Un

pudiation is another development of it. questionably, in each of the States that has repudiated there was a large majority of men thoroughly honourable in their private affairs; but, the moment the question became a public one, they passed from under the private law of honesty to obey the political law of convenience. There is nothing to prevent a State compounding with its creditors, in a candid manner, on sufficient grounds; but repudiation has not been the course of those who could not, but of those who, having the means, would not pay. This has occurred in all parts of the Union, the number of States so distinguished being equal in the two sections, and the population of repudiators by far the larger in the North. And although Mississippi offers the most bold and outrageous case, there is none meaner than that of the great State of Pennsylvania.

With ardent faith he

A feature of character peculiarly remarkable in the North, is the illogical tone of mind apparent in the speeches and writings of the present day. Few can have studied the progress of this contest without observing, with surprise, that in every belief entertained by the Northerner "the wish is father to the thought." anticipates, not that which reflection and calculation render probable, but simply that which he desires. On all political questions, slavery, tariffs, Union, his mind becomes utterly subservient to a single view or idea, and seems incapable of grasping and weighing both sides of the subject. The Abolitionist never considers what his own feelings

would be, had he been born a slave-owner, if addressed as a "bloodhound," or likened to "smallpox," or whether such manner of argument would have turned him from the error of his ways. The Unionist, contented loudly to assert that he can subdue the South, never stops to consider how it will be done, or what is to follow it when done. He rejoices at the capture of a sand-bank, to hold which injures himself ten times as much as his opponent. He glories in the acquirement of little islands, without considering that they cost him a hundred times as much as they are worth. He proclaims borrowed money to be strength, nay, even asserts that "the wealth of a country is in the ratio of its expenditure." Throughout. the

history of this contest he has cherished a series of the most palpable delusions, and as each explodes supplies its place with a new one. All seem to be satisfied if words agree with wishes, and are framed into well-turned sentences, without the least concern whether the arguments be sound, or the conclusions logical.

The democratic principle is based on numberon mere physical power, without regard to property or intelligence, or, in other words, without restraint. The same principle, that of unrestrained power or will, implanted in the mind, extinguishes all impulse to weigh adverse views or respect distasteful opinions. The thoughts become echoes of the will as subservient as are the

limbs to volition. Democracy desires to have nothing above it, nothing to restrain it, none to

obey, none to revere; and so the democratic`mind seeks not, but avoids to temper and moderate opinions by the restraining influence of those of others, or to arrive at sound conclusions by patient labour of weighing and balancing adverse views against its own. Hence, arguments so fallacious, deductions so inconsequential, and so remarkable an absence of logical power, as the Northerners have offered to our view. Few will have failed to observe the contrast afforded by the State papers and political literature of the South. As that section cannot claim any superiority of original mental power, we cannot explain the marked difference, except by the fact that the Southern leaders have never yielded themselves up to the democratic influence which has so generally deteriorated the Northern mind on all political questions, a disastrous result of the institutions of the Union where their influence is fully experienced.

Reflecting on all these facts, we shall be the less surprised at the description given of the social state of the Union by Mr. Cassius M. Clay, in his address to the people of Kentucky, part of which runs thus: "A general demoralization has corrupted the first minds of the nation; its hot contagion has spread among the whole people. Licentiousness, crime, and bitter hate infest us at home; repudiation, and the forcible propagandism of slavery, are arraying against us a world in I appeal to history, to reason, to nature, and to conscience, which neither time, nor space, nor fear, nor hate, nor hope of reward, nor crime,

arms.

nor pride, nor selfishness, can utterly silence-Are not these things true?"

We believe that, in the main, they are true,we cannot doubt the earnestness of the appeal. But when the same Mr. Cassius M. Clay calls upon us to give our moral support to the Union, we think there must be, somewhere, a strange delusion. We should say :-Invite us to support a government under which you show us the growth of purity and justice-but do not ask us to support a system whose fruits are such as you describe. We should say that secession, or disruption, might either of them be welcomed, if they afford an escape from evils such as these. It It seems, indeed, time to arrest this degeneracy of a race, "nobly born, and purely bred." Can this be done by restoring the Union? Slavery will not be extinguished by nestling it again under the wing of the American Eagle. Strength will not be imparted to the Government by restoring the conflicting elements that made it weak. The vicious effects of wide dispersion will not be effaced by reinstating the magnitude of the country. Nor is it likely that the "bitter hate " of which we read will be smoothed into affection by the edge of the sword.

If we also should appeal to "history, to reason, and to conscience," they would declare it to be essential to the true welfare of the American people, both of the North and South, to escape from this unsound condition,-to abandon this principle of compromise, to end this system of aggregation,— to form separate communities, each able to frame

laws adapted to its position, and permitting selfrespect,—to seize this opportunity to cure the evils which unchequered prosperity and stimulated growth have engendered,—and at length to realize and manifest that there are other, and perhaps nobler objects of ambition, than enormous growth of cotton, or the possession of illimitable provinces.

The following passage occurs in Justice Story's admirable Commentaries: "The fate of other republics their rise, their progress, their decline, and their fall-are written but too legibly on the pages of history, if, indeed, they were not continually before us in the startling fragments of their ruins. They have perished, and perished by their own hands. Prosperity has enervated them, corruption has debased them, and a venal populace 'has consummated their destruction. They have listened to the fawning sycophant, and the base calumniator of the wise and the good. They have reverenced power more in its high abuses, and summary movements, than in its calm and constitutional energy, when it dispensed blessings with an unseen and liberal hand. Patronage and party, the triumph of a leader, and the discontents of a day, have outweighed all solid principles of government. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall when the wise are banished from the public councils because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded because they flatter the people in order to betray them."

How forcibly these eloquent words apply to