7372.74 AeP Oct 28.1846 Gift & James Brows of Advertisement. THE occasion and the object of the following essays are sufficiently explained the introductory number. They are now collected and published in a form somewhat less evanescent than that in which they originally appeared, because, in the judgment of a few friends, they are deemed worthy of being preserved. Whether this be the opinion of the public, the Author neither knows, nor is anxious to know. He is satisfied with the consciousness of an honest endeavour to serve the cause of truth and peace. If his reflections and reasonings shall be regarded as of little value, he would only say that he would have written better if he could. so far as the folHe would gladly Of one thing, however, he is quite confident-and that is, that, lowing pages shall produce any effect, it must be a salutary one. indulge the belief, that they may tend to soothe that asperity of local feeling which he regards as the alarming symptom of the times; to cherish a national spirit, and to promote the union-he had almost said, the re-union-of politics and morals—of political principles with correct sentiments, as well as with sound and liberal views. For he is well convinced, that when the maxim comes to be generally established, that a man may do, as a politician, what in the intercourse of private life would be deemed neithe honourable nor honest; and when the measures of political parties shall become altogether-what they would now seem almost to be a game of cunning and unprincipled manœuvres to circumvent each other, it will be time to despair of the commonwealth, and look out for a master. This he doubts not, will appear extremely simple to the wise ones of the earth; and he is well contented to pass, in their estimation, for a dreamer. He hesitates not to avow that he is one of those-he trusts that there are many such--who regard the prevalence of pure moral principle-the prevalence, in one word, of that spirit, which forbids us to do to others what we would not they should do to us, as the only secure basis of national prosperity, the only firm bond of the social compact. Sed hactenus hæc.. HAMILTON TO BRUTUS. "THOU SHALT SEE ME AT PHILIPPI.” NO. I. WHEN, in the course of the past summer, the numbers of the Crisis made their appearance in the columns of the Mercury, I regarded them as little else than symptomatic of the madness of the hour; as a substitute for the periodical alarm of mad-dogs or epidemics-and I trusted, especially after the yellow-fever made its appearance, to occupy, in some measure, the boding minds of the idle and apprehensive, that Brutus and his denunciations would pass away and be forgotton. At any rate, I concluded, that when Sirius should no longer be lord of the ascendant, the sources of your inspiration would be dried up, and your prophetic ravings come to an end. Simply, I did believe, that the good sense, the dispassionate judgment, the political morality, of this community, would not tolerate either the sentiments or the language of your speculations; and that you would be permitted to pass quietly down the stream of oblivion. I perceive I was mistaken; though I would still gladly believe, that you are yourself, in some measure, deceived with regard to the reception which your lucubrations have met with; that you may, partially at least, have mistaken, like so many others, notoriety for fame, and the approving sounds of your immediate circle for the responses of the distant echoes. I will not yet admit, that the sober citizens of Charleston, and the substantial landholders of South-Carolina, are prepared to listen with approbation to doctrines, the plain, the avowed tendency of which is to array one section of our common country in implacable hostility against the other; to kindle, in plain words, the flames of civil war. thought so; if I could bring myself to believe that you fairly represent the sentiments of this community, I would throw my pen into the fire. I should think the time for argument, for cool discussion and calm remonstrance had gone by; and that he was the wisest man who most speedily effected his escape, like Lor, from the impending ruin. There is no exaggeration, no sounding hyperbole, in this language. Once let the opinions you avow, and the feelings you manifest, become general, and this country is no longer worth living in. It is no longer either desirable or safe. Both property and life, in losing their security, would lose their value. I repeat it: every thing that makes this country worth a wise man's love, is bound up in the Union of these States. If this is denied, I will not waste a word in proving it. I should as soon think 1 If I of attempting to prove, that the harmony of the solar system depended on the mutual attraction of the heavenly bodies; and that the earth, for example, would not probably be so warm and comfortable-so full of life, and flushed with beauty, were it to "shoot madly from its sphere," and wander away from the influence of the central light and heat. This is the course you urge, with all the power of your reasoning and eloquence-whatever these may be-on South-Carolina. In plain, unvarnished terms, you call upon us to RESIST the measures of government, by force and arms. You are "for open, undisguised hostitity." This is startling language. It is language that no citizen, under a government of laws, has a right to use. It is such language as, in any other country than this, you would not have dared to use. An overt act, in accordance with its import, would subject you, or any other person, in any state on earth, to trial, condemnation and punishment, as a traitor. If this be not so, language has no meaning. Yet you repel with indignation the imputation of treason, and flatter yourself that the opinion of your fellow-citizens will sustain you in the course you have pursued. I trust it is not so. I have confidence yet in the sober reflection and calm good sense of my countrymen. I doubt not the present, to me incomprehensible excitement, will pass away-that the people will find that the present "crisis," like so many that have gone before it, is an artificial one-that the forms of terror that have been evoked to frighten their imaginations, are mere forms, impalpable and unreal-that the republic is not in danger-that its great interests are untouched and unthreatened-that the fundamental principles of the Constitution have not been violated-that there are no such clashings and counter-movements in the political machine, as to show that its true balance is disturbed, and that it needs to be reconstructed. I believe that, ere long, it will be a cause of wonder to every one, as it now is to me, that, in a time of profound tranquillity within and without, in a period of general prosperity and increasing light, such dread chimeras could have been conjured up, to "mow and chatter" at us, in the face of the sun, and almost "knit up our sober faculties in their distractions.? The mists will "lift" ere long, that have settled over and distorted the objects of our vision, and men will smile at their own de lusions. This is my confident expectation. It is the part of a good citizen, not lightly to despair of the commonwealth. Evils are inseparable from the condition of man-political as well as physical. He is no sound philosopher, or good citizen, who, in the one case or the other, whenever an inconvenience is felt or feared, begins at once to quarrel with the system, or find fault with the administration of things. In both cases, there are evils which may be mitigated; and there are others which must be borne. If you could reconstruct the universe, I may be permitted to doubt whether you could exonerate us from a liability to the tooth-ache, without depriving us of our masticators; and were you to re-model the Constitution, I equally doubt, whether you conld find a depository for powers adequate to all beneficial purposes, in whose hands these powers could never, by any possibility be liable to abuse. Even you, I am inclined to think, must fail in an attempt to unite the ends of the rainbow-to reconcile inconsistencies-to make a government at once supreme and subordinate-bound to make bricks, yet furnished with no straw-obliged to provide for the public defence and welfare, yet allowed no discretion in the selection of the means for this purpose-bound down by the letter of specific grants, and compelled to go into the field with its spear and coat of mail, when the progress of science and improvements may have arrayed against it the thunder and lightning of artillery. Your charges against the Government, so far as they have any foundation at all, appear to me to be of this character, viz: that it has deemed itself vested with discretionary powers in regard to the means to be adopted for the accomplishment of its high purposes; that it has endeavoured to do the good it was bound to do in the best and most effectual manner. But of this hereafter. It appears to me, that your book calls for an answer; and it is my purpose to give it one. I am induced to undertake this by my firm persuasion, that it is calculated to do mischief exactly in proportion to the extent of its influence. There is a show of logic, a parade of first principles, a fearless hardihood of assertion; and, above all, a tone of earnestness in it, that can hardly fail to have an imposing effect, especially on the minds of the young and inexperienced, and on that numerous class of political speculators, who read with a segar in their mouths. With such readers loud crimination and strong assertions pass for proofs; lofty pretensions for solid merits. There is, too, perhaps, a sufficient admixture of truth in your views and reasonings, to give currency to the errors they contain, and to endue them, in their operation on heated minds, with a potency for evil, which, by themselves, they could never possess. I propose then to show, that your principles in politics are often crude and impracticable-that your posi tions are untenable-that your premises are often mere assumptions, neither proved nor capable of proof, and your reasonings shallow and sophistical. I will show, that under the influence of the most unjust and unfounded prejudices, you have accumulated charges upon the heads of individuals and classes of men, which have no existence, but in your own imagination-the mere coinage of the fancy. I shall endeavour to detect your sophistry, to point out your errors, and to correct, as far as may be, your mis-statements. I have no wish to employ offensive language; but I shall not fail to call things by their right names. If these give offence, it is no fault of mine. My quarrel is with the spirit and tendency of your doctrines. These I find it impossible to characterize otherwise than as utterly mischievous. That your motives are so likewise, is not for me to affirm. I am quite willing to believe, that, you may have persuaded yourself, that the course you recommend is honourable, and may be safe. I am not unaware of the magic power of passion in dazzling and beguiling the intellect; and can easily admit, that what you consider the impending evils, may, by its sorceries, have been swelled to such a size as completely to shut out from your view the mightier mischiefs, to which your course must inevitably bring us. This is the only charitabie solution your conduct admits. And my philosophy teaches me, that he who adopts, in judging of his fellow men, the more liberal side of the question, is, after all, most likely to be right. I would recommend this maxim to your special consideration. Depend on it, it is worth a whole volume of RocHEFAUCAULT's, or any other of the cold and crafty school of counterfeit moralists, who broach human nature at the wrong end, and draw off dregs and feculence as samples of our being. I am willing to give you the benefit of its application; and think it will not be amiss if you likewise, allow it to others. I enter on this task, though without any misgivings of mind, yet with feelings saddened and mortified in no ordinary degree. I am no alarmist. I am not in the habit of foreseeing a tempest in every speck of cloud that darkens the horizon. My sleep is not disturbed by portentous dreams of approaching ill; nor do I at all fear that nature will "deviate from her high career,' "" or the mighty and beneficent course of Providence be turned from its bias, by a modicum more or less of wisdom, in the legislature of the land. For the science of augury, ancient or modern, religious or political, and for the tribe of augurs in general, I have no very high respect; still, I am free to confess, that, to my mind, the aspect of the times is of evil omen. There appears to me to be something carious in the public feeling-or, to speak more precisely, in the public morality. . The Government of the Union has been in operation nearly forty years. What did it find us? and what has it made us? Look back on its whole course-has it not been one of beneficence, of most salutary and vivifying influence on the interests, the reputation, and the happiness of this nation? Yet now, even now, men are found who owe to its genial influence that the broad lands, in which they pride themselves, are not valueless as Siberian steppes, who can task their leisure hours, and rack their intellects to render this government hateful, and persuade us to sever with the sword, the cords that bind us to its sway. In these circumstances, to be silent were to participate in your guilt. It is the duty of every man, who can aught avail, "to stand between the living and the dead, and endeavour to stay the plague." It is no very pleasant thing to watch and guard our dwellings from the midnight incendiary; or to forsake our repose in order to check the progress of a conflagration. It is the dictate, however, at once of interest and of social duty. Nor will I stand quietly by, and see firebrands and flaming arrows hurled into the sanctuary of our dearest hopes, without using my endeavours to quench the fire. The effort is in my power-the result I leave to Heaven. NO. II. Before I enter on the main argument, I wish to make a few remarks on your introductory number. After speaking of the obliteration of the old lines of party politics, you go on to say: "It is this delightful and comparatively calm state of the public feeling; when we are in the full enjoyment of the blessings of peace, and with no prospect of their being interrupted from abroad; when each state has every motive to attend to its own local concerns; and when men are more disposed to look rationally and dispassionately into every subject connected with the welfare of the State; it is this period which I seize to address you," &c. Is this statement with regard to the tone and temper of the public feeling correct? Is it consistent with fact? Do you rightly scan the aspect of the political heavens, and correctly interpret the signs of the times? I certainly |