hundred years, the brilliant discovery of General Butler, announced that the depreciation of the paper money was a tax levied with great impartiality on the successive holders of it. Of course, this argument assumed that the bills were either not to be paid at all or at a very great reduction from their nominal value. All parties, and nearly all prominent men, finally agreed, however, that the paper currency had produced incalculable extravagance, corruption, confusion, and waste. We have not space to more than allude to the very interesting account given by Professor Bolles of the organization of the Board of Treasury, and the subsequent administration of Gouverneur Morris as Superintendent of Finance. The latter establishes the reputation of Mr. Morris, even more firmly than it before rested, on the solid basis of great services and achievements in a most trying position. EDWARD CARY. Volume 129 of the North American Review, NOW READY, COMPLETE. CONTENTS. Our Success at Paris in 1878. RICHARD C. MCCORMICK. The Revolution in Russia. A RUSSIAN NIHILIST. The Public Schools of England. Part II. THOMAS HUGHES. The True Story of the Wallowa Campaign. General O. O. HOWARD. The Education of Freedmen. Part II. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. Recent Essays. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. AUGUST. The Work and Mission of my Life. Part I. RICHARD WAGNER. Garrison. WENDELL PHILLIPS. The Power of Dissolution. EDWARD A. FREEMAN. The Founder of the Khedivate. The late JOHN L. STEPHENS. The Future of Resumption. AN OLD FINANCIER. Recent Works on Ancient History and Philology. JOHN FISKE. SEPTEMBER. The Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne. ANTHONY TROLLOPE. The Standard of Value. Professor SIMON NEWCOMB. The Work and Mission of my Life. Part II. RICHARD WAGNER. Confession of an Agnostic. AN AGNOSTIC. Intrigues at the Paris Canal Congress. A. G. MENOCAL. OCTOBER. The Woman Question. FRANCIS PARKMAN. Science and Humanity. FREDERIC HARRISON. Louis Napoleon and the Southern Confederacy. OWEN F. ALDIS. The Diary of a Public Man. Part III. Spencer's Evolution Philosophy. Professor E. L. YOUMANS. Recent History and Biography. A. K. FISKE. NOVEMBER. The Other Side of the Woman Question. JULIA WARD HOWE, THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON, LUCY STONE, ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, WENDELL PHILLIPS. Malthusianism, Darwinism, and Pessimism. Professor FRANCIS BOWEN. A Page of Political Correspondence: Stanton to Buchanan. The Diary of a Public Man. Part IV. Tariff Reactions. Professor ARTHUR L. PERRY. Some Recent Works of Fiction. EDWARD EGGLESTON. DECEMBER. Romanism and the Irish Race in the United States. Part L JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. Young Men in Politics. GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. The Religion of To-day. Is Political Economy a Science ? Professor BONAMY PRICE. English and American Physique. GEORGE M. BEARD, M. D. The Permanence of Political Forces. Part I. CUTHBERT MILLS. Recent Literature. JOHN R. G. HASSARD. Price, unbound, $2.50; bound in cloth, $3.50; in half morocco, $4.00. Sent by mail on receipt of price. Address THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, New York. NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CCLXXXII. MAY, 1880. GENERAL GRANT AND STRONG GOVERNMENT. I EXPECTED to write for this number of the "Review " an essay on "Strong Government," to show the calamitous evils it has brought on other countries, and to point out the dangers with which our own is threatened by its stealthy approaches. And herein I would have tried to make plain the principle of State rights, the solemnity of the compact by which those rights were reserved, the dishonesty (not the error) of the interpretation which denies them, and the duty of maintaining them as the sheet-anchor of individual liberty. But Mr. Boutwell turns me aside, or rather puts me back, by a new defense of the third term, which, upon the prudent principle of obsta principiis, the friends of free government must settle first of all; for this third-term innovation is to arbitrary power what a rat-hole in a Dutch dike is to the surging waters of the ocean: if not stopped up, it must become a huge crevasse, submerging all the land. I do not complain of Mr. Boutwell's article. He had a right to interject his antagonism, and he is an opponent not to be ignored. He is (or has been) a high-placed gentleman-Governor of Massachusetts, Representative in Congress, Senator of the United States, and Secretary of the Treasury. Besides, he is a man of authority in his faction, and trusted to do their polemics. When he speaks it is with a voice potential, as double as that of any leader among them; and, on certain points, his expressive silence reveals the deVOL. CXXX.-NO. 282. 28 signs of his associates as well as his own. Moreover, his article has some fragments of precious truth, which he has dropped along the path of his argument, apparently unconscious of their value. These I propose to gather up for the service of liberty and justice, to which all truth belongs. He admits that Washington and Jefferson were patriotic and far-sighted men, entitled to a veneration which will "survive the criticism of Judge Howe, and outlive the defense of Judge Black" (p. 372). The whole American Democracy will thank Mr. Boutwell for this unexpected and most liberal concession. The friends of free government in every land and clime throughout the earth will be rejoiced to learn that the Father of this Republic and his great coadjutor, the Apostle of Liberty, are acknowledged to be venerable even by a subverter of their work, a contemner of their great example, a most obstinate disbeliever in their teachings. I am placed individually under special obligations to Mr. Boutwell by his gracious permission to speak well of Washington and Jefferson without injuring them fatally in his estimation. When he agrees that the fame of those illustrious men may still live, notwithstanding my defense of them against the aspersions of Mr. Howe, he accords me a high privilege, and binds me to him "with cords of perdurable toughness." Mr. Boutwell gives us to understand (p. 371) that the character of Washington is not be attacked just now, because "his example is not the only remaining bulwark for the protection of our assailed and imperiled liberties. If this be so, then the reputation of Washington will need a more ardent defender" than I. There is some obscurity about this language, but the unavoidable inference from it seems to be that the projectors of a strong government” intend to break down all the other defenses of civil liberty first, and then, when nothing but the example of Washington shall be left for the people to rally upon, his reputation will be assaulted so ferociously that no ardor of defense can save it from destruction. Be it so. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." I shall be out of the way before that last struggle takes place, but I shall die in the belief that the great name of Washington will continue to be a bulwark of civil liberty, invincible forever. If the worst comes to the worst and we have no other shield, they who rush upon the thick bosses of that one will but dash themselves to pieces. Evidently Mr. Boutwell does not see the grandeur of Washington's character or the impregnable basis upon which it stands. The moral influ |