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tjy p. c. pendletox. j| Devoted to Literature, Internal Improvement* Commerce, Agriculture, Foreign and Domestic News, Amusement, See. c. r. iiaxleiter, printer. VOL. I. THE ESHESSSS’ !?©£!? U published in the city of Macon every Saturday Morning, at three dollars in adcanrr, four dollars at the end of the year— two dollars for six months; and mailed to country subscribers by the earliest mails, enveloped by good strong wrappers, with legible direc tions. £Cr No subscription received for a less period than six months—and no paper discontinued, until all arrears are paid. Advertisements will be inserted at the usual rates of advertising, with a reasonable deduetion to yearly ad £t"/- Any person forwarding a ten dollar bill, (post paid,) shall receive four copies, for one year, to be sent to differcut persons, as directed. frr l otters, on business, either to the Publisher or Editor, must come post paid to insure attention. POETRY. IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT. BT JOHN GREFNLEAF WHITTIER. Look on him—through his dungeon grate Feebly and cold, the morning light Comes, stroling round him, dim and late, As if it loathed the sight, Reclining on his strawy bed. His hand upholds hisdroopirg head ; His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard. Unshorn his gray, neglected beard, And o’er his bony fingers flow flis long dishelled locks of snow. No grateful fire before him glows, And yet the winter’s breath is chill; And o’er his half clad person goes The frequent ague thrill! Silent save ever and anon, A sound, half murmur and half groan, Forces apart the painful grip Os the old sufferer’s bearded lip; Oil, sad and crushing is the fate Os old age chained and desolate ! Just God! why lies that old man there ? A murderer shares his prison bed. Whose eyeballs through his horrid hair. Gleam on him fierce and red; And the rude oath and hear'less jeer Fall ever on his loathing ear, And, or in wakefulness or sleep. Nerve, flesh and fibre thrill and creep. Whene’er that ruffian’s tossing limb, Crimsoned with murder teaches him. What has the gray-haired prisoner done T Has murder stained his hands with gore ? Not so; his crime’s a fouler one— God made the old man poor 7 For this he shares a felon’s cell. The fittest earthly type of hell ! For this—the boon for which he poured His young blood on th’ invader’s sword. And counted light the fearful cost — His blocd-gaincd * Liberty’ is lost. And so, for such a place of rest. Old prisoner, poured jliy blood as rain, On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest, And Saratoga plain ? Look forth, thou man of many scars, Through thy dungeon’s iron bars; It must be joy, in sooth, to see Yon mounment upreared to thee.* Piled granite, and a prisoned cell— The land repays thy service well! Go, ring the bells, and fire the guns, And (ling the starry banneFout— Shout * Freedom !’ till your lisping one* Give back their cradle shout— Let boasted eloquence declaim Os honor, liberty, and fame— Still let the poet’s strain be heard, With “ Glory” for each second word, And every thing with breath agree To praise our “ glorious liberty 1” But when the patriot’s cannon jars The prison’s cold and gloomy wall. And through its grates the stripes and stars Rise on the wind and fall— Think you that prisoner’s aged cor Rejoices in the general cheer ? Think you his dim and failing eye Is kindled at your pageantry ? Sorrowing of soul, and chained of limbs, What is your carnival to him 7 Down with the Law which binds him thus! Unfeeling freeman, let it find No refuge from the withering curse Os God and human kind ! Open the prisoner’s living tomb, And usher from its brooding gloom The victim of your savage code, To the free air and sun of God. Nor longer dare as crime to brand. The chastening of the Almighty’s hand*. * Bunker's Hill Monument. BROTHERLY LOVE. 110-ss lovely a sight to behold brethren dwelling Together in love's union bland. Heart to heart with one feeling responsively swelling, A happy, a ne’er sundered band: 'Tislike the rich ointment which fragrantly sited Its perfumes o'er his garments from Aaron’s blest head— Like the light rosy dew in the morning-beam lying On Hermon’s green blossoming brow, Or the drops on the soft heaving mountain* of Zion ; For there, Lord of Harvests, hast thou Commanded a blessing—a ne'er-failing store — Even life 'neath thy smile evermore ! Epigram—To a Quack. Where'er admission thou canst gain— Where’er thy phi* can pierce, At once the doctor they retain, The mourners and the hearse. MACON, (Ga.) SATURDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 8, 1838. MISCELLANEOUS. From the Southern Literary Messenger. POLITICAL RELIGIONISM. BY A SOUTHRON. 1. A 1-ettrr to the Hon. Henry Clay, on the Annexation •/Texts; by WiUiam E. Channing, D. D. Boston, 1937. 2. “ Texas," Quarterly Review, June, 1839. It is unfortunate for mankind, that the literary cha. racteris not associated in glory with other professional classes of society. The latter pressing more immedi ately upon the attention of men, are stimulated by per sonal interests and remunerated by early honors; while the former, habituated to seclusion, produces its rich fruits in concealment, which are neither appreciated nor gathered until a late period of life. Indeed the utility of their labors is not always capable of imme diate application, and is not unfrequently undervalued by the passing generation. Thus Mihon and Shakes peare felt springing within them the germs of immor tality, and overlooking the opinions of the age in which they lived, wrote for posterity. It was when the mind of Kepler, awake to celestial harmony, was filled with the enthusiasm of genius, and when he felt that the age in which he lived would not appreciate the value of his discoveries, that he exclaimed = “ I have stolen the golden vessels of the Egyptians, and I will build of them a tabernacle to my God. If you pardon me, I re joice, if you reproach me, I oan endure it; the die is thrown. I can wait one century for a reader, if God himself waited six thousand years for an observer of his works.” Genius is immortal, and not unlike the actors in the Grecian games, the torch of science has been passed from hand to hand, in all ages by the “ great lights of the world." Genius creates an intel lectual nobility which is conferred on literary charac ters by the involuntary feelings of the public ; and it is the noble prerogative of genius to elevate obscure tnen to the higher classes of society. But this fame is not unfrequently posthumous, and the Grecian virgins scattered garlands throughout the seven islands of Greece, upon the turf beneath which were supposed to lie the remains of the blind old bard, who wandered in penury and obscurity through life, or only sung passa ges of his divine poem at the festive board of his con temporaries. The small cities of Athens and of Florence attest the influence of the literary character over nations • for the one received the tribute of the mistress of the world, when the Roman youth crowded the walks of her phi losophy, and the other, after the revival of letters, dis pensed all the treasures of literature to the admiring nations of Europe. Those who govern mankind can not at the same time enlighten them; they merely regu late their manners and their morals: but the literary class, standing between the governors and the governed, light up with the divine ray of intellect, and give shape, and character, and beauty and utility to the whole framework of society. And to descend from classes to individuals, how often do we behold gifted men, mas ter spirits, springing up, and with pregnant inspiration, from the depths of their solitude, impressing their own upon the character of a whole people 7 Intelligence is progressive and cumulative, however nations may re lapse into barbarism ; and each departing age pours its increasing treasures into the lap of its successor. Th link of mind is never broken. In every age and clime, however stormy and tempestuous, the divine intellect, like the electric flame springing into life from the dark bosom of the clouds, rolls its voice over the chasms of darkened ages, and lights up every summit which lifts its head from amid the surrounding gloom. Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud. Every father spirit in the intellectual world has his gifted sons ; and it is wonderful with what rapidity the germs of intellect expand in fruitful soils. How often in the creative spark struck forth in a moment, and af ter the lapse of ages caught and kindled into a living blaze. There is a singleness and unity in the pursuits of genius through all time, which produce a species of consanguiuity in the character of authors. Men of genius, flourishing in different periods, or in remote and inhospitable countries seem to he the same persons with another name, whose minds have in the intervening time been constantly improving, and thus the literary character, long since departed, appears only to have transmigrated. In the great march of the human in tellect, each still occupies the same place, and is still carrying on with the same powers his great work through a line of centuries. Sometimes, indeed, it hap pens that some useful labor is lost for a season, some one of the greater lights is apparently struck from the system; but another Kepler arises to point out the dis cord in the celestial harmony, and some future observer discovers in the vast fields of space, the fragments of the lost planet, and restores the broken chord. In the history of genius there is no chronology; the whole book is open before us; every thing is present, and the earliest discovery is connected by a thousand links with the most recent. Many men of genius must arise before a particular man of genius can appear. Aristophanes, in his comic scenes, ridiculed the Grecian mythology, and Epicurus, following in his footsteps, shook the pil lars of Olympus. The skeptic mind ol VVickliffe over shadowed the genius of John Huss—and Luther, gird ing himself with their armor, caused the institutions of Europe to tremble to their foundations. Cicero, in his sublime morality startled the warriors of Rome with a lesson of unwonted mercy. He wished them to spare their enemies even - after the hattering ram had wnit ten the walls.” And Bcccana, catching this amiable spirit, opposed the voice of humanity to the rooted pre judices of ages. We might extend our illustrations of this sublime truth indefinately, and we could with equal facility trace the immense, we had almost said frightful influence of men of genius over the destinies of mankind, since the invention of printing and the re vival and cultivation of polite letters. We might in dicate trivial and remote causes, sleeping for ages, and suddenly springing, by a happy combination, into ata pendous results. The same law obtains in the intellec tual and in the animal kingdoms. The submarine la bors of the coral animalcules, and the seeds floating on the bosom of the deep, have planted in the depths of the ocean large aud fertile islands. How extensive, then, and how incalculable are the consequences of human action, and how rcsistleesly and absolutely is it swayed by men ofgenius 7 Although not a genius of the first order, nor one of those great lights which seem destined to shed perpe tual lustre over the hiatory of man, the author of the f letter to Mr. Clay, on the subject of the annexation of Texas, William E. Channing, fills no little space in the public view, and is not without distinction in the repub lic of letters. His enlarged intellect has borrowed j easy and graceful proportion from his moral virtues. : He is a consecrated vessel, set apart for the service of the Deity, and for the propagation of truths, toerring man. His is a ministry of peace and good will. And he has brought 10 the service of his master a talent, which has not been unimproved, neither has it been buried ; he is a shining light, and in rendy obe dience to the heavenly prohibition, he has not hid it under a bushel. In the prominent power of his intel lect, he strikingly though distantly resembles that cha racteristic of Milton's mind, which he basso beautifully illustrated, and that is the faculty of impregnation.— His excursive and active genius travels over the whole field of literature ;he gathers every choice plant in the gardens of wisdom, and they flourish with unusual vigor in the fertile soil into which they are translated. A graceful purity of style adorns the solid structure of his reasoning ; and he ha3 richly earned the distinguished title of the American Atticus. It is to be lamented, that powers such ns this instruc tive writer possesses, should, from the general neglect of literary merit in this age of utilitarianism, be forced from their appropriate and legitimate sphere, and direeted to questionable,perhaps unhappy results. Few minds in this age, and more particularly in this country, where the labors ofintellect are so little appreciated, aud so siowlv rewarded possess the moral firmness and the persever ing steadiness which lead to a solid, but slow and dis tant, reputation through a life of toil. Few such can resist the scducements of those whose instant but fleet ing and precarious honors which are snatched amid the hazards, and struggles, and excitements of political dis cussion. In agovernment like ours, in which each in dividual is constantly reminded of the deep stake he has in its welfare, and of his immediate agency and influ ence in its administration, the tendency to descend from loftier stations to mingle in the conflicts of the arena, is irresistible to the many, and seldom checked by those who have the sagacity to perceive the moment when their interposition may decide the controversy. Such is the resistless operation of this spirit of interposition, such is the longing of the impatient mind for early dis tinction, that all classes yield to this petty ambition. It invades ihe holy precincts of the sanctuary, and the priest not unfrequently becomes the agitator. A sound and healthy state of public opinion is of slow and cautious growth, and we should accurately distin guish between this salutary agent and that feverish and artificial excitement which is produced by associations and combinations. “ Public opinion,” says an able writer, * in his review of Miss Martineau on slavery, in ! the November number of the Messenger, “ public opi nion is of very slow, very temperate, and very judicious 1 formation. It is the aggregate of small truths and the j experience of successive days and years, which, heaped ; together, lorm a general principle, which is of instant 1 conviction in every bosom. It only requires to receive a name in order to become a law; and a law, which is precipitately imposed upon a people, in advance of the formation of this sort of public opinion, will soon be openly abolished, or become obsolete in the progress of events. For my own part, lam satisfied with the ex isting law's, until the convictions of the majority and the progress of experience shall call for their improve ment. I have no respect for those who set themselves up for makers of public opinion ; and as for the 4 hell broth,’so compounded, I know not any draught which would not be more wholesome, than that which makes the body politic a body plethoric, and leaves no remedy to the physician but the cautery and the knife.” It is a subject of deep regret, that we so frequently find schemes and associations, calculated to create the spu- I rious kind of public opinion, promoted by some of the j distinguised members of the clerical order. Over- i zealous in the service of their master, they prepare for , the fanatic and enthusiastic perilous employment; and I unrestrrined by the stern rebuke of the Redeemer, they seem prone to imitate the chief of the apostles in their : readiness to smite with the sword those who, in their j excited imaginings, are the enemies of religion: The great evil of the present day, and that which threatens j the existence of the Union, as well as the peace and se- j cury of the southern states, is “ Political Religion- ! ism." And it is on account of the infusion of thisfana- j tical and destructive spirit into the strictures of the | American divine, upon the character and morals of our : people, and upon the domestic institutions of the south: it is becanse the British reviewer, misled by these in vectives, has assailed the character, of our government, and proclaimed the licentious tendency of republican establishments, that we feel impelled to notice the pub lications placed at the head of this article. The *• Letter of Dr. Channing to Mr. Clay” contains grave charges, upon which the British reviewer, in the article “Texas,” frames a specious argument to prove the perishable nature of our free institutions. But we can neither admit the truth of the charges made by the divine, nor the solidity of the argument labored by the monarchist. The letter states in substance: 1. That the revolt in Texas was sustained by the • southern states, and the admission of Texas into the i Union was demanded in order io create anew market ' for slaves, a new’field for slave labor, and the accession [ of political power in those states, which subsist by slave- | breeding and slave-selling, and furthermore to perpe- 1 tuate in the old and to spread over the new states the horrors of slavery. 2. He appeals in behalf of the slave to the interposi-'! tion of the British government; declares that England i has a moral as well as a political interest in this question and pronounces “an English minister unworthy of his office who would not strive by all just means to avert . the danger.” 3 He charges his ccuntrymen with a law lessness and corruption of public morals, which is well calculated to disgrace them in the estimation of mankind; and paints with so gloomy a pencil, that his British review er, the avoyed enemyofall republican institutions, exposes the picture in triumph to the friends of legitimacy in Europe, ns the impartial testimony of a ripe scholar, a native citi zen, and an anointed priest. The discussion cf these subjects, in the articles under consideration, is so intimately interwoven with the whole subject of slavery in the south, of southern crime and southern policy, that wewill confine our attention prin cipally to that theme. With the Texian controversy we have no concern. But before proceeding to discuss this agitating topic, we will make a few remarks upon the * Not a few »f our reflections upon the nature and condition of the Indian on our frontier, and upon slav ery in general, will show that we have read and remem bered the “ Review of Miss Martineau on Slavery." We could not receive the light from a purer source, for that publication is universally regarded at one of the ablest productions of the American press. loose morality and lawlessness of those hardy pioneers of the wilderness for whose excesses the nation is held responsible, and by the standard of whose morals the whole American people isjudged. Under the imposing title of a citizen possessing high talents and still higher moral character, the British reviewer introduces Dr. Channing to the world holding the following extravagant language: “ We are corrupt enough already. In one respect our institutions have disappointed us all. They have not wrought for us that elevation of character w hich is the only substantial blessing of liberty. Government is regarded more as a meansof enriching the country than of securing private rights. We have become wed ded to gain as our chief good. That under the predo minance of this degrading passion, the higher virtues, the moral independence, the simplicity of manners, the stern uprightness, the self reverence, the respect for man as man, which are the ornaments and safe guards of a republic, should wither, and give place to selfish calcu lation and indulgence, to show and extravagance, to anxious, envious, discontented strivings, to wild adven ture, and to the gambling spirit of speculation, will sur prize no one who has studied human nature. A spirit of lawlessness pervades the community, which, if not re pressed, threatens the dissolution of our present forms of society. Even in the old states, mobs are talcing the gov ernment into their hands, and a profligate newspaper finds little difficulty in stirring up multitudes to violence. When we look at the parts of the country nearest Texas, w’e see the arm of the law paralysed by the passions of the individual. The substitution of self-constituted tribunals, for the regular course of justice, and the in fliction of immediate punishment in the momentof po pular phrenzy, are symptoms of a people half reclaimed from barbarism. Iknownotthat any civilized country on earth has exhibited, during the last year, a spectacle so atrocious as the burning of a colored man by a slow fire in the neighborhood of St. Louis ! And this infernal sacrifice was offered, not by a few fiends selected from the whole country, but, by a crowd gathered from a sin gle spot. Add to all this, the invasions of the rights of speech and of the press by lawless force, the extent and toleration of which oblige us to believe that a considerable portion of our citizens have no comprehension of the first princi/Jes of liberty. It is an undeniable fact, that, in consequence of these and other symptoms, the confidence of many reflecting men in our free instutiosu is very much impaired. Some despair. That we must seek security for property and life in a ‘stronger govern ment,’ is aspreading conviction." The reader shrinks with abhorrence from this loath some picture, and is startled to learn that it has been sketched by the hand of a countryman. From the tenor of the whole letter of Dr. Channing, it is manifest that he designs to attribute this national depravity in a great mea sure to the slaveholder and the frontier-man. Wc will confine our remark*, therefore, to these two points, and endeavor to prove that the border-men of the sou’.h we -tern states are no worse than those of other nations, and that the other evils of which he so loudly complains have been produced mainly by the northern fanatics, and are the first fruits of political religionism. Man is a frail and rtjjiellious creature, and the stern est sanctions of the law have in all ages been required for the maintenance of peace and order. But all the force of the laws has, under every frame of govern ment, been fotmd insufficient to repress the spirit of insubordination. The stormy impulse #f the passions, and the hope of impunity still impel daring and wicked men to violate the law of the land, and to commit the most detestable and atrocious crimes. But, that cither in our cities or upon our frontier, there is a greater de gree of crime or more profligacy than is to be found in similar classes in other countries, or that our people are more demoralized than those of other nations, has no foundation in fact. We are the descendants of the European, we are the children of sin, and we have brought with us into this eountry the frailties and the passions of our nature and of our forefathers. But our great cause of complaint is, that we are falsely charged with surpassing profligacy by the friends of a stronger and more artificial frame of government, upon the the testimony of our own writers, who libel their kin dred ; and this unusual depravity is attributed to the licentiousness promoted and inculcated by free institu tions. And it is to be deeply regretted that there are to be found among us those, who in their fanatic zeal to extirpate slavery in the south, exaggerate the failings and the vices of their countrymen, and thus furnish with perpetual argument the enemies of republican institutions. The heart has been made sick with de tails of crime and violence on our southern and western borders; and they have been diligently dressed and served up, as precious morsels, as a rich feast for our European friends. The outrages of the pioneers, the border morals, lynching and frontier regulations, are the same in all new countries. And the classic and well stored mind of Dr. Channing treasures many a salutary lesson drawn from the flight of the Roman eagle, sweeping onward in his resist'ess flight from point to point in a constantly advancing frontier, to the utter most boundaries of the haunts of men, until he bad looked down upon a submissive world, and folded his unwearied wing beneath the shadow of universal do minion. The fields of Northumberland, and the cruel inroads of the Percies, live in Scottish minstrelsy, and the ob servant eye of so ripe a scholar has traced the destruc tive progress of the freeboters of the horde', by the light of the torch, and the red stain of the brand, that have marked the progress of repine on the frontier of civiliza tion. We can readily appreciate the sympathies of a good man, we can excuse the complaints of an apostle es peace, when the melancholy lessons of history are repeated in his own age and in his own clime; but we must be' cautious to consult the lessons of experience, and take counsel of the ripe understanding, before we proclaim to the world, in the fervor of a heated imagina tion, the enormities of border license. Let us lament the stern necessity, but restrain the currantofindignant lest w* exagerate the extent ofevils which loom up in deceptive magnitude through the mists of preju dice, and seem the more formidable because of their propinquity. The annals of England and Scotland will furnish to the learned divine, as well as to the British reviewer, a tale of blood and license for surpassing the sad but un frequent excesses on our frontier. When civilization sendaforth tier pioneers to-open and tame the wilderness, the qwiet, peaceable and orderly, remain at home ; the frontier-man is the bold, and hardy, and reckless ad venturer, who alone is fit to contend with the stubborn forests and the savage tribes who tread them in solitude. It is to be a matter of wonder or of regret, that society purges off and throws among them the dissolute outcast or the exile of crime 7 The pilgrim fathers were a different race, not thrown upon the frontiers of an an cient or established people, to push the march of civili- zation, but stern men, whom the profligate tyranny of the Stuarts, and the intolerant ravings of fanaticism, sent forth to people the inhospitable shores of the new wor’d with the sturdy and unbending spirits of the old. With no love but for freedom—with no hope but in God ? their lonely barque was freighted with the consecrated | cmUenti of liberty, and turning to the setting sur, they i sped onward, to throw the illimitable waste of the ocean a barrier between themselves and their oppressors. S'ern and indominitable spirits—pious nnd practical professors of the doctrines of the meek and merciful Redeemer—incapable of submission to oppression, and too fe .v io shake the foundations of a throne laid deep in the rcceses of time: they gathered up the frag ments of their broken fortunes, and " wandered from their fathers’ houses into these ends of the earth, and laid their labors and estates therein,” Such were the Pilgrim Fathers; and but that their graves are voiceless, they would teach to their deset n dants salutary lessons of patience and forbearance ; they would point to their own protracted sufferings in the old world for melancholy examples of intolerance and fanaticism. They planted in this country the {term of civilization, which in our day has burst forthln wild luxuriance, and stretched its branches to the four winds of heaven. There have gone forth from among thiir desendants a host of turhulant spirits. These pioneers are ihe links which bind civilization with barbarism, the city with the wilderness. They are a rude and unpolished generation, carrying with them the elements of order, disarranged by their contiguity to savage and lawless multitudes. Crimes peculiar to the situation and character of a people are committed everywhere ; and if these unsettled classes perpetrate enormities which curdle the blood of a mere refined people, these latter indulge in excesses appropriate te themselves, which although less shocking, are no less destructive io the morals and happiness of mankind. And if the “ negro perish by a slow fire.” on the plains of Missouri, the flames of a sacked convent, in the midst of the cities of Massachusetts, attract attention to tha cries of unprotected woman and helpless infancy. If Texas be the field of blood, Boston has gent forth and protected the midnight incendiary. If the laurels of San Jacinto be stained with purple the monument of Bunker Hill has disclosed its pallid form by the lurid glare of the torch in a night of ruthless rapine and sacrilege, which would have disgraced the darkest ago of feudal barbarism. If an enthusiast and agitator pluck down ruin on his press, nnd perish by a bloody death, himself red with the blood of his brother, in the town of Alton, fanaticism burns and plunders the living, desecrates the altar, and violates tho dead on the height# of Chailcstown. And if it were the popula-e which projected the crime and hoodwinked justice, it was tha legislature of Massachusetts which sanctioned, aye, and still sanctions the act by withholding retribution. Crime prevails wherever man is a dweller. It is by no means extraordinary, that as man recedes from tho cenlre of civilization, and reaches the uttermost limit of the social circle, the salutary restraints of the law should be more feebly felt, and deeds of violence and disorder should more frequently occur than in the bosom of society. We are not of the number of those who form our estimate of the morals or character of a people, by the conduct of those who scarcely feel the bonds of so ciety. Such as they arc, were those, two generations ago, who now dwell in peace and concord, revelling in all the luxurious refinements of polished and humane association. To the west, to the successor* of these border-men, who carry with them the germ of civilization, do we confidently look for the security of the republic. They throw open the wilderness; the fastnesses of the forest retreat before them, and the valleys which now ring with the yell of the savage, will soon teem with abun dance. The landed proprietors have always been, and still arc, the bulwark of established institutions. Upon them, in the hour of danger, falls the burden of defence. Their staid habits and steady virtue tend to check the maich ofcsrruption and commercial wealth, that mortal foe to the only sentiment which sustains republic*. M o look to the wilderness for protection from the cities. In our happy country, and under those excellent insti tutions which breath a spirit of equality, this com mercial spirit may be counteracted ; for, the main pillars which sustain it in other countries have been thrown down by our sagacious forefathers. Entail and primogeniture have ceased to create and to per petuate a privileged class. In every age, from the palmy days of Rome and Athens to the stormy revolution of Paris, centralism has been fatal to the best interest cf a people. As our empire expands over the great western frontier, the large commercial cities of the Union will cease to overshadow, to corrupt, and to contnl ha Union. Our north-eastern brethren, hardy and intelli gent, are consumed with this commercial cancer. If. with Franklin, they have diligently investigated the practical truths of material philosophy, they recognize him as the founder of a trading people, they adhere with the religious observance of the Spartan to hia mecenary precepts, and have superadded to them parsimonious habits and wary cunning. A prying curi osity into the concerns of their neighbors, is another leading trait in their character, sketched by the same hand; and to this bias in their nature, we may attribute, in a great degree, their blindness to their own Vandal ism, in the sacking of a convent, and their deep solici tude to deliver their southrrn brethren from the horror* of slavery, even with the aid of foreign interposition. Let us not be understood to undervalue the enterprising activity, the love of freedom, the moral rectitude, the intellectual acumen of the New Englanders. We would willingly do them no injustice. But when in their intemperate zeal, they proclaim freedom to the slave, and denounce the slaveholder, even from the sanctuary ; when they exhibit their southern brethren to the eyes of the world as the most profligate and un feeling of mankind, surely it may not be amiss to inviui their at'ention to those defects in their own character,' which should be amended, before they become apostles of reformation. By what right do so many of our northern and east ern brethren demand and attempt, by all the powers of combination and association, the abolition of slavery in the southern states 7 They have permitted themselves to become the agents of foreign agitators; for this fanaticism is offoreign birth, and originated in England with the people who introduced and planted slavery in our soil. Her example is no precedent for us ; for, the structure of our government, the fundamental la w of the land, and our peculiar position, present insuperable ob stacles to the march of this foreign enemy. An im mense empire, belting the globs with territory, may indeed abolish slavery, indemnify the owner, and pre serve public tranquility in a few amall and distant islands of the ocean. In our country there is no such power vested in the government, even if the scheme were practicable, or its consummation desire bis- NO. 46.