two per cent. a month, contrary to law; and then he will tell you that paying a debt is a matter of law, while letting money is only a matter of conscience. So he rides either indifferently now the public hack, and now his own private nag, according as it serves his turn.

So a rich state borrows money and "repudiates" the debt, satisfying its political conscience, as the bankrupt his commercial conscience, with the notion that there is no Absolute Right; that Expediency is the only Justice, and that King People can do no wrong. No calm voice of indignation cries out from the pulpit and the press and the heart of the people, to shame the repudiators into decent morals-because it is not settled in the popular mind that there is any Absolute Right. Then because we are strong and the Mexicans weak, because we want their land for a slave-pasture and they can not keep us out of it, we think that is reason enough for waging an infamous war of plunder. Grave men do not ask about "the natural justice" of such an undertaking, only about its cost. Have we not seen an American Congress vote a plain lie, with only sixteen dissenting voices in the whole body; has not the head of the nation continually repeated that lie, and do not both parties, even at this day, sustain the vote?

Now and then there rises up an honest man, with a great Christian heart in his bosom, and sets free a score or two of slaves inherited from his father; watches over and tends them in their new-found freedom: or another, who, when legally released from payment of his debts, restores the uttermost farthing. We talk of this and praise it, as an extraordinary thing. Indeed it is so; Justice is an unusual thing, and such men deserve the honor they thus win. But such praise shows that such honesty is a rare honesty. The northern man, born on the battle-ground of freedom, goes to the south and becomes the most tyrannical of slave-drivers. The son of the Puritan, bred up in austere ways, is sent to Congress to stand up for Truth and Right, but he turns out a "doughface," and betrays the Duty he went to serve. Yet he does not lose his place, for every doughfaced representative has a doughfaced constituency to back him.

It is a great mischief that comes from lacking First Principles, and the worst part of it comes from lacking first principles in Morals. Thereby our eyes are holden so that we see not the great social evils all about us. We attempt to justify Slavery, even to do it in the name of Jesus Christ. The Whig

party of the North loves Slavery; the Democratic party does not even seek to conceal its affection therefor. A great politician declares the Mexican war wicked, and then urges men to go and fight it; he thinks a famous general not fit to be nominated for President, but then invites men to elect him. Politics are national morals, the morals of Thomas and Jeremiah, multiplied by millions. But it is not decided yet that Honesty is the best Policy for a politician; it is thought that the Best Policy is honesty, at least as near it as the times will allow. Many politicians seem undecided how to turn, and so sit on the fence between Honesty and Dishonesty. Mr. Facingboth-Ways is a popular politician in America just now, sitting on the fence between Honesty and Dishonesty, and, like the blank leaf between the Old and New Testaments, belonging to neither dispensation. It is a little amusing to a trifler to hear a man's fitness for the Presidency defended on the ground that he has no definite convictions or ideas!

There was once a man who said he always told a lie when it would serve his special turn. 'Tis a pity he went to his own place long ago. He seemed born for a party politician in America. He would have had a large party, for he made a great many converts before he died, and left a numerous kindred busy in the editing of newspapers, writing addresses for the people, and passing "resolutions."

It must strike a stranger as a little odd that a republic should have a slave-holder for President five sixths of the time, and most of the important offices be monopolized by other slave-holders a little surprising that all the pulpits and most of the presses should be in favor of Slavery, at least not against it. But such is the fact. Every body knows the character of the American government for some years past, and of the American parties in politics. "Like master, like man," used to be a true proverb in old England, and Like people, like ruler, is a true proverb in America-true now. Did a decided people ever choose doughfaces; a people that loved God and man choose representatives that cared for neither Truth nor Justice? Now and then, for dust gets in the brightest eyes; but did they ever choose such men continually? The people are always fairly represented; our representatives do actually re-present us, and in more senses than they are paid for. Congress and the Cabinet are only two thermometers hung up in the capital, to show the temperature of the national morals.

So it

But amid this general uncertainty there are two capital maxims which prevail amongst our hucksters of Politics To love your party better than your country, and Yourself better than your party. There are, it is true, real statesmen amongst us, men who love Justice and do the Right, but they seem lost in the mob of vulgar politicians and the dust of party editors. Since the nation loves Freedom above all things, the name Democracy is a favorite name. No party could live a twelvemonth that should declare itself anti-democratic. sinner, statesman and politician, alike love the name. comes to pass that there are two things which bear that name; each has its type and its motto. The motto of one is, "You are as good as I, and let us help one another." That represents the Democracy of the Declaration of Independence, and of the New Testament; its type is a Free School, where children of all ranks meet under the guidance of intelligent and Christian men, to be educated in mind, and heart, and soul. The other has for its motto, "I am as good as you, so get out of my way." Its type is the Bar-room of a tavern-dirty, offensive, stained with tobacco, and full of drunken, noisy, quarrelsome" rowdies," just returned from the Mexican war, and ready for a "Buffalo Hunt," for privateering, or to go and plunder any one who is better off than themselves, especially if also better. That is not exactly the Democracy of the Declaration, or of the New Testament; but of- no matter whom.

Then, again, there is a great Intensity of Life and Purpose. This displays itself in our actions and speeches; in our speculations; in the "revivals" of the more serious sects; in the excitements of trade; in the general character of the people. All that we do we overdo. It appears in our Hopefulness; we are the most aspiring of nations. Not content with half the continent, we wish the other half. We have this characteristic of genius: we are dissatisfied with all that we have done. Somebody once said we were too vain to be proud. It is not wholly so; the national ideal is so far above us that any achievement seems little and low. The American soul passes away from its work soon as it is finished. So the soul of each great artist refuses to dwell in his finished work, for that seems little to his dream. Our Fathers deemed the Revolution a great work; it was once thought a surprising thing to found that little colony on the shores of New England; but 2

NO. V.

Young America looks to other Revolutions, and thinks she has many a Plymouth colony in her bosom. If other nations wonder at our achievements, we are a disappointment to ourselves, and wonder we have not done more. Our national Idea out-travels our experience, and all experience. We began our national career by setting all history at defiance — for that said, "A Republic on a large scale cannot exist." Our progress since has shown that we were right in refusing to be limited by the Past. The political ideas of the nation are transcendent, not empirical. Human history could not justify the Declaration of Independence and its large statements of the new Idea: the nation went behind human history, and appealed to Human Nature.

We are more spontaneous than logical; we have ideas, rather than facts or precedents. We dream more than we remember, and so have many orators and poets, (or poetasters,) with but few antiquaries and general scholars. We are not so reflective as forecasting. We are the most intuitive of modern nations. The very party in politics which has the least culture, is richest in Ideas which will one day become facts. Great truths-political, philosophical, religious — lie a-burning in many a young heart which cannot legitimate nor prove them true, but none the less feels, and feels them true. A man full of new truths finds a ready audience with us. Many things which come disguised as truths under such cir cumstances pass current for a time, but by and by their bray discovers them. The Hope which comes from this intensity of life and intuition of truths is a national characteristic. It gives courage, enterprise, and strength. They can who think they can. We are confident in our star; other nations may see it or not, we know it is there above the clouds. We do not hesitate at rash experiments - sending fifty thousand soldiers to conquer a nation with eight or nine millions of people. We are up to every thing and think ourselves a match for any thing. The young man is rash, for he only hopes, having little to remember; he is excitable and loves excitement; change of work is his repose; he is hot and noisy, sanguine and fearless, with the courage that comes from warm blood and ignorance of dangers; he does not know what a hard, tough, sour, old world he is born into. We are a nation of young We talked of annexing Texas and northern Mexico, and did both; now we grasp at Cuba, Central America, all the continent, and speak of a Railroad to the Pacific as

men.

a trifle for us to accomplish. Our national deeds are certainly great, but our hope and promise far outbrags them all.

If this intensity of life and hope have its good side, it has also its evil; with much of the excellence of youth we have its faults rashness, haste, and superficiality. Our work is seldom well done. In English manufactures there is a certain solid honesty of performance; in the French a certain air of elegance and refinement: one misses both these in American works. It is said America invents the most machines, but England builds them best. We lack the phleg matic patience of older nations. We are always in a hurry, morning, noon, and night. We are impatient of the process, but greedy of the result; so we make short experiments but long reports, and talk much though we say little. We forget that a sober method is a short way of coming to the end, and that he who, before he sets out, ascertains where he is going and the way thither, ends his journey more prosperously than one who settles these matters by the way. Quickness is a great desideratum with us. It is said an American ship is known far off at sea by the quantity of canvas she carries. Rough and ready is a popular attribute. Quick and off would be a symbolic motto for the nation at this day, representing one phase of our character. We are sudden in deliberation; the "one-hour rule" works well in Congress. A committee of the British Parliament spends twice or thrice our time in collecting facts, understanding and making them intelligible, but less than our time in speech-making after the report; speeches there commonly being for the purpose of facilitating the business, while here one sometimes is half ready to think, notwithstanding our earnestness, that the business is to facilitate the speaking. A state revises her statutes with a rapidity that astonishes a European. Yet each revision brings some amendment, and what is found good in the constitution or laws of one state gets speedily imitated by the rest, each new state (of the North) becoming more democratic than its predecessor. We are so intent on our purpose that we have no time for amusement. We have but one or two festivals in the year, and even then we are serious and reformatory. Jonathan thinks it a very solemn thing to be merry. A Frenchman said we have but two amusements in America - Theology for the women and Politics for the men; preaching and voting. If this be true it may help to explain the fact that most men take their theology from their wives, and women politics from