unlimited indulgence of bounty. That this is the unstrained voice of truth, and not the extravagant declamation of panegyric, might, with the utmost ease, be demonstrated by a bare enumeration of the articles which constitute the furniture of this mighty structure; but as the time will not suffer such an enumeration, and especially as none of my audience can be supposed to be ignorant of them, I shall barely notice them.

"Our forests are filled with the finest timber, and exude in the greatest abundance tar, pitch, and turpentine. Our fields may, with the utmost facility, be covered with hemp and flax. Our provisions can never fail. Our mountains are everywhere enriched with iron and lead. Our improvements in the art of manufacturing are astonishing even to ourselves. Our uncorrupted manners, and our happy climate, nourish innumerable multitudes of brave, generous, and hardy soldiers, to improve those advantages, to strike terror into their enemies, and brighten the glory of their country." Such are the glowing terms used by this eminent divine in 1776, when we were yet scarcely a nation, to set forth the endowments and advantages of our country, the advances it had made, and the character of its citizens. What would be the language in which he would portray its present condition, had he lived to witness the mighty advances we have made in civilization, in science, and in every art which can minister to the comfort and happiness of man.

In 1776, we numbered about three millions of inhabitants; we are now little short of twenty. At that period we were without manufactures to protect the hardy soldiers of whom he bears such honorable testimony from the hidden severity of the elements. Our minerals lay in their native beds, untouched by the hand of man. No coal had been discovered to soften the rigors of a winter climateno canals had been cut, nor rail-roads made to give a magic circulation to the various proceeds of our skill and industry. The mighty power of steam had scarcely become known as an agent in human affairs. Yet the destiny of our country was foreshadowed to the mind's eye of this great and good man, and we cannot forbear to give, in his own language, his views of the then future prospects which presented themselves to him, and which he describes in the following eloquent manner :

"This western world, not with so much propriety called new, from the date of its discovery, as from the unprecedented union it exhibits of all those articles which are the basis of commerce, power, grandeur and happiness; this favorite region, by the hand of Heaven sequestered from the knowledge of mankind till that period when European greatness began to totter, is destined to be the last retreat of science and of glory, beholding a rapid progress towards the consummation of excellence already commenced."

Is it not so? Have we not "those articles which are the basis of commerce, power, grandeur and happiness?" Is there any where to be found such a happy combination of the elements of wealth and greatness? This question can only be answered in the affirmative.

How, indeed, can a doubt exist, when it is well known that the canvas of our ships whitens every sea, and that the proceeds of our skill and industry are thus conveyed far and wide, to every nation or people in the known world.

Why, then, should there arise a question, whether or no this country should realize the destiny to which it is so well adapted by the bounteous treasures with which nature has endowed it. Is it because we are an ignorant or an idle people? that we are deficient in intellectual capacity? Does this question need a reply? Where shall we go to find greater inventive genius? Where shall we look for a higher state of enterprise? where for a more indomitable perseveranceboth on the land and on the sea? Why, then, we again ask, is there any question of our continued advancement? Is there any satisfactory answer to this query? We unhesitatingly say there is none. Left to ourselves, and uninfluenced by any other political institutions but our own, nothing can arrest us in our career, if true to ourselves. This is no speculation; it is a fixed fact, tested by an experience which cannot admit of a doubt. We have so tested it on several occasions to our sorrow, and at an immense cost, from the Confederation, and before the adoption of the Constitution, down to the present day. We have had seasons of the highest prosperity, and of the deepest gloom.

Above all other benefits resulting from the peculiar institutions of the United States, there is one, the value of which admits of no estimate, whether we consider it in a physical or moral point of

view for it is the foundation of all the blessings enjoyed by the great mass of the people and that is, the remunerating distribution of the proceeds of laborgiving to the laborer a much larger portion of his earnings than is yielded to him in any other country on the globe.

It was, indeed, for this that our institutions were established, and without it they cannot exist. Monarchies, with privileged classes, may continue, as they have continued from the earliest records of history, to hold masses of mankind together by force and intrigue; and under that form of government a greater or a less degree of discomfort may exist, according as the people have more or less power awarded to them, by what are called Constitutional Monarchies, as separate from absolute despotisms. But under what potentate of so called enlight ened Europe, can we find the great mass of the population permitted to partake of even the common necessaries of life? The writer of this article has recently made it his particular study to investigate into the condition of those who create all the value which results from labor, in every country of the world; and he solemnly avers it, as an indisputable truth, that, with some very few exceptions, where particular skill has been acquired in delicate and difficult manipulation, nowhere, but in this blessed country, does the working-man receive a sufficiency to feed and clothe him with anything approaching to comfort.

In Christian England, the laborer is so robbed of his reward, that one-eighth, or one-tenth, of the population, according to circumstances, are degraded to such an extent as to receive assistance through the poor-rates established by law. In France, Germany, Switzerland-all over the Continent of Europe-it is little, if any better. Throughout Asia, it is much worse. In the United States alone, under a proper system of imposts, can the mass be said to have a comfortable existence.

The question, then, of whether we shall, or shall not, carry out the system of government under which we live-the vital question is, shall we shut out from our borders the vicious institutions which degrade man in the scale of creation? or shall this glorious republic follow the sad fate of those which cast such a gloom over the pages of history, as to sicken the heart with their decay and their ultimate downfall?

Can any man of common sense believe, that if by any change in the institutions of Europe, the people were to become, as they are in this country, the source of power, and that an attempt should be made to establish a Republican Government, that such a government could stand, with the people in the condition in which they can scarcely be said (at present) to exist? If any such there be, let him cast his eyes towards the southern portion of this continent, and there he will see the sad fate of fruitless attempts to found free institutions upon the basis of ignorance!

But enough of this argument, if argument that can be called, which is little more than an appeal to the pages of history, and to the notorious exhibitions of the every-day experience by which we are surrounded.

Let us now return to the inquiry which we proposed to pursue, namely, in what manner the greatest value can be created out of the means at the disposal of the citizens of the United States; preserving, at the same time, the present comfortable condition of the laborers who are to contribute to its production.

No one, we think, can doubt the objects of those now possessed of the power of the general government. The President and the Secretary of the Treasury have not left us in doubt upon that head. They have indeed told us almost in so many words, that their plan is to confine the country to Agricultural pursuits, and abandon the Arts to their fate, unless the people of this country can be made to work at prices regulated by the price of labor in Europe.

Stripping their Messages and Reports of all the verbiage and plausible fallacies of which they are made up-this is the long and the short of their story.

Now we shall endeavor to show that if it were in their power to accomplish this, there would be an end of all accumulation of capital in the country.

We speak not now of the Tariff of 1846-that will speak for itself soon enough-we war now against the principle of abandoning the labor of the country to an unprotected competition with the labor of Europe, lowering the wages of our working-men so as to drive the population from the free States, to settle as Agriculturists in those of the Southwestern part of the Union. This we have reason to believe is Secretary Walk

er's plan. Premising that we have not the most distant idea of his eventual success, we still think much mischief may result to the capital and business of the country in the attempt, even during the short remnant of his inglorious career; and would fain convince him, if he would listen to us, that in so doing he would destroy much of the present capital of the country, and prevent all future accumulation of the values, which under the wholesome Tariff of 1842 were fast increasing; and had he permitted that Tariff to remain undisturbed, would have saved him much trouble in providing the ways and means which he now finds it so difficult to procure.

The moment the Tariff of 1846 was enacted, and the Sub-Treasury law passed, a great sensation was produced in the trading community, the Capitalists, the Manufacturers, and the Merchants. All felt that it was one of those sudden and hurtful experiments, of which we have had previous examples, and that the wisest could form no certain estimate of what their enactment would produce. Hence the greatest caution was immediately adopted; all new operations of business of every nature and kind were suspended. The purse-strings were drawn tight, lest the money which might escape should not only not yield a profit, but might never come back. For what in such a state of things can be done with Capital, with any hope of having even a new dollar returned for an old one. In manufacturing operations it assuredly could not be invested-neither in merchandise of any kind: there was no sort of inducement to purchase real estate, as that was sure to decline in value. Produce then offered no gain in foreign markets. Dry goods could not be imported without loss; so, to sum up the whole matter in few words, confidence was greatly im paired, and every man thought himself truly fortunate if he could save himself from ruinous losses. If we estimate the value of the various articles of trade and co mmerce in the country at $200,000,000, the enactment of these laws must have annihilated some 40 or $50,000,000 from their value, as no one estimated the average fall in prices at less than fifteen or twenty per cent. That this was an unnatural reduction, and arose from the sudden want of confidence created by the passage of the laws referred to, is rendered more obvious from the fact that many, indeed almost all articles, have partially re

covered from seven and a half to ten per cent. of their value. The demand for grain in Europe and the short crop of cotton doubtless effected this rise to a considerable extent, but we venture the assertion that no Capitalist even now feels the confidence he did before the Tariff of 1846 and the Sub-Treasury were enacted. Nor, we venture to say, will any settled state of things be experienced so long as the principle of Protection shall be repudiated, the Tariff of 1846 remain as it is, and men remain at the head of the General Government who deny the right of Congress to legislate on the subject of a Tariff, except for the purpose of raising "the largest amount of duty from the lowest revenue."

In the matter of accumulation, we can look to nothing with so much confidence as to the arts. As we have said, invention is one ingredient in the creation of values, and one of no mean order. It would be difficult to say what amount of wealth has been created in this country from this single source of Whitney's cotton gin, who can estimate the millions it has added to the values of the nation? Fulton's steamboats, which if not his original invention were the first brought into use; Whittemore's carding machine, and Morse's telegraph, to say nothing of the thousands of labor saving and ingenious machines which continue to crowd our patent office-many of which have been adopted in Europe, as of more value than their own.

Next to invention, may be ranked in this category, the skill with which the various manufacturing processes are acquired, and the dexterity with which they are used. So much for our people as the instruments-but who shall estimate the interminable value of our iron, copper, and lead mines, our inexhaustible coal measures, both anthracite and bituminous-who can calculate the value of the countless millions of sheep, whose wool can be worked into the finest cloth.

Now, though we consider agriculture and commerce as of inestimable value, still they are not the parents of these immense sources of industry and wealth and their accumulation. Iron must first be smelted before a plough can be made or a harvest reaped-and a surplus must be created before we can have any useful commerce. They are therefore conjointly the three pillars of the social edifice, acting always in entire harmony when mutually protected, existing only in

perfection when all are simultaneously prosperous.

Great evil, however, often arises from the erroneous under-estimate of the value of our internal commerce, the immensity of which can hardly be appreciated-but it is invidious and unjust to draw any distinctions. These three pursuits constitute the whole wealth of the nation, giving a vigor, an activity and intelligence to the body politic, without which man would be but a physical animal, dragging out a miserable existence in a state of barbarism, if not in savage wretchedness.

We forbear to introduce statistics into view at this time, it being our purpose to speak of principles rather than amounts.

In

conclusion, therefore, we would press upon the consideration of our readers the iniquity of that system, which avows—as President Polk and Secretary Walker have avowed-that it is not in the power of Congress to protect these great interests; for the denial of protection to one is the abandonment of all; and the day that shall fix, as a settled principle of the general government, that Congress have no power over the foreign commerce of the country in levying imposts upon the importation of the products of other nations, except for the purposes of revenue, will seal the fate of the creation and accumulation of values to an extent that will blot out the United States from the family of independent nations.

ALTHOUGH nothing of startling interest has occurred within the month, the affairs of Europe seem to wear an unpromising aspect. The Spanish marriages still furnish material for general dissatisfaction, even where no more angry feelings are entertained. No immediate rupture is anticipated in consequence of these events between any of the European powers; but good understandings have been destroyed, mutual distrust has been implanted, national pride has been wounded, and the seeds have been sown which may hereafter produce harvests of hatred and embroilment, to be reaped in tears and in blood. It is understood that Mr. Bulwer, the British minister at Madrid, delivered to the Spanish government, in behalf of his own, a very energetic protest against the marriage of the Infanta with the Duke of Montpensier; and communications were also addressed by the British Government to the principal European powers, declaring that Great Britain would never recognize the issue of this marriage as having any right of succession to the Spanish throne. This interference may seem uncalled for, and is denounced as insolent even by British journals; but it is not likely to be without some effect. England is unlikely to stand alone in the position she has taken. The Russian government, through its Charge d'Affaires at Paris, has informed M. Guizot that it coincides fully in the views maintained in the English protest, and will maintain, according to the treaty of Utrecht, the equilibrium of the European powers. The Allgemeine Zeitung announces that Austria and Prussia will also join with

England and Russia, in the course they have adopted. Thus is likely again to be formed a coalition of European nations against France; and although no one can suppose that the immediate result will be, on any side, an appeal to arms from this cause alone, it cannot be denied that a temper and tone of feeling have been induced, far less favorable to continued peace than those which have hitherto existed. The entente cordiale between England and France, which has formed the theme of so much boasting on the part of M. Guizor, and so much rejoicing throughout Europe, is pretty evidently at an end. The two nations are no longer governed by a common spirit. Jealousy and resentment have taken the place of that unbounded mutual confidence and regard, of which the professions at least have heretofore been so plentiful and incessant. Louis Phillippe has evidently acted for his own supposed interests, and in defiance and scorn of the feelings and interests of England. His breach of confidence may not be forcibly and at once resented, but it will scarcely be forgotten or readily forgiven.

Meantime events are occurring in Switzerland, which may precipitate some general issue. The twenty-two Cantons of that country are bound together by a federal compact, which expressly forbids the formation of private leagues among the cantons to the prejudice of the federal compact or the interest of the other cantons. In alleged violation of this provision, a private alliance was recently formed by the seven Catholic cantons of Lucerne, Ulri, Schwytz, Underwald, Zug, Fribourg, and Valois; the

object of this alliance was to secure the rights guarantied to these Catholic cantons, by the federal compact against the apprehended violence of the radical Protestants. It seems that the legality of this alliance was called in question in the Grand Council; and in that Council, through the equal division of the other cantons, Geneva held the balance of power, and her Council voted in favor of the Catholic cantons, on the ground that the course they had pursued had been rendered necessary by the refusal of the federal diet, to secure them against the violence of the radical cantons, which had vented itself in actual force upon Lucerne for having invited fourteen Jesuits into her midst, to take charge of her schools. Geneva is a Protestant canton, but stands above all the rest in intelligence and moral qualities, and she evidently acted in this case from the purest regard to the rights of the oppressed and wronged cantons, without regard to their religious predilections. As soon as the decision of the Council was known, a rabid French democrat, named James Fazy, who left his own country soon after the revolution of 1830, and has since been an editor in Geneva, convoked a mass meeting, and brought forward a protest denouncing the Council in the most violent manner, and declaring its vote null and void. Counter meetings were held, and the excitement increased, until an appeal was taken to arms. The mob under Fazy barricaded the bridges of the Rhone. The government on its side was not idle-and on the 7th of October, the artillery was brought to bear upon the barricades. The government prepared to negotiate, but Fazy rejected the proposal, and after a sharp and severe engagement the government troops were compelled to retreat, and the next day the government itself fled from the city. A provincial government was immediately formed with Fazy at its head; and at the time of the latest accounts, his rule seemed to be firmly established. He was conducting affairs with a good degree of moderation. The example of Geneva, however, is likely to prove contagious, and Basle-city and Basle-Campagne are arming against each other. The probability is that radicalism, which most unfortunately seems to be there identified with Protestantism, will prevail, and will thus gain the ascendency in the federal Diet, which will, of course, pronounce the dissolution of the league of the seven Catholic cantons. In anticipation of this result, the cantons are consolidating their league and arming for the emergency. France has already advanced a military force to the Swiss frontier, undoubtedly with the intention of interfering when the proper time shall arrive; and similar measures are anticipat ed on the sides of Austria and Sardinia. A

furious civil war is imminent in the very heart of Europe; and in the existing state of international feeling, such an event will be almost certain to involve some of the leading powers of Europe.

To complicate still more the affairs of the Continent, another revolution has occurred in Portugal. At Lisbon it was at first completely successful, and was brought about without bloodshed, by the admirable management of the Queen, by whom it was started. Afterwards, however, it met with warm hostility even in that city, and in some other parts of Portugal it encountered a short opposition. At Oporto, the Duke of Terceira, who was sent thither by the Queen as Lieutenant-General of the Northern Marines, was imprisoned on his arrival, and a junto was immediately convened, which declared the dethronement of the Queen, and proclaimed her son, Don Pedro, King of Portugal, with a Council Regency. This movement was generally followed by the cities of the North; and Spain was marching troops to the frontier. It is also thought that France, Spain, and even Belgium have had an agency in fomenting these disturbances.

Immense and destructive floods have occurred in France along the course of the Rhone and Loire. Many lives have been lost, and property to an immense amount has been swept away. It was the severest ever known in France, the great flood of 1789 not excepted.

In Italy the Pope seems to be going for. ward rapidly, and with great popular applause, in the new career of improvement and reform, which his councils and example have opened to the people. He is encouraging attempts to promote the cultivation of rice in the neighborhood of Rome, and they are said to be completely successful. A company has been formed for the purpose of growing rice on the whole plain between Ostia and Porto d'Anzo, which is forty miles long, and can easily be flooded at will by the waters of the lakes Albano and Nemi. It is said upon intelligent authority, that the Pope is acting under the advice of the Abbé GIOBERTI in all his schemes, and that the Abbé is desirous that he should put himself at the head of every new movement, and so signalize himself by his zealous promotion of liberty in thought, speech, and action. The Abbé was banished by the late Pope for his counsels to the same effect. His plans, however, met a very warm reception from the Italian people; and the present Pope, then a cardinal, was one of his warmest friends. He was a man of liberal opinions, had visited various parts of Europe, and was thus prepared to enter upon the duties of the Papacy with far wider and more intelligent views than those which had influenced his predecessor. The measures he has already