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of the people, Bolivar drew up its constitution. Soon, however, domestic factions sprung up, the purity of his motives were questioned, and he was suspected of aiming at a perpetual dictatorship. He gave, however, a noble denial to these unjust imputations, by quelling the disturbances that affected the State, and then retiring to private life. For a time he was recalled to the exercise of the chief authority, till 1830, in which year his death occurred. The government is still in the hands of a President; and it may be said this republic is, of all those of South America, the best as to its internal quiet and prosperity, for most of them are, indeed, republics but in name.

It is needless to fatigue the reader with historic details of the several independent States and Confederacies of Central and South America. Grouping them together, we may sum up the whole by saying, that they have been but experiments towards freedom, and, without exception, unsuccessful experiments. Knowing comparatively little of the sweets of real liberty, they seem to be not very ambitious for its attainment; but a sluggish supineness renders them insensible to its value. An amusing illustration of this occurred not many years ago at Chili. At a dinner given to some officers of an American vessel on the fourth of July, one of our officers gave as a toast, “ General Washington," when a Chilian followed with "The hundred Washingtons of South America!" In the republics of South America, which preserve the blood and the indolent pride of the Spaniards, constitutions are destroyed hourly, by the will of some Dictator; and the people, after a transient appearance in the career of civilization, fall back into the darkness of barbarism, and are not even conscious that they have been free for a day. Society, in short, stumbles at the first step it attempts to take forward, and falls helpless at the entrance of that path in which modern civilization springs forward, radiant and proud, to the goal.* While we, in common with the civilized world, have been constructing our railroads and steamships, many of the natives of these States pursue the barbarous custom of travelling on the back of a man, or of a mule, and thus pursue journeys of several

* Malte-Brun.

days across a stony and rugged country. Every species of social and moral degradation seems to prevail. The principal occupation of the wealthier class consists in doing nothing; that of the majority something worse-surrendering themselves to filthiness and vice.

It has been already intimated that the superior progress in civilization of the United States is the fruit of the Protestant faith. It is to the refining, elevating, and hallowing influences of a pure Christianity, that we trace the high developments of social and civil order to which Protestant America has attained. The Bible is the bulwark of a nation's safety and success. Need we proofs, we have the fact amply illustrated in the comparative civilizations of the northern and southern portions of our own continent.

A few men land, one by one, on the shores of North America, poor, humble, and unknown; they bring with them but one book, the Bible; they open it on the rocky strand, and begin immediately to construct their infant community or commonwealth in accordance with its sacred order, subordinating all to its claims. Their sympathies and aims are one in the common faith, and hope of its teachings. Amid the frosts of winter, and on a rugged, sterile soil, yet are they all undismayed.

"See the calmness and boldness of these men: we discover in the constitution of this rising empire, the fire of Luther united with the coolness of Calvin. Fancy pictures the scene all glowing with Christian beauty and heroism; with the sound of the axe and hammer, mingles the chant of a psalm. Their firm faith in the favor of their God renders them indifferent to dread of the desolate wilderness. The light of Heaven sanctifies their toil; and by a sort of social miracle the wilderness, and the solitary place, is made to blossom as the Where once was the rude wigwam of the savage, we now behold thousands of cities, towns, and hamlets, filled with the abodes of peace and plenty.

rose.

"Look we on another picture. The proud monarchy of Spain sends her stately viceroy and armament, accompanied with the sanctions and pomp of Rome, to a country and a clime of luxuriant fertility, and which

is known to abound in the precious metals. As if to render the contrast of circumstances the more convincing, nature herself seems to echo to her Maker's voice. In order that the test may be the more decisive, every physical advantage seems to be in favor of the mission of Romanism. But while all around is grand and gigantic, glowing with exuberant life and fertility, man is here in weakness, imbecility, and vice. He is under the vassalage of a spiritual thraldom, which effectually prevents the development of his moral and intellectual nature. To all the noble incentives to action he is alike indifferent; he is the victim of supineness, indolence, and immorality.

"What means this wondrous sterility in a new world, except that the idea brought thither had given elsewhere all its fruit; that Romanism, essentially conservative during three ages, has lost power of impulse the creative spirit; and that, henceforth, she is incapable of giving to the wide expanse the word alone pregnant of a new social world; that her soul, imprisoned in the cathedrals of the mediæval ages, has no longer the strength of divine tempests to purify chaos and baptize continents.

"Let these nations of the South do what they will, they end inevitably by realizing in their government the ideal which they have inscribed on their state religion, that is, absolute power. All they can do is to change dictators, and thus we see them succeed in nothing but in tightening the bands of their thraldom. Progressive punishment! South America lies as it were at the foot of a vast upas-tree, ever distilling its torpor, while the trunk, rooted in another continent, remains visible."*

"The Spaniards, in spite of unexampled barbarities, which have covered them with lasting shame, have not succeeded in exterminating the Indian race, nor even in hindering their sharing their rights. The Americans of the United States have attained this double result, with a wonderful facility; quietly, legally, philanthropically, without bloodshed, without violating, in the eyes of the world, any of the great principles of morality."

* M. Quinet.

De Tocqueville.

If respect for its laws be the test of the morality of a country, the South American States will be found miserably bankrupt in this particular for hardly a day passes that is not the witness of the execution of some political offender, while "the United States of North America," writes M. De Tocqueville, "is, I think, the only country upon earth, where, for the last fifty years, not a single individual has been put to death for political crimes. There is not a single manufactory in Buenos Ayres that takes advantage of the products of the soil: thus the country grows poorer and poorer.* It is the same in all the republics of South America. The laws are wholly inoperative to suppress crime, consequently vices of the most hideous and revolting character obtain to an alarming extent. The social relations of life are in a state of moral putrefaction—the most extreme licentiousness prevails, and society exists only in name; its phases are as dark and degraded as in pagan lands. What a fearful responsibility, then, must attach to that pretended system of religion which, having absolute will over the minds and property of the people, can sanction and perpetuate such a state of things!

The South American "republics” teach the people of the United States the evils of a corrupt religion connected with the State, and the fearful consequences of intestine broils. Every month witnesses a revolution in some one of these distracted countries; and in the objectless struggles, neighbors and relatives imbue each other's hands in fraternal blood. Military executions constantly take place, and the patriot, and the ignorant victim of designing usurpers, are shot like dogs, and consigned to the earth. The imagination cannot comprehend the future of these countries; they seem every year to fall lower and lower in the scale of civilization. Arts, commerce, and the fruits of peace are decaying away. Nothing flourishes, but the processions -the feast-days-the pomps and ceremonies of the Roman Church.

* M. D'Orbigny.

AMERICA, THE THEATRE OF THE GREAT

DEMONSTRATION.

"Into the full enjoyment of all which Europe has reached only through such slow and painful steps, we sprang at once, by the Declaration of Independence, and by the establishment of free representative government; government, borrowing more or less from the models of other free States, but strengthened, secured, and improved in their symmetry, and deepened in their foundation, by those great men of our own country, whose names will be as familiar to future times as if they were written on the arch of the sky."-WEBSTER.

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Ir must strike every reflective mind, that ours is no history of mere chance, or even of simple fortune. This gigantic country, stretched between so many parallels of latitude, its shores washed by the two great oceans of the world, its past so wonderful, its present so great with mighty promises, this America does not exist without a purpose, as if the careless hand of Chance had originated it, with no designed place among the other countries of the world, and no grand promise to perform for the regeneration of mankind. It is not possible, even for him who affects to disbelieve in the providence and the power of a God, to imagine that an existence like ours ever sprung out of the chaos of accident, or was the unlooked-for fruit of circumstances which never felt the guidance of a Supreme, controlling hand.

That we are specially deputed to begin and to carry out successfully the greatest social and political problem in the world's destiny, is enough to fill the breast of every man with hope-felt determination, for it commands our thoughts, our energies, and our faith. The sooner our citizens recognize this feeling, the speedier and the more energetic must be the steps in that great demonstration in which we are certainly the accredited principals. If individuals have a destiny marked out for them, suited to the inclinations and endowments of their natures,—must it not be equally true that nations, made up

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