South American independence; on the great scheme of the Colonization Society; and last, not least, his conduct with regard to the public lands, and you behold the same manly, fearless, able, and upright pursuit of the broad, old-fashioned path of national and social happiness. There are no shifts or truckling to circumstances about himno feeling the wind, or bending even to the storm-this least of all; for if ever the Roman firmness of Cato is more than usual in his conduct, it is when any attempt is made to drive him from his course. In short, my dear sir, I know no man in the country who has so much of soul mingled with politics as Mr. Clay. They call him ambitious. He is ambitious; but it is for the welfare of his country-that all her people, through all her ranks to the humblest cabin, may enjoy the blessings of peace, industry, and enterprise; and that he may be the honored instrument of promoting those great purposes, I do ardently hope that he may soon receive the exalted testimony of the Union to his public worth as a statesman, and the steady friend of liberty in its broadest relations."

We shall make but two further extracts from the political speeches of Mr. F., the one indicating his views of the paramount obligations of the Constitution, delivered on occasion of "the removal of the deposites," in Jan., 1834, and the other exhibiting the soundness of his opinions respecting the powers and duties of the general government and the several States in the matter of slavery.

"In the language of Mr. Jefferson, and according to the soundest philosophy of politics, the great mass of the American people have always been, and now are, all Federalists, and all Republicans.' It is the federalism of the Constitution that I honor the system of fundamental law, as expounded by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, and administered by Washington and most of his successors. I never drank at any other fountain, and wish to follow no other guide. And however, in seasons of tran. quillity, when the sun shines brightly, and the waters are calm, we may venture to contemn or neglect these good old principles; when tempests begin to musterwhen the highways are broken up, and the billows of convulsion break over us and around us, then, sir, when every face is sad, and every heart is heavy, we almost instinctively seek refuge and guidance in our Federal Constitution; we will then follow no other leader; it is the only shield that affords security. It is, indeed, sir, a copious and perennial fountain; copious, to supply all the social and political wants of this

great confederacy, and of vital energy, fully adequate to impart its rich benefits still wider, as the lines of our Union shall expand and encompass many more noble States. Yes, sir, far as the intrepid enterprise of our people shall urge the tide of emigration toward the setting sun, until all over the valleys of the West freemen shall rejoice in their blessings, and not an unoccupied acre remain on which to raise a cabin or strike a furrow.

"Mr. President, if in the benignant councils of a merciful Providence it shall please him to perpetuate our liberties, I believe that it will be through the agency of these principles. And should that melancholy crisis come to us, as I fear it may, as it has come to all past republics, when the people of this Union shall reject the control of fixed prin. ciples, and seek to break away from the government of laws, then, indeed, sir, will the hopes of our enemies, and all the fears of our friends, meet in the catastrophe of constitutional liberty, and our 'sun shall go down while it is yet day.'

The following remarks upon slavery as existing in our political system, represent the true constitutional doctrine as held by the great body of sound thinkers on either side of the Potomac.

"It is universally agreed that, by the principles of our confederation, the internal concerns of each State are left to its own exclusive cognizance and regulation, and the Federal Government of the United States cannot lawfully legislate on the subject of slavery, as it exists in the several States.

"Prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the thirteen States were separate and independent governments. There was no political bond to which was given, by concession, the power of control: the State of Massachusetts, for instance, possessed no more right to interfere with the relation of master and slave in Carolina, than it had to interfere with the relation of prince and serf in Russia. When the Constitution was framed, no such right was acquired or could be obtained; and a subse. quent provision was ingrafted, which was merely declaratory of the necessary intendment of the instrument, that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.' The precise extent of these reserved rights has, in many particulars, been the subject of grave debate; but that they include the right of interfering in the relations of master and slave, no one has had the hardihood to pretend. Such terms as the States respectively chose to insist upon must necessarily have been acceded to, or

the whole compact remains inoperative; and, at all events, the slaves of the South, by its adoption, were placed in no worse situation than before, and, in many respects, much better. Nothing of an unkind or uncharitable character is attributable, therefore, to the Constitution-to those who framed, or to those who adopted it. Interests were contemplated and protected in which our black population participated, and of which they are now reaping, slowly but surely, the favorable fruits.

"What the political action is which the Constitution PRESCRIBES for the removal of slavery, we are yet to learn; nor is it easy to imagine a federal principle adequate to that result, and, at the same time, compatible with the sovereignty of each State to legislate exclusively' on the subject, and the disclaimer of any right of Congress, under the present national compact, to interfere with any of the slave States on this momentous subject.

"When, therefore, we are urged to the

immediate abolition of slavery, the answer is very conclusive, that duty has no claims where both the right and the power to exercise it are wanting. The door is shut upon us here; nor could we open it but by a violence destructive of public harmony, and probably fatal to our National Union."

In 1835 Mr. F. was succeeded in the Senate by a gentleman of different political opinions, in accordance with those of the party then dominant in the New Jersey legislature. He returned to his native State, quietly resumed the practice of law, and, beloved and admired by his fellow-citizens of every sect and party, seemed to have retired forever from the political service of his country. In 1838 he became the Chancellor of the University of New York, and transferred his residence to that city. In this position, the dignified head of a learned university, the nomination of the Baltimore Convention of May, 1844, found him, and called him to the mighty conflict which is now dividing the land. For this conflict, and to achieve success in it, Mr. F. needed not to furbish up any arms of

party strife, grown rusty by disuse ;when in the heat of the fight, and in the ardor of youth, he had need only of the armor of truth and the weapons of peace, and with these, amid his scholastic retirement, and in the serene vigor of his mature age, he was still girt about. To this nomination the whole country responded with enthusiasm, and Mr. Frelinghuysen, with the graceful ease of the practical statesman, assumed the post of honor and trust which the great Whig party had assigned him, as cheerfully and as modestly as he had before labored in its ranks.

In all valuable movements for the improvement of the condition of our race, Mr. F. has always been earnest and active. In the cause of popular education, in the promotion of temperance, in the relief and improvement of imprisoned felons, in the diffusion of the Bible, he has ever been a laborious coadjutor with kindred spirits throughout the land; and at this moment he presides over the largest, most enlightened, and most comprehensive scheme of benevolence, and guides the deliberations of the most learned and honored body of philanthropists, to which our country has given birth.*

We cannot but congratulate not only the Whig party, but the whole people of these United States, upon the nomination of Mr. Frelinghuysen for the Vice-Presidency. The country has been prolific of political genius and oratorical talent; the various and vast systems of public philanthropy which this present century has nurtured and matured, have produced many men of eminent ability, and as eminent self-devotion; the benign influences of our social institutions have fostered in many private citizens the most dignified and beautiful of personal virtues, and made their possessors an honor and an ornament to their kind; but we challenge the list of living men of worth for the name of one who unites in so high a measure the valuable qualities of a statesman, a scholar, a Christian, and a man as Theodore Frelinghuysen.

THERE was one book, of "American manufacture," which especially delighted our boyhood. It has lingered with us. It left that peculiarly clear and ineffaceable impression which is only made on the boyish mind-as if the things told were matters of personal knowledge with us, that occurred a great while ago, and very wonderful. It was not a marvellous "Historie of Sathanic Witchcraft in ye Colonies," printed with suitable pauses for shuddering; nor a tasteful collection of the most interesting crimes, as the "Pirate's Own Book," and "Lives of Eminent Highwaymen ;" nor a "Narrative of Indian Wars," with tattooed cuts, and pleasantly interspersed with long captivities, and strange glimpses into the solitary distant abodes and wild life of the Red Men. It had no advantages of attraction by delicate paper, or covers exceedingly gilt. There was no artistic merit about it, such as makes Defoe's "Crusoe," and the travels of "Gulliver," and the wonderful allegory of the tinker's "Pilgrim," equally interesting to the young and the old. But the book was connected with the most eventful period of our country's history, the revolutionary war-a period which every American, for all time to come, will doubtless read over and call back to mind, to be imagined and lived through by themselves, with a more earnest and thrilling delight than any other since the first opening of the country. And this connection was of a very peculiar kind. There were not, among the scenes set forth, any movements of trained officers, and great armies, and regular campaigns; there were not even the recognised tactics of war; but there was the same serious and calculating, yet hazardous determination, which everywhere marked that memorable struggle; while, in addition, about the accidents and incidents which the unpretending narrative described, there was a degree of romance belonging to no other part of the contest over the country. It was altogether a singular union of impressions-a Robin Hood and border-war interest, united

with the stirring sense of dangers undergone, and blood spilt, to establish a great nation in freedom. Weems's Life of Marion will be forgotten by no one who ever read it in childhood.

The qualities of that eccentric writer were certainly remarkable. Some of them are the traits of a really Bunyanlike genius, and would have been so considered, had not the extreme exaggeration and love of fun everywhere exhibited, too fully occupied the mind of the reader. No one, especially, could fail to be struck with the imagination displayed in both of his narratives, and also by the opulence of poetic language, though replete with an amount of hyperbole that makes it, at times, sufficiently near the ridiculous. All his writings are but an illustration in point. We remember a particular pas

sage:

"Oh, Marion!" he exclaims, in the person of the valiant Peter Horry, at the close of his preface, where he seems to have had an unusual fit of inspiration-" Oh, Marion, my friend! my friend! never can I forget thee! Although thy wars are all ended, and thyself at rest in the grave, yet I see thee still. I see thee as thou wert wont to ride, most terrible in battle to the enemies of thy country. Thine eyes, like balls of fire, flamed beneath thy lowering brows. But lovely still wert thou in mercy, thou bravest among the sons of men! For, soon as the enemy, sinking under our swords, cried for quarter, thy heart swelled with commiseration, and thy countenance was changed, even as the countenance of a man who beheld the slaughter of his brothers; the basest tory who could but touch the hem of thy garment was safe; the avengers of blood stopped short in thy presence, and turned abashed from the lightning of thine eyes.

"Oh, that my pen were of the quill of that swan that sings to future days! Then shouldest thou, my friend, receive the ful ness of thy fame; the fathers of the years to come should talk of thy noble deeds; and the youth yet unborn should rise up and call thee blessed!"

But the ground required to be thoroughly traversed again. The reverend biogra

pher, though he, in fact, took very few liberties on the field, had such a habit we may say, a faculty-of presenting all the picturesque scenery, and making that which was not such appear so, that however the reader may be amused, he will believe himself not authentically instructed. But even if the eccentric narrator had made the most discreet use of his genius, the subject would still have remained to be written over. The account which he gave was but partial, made up, in a great degree, of anecdote. Of the materials requisite for a full narrative, many which he might probably have gathered he neglected; many others which he could not have found, time, in the natural course of things, has brought to light. For the fact, in regard to historical composition, is different from what might be supposed. The materials of history can rarely be obtained contemporaneously with the events related. It is only with the departure of years that the sources of information are fully open. Old chests, old family bookcases, and antique-fashioned secretaries, with queer devices for hiding things, are then suffered to be ransacked; the historian is far removed from causes of prejudice; and the calm, fair narrative is produced, bearing to all future time the events of a long preceding age. Mr. Simms has been able most successfully to avail himself of this fact; he has discovered many treasures of information, and produced a complete and ample biography. Were it, indeed, of almost any other man, we should be disposed to find fault with it as too much extended. Histories and biographies are becoming, of late, alarmingly corpulent; many of them will never be able to carry down such bulk of body to posterity. But the life of Marion eminently deserved to be written, and written freely and minutely. Any name that has so lived in the hearts of a people must have deserved such a tribute; if not, in any case-then the facts should be carefully set forth, to show his fame unjust. And here we might with assurance rest the merits of Marion; for all authenticated facts bear witness that his reputation is not greater than were his deeds. As no state, throughout that memorable struggle, bore herself with a greater spirit of self-devotion, at greater expense of suffering and blood, and the anguish of broken ties, than his native South Carolina, so was there no man, more resolutely heroic in suffering and

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self-denial, or whose efforts did more, with the exception of Washington's, to forward the revolutionary cause, than Francis Marion. And over all this the manner of his warfare has flung a strange romance, that belongs to no other name whatever in the annals of our history. His whole career, with his band of brave partisans, for several years, was one of the most wild and stirring adventure. The things related of them are just those which delight the imagination, while they excite the warmest personal interest. We see them, chased by the enemy, like Robin Hood's men of the good greenwood," suddenly vanish in swamp and thicket; we see them lie concealed at noonday in sunny nooks in the forest; we see them at midnight issue forth on secret and sudden enterprises, to be executed with bold adroitness; we see them, too, enduring the dearest privations-of food, and clothing, and rest, and the affectionate intercourse of wives and children at the firesidevisited with turns of despondency, and unable to see the triumphs of the future in the unceasing struggles of the present, yet bearing all with manly cheerfulness, and unflinching determination to abide the issue. And what might that issue be? For aught that they could foresee, final subjugation and the death of traitors. By dwelling on such things we begin to appreciate the thrilling cause of liberty; and it is not wonderful that "Marion,' ," "Marion's brigade," and "Marion's men," have "passed into household words" for children and youth, and havebecome themes of fiction and song.

"Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress-tree;
We know the forest round us

As seamen know the sea.

We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,

Its safe and silent islands
Within the dark morass.

"Well knows the fair and friendly moon,
The band that Marion leads-
The glitter of their rifles,

The scampering of their steeds.
"Tis life our fiery barbs to guide
Across the moonlight plains;
'Tis life to feel the night-wind

That lifts their tossing manes.
A moment in the British camp-
A moment-and away
Back to the pathless forest,
Before the peep of day."
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