been occasional departures or violations, and always disastrous, as in the case of Poland; but in general the harmony of the system has been wonderfully preserved. In the production and preservation of this sense of justice, this predominating principle, the Christian Religion has acted a main part. Christianity and civilization have labored together: it seems, indeed, to be a law of our human condition that they can live and flourish only together. From their blended influence has arisen that delightful spectacle of the prevalence of reason and principle over power and interest, so well described by one who was an honor to the age:

"And sovereign Law-the world's collected will,

O'er thrones and globes elate,

Sits empress-crowning good--repressing ill,

Smit by her sacred frown,

The fiend discretion, like a vapor sinks,

And e'en the all-dazzling crown

Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks."

LIBERALITY OF THE AGE.

I take it for granted that the policy of this country, springing from the nature of our government and the spirit of all our institutions, is, so far as it respects the interesting questions which agitate the present age, on the side of liberal and enlightened sentiments. The age is extraordinary; the spirit that actuates it is peculiar and marked; and our own relation to the times we live in, and to the questions which interest them, is equally marked and peculiar. We are placed by our good for. tune, and the wisdom and valor of our ancestors, in à condition in which we can act no obscure part. Be it for honor, or be it for dishonor, whatever we do is not

likely to escape the observation of the world. As one of the free states among the nations, as a great and rapidly rising Republic, it would be impossible for us, if we were so disposed, to prevent our principles, our sentiments, and our example, from producing some effect upon. the opinions and hopes of society throughout the civilized world. It rests, probably, with ourselves to determine whether the influence of these shall be salutary or pernicious.

THE POLICY OF PEACE.

It is certainly true that the just policy of this country is, in the first place, a peaceful policy. No nation ever had less to expect from forcible aggrandizement. The mighty agents which are working out our greatness, are time, industry, and the arts. Our augmentation is by growth, not by acquisition; by internal development, not by external accession. No schemes can be suggested to us so magnificent as the prospects which a sober contemplation of our own condition, unaided by projects, uninfluenced by ambition, fairly spreads before us. A country of such vast extent, with such varieties of soil and climate; with so much public spirit and private enterprise; with a population increasing so much beyond former examples; with capacities of improvement not only unapplied or unexhausted, but even in a great measure as yet unexplored; so free in its institu. tions, so mild in its laws, so secure in the title it confers on every man to his own acquisitions, needs nothing but time and peace to carry it forward to almost any point of advancement.

DEFENCE OF PRINCIPLE.

The senate regarded this interposition as an encroach. ment by the executive on other branches of government; as an interference with the legislative disposition of the public treasure. It was strongly and forcibly urged by the honorable member from South Carolina that the true and only mode of preserving any balance of power, in mixed governments, is to keep an exact balance. This is very true: and to this end, encroachment must be resisted at the first step. The question is, therefore, whether, upon the true principles of the constitution, this exercise of power by the President can be justified. Whether the consequences be prejudicial or not, if there be an illegal exercise of power, it is to be résisted in the proper manner; even if no harm or inconvenience result from transgressing the boundary, the intrusion is not to be suffered to pass unnoticed. Every encroachment, great or small, is important enough to awaken the attention of those who are entrusted with the preservation of a constitutional government. We are not to wait till great public mischiefs come, till the government is overthrown, or liberty itself put in extreme jeopardy. We should not be worthy sons of our fathers were we so to regard great questions affecting the general freedom. Those fathers accomplished the revolution on a strict question of principle. The parliament of Great Britain asserted a right to tax the colonies in all cases whatsoever; and it was precisely on this question that they made the revolution turn. The amount of taxation was trifling; but the claim itself was inconsistent with liberty; and that was, in their eyes, enough. It was against the recital of an act of parliament, rather than against

any suffering under the enactments, that they took up arms. They went to war against a preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration. They poured out their treasures and their blood, like water, in a contest, in opposition to an assertion, which those less sa. gacious and not so well schooled in the principles of civil liberty, would have regarded as barren phraseology or mere parade of words. They saw, in the claim of the British Parliament, a seminal principle of mischief, the germ of unjust power; they detected it, dragged it forth from underneath its plausible disguises, struck at it; nor did it elude either their steady eye or their well-directed blow till they had extirpated and destroyed it to the smallest fibre. On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to be compared; a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.

SPIRIT OF LIBERTY..

The first object of a free people is, the preservation of their liberty; and liberty is only to be preserved by maintaining constitutional restraints and just divisions of political power. Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest, limited monarchies: but all republics, all gov

ernments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority, and give many positive and many qualified rights. In other words, they must be subject to rule and regulation. This is the very essence of free political institutions. The spirit of liberty is indeed a bold and fearless spirit, but it is also a sharpsighted spirit; it is a cautious, sagacious, discriminating, far-seeing intelligence; it is jealous of encroachment, jealous of power, jealous of man. It demands checks, it seeks for guards, it insists on securities; it entrenches itself behind strong defences, and fortifies with all possible care against the assaults of ambition and passion. It does not trust the amiable weaknesses of human nature, and therefore it will not permit power to overstep its prescribed limits, though benevolence, good intent, and patriotic purpose come along with it. Neither does it satisfy itself with flashy and temporary resistance to illegal authority. Far otherwise, it seeks for duration and permanence. It looks before and after; and, build. ing on the experience of ages which are past, it labors diligently for the benefit of ages to come. This is the nature of constitutional liberty, and this is our liberty if we will rightly understand and preserve it. Every free government is necessarily complicated, because all such governments establish restraints, as well on the power of government itself as on that of individuals. If we will abolish the distinction of branches, and have but one branch; if we will abolish jury trials, and leave all to the judge; if we will then ordain that the legislator shall himself be the judge; and if we will place the executive power in the same hands, we may readily simplify government-we may easily bring it to the simplest