We regret that our pages were filled before "N. N." was received. It shall appear in our next.

"R.'s" poetry would scarcely honor the subject of his muse.

"Zimri" is referred to the Epilegomena.

"Locke" may be a philosopher, but his philosophy is beyond our comprehension.

"The victim of Love," and "Quartz," are respectfully declined.

"H. N. B." "E." "O. P. Q." " Douglas," "The Forewarned," and "Gamma," are declined.

We would advise the author of "Shalloola" to study economy, and never again waste so much ink and paper so foolishly.

"Flaccus" is at the author's disposal. "D." is under consideration.

The next No. of the Magazine will not be issued before the tenth of April. The reason of this change will be apparent to most of our subscribers.

The Gentlemen who have so kindly interested themselves in procuring a very flattering addition to our subscription list, will please receive our thanks. Every assistance in this way not only inspires the conductors of the Magazine with new vigor and confidence, but will enable them and their immediate successors to publish it in a manner more satisfactory to themselves, and more creditable to our revered Alma Mater.

Re

THE influence of wealth pervades all ranks of society. strained within proper limits, it imparts health and vigor, not only to individual, but national action. The unexampled prosperity which the citizens of this country have enjoyed, can be attributed in no slight degree to the facilities afforded for the acquisition and preservation of wealth. The absence of such advantages rendered the fertile plains of Europe a barren waste for centuries, and tended more than any thing else to repress the mental and physical energies of the people, during the long night of the dark ages. Remove from man all interest in the results of his labor, and you convert him into a slave; take away the safeguards of property, and you strike at the root of good order and happiness in society. So impressed have all legislators been with the importance of the proper regulation of the monied interests of their respective nations, that we not unfrequently find their entire systems of government based upon this one principle.

While the due regulation of property is so absolutely necessary to the eventual prosperity of society, no power has ever been exerted with a more fatal effect upon the liberties of man, than that given by the control of great wealth. The present situation of our country has awakened all to the investigation of the causes which have produced a revulsion in the commercial world, almost without a parallel; and now is the time when the political influence of wealth should be carefully investigated, and the result fearlessly announced. In the remarks which follow, we disclaim all party spirit, we abjure all connection with the politics of the day; our object is higher than the mere advancement of party ends-nobler than the flattery of any, however exalted, public functionary.

From the peculiar circumstances attendant upon our existence as a separate people, from the nature of the country which our ancestors had chosen for their home, and from the character of

our first settlers, the energies of our government and citizens were early directed to the advancement of public and private wealth. Every advantage which enterprise, a free government, and a productive soil, could bestow, was offered and embraced. The onward march of our people, has been a cause of heart-felt congratulations to every philanthropist. Even the haughty aristocrat of foreign climes has witnessed our progress with wonder, if not with delight. But while our course has thus been apparently undisturbed, the statesman has seen that we were enjoying a deceptive repose-that our tranquillity would at length be disturbed by a fearful convulsion, unless fortuitous circumstances should earlier awaken us to a sense of our true condition. The historian of ancient republics had informed him, that the advance of luxury, accompanied or rather caused by an increase of wealth, was silent but sure in its baleful influences. The noble traits of character which are presented with so much beauty on the pages of the classics, were exhibited only in those ages when the people were strangers to luxury. No sooner had an inordinate desire of wealth seized upon the people, than the historian ceased his praises, the poet's harp was hung upon the willows, the inscription "Ilium fuit" was written over their former greatness. Every American is deeply interested in tracing to its ultimate cause this sudden transformation of character; in developing the steps by which those nations became objects of scorn and derision to all their contemporaries; for it may be that we are exposed to the fatal disease which blighted the fairest prospects of the sons of liberty in former times; it may be that it has already seized upon our body politic, and is making sure advances towards its vitals.

An impartial survey of our history for the last few years, furnishes evidence sufficiently weighty, at least to awaken attention, if not to excite fears for our future condition. The safe accumulation of property by active industry, had given way to a desire for the more rapid but more dangerous gains of speculation. The public mind became diseased, and our countrymen verily deemed themselves the fortunate discoverers of a philosopher's stone, more powerful in its magic influences than that so eagerly sought by the enthusiasts of antiquity-one which could transmute even the swamps and bogs of the wilderness into gold. So infatuated had men become, that the wildest speculations were eagerly embraced, and tens of thousands were squandered in the mapping and adorning of cities which never existed, except in the brain of the visionary. humble mechanic and the lordly merchant alike invested the hard earnings of a life of toil and enterprise, in the vain hope of securing at one effort vast wealth. Men of unblemished character entered the lists with the abandoned sharper, and each felt himself justified in preying upon the other. The laws of the human mind required that this unwonted excitement, this unnatural commingling

The

of all the moral elements, should cease, and that sanity should be restored to the unfortunate victims of delusion. But who shall tell where the evils attendant upon this infatuation will terminate? who can safely limit its destructive influences? Will the present generation ever forget the base scramble for wealth, the prostration of morals, which they have witnessed? Will the minds of men who have once sympathized in this all-absorbing desire of gain, ever lose entirely the excitement, the madness, which it has caused?

Reference has thus been made to the mad spirit of speculation, not because it is the only, but because in our present situation it is the most palpable index of popular feeling. The sad consequences resulting from the encouragement of our national predisposition, have been first exhibited in this branch of its action; but in the prostration of credit and the commercial wreck which succeeded, we have seen but the tokens of a greater and more disastrous ruin, which will attend the full development of its power, unless it shall receive an instant and determined check.

The evil effects which we have witnessed have been the result of the private acts of individuals, but the public servants have faithfully followed in the wake of popular feeling, and by legislative acts have aided rather than checked the prevailing spirit of the nation. Witness the companies chartered without number, and for various purposes; witness the whole course of legislation, national and state, within the last ten years. What has so warmly excited the patriotism of our statesmen on the floors of congress, but the defense or attack of a great monied institution; a project for filling the national coffers by a tariff, and topics of a similar nature. It is true indeed that great constitutional questions have been embraced in the discussions on these subjects, but let the pecuniary interest dependent upon their decision be removed, and how soon does the fire of patriotism and the glow of eloquence subside.

Faithful representations of the greatest distress or danger to be caused or averted by such measures, even disunion itself, can be presented to the blind partizans of monied interest with no effect. Look to our halls of state legislation, and what do we there see but the same scramble for the power given by wealth. The incorporation of banking, insurance and manufacturing companies, the regulation of the rate of interest, or of the currency, are the topics which convulse these minor legislative bodies; which engross nine tenths of all the time spent in legislation. The columns of our public prints are filled with discussions on similar subjects, and our citizens are divided into parties upon some questions relating to the financial policy of the government. It is true indeed, that a nation like ours, just starting into existence, just beginning to develop its vast resources, needs much discus

sion, much legislation on these subjects; but are they of such paramount importance as properly to engross the whole of public attention? The selfish would fain have us believe that such is the case; the deadliest enemy of liberty would rejoice at such infatuation of our citizens. When we prosper in our commercial relations, many are ready to instil into our minds the idea, that while we are amassing wealth, our political and religious rights need not our care. When a commercial revulsion is felt, our attention is directed to the treasures we have lost, or might have gained, while we are exhorted to place our government in the hands of those who will secure again a golden harvest. Men, guided by self interest, and regardless of the general good, embrace the suggestions of these blind leaders, and follow implicitly their ruinous directions. It becomes the true friends of the country to awake from their lethargy, to look carefully at the actions of legislators, to scan narrowly the motives which have influenced public opinion to require and sanction their measures, and then to decide whether they will work out a reform. The fearful crisis through which we have just passed, has left us in a situation peculiarly favorable for a fair and full investigation of this important question. The minions of exclusive monied power have, however, taken the alarm; they fear lest their days are numbered, lest their acts of iniquity are to be revealed. By the aid of party spirit they are seeking to change the question at issue, and to turn the attention of the people from their own insidious plans to a contest between men and parties. Should their wiles succeed, should the people be led to look to men and not to principles, to parties and not to measures, for the causes of our late disastrous situation, the opportunity now offered for relief will be lost, and that too beyond the hope of recovery. The press is to a great extent under their influence, and is favoring their designs with its vast power. The decision which shall now be formed may determine the question whether our liberties shall hereafter exist in fact, or only in name, whether we are or are not ready to surrender up ourselves the servile dependants of a most odious monied tyranny.

We are not sounding a vain alarm. Wise men in every age have sought to prevent the monied interests of the country from acquiring the ascendency. Even in the most commercial nations we find that the maintenance of titled orders has been deemed indispensable to prevent wealth from exerting an undue influence over legislation. In England there has long existed a contest for the supremacy between these opposing interests. But a few years since the power of the nobility greatly predominated, and the commercial enterprise of the country was improperly restrained. The people, feeling themselves oppressed, and looking no further than to the immediate cause, joined with the repre