pease the popular clamor; but on regaining power, all these concessions have been blotted out, and tyranny has become more exacting than ever. In this, absolutism was only true to its own nature. As soon as it was safe to lay aside the mask, it never failed to exhibit its true character in all its hideous proportions. Not once has it offered gifts to the people, which it did not, at the time, resolve to take back again, with usurious interest.

Austria, Prussia, Russia, France-what else can the eye fasten itself upon in scanning the history of their more recent acts, but records of murder, of imprisonment, of fines and confiscations, of banishment, of leagues against liberty, of cruelty and tyranny in all their multiplied forms? Where is the hope to-day that their people are making themselves ready to go forward with the conflict that will reward them with freedom? How many of the population of those empires are languishing abroad at this moment, dying lingering deaths far from home and friends, rather than swear away the freedom of their consciences at the dictation of crowned conspirators!. Who shall tell the number, or the acuteness of their sufferings? Who shall estimate the depth of that grief which seems able to consume both body and soul together?

The great game of the kings, last appears to be completely

Europe is now a seething caldron. carried on so long with impunity, at blocked. The rulers are at a stand. Events have mastered ambitious men; and the extended laws of cause and effect, running silently through a course of centuries, at length seem about to vindicate their supreme authority. Politics is now another name for confusion. Ministers study and scheme how they may extricate their royal masters from their dilemma, and give over their efforts with exclamations of mortification and despair. The rulers grasp their sceptres more firmly, fearing that it cannot be long ere they must give them up forever. Cabinets have grown timid, and dare not assert with former boldness the policy of their several courts. There is a manifest want of confidence everywhere. Armies are called into service, till there are scarcely any men left to recruit them. The treasuries are de

pleted by enormous drafts, and bankruptcy and ruin threaten nations that but yesterday were prolific in resources.

But in the midst of this inextricable confusion, certain signs are beginning to betoken the increasing interest which foreign countries. take in our national welfare. We see, from time to time, symptoms of a more decided leaning to republicanism. Here and there sturdy words are spoken-at the right time and in the right place-in our behalf. The spirit and principles of our government find admiring friends where it was least to be expected. Our institutions are criticised and commented on in an appreciative temper, and without that rancor and prejudice which was once so certain to be excited, by the mere mention of our name.

It is too important a truth for any of us to overlook, that the American Republic is the home of Liberty, and the final hope of the world. Through the efficacy of her example and her teachings, must redemption finally come. We hold the treasure in our own keeping; we are the trustees of a possession that is to enrich mankind. On our soil dwells that living spirit, which is, in time, to overthrow error, tear away the deceits of usurpation, deprive tyranny of its power, and everywhere animate the human soul with the belief that freedom was coeval with its birth.

If the world may not hope in us, then all hope is in vain. The experiment of a free government is one with which we have made ourselves familiar. With the institutions which belong to such a form of government, we have an acquaintance that is practical, and thus the more valuable. Their spirit has infused itself into our habits, our customs, and our ways of thought. If these privileges are worthy to be perpetuated, none ought to be more eager and earnest in the performance of such a work, than we who have so freely enjoyed them; and it should therefore be a labor of love with us, to publish their blessings to the world.

Foreign rulers no doubt regard us with jealousy, convinced that our system is incompatible with the secure existence of their own. It must be so, in the very nature of things. The work of Republi

canism is a silent one, because it deals with the understanding alone. Other systems put forth military power, to crush out opposition by brute force, and to secure acquiescence by fear. But true Liberty has no such murderous weapons in her armory. The means by

which she works are those that soonest disarm tyranny, and bring usurpers to confusion. She appeals not to prejudice, but to reason. She overcomes opposition, not with opposition, but with the teaching of sublime truths that cannot be resisted.

Americans should not forget their invaluable trust. They should be as true as their forefathers to the hope which is committed into their keeping. Through menace, and artifice, and open opposition, they should walk undaunted; holding their way with the resoluteness that will take them out of the reach of fear, and vindicating by every act of their lives those immortal truths which form the broad basis of our national existence.

Above all things, sectionalism is to be frowned upon as the worst enemy known to the republic. Let it come from what quarter it may, the heart that harbors the thought of it without fear, and without regret, is nowise worthy of the stamp of the American name. They who cherish it with the hope thereby of raising their individual fortunes, will certainly be classed with the Arnolds and Iscariots of

our race.

It is a monstrous thing, that after so many years of national prosperity, the men can be found who dare openly excite one portion of our people against the other. Honest differences of opinion are to be looked for, and open expressions of those differences are a necessary consequence; but to excite treason, to inflame sectional prejudices, to build up barriers between one State and another, to breed a swarm of pestilential sentiments that threaten to infest the land like a plague,―is to put one's self without the pale of honorable American citizenship, and beyond the reach of honest men's consideration.

If we are to possess a nationality of our own, we must become one people. There can be no strength to the national character, if its forces are dissipated by domestic divisions. Unless we are able

to stand together, we must straightway fall in pieces. The moment unity begins to relax, disease and death set in with all their ravaging train. Differences should exist only as spurs to efforts of greater patriotism. If they take hold on the character of citizenship itself, qualifying its value and demeaning its rank, they become mischiefs instead of aids, and ought to be silenced, even at the cost of the greatest sacrifices.

In so vast an area as that comprised within the limits of the United States, it would not be at all strange if there were a great diversity of interests. It is to be expected that, on numberless subjects of local concern, the inhabitants of the different sections should entertain directly opposite opinions. Nothing is potent to counteract the effect of these divisions, and to draw together the widely separated interests of our extended country, but some sentiment that shall take a deeper root in the heart than mere interest, and control all other influences

by its superior power. We look in vain to any other sentiment for the performance of this work, than that of love for one's country. Once fixed in the heart, there is no supplanting it. It is strong enough to shape all the affections and interests that are recorded in the list of our common humanity.

And if other people are to be found whose hearts beat quick at the mention of their country's name, Americans have reasons a thousandfold stronger for laying all their nobler feelings on the altar of patriotism. We are addressed by considerations such as appeal to no other people on the face of the earth; we have entered on an experiment without a parallel in the history of the world; we are seeking great and hidden truths; we hold the hopes of all liberty in our hands; and the wise men of other nations are watching the course of our star with both jubilant and prayerful emotions. Surrounded by such stern realities, and weighed down with these vast responsibilities, imposed by Heaven itself, he must utterly fail to understand his true relations to his fellow-men, or even to discern the meaning of his own existence, who remains indifferent to the great circumstances that beset his situation.

There is no safety for us, except in unity of feeling and harmony of action. We must learn to consider the whole country as dear to our hearts as any single part of it; to forget the too ready feelings which promote distrust and alienation; to cherish every true and noble sentiment that enfolds within its embrace the welfare of the whole of our common country; to cultivate feelings of brotherhood and peace; to hold steadily up to contemplation the one idea of our high American name and nationality.

No consideration should be allowed to take precedence of a spirit of patriotism. Our country before all things, should be both the sentiment and the motto. Union as well as liberty, should be on every one's tongue. Nationality as well as freedom, should vitalize the thought of every one's heart. No great good can be permanently secured, except by generous and oft-repeated sacrifices. No human institutions can hope for stability, unless they are founded in the deepest human conviction of their necessity, and sustained by the perpetual heroism of those to whom their value is apparent. We must either be brethren, or become aliens to the memories of the past. We must sink jealousies in nobler considerations, or lose sight of all the promises of our glorious future. We must earnestly determine to be nothing but AMERICANS,-knowing no greater name, and resolved that there shall be no greater nation, and at once the bright inheritance becomes ours, and our grandest hopes leap forward to their swift realization.