XL-ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY.

J. W. MILLER.

IN consulting the history of nations, it will be found there is an epoch in the existence of each, when a temptation presents itself, which resisted or yielded to, marks the future character of the nation for good or for evil. That temptation is now presented to this republic-it is Mexico. It is a broad and a rich land—a land of silver and gold-a land without. a government to protect it, and without a people capable of defending it, and it lies before us an easy tempting prey. There is none to stay our hand, or to resist the gratification of our ambition. The mystery of her origin, the story of her former conquest, play upon our fancy and excite our heroic passions. Already has the tempter carried us to the pinnacle of the temple and points out the rich treasures of the city beneath. We now stand upon the high mountain-at our feet lie twenty states, with their cities and towns, their temples of religion, and palaces of state. The tempter whispers in our ear, all these shall be yours if you will fall down and worship the god conquest. History stands ready with her pen of steel to record our determination. Shall we bow down to the evil spirit, and fall as other nations have fallen, or shall we maintain our virtue and rise to god-like courage and say, "Get thee behind me, Satan." The temptation is mighty-the power to resist only divine. I know of no nation, in ancient or modern times that would resist so easy, yet so rich, an acquisition to its dominious. To say nothing of the heathen world, not one of the powers of modern Europe would withstand the temptation. England would not, as she has shown by her conquests in the East. France would not, as she is now proving by her attempts upon Algeria. As to Russia, Prussia, Austria, let the partition of Poland answer. There, too, is old Spain, once the proudest and mightiest of them all, she has also had her temptation. It was this same Mexico which now fascinates us. Allured by its mines of silver and gold, which now entice us-excited by the spirit of propagandism, which now inspires us, she too yielded to the tempter, and for a while she went on from conquering to conquer, until in her turn, she was made to lick the dust beneath the chariot wheels of that false deity she had worshipped, when that chariot rolled in triumph over the fair fields

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of Arragon and Castile. No, sir, I can find no example of this high standard of national virtue and forbearance. If we resist this temptation, we shall set an example to the world. Ours the wisdom, ours the virtue, ours the glory, of forbearing to seize upon the territory of a weak and defenceless neighbor, when we had the opportunity and the excuse of doing So. We have already, in our short history, set one great example to the nations of the earth. We have laid the foundation of a mighty empire, deep and strong, upon a principle new and startling to the old world. We have established self-government, and bound in strong and happy union, twenty millions of freemen, who acknowledge no government, but that of their own choice. Let us now establish another principle of national action, equally new and startling. Let us declare that while we admit the oppressed of every land, to a free participation of the blessings of our self-government, no cause of war, no excuse, no temptation will induce us to conquer a nation by war, for the purpose of subjugating its territory and people to our dominion.

XLI.-THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS.

J. MAXCY.

THE interposition of Divine Providence was eminently conspicuous, in the first general Congress; what men, what patriots, what independent, heroic spirits! chosen by the unbiassed voice of the people; chosen as all public servants ought to be, without favor and without fear; what an august assembly of sages! Reme in the height of her glory, fades before it. There never was in any age, or nation, a body of men who for general information, for the judicious use of the results of civil and political history, for eloquence and virtue; for true dignity, elevation and grandeur of soul, that could stand a comparison with the first American Congress! See what the people will do when left to themselves; to their unbiassed good sense, and to their true interests! The ferocious Gaul would have dropped his sword at the hall-door, and have fled thunderstruck as from an assembly of gods! Whom do I behold? a Hancock, a Jefferson, an Adams, a Henry, a Lee, a Rutledge!-Glory to their immortal spirits! On you

depend the destinies of your country; the fate of three millions of men; and of the countless millions of their posterity! Shall these be slaves, or will you make a noble stand for liberty, against a power whose triumphs are already co-extensive with the earth; whose legions trample on thrones and sceptres; whose thunders bellow on every ocean ? How tremendous the occasion! How vast the responsibility! The President and all the members of this august assembly take their seats. Every countenance tells the mighty struggle within. Every tongue is silent. It is a pause in nature, that solemn, awful stillness, which precedes the earthquake and tornado! At length Demosthenes arises; he is only adequate to the great occasion, the Virginian Demosthenes, the mighty Henry! What dignity! What majesty! Every eye fastens upon him. Firm, erect, undaunted, he rolls on the mighty torrent of his eloquence. What a picture does he draw of the horrors of servitude, and the charms of freedom! At once he gives the full rein to all his gigantic powers, and pours his own heroic spirit into the minds of his auditors; they become as one man; actuated by one soul-and the universal shout is "Liberty or Death!" This single speech of this illustrious man gave an impulse, which probably decided the fate of America. His eloquence seized and moved the assembled sages; as the descending hail-storm, bursting in thunder, rending the forest, and shaking the mountains. God bestows on nations no greater gift, than great and good men, endowed with the high and commanding powers of eloquence. Such a man as Patrick Henry, may on some great occasion, when the happiness or misery of millions depends on a single decision, render more important service to a nation, than all the generations of a century.

XLII.-LIBERTY AND DESPOTISM.

DE WITT CLINTON.

IN revolutionary times great talents and great virtues, as well as great vices and great follies spring into being. The energies of our nature are put into requisition, and during the whirlwind and the tempest, innumerable evils will be perpetrated. But all the transient mischiefs of revolution are mild

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when compared with the permanent calamities of arbitrary power. The one is a sweeping deluge, an awful tornado, which quickly passes away; but the other is a volcano, continually ejecting rivers of lava-an earthquake burying whole countries in ruin. The alleged inaptitude of man for liberty is the effect of the oppressions which he has suffered; and until a free government can shed its propitious influence over time—until perhaps, a new generation has risen up under the new order of things, with new habits and new principles, society will be in a state of agitation and mutation; faction will be the lord of the ascendant, and frenzy and fury, denunciation and proscription, will be the order of the day. The dilemma is inevitable. Either the happiness of the many or the predominance of the few must be sacrificed. The flame of liberty and the light of knowledge emanate from the same sacred fire, and subsist on the same element; and the seeds of instruction widely disseminated will, like the serpent's teeth, in the pagan mythology, that were sown into the earth, rise up against oppression in the shape of the iron men of Cadmus. In such a case who can hesitate to make an election? The factions and convulsions of free governments are not so sanguinary in character, or terrific in effects, as the animosities and intestine wars of monarchies about the succession, the insurrections of the military, the proscriptions of the priesthood, and the cruelties of the administration. The spirit of a Republic is the friend, and the genius of a monarchy is the enemy of peace.) The potentates of the earth have, for centuries back, maintained large standing armies, and, on the most frivolous pretexts, have created havoc and desolation. And when we compare the world as it is under arbitrary power, with the world as it was under free republics, what an awful contrast does it exhibit! What a solemn lesson does it inculcate! The ministers of famine and pestilence, of death and destruction, have formed the van and brought up the rear of despotic authority. The monuments of the arts, the fabrics of genius and skill, and the sublime erections of piety and science, have been prostrated in the dust; the places where Demosthenes and Cicero spoke, where Homer and Virgil sang, and where Plato and Aristotle taught, are now exhibited as mementoes of the perishable nature of human glory. The forum of Rome is converted into a market for cattle;} the sacred fountain of Castalia is surrounded, not by the muses and graces, but by the semi-barbarous girls of Albania;

the laurel groves, and the deified heights of Parnassus, are the asylum of banditti; Babylon can only be traced by its bricks; the sands of the desert have overwhelmed the splendid city of Palmyra, and are daily encroaching on the fertile territories of the Nile; and the malaria has driven man from the fairest portions of Italy, and pursued him to the very gates of the Eternal City.

XLIII-RESISTANCE TO OPPRESSION.

J. MANCY.

WE are called upon as citizens and as men, by the highest motives of duty, interest and happiness, to resist the innovations attempted on our government; to cultivate in ourselves and others the genuine sentiments of liberty, patriotism and virtue. After a long series of peace, prosperity and happiness, you are threatened with all the horrors and cruelties of war. The tempest thickens around you, and the thunder already begins to roar. A nation hardened in the science of human butchery; accustomed to victory and plunder; exonerated from all those restraints by which civilized nations are governed, lifts over your heads the iron sceptre of despotic power. To terrify you into an unmanly submission, she holds up to your view Venice, shorn of her glory; Holland, robbed, degraded and debased; Switzerland, with her desolated fields, smoking villages and lofty cliffs, reeking in blood amidst the clouds. In the full prospect of this mighty group, this thickening battalion of horrors, call up all your courage; fly back to the consecrated altar of your liberty, and while your souls kindle at the hallowed fire, invigorate your attachment to the birth-day of your independence; to the government of your choice; feel with additional weight the necessity of united wisdom, councils and exertions, and vow to the God of your fathers, that your lives and fortunes ; that everything you esteem sacred and dear; that all your energies and resources, both of body and mind, are indissolubly bound to your sovereignty and freedom. On all sides you now behold the most energetic measures of defence. All is full of life, and ardor, and zeal. The brave youth, the flower and strength of our country, rush into the field, and