The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-25 00:00:00

Principle, but the forms prescribed by the Constitution. The
principle certainly a...sip,!-ns to the only body constituted by the
Constitution (the Legislative body), the power to make laws,
and the forms even direct 'that the enactment should be ascribed
to them. The Senate, in relation to revenue bills, have the
right. to propose amendinents .; and so has the Executive, by
this power given him to return them to the House of Repre-
sentatives, with his objections. It is in his power also, to pro-
pose amendments in the existing revenue laws, suggested by
his observations upon their defective or injurious operation.
But the delicate duty of devising schemes of revenue should
he left where the Constitution has placed it—with the imme-
diate representatives of the people. For similar reasons, the
mode of keeping the public treasure should be prescribed by
them; and the farther removed it may be from the control of
the Executive, the more wholesome the arrangement, and more
in accordance with republican principle.
Connectel with this subject is the character of the currency.
The idea of making it exclusively metallic, however well in-
tended, appears to me to be fraught with more fatal conse-
quences than any other scheme, having no relation to the per-
sona! rights of the citizen, that has ever been devised. If any
single scheme could produce the effect of arresting, at once,
that mutation of condition by which thousands of our most in-
digent fellow-citizens, by their industry and enterprise, are
ratsed to the possession of wealth, that is the one. If there is
one measure better calculated than another to produce that
state of things so much deprecated by all true republicans, by
which the rich are daily adding to their hoards, and the poor
sinking deeper into penury, it is an exclusive metallic cur-
rency. Or if there is a process by which the character of the
country for generosity and nobleness of feeling may he destroyed
by the great increase and necessary to'erat.on of usury, it is an
exclusive metallic currency. _ _ _

Amongst the other duties of a delicate character which the
President is called upon to perform, is the supervision of the
Government of the territories of the United States. Those of
them which are destined to become members of our great poli-
tical family, are compensated by their rapid progress from in-
fancy to manhood, for the partial and temporary deprivation of
their political rights. It is in th;s district only, where Ameri-
can citizens are to be found, who, under a settled system of
policy, are deprived of many important political privileges,
without any inspiring hope as to the future. Their only con-
solation, under circumstances of such deprivation, is, that of
the devoted exterior guards of a camp—that their sufferings
secure tranquillity and safety within. Are there any of their
countrymen who would subject them to greater sacrifices, to
any other humiliations than those essentially necessary to the
security of the object for which they were thus separated from
their fellow-citizens? Are their rights alone not to be gua-
ranteed by the application of those great principles, upon which
alrour constitutions are founded? We are told by the greatest
of British orators and statesmen, that, at the commencement
of the war of the revolution, the most stupid men in England
spoke of " their American subjects." Are there, indeed, citi-
zens of any of our States who have. earned of their subjects in
the district of Colombia? .' Such dreams can never be realise.'
by any agency of mine..
The people of the district of Columbia are not the subjects
of the people of the States, but free American citizens.
Being in the latter condition when the Constitution was formed
no words used in that instrument could have been intended to
deprive them of that character. If there is anything in the
great principles of unalienable rights, so emphatically insisted
upon in our Declaration of Independence, they could neither
make, nor the United States accept, a surrender of their liber-
ties, and become the subjects, in other words, the slaves of
their former fellow-citizens. If this be true, and it will
scarcely be denied by any. one who has a correct idea of his own
rights as an American citizen, the grant to Congress of exclu-
sive jurisdiction in the district of Columbia, can be inter-
preted, so far as respects the aggregate people of the United
States, as meaning nothing more than to allow the Congress
the controlling power necessary to afford a free and safe exer-
cise of the functions assigned to the general Government by
the Constitution. In all other respects tile legislation of Con-
gress should be adapted to their peculiar position and wants,
and be confordable with their deliberate opinions of their own
interests.
_ _ .

I' have spoken of the necessity of keeping the respective
departments of the Government. as well as all the other autho-
rities of our country, within their appropriate orbits. This is
a matter of difficulty in some cases, as the powers which they
respectively claim are often not defined by very distinct lines.
Mischievous, however, in their tendencies, as collisions of this
kind may be, those which arise between the respective com-
munities, which for certain purposes compose one nation, are
much more so ; for no such nation can long exist without the
careful culture of those feelings of confidence and affection
which are the effective bonds of union between free and confe-
derated States. Strong as is the tie of interest, it has been often
found ineffectual. Men, blinded by their passions, have been
known to adopt measures for their country in direct opposition
to all the suggestions of policy. The alternative, then, is to
destroy or keep down a bad passion by creating and fostering
a good one ; and this seems to be the corner-stone upon which
our American political architects have reared the fabric of our
Government. The cement which was to bind it and perpe-
tuate its existence, was the affectionate attachment between all
its members.
To insure the continuance of this feeling, produced at
first by a community of dangers, of sufferings, and of in-
terests, the advantages of each were made accessible to all.
No participation in any good possessed by any member of an
extensive confederacy, except in domestic government, was
withheld from the citizens of any other member. By a pro-
cess attended with no difficulty, no delay, no expense, but that
of removal, the citizen of one might become the citizen of any
other, and successively of the whole. The lines, ton, sepa-
rating p. wers to be exercised by the citizens of one State from
those of another, seem to be so distinctly drawn as to leave no
room for misunderstanding. The citizens of each State unite
in their persons all the privileges which that character confers,
and all that they may claim as citizens of the United States;
but in no case can the same person, at the same time, act
as the citizen of two separate States, and he is therefore po-
sitively precluded frcm any interference with the reserved
powers of any State but that of which he is for the time being
a citizen. He may indeed offer to the citizens of other States
his advice as to their management, and the form in which it is
tendered is left to his own discretion and sense of propriety.
It may be observed, however, that organised associations of
citizens, requiring compliance with their wishes, too much re-
semble the recommendations of Athens to her allies—sup-
ported by an armed and powerful fleet. It was, indeed, to the
ambition of the leading states of Greece to control the do-
mestic concerns of the others, that the destruction of that cele-
brated Confederacy, and subsequently of all its members, is
mainly to be attributed. And it is owing to the absence
of that spirit that the Helvetic Confederacy has for so
many years been preserved. Never has there been seen in
the institutions of the separate members of any Confederacy
more elements of discord. In the principle and forms of govern-
ment and religion, as well as in the circumstances of the seve-
ral cantons, so marked a discrepancy was observable as to pro-
mise anything but harmony in their intercourses or permanency,
in their alliance. And yet for age: neither has been inter-
rupted. Content with the positive benefits which their union
produced, with the independence and safety from foreign ag-
gression which it secured, these sagacious people respected the
institutions of each other, however repugnant to their own
principles and prejudice.
Our confederacy, fellow-citizens, can only be preserved by
the same forbearance. Our citizens must be content with
the exercise of the powers with which the Consftution clothes
them. The attempt of those of one State to control the do-
mestic institutions of another, can only result in feelings of
distrust and jealousy, the certain harbingers of disunion, vio-
lence, civil w r, and the ultimate destruction of our free in-
stitutions. Our confederacy is perfectly illustrated by the
terms arid principles governing a common co-partnership.
There a fund of power is to be exercised under the direction
of the joint councils of the allied members, but, that which has
been reserved by the individual member is intangible by the
common Government or the individual members composing it.
To attempt it finds no support in the principles of our Con-
stitution. It should be our constant and earnest endeavour mu-
tually to cultivate a spirit of concord and harmony among the va-
rious parts of our confederacy. Experience has abundantly taught
us that the agitation by citizens of one part of the union of a
subject not confined to the general Government, but exclu-
sively under the guardianship of the local authorities, is pro-
ductive of no other consequences than bitterness, alienation,
discord, and injury to the very cause which is intended
to be advanced. Of all the great interests which ap-
pertain to our country, that of union, cordial, confiding, fra-
ternal union, is by far the most important, since it is the only
true and sure guaranty of all others.
In consequence of the embarrassed state of business and the
currency, some of the States meet with difficulty in their
financial concerns. However deeply we may regret anything
imprwient or excessive in the engagements into which States
have entered for purposes of their own, it does not become
us to disparage the State Government, nor to discourage
them from making proper efforts for their own relief : on
the contrary, it is our duty to encourage them, to the extent
of our constitutional authority, to apply their best means, and
cheerfully to make all necessary burdens to fulfil their engarre-
ments and maintain their credit ; for the character and credit
of the several States form part of the character and credit of
the whole country: The resources of the country are abun-
dant—the en'erprise and activity of our people proverbial ; and
we may hope that wise legislation and prudent administration
by the respective governments, each acting within its own
sphere, will restore forrber prosperity.
Unpleasant and even dangerous as collisions may sometimes
be, between the constitutional authorities or the citizens of our
country, in relation to the lines which separate their respec-
tive jurisdictions, the results can be of no vital injury to our
institutions, if that ardent patriotism, that devoted attachment
to liberty, that.spirit of moderation and forbearance for which
our countrymen were once distinguished, continue to be
cherished—if this continue to be the ruling passion of
our souls, the weaker feelings of the mistaken en-
thusiast will be corrected—the Utopian dreams of the
scheming politician dissipated—and the complicated intrigues
of the demagogue rendered harmless. The spirit of liberty is
the sovereign balm for every injury which our institations may
receive. On the contrary, no care that can be used in the con-
struction of our government, no division of our powers, no dis-
tribution of checks in its several departments, will prove effec-
tual to keep us a free people, if this spirit is suffered to decay—
and decay it will without constant nurture. To the neglect of
tnis duty the best historians agree in attributing the ruin of all
the republics with whose existence and fall their writings have
made us acquainted. The same causes will ever produce the
same effects ; and as long as the love of power is a dominant
passion of the human bosom, and as long as the understandings
of men can be warped and their affections changed by operations
upon their pas,imis and prejudices, so long will the liberty of a
people depend on their own constant attention to it s preser ration.
The danger to all well-established free governments arises from
the unwillingness of the people to believe in its existence, or
from the influence of the designing men, diverting their atten-
tion from the quarter from whence it approaches, to a source
from which it can never come. This is the old trick of those
who would usurp the Government of their country. In the
name of democracy they speak, warning the people against the
influence of wealth and the danger of aristocracy. History,
ancient and modern, is full of such examples. Caesar be-
came the mast r of the Roman people and the Senate, under
the pretence of supporting the democratic claims of the for-
mer against the aristocracy of tlse latter. Cromwell, in the
character of protector of the liberties of the people, became
the dictator of England ; and Bolivar possessed himself of un-
limited power, with the title of his country's liberator.
'I here is, on the contrary, no single instance on record of an
extensive and well established republic being changed into an
aristocracy. 'I he tendencies of all such governments in their
decline is to monarchy ; and in the antagonist principle to liberty
there is the spirit of faction—a spirit which assumes the cha-
racter, and, in times of great excitement, imposes itself upon
the people as the genuine spirit of freedom, and like the false
Christs whose coming was foretold by the Saviour, seeks to,
and were it possible would, impose upon the true and most
faithful disciples of liberty. It is in periods 'lke this that it
behoves the people to be most watchful of those to whom
they have intrusted power. And although there is at times
much difficulty in distinguishing the false from the true
spirit, a calm and dispassionate investigation will detect
the counterfeit as well by the character of its operat:ons
as the results that are produced. The true spirit
of liberty, although devoted, persevering, bold, and
uncompromising in principle, that secured, is mild and'tole-
rant arid scrupulous as to the means it employs ; whilst the
spirit of party, assuming to be that of liberty, is harsh, vin-
dictive, and intolerant, and tot-lly reckless as to the charac-
ter of the allies which it brings to the aid (-Sits cause. When
the genuine spirit of liberty animates the body of the people
to a thorough examination of their affairs, it lez. ds to the ex-
cision of every excrescence which may have fastened itself
upon any departments of the Government, and restores the sys-
. tern to its pristine health and beauty. But the reign of an in-