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mixture of the great and sublime, and altogether peculiarly suited to the tastes of the rude intellect that has become at once vigorous and sordid by an arduous and continued conflict with physical difficulties. Here are high, and yet tangible matters, affording a relief from the petty disgusts of life, ministering at once to pride and vanity, and opening a field to the indefinite rovings of the mind. Ambitious political speculation is, to strong and coarse minds, what poetry and romance are to more refined spirits. Indeed, if we except the homeless wanderer upon earth, and the slave who is bound for life to the acre on which he toils, there are, perhaps, few men who have never felt inflated with the passion for conquest and extended domination. But this nefarious passion meets with the most favourable circumstances for its development, when, to an habitual familiarity with geographical ideas, is conjoined a full and direct exercise of political faculties.

It is obvious, however, that the one or two million citizens of a cooped-up republic, may listen with much less hazard to the suggestions of national ambition, than the dissimilar and discordant tribes of a score of independent states, that are but threaded together on a cobweb. The national passions are susceptible of sudden and accidental inflexions even in compact, homogeneous, and social states; but infinitely more so in the case of a purely factitious union of distant nations. The particular direction given to these passions is almost fortuitous; and whenever they are converted from a more distant to a nearer object, their violence is augmented. And it must also be remembered, that there is a constant tendency in these passions, to seek a nearer in preference to a more distant object. Let then a few years of European peace leave the Americans at leisure more distinctly to apprehend the essential incompatibility of the aims and interests of the three great divisions of the Union; let the inevitable preponderance of the Western States more fully develop itself; let the palpable interests of the sea-board traders be, in several occasions, plainly voted away in Congress; and at the same time, instead of a peaceful, sedate, reasonable, and business-like temper, let there be supposed to pervade the people the turbulent, irritable, and presumptuous spirit of ambition ;— and then, how long will it be before opportunity shall tempt European (perhaps English) interference on behalf of one of the parties; and thus destroy for ever the vain project of an undivided Republic on the North American continent.

Those anxious persons, therefore, in this country, whose lurking fears of America deprive them not only of their peace but of their candour, might do well to take the map in hand; to make themselves acquainted with the provision which the westward progress of cultivation is making for the partition of

the States into three or four rival portions, and then they may comfort themselves with the following dilemna, namely, If the people of America attain and preserve that eminent ober-mindedness which is indispensable to the perpetuity of the Union, then, that Union, attenuated as it must always remain, will not be formidable; but, if they shall, as it is supposed, become prevailingly ambitious, warlike, and enterprising, their intrinsically jarring interests make the disruption of the Union a matter of almost certain calculation.

It should be most especially remarked and remembered, that, in an extensive and disjointed Empire, where unalterable geographical circumstances produce and perpetuate various incompatibilities of temper, feeling, and interest, it is the very purity and perfection of the representative system which inevi tably ensures the ultimate oppression of the smaller portions of the Body. As surely as eight are more than three, so sure is it that a multifarious empire, the government of which is truly and purely representative, will be ruled, not by the more wealthy, nor by the more intelligent, but by the more bulky portion; or, in other words, it will be governed, not by the reason of the whole, but by the relative numbers of the parts. Where the representatives of the people constitute only the check and counterpoise to a supreme authority, these representatives feel themselves much less personally charged with the particular interests of those several portions of the Empire by which they are deputed; because it is found that that balancing and harmonizing of all the parts upon which the strength and security of the whole depends, may, to a great extent, be safely confided to the personal interests of the supreme authority. But where the supreme power, (under whatever forms the fact may be disguised,) is actually in the hands of the representatives of the people, and, where, therefore, it is the personal concern of no one to eare more for the whole than for any of the parts, each feels individually that it is his first and most pressing business to defend and promote the interests of the portion of the Empire with which he is related. Under such a constitution, the representatives assemble in some sort, like the ambassadors of independent states. At home, as private individuals, they may feel the deepest concern for the great interests of the state; but in Congress, they meet to struggle and scramble, each for himself and his clients. Wherever an Empire is so extensive as to include within itself widely separated nations, having interests really or apparently incompatible, there, a government by the bullot of a true representation of the whole empire must issue either in the oppression of the smaller portions, or an appeal on their part to foreign protection. Let it only be imagined, for a moment, that a perfect representation of the British Empire, on the plan

of the American Union, were assembled in our House of Com→ mons. Here then in the first place, are the four hundred mem→ bers for India; and next, the one hundred members for the West India islands, and Canada; and next, the fifty members for all the smaller colonies; and last of all, the fourscore members for the Home Islands, as they would be termed-(Great Britain and Ireland.) And, if it be thought good, let a president, or king, give the sanction of his signature to the omnipotent votes of this assembly. Will any one profess to believe that such an empire, so governed, would hold together fifty years? or would so long a time elapse before the white minority of the Northern Sea must seek the protection of their European neighbours against the black majority of the torrid zone? Circumstances not very important will make all the difference between this supposed case, and that of the North American Republic, as soon as the habitable portions of the continent shall begin to approach their complement of population.

The growing discordances of the Great Republic' are cautiously and painfully alluded to by most American writers. Mr. Bristed speaks thus on the subject:

The very facility of emigration into the western country, raises another very important question for the contemplation of the American statesman. The direct tendency of such emigration is to enable the western territory, in the course of a few years, to outnumber, both in the senate and in the House of Representatives, the Atlantic States; which being done, the Western States, as great inland nations, and erroneously considering that the commercial policy of the Atlantic sea-board is opposed to their agricultural interests, will be apt to sacrifice that commercial policy to their own mistaken views of territorial aggrandizement. p. 233.

'Great as was once the weight of New-England in the American councils, her influence of late has been borne down by the preponderance of the west. New-England, including Massachusetts and Maine, New-Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode-Island, and Connecticut, covers only a surface of little more than sixty thousand square miles, and contains a population of about one million and a half; whereas, the western country already counts a greater number of states-as Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiani, and Louisiana, which give it a preponderance in the senate of the United States;-in addition to which there is an immense extent of surplus territory, out of which new states without number may be carved in the lapse of a few years. Its population already reaches between two and three millions, which enables it to vote down New-England in the House of Representatives; and it covers a surface of more than one million five hundred thousand square miles; that is to say, more than fifteen times as large as the British Isles, England, Ireland, and Scotland, put together, and averages a fertile soil, admirably adapted to sustain a very full and numerous population; a population abundantly sufficient to outrote not only the New-England,

but all the other Atlantic States, all the states that composed the old Union which converted America from a British colony into an independent empire.

The commercial policy is necessary to the very existence of NewEngland, whose depopulation must follow as an inevitable result from its destruction or restriction, and its tide of emigration augments the numbers and resources of that western country, which is inclined to strike a deathblow to the prosperity of the Atlantic sea-board.' p. 234.

The tendency of all this, beyond a peradventure, is either to break up the Federal Union, and entail a perpetuity of anarchy and civil broils throughout the whole continent, or to crush the Atlantic States beneath the enormous hoofs of the western mammoth.'

p. 235.

The following statements are also highly significant, when considered in relation to the growing strength and preponderance of the Inland States. The Author is discussing the propriety of continuing the seat of the General Government at Washington. We include in our quotation a preliminary paragraph, though not immediately connected with the question in hand.

The federal government of the United States never can by its attractions and influence, gather together a concourse of people large enough to constitute a moderately sized city. What are the attractions of the American government, that will, alone, ensure a great increase of wealth and population to the city of Washington? Are they inferred from the naked walls of the unfinished buildings, scattered here and there over the plain? or do they flow from the expenditure of the ample revenues, and the establishment of the magnificent households of the members of Congress, with all their menials, retainers, and dependants, that swell the train of legislative pomp and official greatness? These very congress-men, consisting of forty senators and about two hundred representatives, are, for the greater part, made up of farmers, tradesmen, mechanics, feeless physicians, and unpractising lawyers, whose wages of legislation amount to six dollars a day (averaging less than one thousand dollars a year,) during the session, while they sit brooding and engendering laws for the direction of the Union-these men, without equipages, nay, unattended by a single servant, annually wander up to Congress, from their respective districts, in steam boats, sloops, and stages; and during their session in the federal city, are domiciled in boarding-houses. What great and permanent influx of wealth and population can such legislators and statesmen bring into the seat of government? Nor do the executive officers of the United States, as already shewn, receive salaries sufficient to support even a decent exterior to the world.' pp. 142, 3.

But it seems that

The real, the efficient cause of fixing, and continuing the seat of the general government in the district of Columbia, is to be found in the determination to entail upon the state of Virginia the chief sway and influence over all the rest of Union; and to check the career of the

northern and middle states, whose far superior capacities, both physical and moral, in population, wealth, industry, and intelligence, would eventually sink Virginia into the rank of a second rate sovereignty, if the seat of the national government were on the northern line, and the northern states were permitted to avail themselves of all their agricultural and commercial advantages. Whereas now, the Virginians having the seat of government within their own territory, make it the focus of their own political intrigues; and by managing the people without doors, in the different states, they return nearly what members to Congress they please; and induce them to legislate in accordance with the scheme of Virginian policy, which never has been favourable to large and liberal views of commercial enterprise.

Indeed, it is almost impossible that there ever can be a wise and efficient administration of the American government while its seat continues at Washington, because no practical information, upon any subjects of importance to the well-being of the community, can be obtained there. If advice be wanted on any great political or commercial, question no advice can be had; for no statesmen or merchant reside at Washington; and neither public nor private libraries are to be found there whatever wisdom is required, must be derived from the members of Congress themselves. Add to this, that there is no weight of population, talents, property, or character, to regulate and influence the discussion of Congress, so as to restrain that venerable body from too often enacting absurd and oppressive laws. If the seat of government were fixed in any one of the large and populous cities, which adorn aud strengthen the more civilized parts of the Union, the members of Congress would not dare to pass such acts, as they have too frequently passed, while sitting as legislators in the district of Columbia, for they would be assailed on all sides, out of doors, by the talents, information, character, and influence, of the more intelligent part of the community, and by the popular indignation of their own unthinking brethren of the multitude.

But now, the members of Congress go up from all quarters of the Union to Washington, and generally carrying with them only moderate natural capacities, and no very profonnd acquaintance with the great political relations subsisting between the United States, and the other sovereignties of the world: they assemble together in the Senate and House of Representatives, and hurry through into statutes all sorts of bills, the meaning and import of which they do not always know, and concerning the probable results of which they cannot sometimes even guess: but they obey the directions of their civil commanders, the leaders of the Virginian dynasty. And having performed these feats of legislation, the congress-men retire to their respective domiciles; and congratulate each other upon their deliberative sagacity and wisdom, without any dread of encountering the ridicule or reproach of an intelligent human being, amidst the gross population, so thinly scattered over the naked metropolis of America. The embargo of 1807, 1808, and 1809, that suicidal act, which at one death-stroke cut asunder all the sinews of national industry, wealth, and reputation, was absolutely

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