where they must kill or be killed, because of disputes which, if you possessed sufficient magnanimity, sufficient confidence in their practical good sense, could have been at once amicably adjusted.

The experiment of the unfolding of the democratic principle(we use the word democratic as denoting the elevation of the people, the binding them together in bands of a common brotherhood, creating a mutual interest in each other, the prostration of every institution which enables a few injuriously to affect the interest of others)—is opening a new avenue to men's minds, and preparing the people to learn of Him "who spake as never man spake.” We do not pretend that our political institutions are perfect, or that no evil follows the wandering of the people into untried paths, where no ancient land-marks nor guide-posts are set up. We do not pretend that the people are fully enlightened. Far from it. They see yet but partially. Their eyes are not fully opened. Yet with the light they have, they are boldly and earnestly in progress. The public mind is deeply excited. Long established opinions, the customs of ages, are intently examined; and when satisfied of former errors, they have the self-confidence, the moral courage to uproot them. The new truth that has penetrated the masses, is mainly this :-that there is much wo and wretchedness, poverty and degradation, carnage and oppression in the world, not necessarily there; that the wrongs done by man to man are not from the necessity of the case, but from the imperfect structure of society; that the gnawing hunger of a whole population, the abject bondage of many people, the degradation of millions, made machines of that they may be better soldiers-the rivers of blood that have been shed-that all these are not of God's appointment, but the result of the bitter selfishness of the few; and that they, the people, have in times past been made slaves of, that they might be the scourges of each other, not for their own profit or pleasure, but to minister to the lusts and passions of those who control the movements of the nations. They begin to suspect the wisdom which seeks to bring good out of evil, by opposing man to man, and by exciting in him the most ferocious passions for mutual self-destruction. Where is the good of all this? ask the people. To whose advantage is it? The good comes not to us. It destroys us.

If our political institutions are sound, their tendency is to elevate the people, to diffuse the comforts of life among them all, to extend refinement of feeling and activity of mind through the whole mass; to improve the morals, and to call out into full exercise the social feelings, the spirit of love and mutual kindness.

Now war is the opposing principle, the antagonist of all this, and of course conflicts with the spirit of our republican government. One unavoidable consequence of war, is the unequal distribution of property. It absorbs all the wealth of the country to fill still further the coffers of the rich. National experience in Europe proves this. Vast sums of money are extorted from the people to be returned, dollars to the few, cents to the many; and the war debt, as we have before said, is the mortgage of every man's sinews and muscles to the capitalist. War is necessarily an aristocratical state; the same relative distinction extends all over the land as is seen in the ships of war, the princely state-room for the master, the hammock for the men,-the one enjoying ample space and the free air in his luxurious cabin, the others crowded below in a mass, to breathe the suffocating odors of the hold. It is, we repeat, necessarily so; war cannot be waged without these unjust distinctions. The many must become subject to the few, the money interest must be the lord of the ascendent, and when Peace returns she finds the habit of command in some, the willingness to yield in others, firmly fastened upon the nation. The government, fused in the furnace of war, assumes the shape which the exigencies of war demand; it takes the mould of the battle, and peace only cools down the mass into adamantine hardness, which ever after bears down upon the people with a crushing weight. It was the demand for leaders in the fight which created a nobility, and it is the continuance of the martial spirit which still buoys them up above the level of common men.

We have recurred to this view of the subject to show that our relative position as a nation, that our republican institutions, favor the spread of the principles of Christianity. It is our popular government, our democratic reference to the good of the people, the bold radical spirit among us, which will not rest satisfied with a lie because the lie has been told for ages, which makes our country the proper field for the spread of this reform, and encourages the philanthropist in this blessed work.

We do not pretend, as we before said, that the people are fully enlightened on this subject. There are yet many in utter darkness, many whose prejudices against some one foreign nation have been industriously kept alive. There are others, too, the alarmists by trade, disturbers of the public peace for bread-so reckless of consequences to others, that they are ever ready to hail with joy any commotion which shall break up the present relative positions of men. Still the people have their eyes partially opened; they see present evils, though their vision extends not far away to see the curative means. For instance, in the case

of a war for the disputed territory, they cannot comprehend how the waste of money, life, human happiness, on both sides, can settle existing difficulties. Neither nation can conquer the other; and when at last the attempt at pacification is made, the exasperated feelings created by the war, so far from diminishing, increase the difficulties of an adjustment. They begin to feel too the utter folly of the terms "national honor," "national glory," "national chivalry" - though many of our legislators appear nót to have made the discovery. These terms are the watchwords of England - a country in which twenty thousand people at least die annually of actual starvation — where, notwithstanding this, the poor sailor or soldier, whose back bears the mark of the lash, and whose body is maimed, and whose mother and sister are "on the parish," shouts huzza for his king and his country. Glorious England! They have some idea too that the spread of knowledge, the thorough diffusion of the comforts of life,— in other words, the happiness of the people, is their true glory. They know that this glory is not promoted by war. Experience tells them that the sword has ever been the instrument of the tyrant and oppressor; and he that wields it even in the cause of liberty, too often has found he but obtained

"the name

Of freedom, graven on a heavier chain!”

We are aware that the popular indignation was excited and still continues, against those who took part in opposition to the last war; and rightly excited too. A party peace organization, while the country is engaged in fight, has the appearance of a traitorous combination, attacking the government when weakened by the employment of all its resources against the foreign foe. It was not the martial spirit of the country which the Federal party then opposed, but the one result of this war spirit - the actual war then existing. It was not the unchristian nature of every war, but the inexpediency of the exercise of the right then to do battle. They did not place themselves on the high ground of the moralist, but on the low ground of the partisan. They did not so much consider the happiness and welfare of the people, as the success and triumph of a faction. Was it not so in the main — though many may have joined the opposition from higher and purer motives? What moral right has any one to oppose his country; to embarrass her operations, when actually engaged in war, if he holds to the right and expediency of ever fighting at all? If it be proper, Christian-like, expedient, for a nation ever to declare war, when that war is declared by the constituted authority, no one admitting the premises has a moral right to be

found in opposition to it. He may oppose the declaration of war, but the declaration once made, it binds all whose consciences permit them to fight in any war whatever. It is supremely ridiculous to suppose that before hostilities can commence, the views of every party, and faction, and individual, are to be consulted.

But on this retrospection we have no desire to dwell. We are now dealing with the present and the future, from which we will not divert our attention to rest it upon either the faults or the follies of the past. We desire simply to add our voice to the general approval of all the good and the wise, for the encouragement of the noble movement of philanthropy denoted in the title to the present article. Within the limits it prescribes, we have been able to perform but half of the design with which we commenced; and we reserve for a second paper in our next Number a sketch which we propose to give of the life and character of one of the most remarkable men of the day, recently deceased; well known not only in this country, but over the whole civilized world, as the apostle of Peace of these latter days-the late President of the American Peace Society, WILLIAM LADD.

PARTING WORDS.

BY MRS. C. E. DA PONTE.

SPEAK not of me when hourly 'mid the gay
And giddy throng, who circle round thy way,
And proffer homage to that gentle eye,
In whispered words and love's bewildering sigh.
No, lady, not in scenes of such delight,

Nor in thy halls with dance and song at night,
Speak thou of one who doth not mourn his lot,
By all but one true heart to be forgot.

Ah, no, not then-but in some lonely hour
When fades the sun, and dew is on the flower,
In such a time as falls that soft repose
Fair evening sheds, and only evening knows';
As thy sweet eyes turn then their pensive light
To worlds which burn beyond our mortal sight-
Let thy young heart, from earthly visions free,
Give one fond thought to memory and to me.
VOL. X., No XLIV.—16

MR. CAMP'S “DEMOCRACY."

THIS is an admirable little volume-with but one fault; namely, that being a little volume as it is, it had not been made a little smaller. That is to say, that if the three or four concluding chapters which the author has appended to the main body of his work, in the form of a "Part II.," had been omitted, we should have been able to omit the qualification we feel now bound to add to our approval of its general excellence of matter as of manner. It is evident that these chapters formed no part of the plan on which Mr. Camp had projected the lucid, logical, and beautiful essay on the general principles of Democracy, which constitutes his "Part I." The latter was pronounced, we presume, by the Publishers, insufficient, in a mechanical point of view, to fill up the requisite bulk to give the volume admission to their Family and School Libraries; and the author has had to eke it out as per order no longer under the inspiration which had before guided his voluntary pen, in a labor of love, performed in a manner not unworthy of his elevated and elevating theme; but under that kind of requisition, for a given number of pages, supplementary and distinct, usually the least favorable to an author's success. The First Part is an essay on the abstract theory of Democracy, than which we know of none so complete, connected, compact. The author has rendered a valuable service to his country and its political literature. Mr. Camp's pages are rich with thought, strong, clear, and well arranged, equally in their logic and their language. There is very little in this part of the volume which has not alike our concurrence and our admiration. There are many passages, teeming with important and interesting truth, and evincing profound reflection by an active and original mind, upon the grand subject of political science, which we had marked for extraction. The cheapness and facility of access of the volume induce us, however, to prefer to recommend the perusal of the whole notwithstanding the serious drawback to its value which we find, on some of the superfluous pages, he has been unwisely induced to append to it. One extract alone we shall not omit, with which Mr. Camp closes that part of his work which we have taken pleasure in thus highly commending. We insert

* Democracy. By George Sidney Camp. New York: Harper & Brothers, Cliff-st. 1841.