isle, as Bossuet sublimely expresses it, plus orageuse que les mers qui l'environnent-is treated by continental philosophers, precisely as we are by her own. We remember that in 1819, the wise men of the day at Paris, were confidently predicting the speedy wreck of her whole system, because the Manchester rioters had to be put down by the yeomanry, and Lord Russell, and others of the whigs were pelted with brickbats at the hustings in West minster! They are utterly unable to comprehend that queer compound a tête Anglaise.* We do not wonder at that; but it does seem passing strange that one, brought up in that school of license and uproar, should be so sensible of somewhat similar, though by no means so outrageous excesses here. And it is still more strange when we find the same person actually willing to see even the ignorance, stupidity and prejudice of the whole realm, fairly represented in the House of Commons, though the result were that very few places might be left open for the accommodation of suitable leaders for such a rabble! t Captain Hall affirms that our government is still a mere experiment, of which it is quite impossible to anticipate the result, as it is only forty years since its foundation, and it has, even since then, been altered in its most important feature, the appointment of the Executive. So far as regards the Federal Constitution, there may be some truth in this. We confess, that within these few years last past, we have occasionally been led to entertain some gloomy forebodings upon that subject. We also admit that the cause of the Union may well be considered as the cause of all our liberties, since there can be no doubt but that its dissolution would make their duration far more uncertain than it is now. But this is the utmost extent of our concessions upon this subject. There are some parts of the country,. New-England for instance, which we have no doubt would maintain their popular institutions in spite of that dreadful catastrophe. There are other parts of which, from some peculiarities in their situation, the destiny would be much more uncertain. But we have no reason to despair of any. The first, almost the only question in such matters is, are the people prepared for free institutions. It is the national character that is to be looked to when we talk of constitutions-it is the national history that is to regulate our conjectures about the future. Now we must remind Captain Hall, that our experience on this subject is exactly as great, that is to say, the very same as that of England. We both date from the Petition of Right, two hundred years ago. The parent country never knew the placidam sub libertate quietem, until she got rid of the Stuarts. Her history, until 1688, full as it is of high and heroical examples of patriotism and devotion to the great cause, is very far from encouraging. On this side of the Atlantic, the love of liberty is unsophisticated and virginal. The children of the Puritan and the Huguenot have never ceased to breathe the spirit which animated the first Pilgrims-the spirit of Naseby and Marston * Madame du Deffand. + See Captain Hall's speculations at the end of the second volume. Moor, of Montcontour and of Ivry. The only attempt that was ever made to exercise an unconstitutional power over us, we resisted with a seven years' war, and resisted successfully. Let it be remembered what was the character of that conquest; one, not of desperate necessity or excited passion, but of pure, in one sense, almost, of speculative principle-let it be further considered, that after that Revolution, as it is called, no violent innovations, no popular commotions of any kind occurred; and, that when at length it was felt to be necessary to reorganize the system of confederation, it was done with a gravity, a deliberation, a critical examination, a comprehensive discussion of the exigencies of the times and the situation, all indicating precisely that frame of mind which best fits men for the enjoyment and the defence of rational liberty, and we think it will be confessed (though God forbid we should ever have to make the experiment) that the republican institutions of the States, would not necessarily perish even with the present general government. We need not add, however, that nothing can possibly endanger the latter, but such a degree of infatuation in our rulers, as shall make them altogether lose sight of the just and moderate principles, and the hearty and generous sympathies, the truly brotherly love in which it had its origin. We have seen that Captain Hall imputes to the form of government, everything which seems to go amiss in the country, while he gives it no credit for any of the blessings we enjoy. He professes to have discovered the cause of all the evils that afflict us. It is, that a degenerate people have made a pure democracy of what was designed by its founders to be a wellbalanced republic. His reasoning upon this subject, is sufficiently ingenious, but it has a fatal defect—no very uncommon one, to be sure, among over-zealous disputants-viz. that it is all a petitio principii. He represents the delegate, whether in Congress or the State Legislature, as the mere agent of his constituents, acting under perpetual surveillance and constraint,without any free-will of his own, and consequently, without any sense either of dignity or responsibility. This notion of Captain Hall's, we undertake to say, is quite erroneous. It is most true, that through the frequency of elections, the people exercise a greater controul over their representatives here, than they do in any part of Great-Britain, and so much the better. But they allow much more discretion to their public servants, and are much more under their influence than a stranger would be apt to imagine. It is not true, that the right of instruction is universally admitted here. On the contrary, we believe cy that there is no honest man in the country-none who is sure of a place in the national or state councils-who would not blush at the idea of compromising with his conscience or his principles upon the plea of compliance with the will of his constituents. During the many discussions which arose in Congress, in relation to the election of Mr. Adams, those of the (then) opposition, who denounced it upon the ground that the will of the people had been despised and set at nought, expressly distinguished the case of the presidential election from the ordinary duties of legislation. We were among those whose wishes in that contest could not blind them to the fallaof this notion, supported as it was by some of our ablest statesmen. We have ever regarded the argument of Mr. McLane, of Delaware, in reply to a gentleman, whose talents are justly the pride of this State, as entirely conclusive, even upon that part of the subject. But none but the most miserable of party tools, would submit in practice, to the principle, carried as far as some wild theorists among us have sometimes been disposed to push it. The true distinction is a very simple one. Before an election, the people have a right to know, if they desire it, all the opinions of a candidate in reference to public matters. Any thing like concealment or evasion in a candidate under such circumstances, would be dolus malus-a fraud upon the rights of the electors. But in all cases whatsoever, where the representative stands uncommitted at the time of his election, (and he will take care to be so in all difficult questions) or we will add, where he has good reason to believe, that subsequent circumstances would have induced a change in popular opinion, he is under the most solemn obligation to follow the dictates of his own judgment. Any other doctrine would undoubtedly produce all the evils which Captain Hall has so ably pointed out. It would make a debate in Congress the most solemn, and the stupidest farce that was ever enacted by mountebanks for the amusement a gaping and ignorant multitude. It would convert our republic not into a democracy exactly, but into something, perhaps, in one respect, at least, nearly as bad, if not worse, inasmuch, as the interest and local prejudices which would govern everything, would be far more incorrigible than if the whole people could be gathered together in one vast champ de Mars, and addressed fairly by able men of the opposite sides. We should have greater hopes of repealing the tariff, if the voice of the South-the voice of reason pleading eloquently, because with the deep earnestness of a wronged and suffering people-could be heard by the misguided yeomanry of New-England and New-York, |
