It is the application that is embarrassing. Practical right and liberty, are just what each citizen wants for himself, for his friends, for his party. Right and liberty are such constructions of established principles, as will bring about the greatest good; to whom? to the citizen who makes the construction. It is said there is no danger. Intelligence, and virtue, will protect the republic; that we have only to carry on the administration of the constitutional government, by the exercise of the electoral franchise. It is assumed that every citizen knows in what manner the power should be used; and who are the proper agents to use it. If by intelligence, is meant a knowledge of the nature of our social compacts, the relation of every citizen to the State; of the States to the confederacy; the powers given and withheld; the proper exercise of these powers, both at home, and abroad; and what is expedient, and practicable, as well in the extraordinary, as in the common course of events, what proportion of us have intelligence? Deduct from the whole. number of citizens, those who are not in the way to be informed; those who might be, but are not; those who strive to be, but mistake their object, and those who are informed, but only for their selfish purposes, and those who are skilled in the arts of managing adherents, and what is the number left who are devoted to civil and religious liberty; and what is the weight of their influence?

As to virtue, applied to political and social relations, does it mean that every citizen shall be governed by an enlightened benevolence towards all others; that he shall know, and respect, the relation of persons, and things, in his social connection; and that he shall know, and adhere to that, in which his own true happiness consists;-if so, how many of us are virtuous?

FREQUENCY OF ELECTIONS.

BUT is not the frequency of election, a security which cannot fail? Integrity, and talents, may pass through the avenues of election to places of trust; but these avenues are not closed upon talents, unaccompanied by integrity. It is a common remark, that there are two sorts of patriots, who flourish in republics; one, which makes all personal views conform to the end, and the means of public duty; and one,

which makes all public service conform to the end and the means of self-exaltation. But the electors wisely discriminate between these. Is it so? Suppose every elector calmly devoted to making the wisest selection; suppose no feverish divisions to exist, what proportion of the whole number of clectors have the means of deciding who among them are most trustworthy? Within the smallest electoral district, great diversity of opinion honestly occurs as to qualifications for office. The difficulty increases with the increase of numbers, and the extension of territory. It soon comes to the fact, that some of the electors have no personal knowledge of candidates; and must choose, on the faith of a very few, who assume to be well informed. In one district in this State, comprised in less than four square miles, men are often chosen to important trusts, who are personally unknown to a majority of their electors. How must it be, then, in some of our cities, when they contain, as they will, hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. Then throw into an election, party animosity, credulous jealousy, personal hatred, and the means used to secure triumph, or to gratify some prevalent enthusiasm, and what is the chance of selecting those who are best qualified for honest and faithful service?

At first view it is surprising that office should have so much attraction. Young ambition cannot know the contrast between the feelings with which office is taken, and those with which it is regarded, when gone; nor can it be warned by seeing, how many, who have given their best days to office, are stricken by poverty in the decline of life, chagrined by neglect, or visited by reproach. That master propensity of the human heart, the desire of excelling, will always furnish the republic with abundance of candidates. No human heart is, or ought to be, free from this propensity; combined with honorable motives, it brings clear heads, and pure minds, into the public trust. It often brings zealous, and honest, but incompetent minds; and is sure to bring insincere and mischievous ones, into the same relation. Whether the indiscreet friends, or the secret enemies, of ancient republics did most to overthrow them, may be doubtful; but it is certain that the latter always stood ready to give the mortal blow.

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POPULAR IDOLS.

We have also to meet, that propensity of mankind, peculiar to no age, or country, to create IDOLS, and to clothe them with fascinating attributes, and to vest in them extravagant power. In our time, we have seen a man raised from the common level, to the highest eminence, without one quality that deserved esteem. Adored through all his faults, follies, and crimes, though he felt no kindness, no sympathy for his worshippers. Adored through all his miscarriages and humiliations, though he deserved them all. Adored in his far distant sea-girt sepulchre, which would be worn by the knees of visiters, were it not inaccessible. To what quality of our nature are we to refer this propensity? Is it self-love? Is it the ready association of ourselves with the grandeur, which is our own work? Is it the sentiment of triumph over adversaries? The establishment of power, which makes its supporters strong, and of a glory; which descends and envelopes the lowest who can shout applause?

We reproach the hero for his false elevation. We should reproach those who gave it.

The plots which have originated with individuals to subjugate communities, have succeeded less frequently by the force of terror, than by the co-operation of the victims of success. It is not peculiar to those, who have been fortunate in arms, to be made idols. It would be easy to prove this by historical facts; and we should not have to cross the Atlantic to find all of them. The danger seems to be in the enthusiastic devotion to the man, who is thus raised above all responsibility, and who cannot in his own opinion, nor in that of his supporters, be charged with intentional or accidental error.

The distinguishing excellence of our political system is, the frequent recurrence of election in every department, in which that power can be usefully exercised. But this power, like other good, when perverted into an evil, becomes destructive, in proportion to its intended utility. It is that power which is most liable to abuse: the abuse can never be admitted, nor proved, where alone it can be remedied; because it is the majority on whom the abuse is chargeable. The majority is the sovereign, and the sovereign can do no wrong. The most natural and easy departure from the beau

tiful theory of our institutions is to consider public trust a property vested in successful candidates, and their prominent supporters, for their own use. This was the vice of the an

cient governments. It was the struggle for this property, that converted the Grecian cities, and Rome, into scenes of frightful personal wars. In the last three-fourths of our present national connection, we have descended, rapidly, in the common path of all self-governed communities. At first patronage seemed to smile rather in regard to some alleged difference of principle between the two sorts of republicans into which the nation was divided. It soon transferred its favours to partizans, as well as to principle. And then, none but an avowed partizan was capable and honest enough, to serve his country. At this day how much better is the struggle than those which are carried on by physical force. In the one case, victory disposes of place, of property and of persons. The result of an election, in like manner, disposes of all that is within the reach of victory.

How far, then, have we already declined from that elevated standard which governed us, when WASHINGTON was among the public agents? Did any citizen believe, in his time, that disgusting adulation on the one side, and odious crimination of the other, would be the surest means to recommend himself to an office?

It is grateful to contemplate the character of this EMINENT PATRIOT, and painful to know how soon, and how thoroughly, some of his maxims of conduct were disregarded. He seems to stand alone in the scale of human worth; and to be the only man, who has maintained, living and dead, his hold on the gratitude, respect, and affection of the world. He commanded no personal enthusiasm; he neither made the community, nor the community him. Utility, talent, integrity, fidelity, justice, self-respect, in one word WISDOM, shed a simple, venerable, glory around him, which was his, and has been no other man's. This glory will shine forth to illumine our path as long as the American people are worthy of having had such a countryman, and no longer.

THE PRESS.

WHAT a glorous invention is THE PRESS! a voice that may speak with many tongues, and over the whole earth, at once,

of human hope, of duty, of right, of immortal life; which binds ali numbered ages to the present; and the quarters of the earth together; the preserver of the achievements of human genius; the diffuser of the common welfare among the great family of mankind; the encourager of noble motives, and honorable deeds; the terrible censor of turpitude, and crime; the medium of communion between enlightened minds; the conservator of rational liberty; how free, is it in this happy land! how alarmingly free! How delusive, fraudulent, and corrupting! What a terrible engine is it, in the hand of moral, and political profligacy! At the present moment, the press is in motion, to abolish the fundamental principles, of moral action; and to annihilate the bond of political connection.

What is the remedy for this audacious wrong? What have intelligence, virtue, and reaction been able to do, in staying its influence? To what are we to attribute this deplorable perversion of the best invention of the human mind? Would civil liberty endure longer without the press, or with such use of it as we are accustomed to see? Or rather will civil liberty expire sooner under the weight of the press, or by its abolition? Are we to reproach the conductors of the press; or the community, which demands, receives, pays for and devours, the gross and corrupting aliment which the conductors of the press distribute?

On the continent of Europe, the press is under the control of those who have an absolute dominion over persons, and over the expression of their thoughts. As this dominion is claimed, and exercised as a right, and is limited by the ability to continue to hold it, it cannot tolerate the press. In England the press is as free, and as much misused as in our own country; but in England the weight of the government, the influence of wealth, talents, and privileged orders, create a connected and combined strength, which is assailed in vain. Here, the press encounters no obstacle in its way to the very heart of sovereign power, which it can form and put in motion, to accomplish the intended purpose. If the purpose is to bring a majority to be of one opinion, and the means are, not the statement of truth, but of falsehoods, how are they who read to detect the fraud? To insist that every one who reads, can discriminate between what is true, and what is false, is to deny that falsehood is ever published. The remedy, it is said, is to follow the mischievous publication