interest. A large portion of our political men, having been educated as lawyers, have been too busy in early life to study with proper care even the Administration and Constitution of the country. They have possessed generally comparatively little property, dependent on the systems of policy pursued, and have been accustomed to take all sides on all questions, and to find no decisions too positive for their courage or their ingenuity. Charged with the orders of some party, these political condottieri, whose sole accomplishment consists in a certain skill in the weapons of debate, and whose origin is as diverse and as little to be judged of from the service they are in, as that of those celebrated soldiers of fortune, rush into the precincts of the Constitution as if it was a new and unexplored territory, and as much a field for discovery, as if the records of the judiciary and the legislature and the annals of our history were a perfect blank. To men like these the Constitution is not what it is, but what it should have been according to their notions. They make no distinction between the Constitution and the decisions of the Supreme Court, or the dicta of a favorite leader,-the manifesto of a party convention, or the acts of a single national or State legislature. All are equally authoritative for them, equally sacred as materials for argument; nay, it would seem that everything was binding and irrevocable in their eyes, except the Constitution and the decision of the Supreme Court.

To make the Supreme Court the judge of the constitutionality of every act of Congress, however that question may present itself, would, it seems to me, be more effectual than any single thing to counteract this mortifying, this disheartening aberration in the spirit of our institutions, and to introduce some form and order, some hierarchy and system, into this jumbled and confused chaos of opinions, laws, dicta, abstractions, and compromises. The very idea of being interrogated and judged by this august tribunal would check the extravagancies of party, and save us the mortification and the bad example of seeing some of our most distinguished men, in the highest stations, rush madly from their spheres to be

come the leaders of revolt, and the advocates of the most absurd heresies. Instead of beholding the Constitution, which was intended as a mere frame-work, dismantled as fast as it is fitted up, and not only stripped of what has been added to fill out the original design, and complete the harmony of its parts, all those appropriate adjustments which were necessary to furnish out this noble structure for use and habitation, — but so weakened in its essential parts as to be incapable of giving protection or security to any interests, or even of supporting its own weight; more dilapidated, more untenantable, more crazy than the confederation which preceded it; we should see it gradually completing itself by its own constructive instinct. Every addition made to our national system of constitutional legislation, joined, fitted, and secured by a strong, consistent, and beneficent judicial sanction, would give strength and harmony to the whole. Every day the sentiment of progress would displace that of disorganization and despair, which must now fill the mind of every man of reflection as he surveys the ruin in which he stands; and whatever of this fabric of government was complete we might inhabit with security, and avail ourselves of without misgivings.

But what reasonable hopes can we have of the progress, nay, of the stability of our government, when we hear a vote of the people cited by our chief magistrate as of more authority, in the interpretation of the Constitution, than the decisions of the Supreme Court? I recognise in the people the right to make, but not the right to interpret the Constitution. I acknowledge in them even the right of Revolution. I know that this right is the fundamental principle of our political science; that the sentence which embodies it is the first one in the text-book of our political religion. I know, that word is the word "that was in the beginning," and was, not to profane a sacred reading, the power omnipotent at the creation of our national existence. But the rights of Revolution, and even of making Constitutions, are powers which are only exerted on extraordinary occasions, and with great solemnity. The people will hesitate to change the Constitution at every

shifting of interest,

because they will be bound by it whenever interest shifts again. But as long as they can alter it by a mere change of interpretation, they do not hesitate to do so; for what they have voted to be unconstitutional to-day, they know they can, for a different purpose and with different interests, vote to be constitutional to-morrow, under a new party organization, and with a different device. A constitution, which can only be changed by a revolution, or by a formal and express change, is tolerably certain; but save us from the revolution of a popular gloss; save us from a constitution whose every-day working is revolution, and which makes a provision for its own perpetual stultification.

It may be thought perhaps, by those who have not reflected seriously upon this tendency of our institutions, that there is a great deal of exaggeration in all this. It is difficult, not to say impossible, to exaggerate the state of prostration in which the Constitution and the country now are; impossible for the most sombre imagination "to cast a browner horror o'er the shade” which hangs over the industry and the administration of this country. That instinct of disintegration, which loosens all the principles which connect the different parts of the social system together, that centrifugal bias which impels with a strong divergence states and individuals, and which perpetually counteracts the compulsive attraction of a mutual necessity, which inspires every man with a horror of everything, right or wrong, which has once been decided, and which carried out would leave him subject to no restraint, except the iron rod of the majority, (or whether of the whole country or a portion of it, which is omnipotent on the spot which he inhabits,) and free to act for himself in every particular of which that majority does not take cognizance, has again reduced the government and the country to a state of prostration and crisis, which forces upon us the most serious consideration of the causes and the remedy.

"La misére," as the French proverb has it, "fait naitre bien de reflexions,” moments of misery are very apt to be moments of leisure; and the fruits of such leisure are apt to be reflec

tions both salutary and bitter.

A moment uniting so com

pletely all the conditions of this species of fructification, misery, and leisure, and enough of both, has not occurred in this country since 1787. "The existing state of the country," said Mr. Clay, in his speech of the 21st of January, "presents very much the same aspect as the old Confederation with its weakness and imbecility." In 1787 the Convention were appealed to to prevent the fulfilment of the "prophecies of the American downfall." It is not a very desirable office to be the first to express (if it were possible, after this declaration. of Mr. Clay's) a sentiment of treason, — as it might be considered perhaps, to say that this second grand experiment of Republicanism is a total failure. This is a conclusion so mortifying, so discouraging, - even with the little patriotism, the little attachment which we have displayed for the institutions of 1787, that though it be in the hearts of many, - few can or will see it; and one might in expressing it, address the public as Cassius is imagined to have done Brutus in a case of real conspiracy.

"Therefore, good public, be prepared to hear,

And, since you cannot see yourself

So well as by reflection, I, your glass,
Will modestly discover to yourself

That of yourself which you yet know not of."

We have in fact advanced as far as it is possible to go, with a hope of return, to that state of dilapidation of the Constitution, of which I have already ventured to predict the possibility, in which the people would be ready to throw it away, as unfit for the purpose for which it is contrived, and good for nothing, except to produce confusion and dissension; and there are already many who, like our forefathers in the last century, are so

that they would prefer to try some new governmental experiment, rather than to adhere to the present,

"Under such hard conditions as this time

Is like to lay upon us."

48

Whether it has failed or not, as respects ourselves, the grand experiment has certainly failed as respects foreign nations, and in producing that edifying effect which was anticipated upon the cause of liberty. If they thought the Confedera tion a failure, and were ready "to prophecy the American downfall" then, I see no reason why they should anticipate anything better now that we have made with a better Consti tution, and in a second experiment reduced ourselves to th same helpless and desperate condition. The Atlantic bea across its waters, from its western shore, the same tale of d tress, the same complaints of a bankrupt treasury, commer and industry unprotected, destruction of the public credit, nihilation of the currency, dissensions between States, war, and an audible cry of disunion.

"Quivi sospiri pianti, ed alti guai
Resonavan per l'aere senza stelle
Deverse lingue, oribille favelle

Paroli di dolore accenti d' ira

Voci alti e fiocchi e suon di man con elle,"

and the conclusion, which they suggest to the transat spectator, may very likely be not inaccurately express the exclamation with which the poet, in the Inferno, duces his disciple to the scene of those sounds, of whi have borrowed his description, to express those whic pervade our unfortunate country.

"Noi sem venuti al luogo ov' io t'ho detto
Che vedrai le genti dolorose

Ch' hanno perduto 'l ben dello 'ntellettro."

But as regards ourselves, I do not consider this exp a total failure. But it is only because I know that, w of energy and of fixed purpose, the failure of the first ment for a great object generally leads to the trying it with new elements and a new mode of treatment; be think that, but for that excessive confidence in our vention and resources, unaided by experi

this country, (of which we are likely