on the leaders, who expect offices, honors, or treasury jobs. They, in turn, operate each upon a crowd of the second rate: these again come in contact with and move each a little crowd of voters; and thus the whole machine is kept in working order, and works as it is moved from the centre. Public opinion is manufactured on a grand scale by the executive press. Letters are sent from Washington to remote country editors, advising to make such and such demands, as if coming from the people; these writings are then quoted together in the central papers, as though they were a free expression of the national opinion, coming simultaneously from all quarters of the continent. In the middle of this tissue of lies sits the editor of the Executive Organ, at Washington, like a vast spider in the middle of his web.

Next follows the management of the Territories. A pledged President distributes over all the territories such governors, lieutenants and judges, as will wrest the law to carry out the will of the faction. The old set of governors and managers are turned off, unless, like the valiant ex-govvernor of Michigan, they can fall into a "fit of easy transmission," and suffer the light of the new policy suddenly to illuminate their ancient ignorance.

Next we have the army and navy, and the military academy, to be officered-as vacancies occur with the friends of the Presidential policy.

No less does Congress itself demand the proper care of the government; elections are to be managed by custom-house officers, and other retainers of the centre, so as to return members to swell a corrupt and artificial majority in the house.

Last of all, but not least in importance, the Supreme Court of the United States, should a vacancy occur upon its bench, must be strengthened with a pliable judge, or a "judicious" judge, who will not fail to discover what is and what is not unconstitutional, just as the Executive may suggest.

I have not enumerated all the means of influence that may be employed by an ingenious and enterprising intriguer. The sy stem itself has not yet been perfected. It needs a Machiavelli to do that, and to eave us a testament of the art of governng republics by fraud, fear, falsehood,

and bribery. The London press and the English Ministry may be acted on with facility, by an intriguer managing the affairs of the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the earth, as the United States are now well known to be. As they act upon us, so they may be acted on by us. And as things are going on, we shall by and by see more of this.

Add then to this sea of patronage the power of forcing such bills through Congress, as the Executive may see fit, together with the power of stopping such as displease him, by the use or previous threat of the veto, and you have a grand idea of the power of a Party President, elected with a full understanding that he is to carry out every measure of his party; and when that falls away from him, every measure of his Congressional and patronage clique, or of his private ambition.

All these means of influence, the growth of a corrupt age, General Taylor has laid aside, by giving his word of honor that he will not use the power of his office to carry out the measures of any faction; that in office he will imitate the conduct of Washington in a dignified forbearance, and in deferring all to the will of a lawful and deliberate majority in Congress. I cannot but say of this act, when I reflect upon the wisdom that must have prompted it, and the consequences that must flow from it, that it is one of those great instances of public virtue that are handed down to posterity for the admiration, and for the good, of future

ages.

Entering unpledged upon his great trust, General Taylor, should he be elected, will become inde d the head and leader of the nation, and the great defender and restorer of the Republic. He will be there to execute the laws, to preserve peace, to temper by a mild and wise conduct, though not without a salutary vigor, the violence of sectional rage. The party who elect him will not be able to sway him as a tool, or to reproach him,should he not go all lengths with them in the unrestrained employment of a political victory. To defend the honor of the nation, to keep the boundary, to protect the colonist and the emigrant in the far West, to maintain the dignity and peace of the Empire, he

THERE is perhaps no single question of fact which usually involves so much diversity of opi ion and of description, as that of a military engagement, the particulars of which may be derived solely from actors in the scene, and yet be found to differ in numberless details, and frequently in the most important elements. No two individuals will observe the incidents from precisely the same point of view, and, as in gazing upon the rainbow, every spectator sees a different one from his neighbor, so it would appear from the conflicting narratives of battles, that there are as many combats as there happen to be narrators. Hence every account of such historical events gives us an additional degree of approximation nearer to the truth, and the final historian, by taking a mean of the whole, is enabled to extract enough for practical purposes, of the "philosophy which teaches by example." Whether the work of Captain Carleton, like his letter to a distinguished general, (p. 184,) touching a point not yet fully disposed of, "settles the question" of the battle of Buena Vista for all time, we are not prepared to affirm, but that it is a valuable addition to the facts already communicated to the public, in relation to what he is pleased to consider the great battle par excellence of the war, we think few will be disposed to deny. As set forth in his preface, Captain Carleton's facilities for qualifying himself for the task were unquestionable, and if he has not fully attained the object of his aspirations, the fact must not be attributed to want of zeal or of good intentions, but rather to the causes to which we have just briefly adverted.

The events preliminary to the battle are detailed by the author with commendable minuteness and perspicuity. The reasons

for occupying Agua Nueva, which developed the consummate strategic talent of the American general, and the ease with which he baffled the well-laid plans of General Santa Anna, by discovering the purposes of that able and crafty commander, and concealing his own, are set forth with a clearness worthy of the subject, and with an apparent fidelity to truth worthy of the historian. Even the reconnoissances three days before the battle are described so faithfully as to include the most trivial incidents, in which the author evinces his determination not only to give the truth, but the whole truth. But for this desire to include all the events of one month, we do not see the importance of relating so particularly the events of both reconnoissances, as that under Major M'Culloch seems alone to have resulted in any practical consequence, that intrepid officer having actually passed within the Mexican lines, while Colonel May's command appears only to have lost by capture one officer and one private. With the manoeuvres, numbers, and position of the enemy, Captain Carleton has also made himself equally familiar, and in detailing his corps, divisions, and battalions, gives us the names of their several commanders, even down to the ranchero Colonels Blanco and Aguierra, those old friends and patrons of the Centre Division, who relieved its necessities by liberal supplies of forage at liberal prices, and whose good dinners will doubtless long be remembered by the most distinguished officers of the Chihuahua column. If we were disposed to cavil, we might feel inclined to question the declaration "that nothing more is necessary than a simple array of the facts which constituted the elements and characterized the movements of the two armies on that occasion, "to enable any individual" to

and how won, (p. 1.) If "nothing more is necessary" than this, why not be satisfied with the official report of the commanding general? The facts are there set forth with classical simplicity and unrivalled perspicuity, and in the compass of a few pages, instead of a volume. We are inclined to believe, therefore, that some persons, less amiable than ourselves, would not be unwilling to point the small end of an insinuation that our author was not altogether indifferent to a display of his literary abilities, even if he were not actuated by a desire to give a certain arm of the service a position somewhat more conspicuous than that which it occupies in the official reports, and in the opinions of many who participated actively in the conflict. We distinctly disclaim any reflection, direct, collateral, or remote, upon the corps referred to. Its chivalric gallantry is too well known, and has been too well tested to render it liable to suspicion; and if it failed on this occasion to contribute as much to the result as might have been anticipated, those who were mortified at the fact will know where to look for the

cause.

Without entering upon an elaborate discussion of the point, we are yet unwilling to admit the unqualified assertion that "of the numerous triumphs of our arms, it [the battle of Buena Vista] is by far the greatest." (p. 1.) With deference to the superior military judgment, experience, and acquirements of Captain Carleton, we are constrained to believe that, tested by purely rational or military principles, with reference to the numbers engaged, the duration of the conflict, and the immediate consequences of the victory, that of Buena Vista is a less brilliant achievement than that of Resaca de la Palma. The odds in both engagements were nearly the same, eighteen hundred to seven or eight thousand in one case, and about forty-five hundred to eighteen or twenty thousand in the other; but here the resemblance ceases. In one case, the enemy selected his position; in the other this advantage, and a great one, was with the opposite party. In one case the victory was decisive and complete, tl.e enemy's camp captured, with a large quantity of military stores, and himself driven across the Rio

was at best a negative one, known only when the sun revealed the retreating foe, and in its results preserving only what we had already gained, without adding anything to our acquisitions save national glory. We have neither space nor disposition to continue farther a comparison of the two battles; but conceive that even this brief statement affords a thorough refutation of a popular error, having its origin in the circumstances which attended the two events. But while we contend that the victory of Buena Vista, as a mere military triumph, is inferior to that of Resaca de la Palma, it cannot be denied that the lofty genius and moral power of the Commanding General were more eminently conspicuous in the conflict with General Santa Anna, than in the earlier one with General Arista. On the heights of Buena Vista, General Taylor constituted in himself the main body of the Americans, and under any other commander we have no doubt that even ten thousand Americans would have been defeated. One victory was due to the combined efforts of all; but it is scarcely too much to affirm that the other was due to the presence of a single individual. All that we have heard or seen on the subject, forces upon us the conclusion that no one but Zachary Taylor would have fought the battle, and no one but Zachary Taylor could have won it. And we hope that, if any of our readers do not now concur in this opinion, we shall be able to convince them of its correctness before bringing this article to a conclusion. In our narrative, while we shall endeavor to adhere rigidly to facts, we shall not, of course, indulge in that minuteness of detail, which belongs to the historian, and shall consult not only Captain Carleton's work, and the official reports, but the descriptions written at the time by those engaged; to the authors of which we here beg leave to make a general acknowledgment of our indebtedness.

There has been considerable discussion in relation to the discoverer of the merits of Buena Vista as a battle-field, the rival claimants to which are a distinguished general officer of the army, and a Captain of Topographical Engineers. We have no disposition to enlist under the banner of either party; the fight, as it stands, is a