Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1851-01-04
WASHIN GTON.
g Liberty and Union, now and fbrcver, one and
fnseparable.0 a
WEDNESDAY. JANUARY i, 1851.

WEDNESDAY,, JANUARY ~ 1901.
The Birth Of a New Year has ever been deem-
ed season Of joyful congratulasion, save by some
Of those ascedc philosophers who consider added
years bus As many added griefs and burdens to
load already insupportable. We profess no ale
glance to a school SO melancholy and, though our
bundle of years be confessedly somewhat onerous
we take leave to congratulate our readers and our
selves on the prospect, should life be spared, Of
adding one more to the number. To them may it
bring whatever they most desire when their desires
are the purest: to ourselves useful labor, con-
tentment, and the happy reflection of having con-
Quoted public journal in such manner as to give
our readers no cause to blush for that liberal pat
ronage by which they have SO long sustained it.
The last is the fftieth year since this paper was
founded; respectable longevity, certainly, for a
political paper amid the storms of free Republic,
and under an unfinching maintenance of an un-
changed and uncompromising political creed. We
behold, indeed, wrecks on every hand; and find
ourselves much in the position of one who stands
in the midst of cemetery, with the names of many
a friend and many an early acquaintance written on
the tombs around. That the INTELLIGENoER yet
survives-that it has seen one venerated proprietor
gathered to his fathers, and has passed. unmpaired
into the possession of his successors, we attribute
not to any special amount of talent in the conduct
ing of it, certainly not to its unscrupulous allegiance
to any political party, but simply to uniform ad
herence to decency and to truth, and candid ad-
mission of excellence, whether found in friend or
foe. Many trying tempest has whistled through
its branches, and threatened, at tmes to shake its
roots; but, through the benignity of protecting
Providence, it yet enjoys green old age, and a
cheering amount of the sunshine of public favor !;
and when it falls, be this our consolation, that not
fragment of the tree has ever lent torch to a
political incendiary.
The present year closes the first half of the event.
full nineteenth century; portion of the worlds
duration distinguished by as many great and thrill
ling events as were ever crowded into the same
spacs of time. The retrospect seems like some
strange tumultuous dream, in which the scenes
change with rapidity and are filled with success
sion of wonders unlike the sober realities Of wax
ing existence. Almost the entire first French Re-
volution, (as well as the second and the momen-
rise in almost every kingdom of the civilized world
has fallen within this stirring period, in which Ma
poleon shoots athwart the sky, drawing after him
tail that fills the heavens, from the frozen sea to
the pillars of Hercules. While, in our own hemi-
sphere, the great political epoch of Mr.. Jefferson
accession to the Presidency the rise of the Jackson
dynasty, the occurrence of two victorious wars, the
- tl,o
doubling,of our territory; the more than doubling
OF our commerce, income, and population; and
last though scarce least, the rising from hell of the
spirit of disunion, combine to mark the era as one
of intenses interest to every friend of rational free
dom, and the success of temperate, regulated, and
law-abiding Constitutional Repubcansm.
Nor has the progress of science and discovery,
in investigating the surface and the structure of our
planet enlarging the bounds of the solar system,
annihilatng space and time, and diminishing by
more than half the burdens of human labor above
all, by applying the whole resources of advancing
knowledge to augment the comfort, facilitate the
tasks, and adorn the leisure of domestic life, been
whit less remarkable than the revolutions of EN-.
pires and the struggles and the march of power
While last, and highest in the scale, the progress
of education, the multiplication of schools, the i'm.
provements of the press, the diffusion of books, the
civilization Of savage and the enlightenment and
mitigation of semi-barbarous society; the extensive
translation and distribution Of the Sacred Scrip
lures, and the progressive trumphs Of its pure and
humanizing truth, conspire to render the first hall
OF the present century as pre-eminently the era OF
light and the dawn of brighter day.
On the completion of such period we may with
just reason congratulate every reader. If such be
the beginnings of the century, what may we not
look for in its close! If such be the dawn, what
will not be its meridian splendor9 The prospec,
might almost make us wish to survive. that we
might view the swelling scene. May we not con.
graduate our infant children that they have fallen
on such an epoch for the commencement of their
career' May they prove worthy of their age, live
so as to illustrate it, and yield their latest breath
amidst the brightness of its risen day!
Late advices from Nicaragua announce declar-
alton of war between Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
So saws Telegraph despatch from New York.