Puslapio vaizdai
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increased expenses. The next step was the demand of an advance of wages on the plea of a depreciated currency, which depreciated currency is nothing more than another name for an advance in prices, caused by an endeavour to force the community to pay as much for five sixths of the mechanical labour of the country as they formerly paid for the whole. This is the power which the members of the Trades' Union contend is "guarantied to them by our constitution and by the glorious declaration which our fathers made," and which they consider it their "sacred and imperious duty to enforce at every peril and by every means." It is somewhat inconsistent, it is true, with our old notions of equal rights; but we are getting accustomed to new and strange constructions. In time we shall no doubt become learned in privilege and prerogative, and as humble citizens labouring to live, lay up, not our tithe, but our sixth, or if the Trades' Union require it, the half of our earnings, proud and happy to place it at the disposal of those who labour so hard to-"produce." We shall listen reverently in the public squares to Scotch harangues upon the rights of American tradesmen, or perhaps walk at humble distance in sight of some procession, headed by a Manchester philanthropist whose "fire-new stamp" of citizenship lacks yet four years and eleven months of the clerk's sign-manual, and whose compatriot myrmidons lour with indignation upon the unlucky native who in spite of inquisition and denunciation dares to interpose a day's work at an unauthorized price, between his children and starvation.

As at present advised, however, we protest against the introduction of such foreign commodities as Trades' Unions into the United States. They should be absolutely contraband, and the penalty of smuggling attached to their importation. They are the production of other soils, and are fostered under other influences. We have heard of countries in which "natural rights" seem all that existing institutions have left to the unfortunate victims of over-supply and a fluctuating market, -where manufacturing man vibrates, from his crib to his coffin, between oatmeal salted and oatmeal saltless-where political economists reckon him in the same category with a spinning-jenny, and ministers view him only with an eye to the poor-rates or the estimates for the home service. His straw, his rags, and his porridge, are computed to "the tenth part of a hair." Such a man's right of rebellion can be contravened by no law save that of the strongest. He is an outlaw with the caput lupinum, gaunt and grisly, on his shoulders. The society in which he lives has found or made him a sacrifice to the pride and ambition of its rulers; to the grasping spirit of conquest and the vain magnificence of the crown and the

hierarchy. Why should he endure it through a life of slavery, like the Elæan misanthrope, feeding upon his own vitals? Penury and despair are not bound to ask questions of casuistry.

But what has all this oppression or the remedy for it to do with America? The very person above alluded to, if chance or charity give him ferriage across the Atlantic, ascends almost at once from his servitude and squalor to the freedom of the republic and the rights of a citizen. His iron chain is broken, and centuries in this limitless and productive country cannot replace it. He is the adopted child of the laws-let him forget his old grievances and unlearn his old remedies. We did not inflict the one-we will not tolerate the other. If he, and those who have imbibed his doctrines, may combine for one illegal purpose, they may do so for another; if they may regulate the price of labour, they may enact a sumptuary law; if they may dictate opinions they may interfere with practice. At present they are content to place their mark upon a refractory workman or an independent employer-to dog the steps of the one, or plant a sentry at the door of the other. Anon will appear more potent sanctions and more effective penalties. Nous ne sommes encore qu'au premier pas. The price of disobedience may be blood as well as money. No free man, with a just sense of his own rights, will long submit to a conclave whose decrees are founded on denunciation and secret accusation— no community can tolerate such a society in its bosom. not only anti-republican but anti-social.

There is neither hope nor security for a popular government if the sovereignty of the laws be not enforced. It is possible for a time, in a monarchy, to keep society together by means of motives derived from fear or favour, notwithstanding an apparent infraction of compact or enactment. Disorder has no such remedy in a republic, because the impulse is all in one direction. There the recorded expression of the general will should never be allowed, for an instant, to bend before partial influences or local passions; or if inevitably it yields for a time, its first employment should be, on gathering up its energies, to execute its penalties. Else it is a contemptible effigy, no matter how terribly it affects to frown in brass or parchment. The sooner the issue between law and license is made up and settled, the better. for all parties and on all accounts, because the sooner will men know how to provide against future contingencies, or to submit to absolute and overwhelming necessity. If we are to be exposed to the inroads of unprincipled radicalism, the earlier the orderly begin to bury their possessions and fortify their homes, the more harmless will be the struggle. If, on the contrary, as we glory in believing, there is a principle of cohesion in modern society (the clear and great result of much experience, many sacrifices,

and advancing knowledge,) which will preserve us from the dominion of the sensual and the dark," the selfish and the ignorant, then for the sake of those whom their designs may mislead, we also pray that the contest to be short may be soon. "The cankers of a calm world and a long peace," are but beginning to infest us-idleness and discontent, the satellites of political agitation, are yet seen only in the distance-the balance and the bandage are still in their places, and Justice has another implement, should an effort be necessary to keep them there. It is better in her hands than in those to which she has been sometimes forced to resign it in the turmoil of civil commotion; "Gladii cum triste minantes

Judicium insolita trepidum cinxere corona."

The great warrant for the security of American institutions, must ever be found in the inviolability of property. The day has gone by when life or liberty were in peril from perverted law or arbitrary will. There is a habeas corpus even now around almost every sceptre in Christendom. The hereditary hangman rejoices in a holiday. Here at home we have happily never felt the want of the one, or the presence of the other. The progress of civilization and knowledge has made it impossible that we ever can. But it is not to special enactments, the mere ink and paper of the statute-book, that we look for the protection of private possessions; with only such guarantees they would be respected but until the moment when some stirring appeal or temporary emergency made it expedient to invade themneedful or not, the first storm would produce a jettison. But property here is sacred, because it is the interest of the many that it should be so; every man has a stake in the hedge. He is rich in posse if not in esse. His very social position makes him a conservative. If he has not large possessions to guard, he has the capacity of accumulation in a country where a pair of hands are the basis of many a fortune. Appeals therefore to the poor against the rich are absolutely ridiculous in the United States. A few loose and disorderly spirits in the large towns are all that can be influenced by them. An industrious man will carve out a competency for himself, sooner than an agrarian society can cut up and divide a county, particularly if the surveyor's stakes are to be bayonets. Let those therefore who would attempt to excite a war upon property remember what they have to oppose, and that it is not only the wealth of the rich, but the energy of the enterprising, and the activity of the industrious, that they must meet and overcome-not merely the ostensible array of the community, but the landwehre, the potentialities which lie behind it; those men whose labour places a roof over their heads, a chicken in their pot, and yearly

adds a field to their farm. Such persons have no time to speculate on "natural rights" and no inclination to appeal to natural law. Society encourages and protects them, they therefore have no quarrel with society. Oppressed they feel they are not, for they govern themselves. Degraded they know they are not, for they are men and citizens, pares inter pares. Their liberty is absolute, provided they respect private rights and the public peace. They owe nothing to clemency, nothing to magnanimity, nothing to generosity, for justice and law know no such attributes. They may be deceived for a time, but they cannot be drawn or driven into long-continued or excessive wrong. Their moral instincts are not deadened by brutifying tasks, or their cupidity quickened by the sight of luxury they can never reach. They look forward towards hope, instead of backwards on despair. Their inheritance is not a life of toil and a pauper's obsequies, but the fruits of industry protected by freedom; competence on the one side and contentment on the other.

"Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini:

Hanc Remus et frater: sic fortis Etruria crevit:
Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma,
Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces."

What have such men in such a country to do with revolution, or the cant of political mountebanks, who would insensibly lead them to it? Thank heaven, the majority, the large and overwhelming majority of our countrymen, practically understand as well as we can tell them, that their hopes and those of their children are only secure, so long as they retain THE

RIGHT FREELY TO ACQUIRE AND UNINTERRUPTEDLY TO ENJOY PROPERTY.

ART. VII.-Rienzi, The Last of the Tribunes. By the author of “Eugene Aram,” “Last Days of Pompeii," &c. Philada. 1836.

Novels, in these days of book-making and book-reading, have become a very important branch of literature. In the hands of genius they are the convenient vehicles for every variety of thought and speculation. Like plays, they are pictures of human action under the influence of different motives and passions; but their form admits of greater variety, of fuller expression, and of more general application. Their delineations are more graphic and complete. In the drama we have only the dialogue the characters speak, we read their language and must imagine the rest. In the novel we have not only the dialogue, but a vivid description of faces and forms, of manners,

costume, and scenery. The drama resembles the naked statue, simple, beautiful, and white; the novel, the breathing canvass, on which we behold the scene with all its accompaniments; the wide landscape-the expressive group the characteristic dress-the glowing colours.

It is much easier to write a successful novel than a good play. To produce the latter, requires the greatest effort of the highest powers of the human mind. It is a proof of creative genius of the noblest order, for the persons of the drama reveal themselves to us as individuals do, by what they say and what they perform. The characters must first be conceived, and the conception must be explained and made apparent, not by description, but by throwing the ideal being into the world, placing him in relation to others, and making him and them speak and act in harmony with the qualities which they are supposed to possess, and in accordance with the truth of nature. Thus to form imaginary creatures, in which the elements of humanity shall be mingled in just proportion, without incongruity, and without deficiency; to arrange their relations and their mode of acting each on the other, and simply by means of the dialogue, in a few pages, which may be read in an hour, to develope a whole world of passion, thought, feeling, and character, is a triumph of genius which has indeed been rarely achieved, but which, when achieved, commands the homage and influences the minds of men for ever.

The great object of the novelist should be the delineation of character, and human passions and motives, as influenced by circumstances and the various relations of life. In producing this, the more nearly he approaches the dramatic form, the greater will be the truth and force of his picture. In addition, he has a wide field in which to expatiate. The diversified modes of human existence are before him. He He may describe the beauties of nature, the triumphs of art, and the energy of action, with all its imposing accompaniments, and in all its varied scenes. He may describe faces and forms, costume and manners, and indulge all the impulses of his imagination in the creation of ideal beauty. As the science of morals is the science of human action, with its motives and results, the incidents and characters of the story afford him, also, constant opportunities for philosophic speculation, and he may naturally and appropriately mingle with the exciting narrative, abstract truth and profound reflection; he may enforce the lesson which the events he describes are calculated to convey; explain the cause whilst he displays the effect, and combine the precepts of wisdom and the dictates of experience with the brilliant illustrations of poetry and the glowing language of passion.

Whilst the highest merit of the novel consists in the just

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