Notwithstanding the wisdom of its arrangement, and the applicability of its construction, the instrument requires a judicious and energetic hand to wield it. Indeed, its very complexity and delicacy make the proper handling of it an impossibility to the ignorant. Neither our own, nor any other free government, could flourish or exist, unless controlled by checks and restraints exterior to, but necessary to the well-working of its machinery. The real safety of our governmentits true security against oppression on the part of the majority, or rebellion from the minority—is no mere contrivance, no balancing of class against class, no reliance in selfish interests. It is something stronger, safer, wiser than any or all of these: it is the uprightness and wisdom of an educated and Christian nation insuring the justice of the majority's decision, and the acquiescence of the remainder in their judgment. This, therefore, requires wisdom in our statesmen; it is this makes our country peaceful, happy, and prosperous, and prevents the wanton abuse of the constituted forms of government by a victorious majority. It is these moral checks which remove any apprehension on the part of the minority, and obviate any vindictive or illegal action, or even a passive resistance to measures honestly intended to promote the well-being of the whole community, however much they may fail to meet the views of a part. Such measures must be maintained or opposed, not from sinister or selfish motives, but from the unfeigned conviction that their retention or alteration will be for the good of the greatest number. Such is the course of every true citizen whose patriotism is not a

A contrary action on a question pregnant with such mighty results, is certain to lead eventually to anarchy and revolution. From parallel scenes of civil discord—the oppression of the weak, the tyranny of the many—there is a certain and dread alternative,-an alternative destroying every hope of liberty, blighting the virtues of the soul and the powers of intellect, enthralling man in all the darkness of mental slavery, but an alternative in which relief may still be found-an irremediable, a hopeless despotism.

FREEDOM FROM FOREIGN INFLUENCE.

"Our virtues
Live in the interpretation of the times."

SHAKSPEARE.

It is a preposterous assumption that any single class of our citizens are exempted from their civil responsibilities by reason of the religion which they may happen to profess. We are not able to understand why all the members of our vast commonwealth are not equally bound and equally interested in the preservation of the general safety. We cannot comprehend the rule by which one man must offer all his resources for the public good, while another, because of a different religious profession, may remit every exertion on the same behalf, as to him alone seems equitable or agreeable. American citizens should permit no religious creed to teach them forgetfulness of their common country. They should spurn alliance with every cause which leads them to forego their love for the equal rights of all men. If they cannot stand together upon the broad platform of liberty for the whole human race, there is no hope left that humanity shall be benefited.

Strange times, indeed, have we fallen upon, that demand of us a demonstration, to any portion of the American population, of the necessity of the duty of their most zealous support of the free system of government under which they live. Mighty revolutions must assuredly have been wrought in public sentiment, when American citizens are discovered to be forgetful of their obligations to the sacred cause of republican truth, and wilfully derelict to the high duty they owe to the country whose suficient protection they are proud everywhere to claim. No domestic influence, germinating here on the blessed home-soil, could ever have been potent to produce a state of things so alarmingly fraught with mischief. It could have arisen from the operation of none of those healthy principles with which our fathers wisely set in motion this comprehensive system of peace. Alien hatred is its real author, and foreign interference is its malicious progenitor. It was produced on a distant soil, and it is diligently sought now to be domesticated on this. It bears the brand of foreign iniquity on its forehead, and stands confessed a monster of too hideous a mien to be the product of the clime whose breezes all whisper of freedom.

We will not pause to undertake the proof of what is already so transparently obvious, namely, that both Catholic and Protestant Americans are bound by an equal engagement to sustain the liberties of that country whose appointed guardians they are.

It is a duty from which, while members of the great body of freemen, they can neither ask nor expect a release. The obligation is stamped too deeply on their souls; it is ingrained with their nature, by the process of their early education; and he must, in truth, cease entirely to be an American-openly cast off his allegiance altogether, and forswear both the rights and the privileges of citizenship—who hopes, by any method, to absolve his conscience from the religious duty he owes to the country, either of his birth or adoption.

But consenting, for the moment, to set the question of duty aside, we are left to estimate the measure of interest that should lead every citizen, of whatever religious creed, to strive to maintain American freedom intact from the taint of foreign influence. Interest is sometimes a powerful advocate, when duty cannot find a tongue. Fear often persuades, and moves to action, when a loftier motive feels its power paralyzed and gone.

The better to understand the nature and extent of this common interest, it is necessary first to study the character of that influence from abroad, by whose threats and usurpations our free institutions are subjected to peril. The grounds of fear must be accurately ascertained, before the alarmed heart instinctively puts forth all its energies for preservation.

No nation can achieve either character, influence, or power, unless it be founded and compacted on some particular principle. Monarchy builds on the principle that one man is better than his fellows, and possesses therefore an hereditary right to rule. Republicanism cherishes the heaven-born idea that ALL MEN ARE EQUAL, and not only equal, but free-capable of self-control, and the safe direction of their own concerns and interests; and, so dearly has this grand idea been cherished, that it has become an incorporated principle in the political system, and been employed as the corner-stone of the entire edifice of republicanism. Here, at the commencement, all absolute forms of government are at open issue with democracy. There is a fatal incongruity between them from the beginning. And not only so, but it is not possible for the influence of one of them to falter in its active progress, until it shall have finally succeeded in outrooting the other from existence.

Foreign potentates are not blind to truths of such magnitude, looming ominously from the lessening horizon of their future. They understand that inactivity is destruction ; that silent acquiescence is worse than destruction; for it is a humiliating confession of wrong, to

, the syllables of which they have never fashioned their lips. They start up with awakened fears and renewed energies. Watching the constant changes that occur in the political sky, they draw themselves secretly into closer companionship, each kating the other with the full measure of his heart's power, but hating the new influence even

Considerations of safety weigh down thoughts of mere policy, and they swear to forget the smaller evils in the face of one they esteem far greater. It is selfishness that is working at the bottom; but this selfishness is destined to perform an important work,—for it will be the most active element in the destruction of every system of government where Church and State are connected. The prophecy, even now, is in the progress of a literal fulfilment.

Opposing republicanism on grounds like these, it is little to be expected that foreign powers will abate a jot or tittle of the intensity of that spirit of hatred which uniformly characterizes their action.

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Nor do they at any moment give evidence of its relaxation. If America but crosses the Gulf-Stream, their swiftest ships are on her track. If she treats with a nation like Texas, they are there to whisper words of disaffection and discouragement. Our name is employed as a term of ridicule and reproach abroad, and our soil is considered only a fit lazar-house for the reception of all cases of political disease. We are styled the Botany Bay of the world, accepting every ingredient that is offered to help build up a wild and incongruous nation; and into our lap are poured the paupers, the convicts, the lazaroni, the assassins, and the vermin-eaten rabble, whose presence is a source of peril to governments whose duty it is to make proper provision for them. We contribute of our bounty to famishing nations, and yet are styled the most avaricious and

grasp ing of any on the face of the earth. Our march forward is one of peace alone; yet are we charged with a spirit of piracy which befits only a nation wholly barbarous. If our representatives abroad convene to confer upon the highest interests of their common country, spies dog their steps, falsehoods hunt down their true purposes,

their government is spoken of as an outlaw, and secret pledges are circulated to destroy its growing influence by whatever means, and at however great a hazard.

But this is only a superficial view of the matter. It is not altogether abroad—it is even on our own soil that foreign powers seek ehiefly to do the work, the performance of which they have undertaken. Knowing that if a battery is to be silenced it must be carried by a vigorous assault, and that in order to destroy a fortification a breach must first be made in the walls, they direct all their secret forces against that government which stands sponsor for free and liberal institutions. To cripple its power, to weaken its energy, to obstruct and overthrow its matured purposes, to turn its very forces against itself, and thus give it the name of an insane suicide,—these are the objects that are sought with such an unmistakable eagerness, and the accomplishment of which would fill the world with the jubilations of tyranny.

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