legal tender, this power might be transferred to the States without danger or inconvenience, as a universal currency of uniform weight and fineness would then soon be adopted.

5th. As to the transportation of the mails, they should be left to private enterprise, which will perform this service far better and more economically than it will ever be done by any government.

The only sessions of Congress necessary under such a system would be when a modification of the code of international law became desirable, which would not often be the case after wars cease and the inherent rights of man are fully recognized and protected, because these rights ever remain the same.

With the cessation of the necessity for the use of the powers delegated by the Constitution to the Federal Government, would cease also all necessity for the present expenditures of that Government, and for the numerous officials it now employs. The people would thus save these enormous expenditures, and be further benefited by the return of the Government officials to productive occupations.

With such a code of international law as the arbiter of nations, what injury would there be in permitting the subdivision of States, ad infinitum, as long as each subdivision recognized the supremacy of the law of nations? Without a limit to the right of subdivision of States, would there be the slightest danger that any community would withdraw from a State unless a gross attack on individual or local rights were made by the State authorities? And would not this right of withdrawal from a State be the best and most efficient check on the usurpation of power by State authorities? Would not all government then soon become reduced to local governments, kept in check by the tribunals maintained by the code of nations? Would not all the present difficulties arising from Federal and State patronage, from Federal and State corruption, from Federal and State intervention with the rights and freedom of the individual, disappear at once, never to return under such a code of international law?

Under such a state of things, let us suppose that Long Island should decide to secede from the State of New York;

what injury or evil could this produce to the inhabitants of any portion of the State of New York or of any other State? Each citizen of every other State would continue to have the same rights in the new State of Long Island that they had there when it formed a portion of the State of New York; commerce between Long Island and the rest of the world would continue on precisely the same footing as before its withdrawal from the State of New York. The only difference would be that the former State jurisdiction of New York would be divided into two distinct jurisdictions, each exercising control over one of the new divisions, but both subject to the controlling influence of international law and of international courts.

The conclusions established by a careful and dispassionate analysis of man, of government, and of the natural laws which control both, are:

1st. That man, like everything else that exists, is perfect for the object for which he was created, and that he is constantly and efficiently controlled by just and perfect natural laws, the effects of which he cannot escape.

2d. That every attempt of man to counteract or escape from the effects of natural laws invariably injures him; whilst his submission and conformity to them invariably benefits him.

3d. That the individual is, at all times, when of sound mind, more competent than any one else to decide which of his numerous wants are, for the time being, most imperative, and in what manner they can be best supplied; but that he cannot do this properly and beneficially in regard to the wants of others.

4th. That as man is endowed not only with wants, but also with faculties which enable him to supply them, each individual should look for the supply of his wants to his own faculties and efforts, and not to those of others or of Government.

5th. That the only legitimate basis of government is the natural law of the division of labor.

6th. That, therefore, nothing should be done through Government, unless it secures greater results with the same effort than can be obtained from individual action.

7th. That the only proper object of government is the well

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being and happiness of the governed-not that of any class or classes, but of all the members of the community.

8th. That the happiness and well-being of all are best secured by limiting government to the mere protection of life and property and the dispensation of prompt and equal justice to all. Every other proper object can be better and more surely attained by the individual through his own efforts, than by relying on the action of Government.

9th. That all individuals of sound mind are entitled to perfect freedom in all their actions, so long as they do not infringe on the like freedom of others.

10th. That the necessary imperfection of all human laws, which can never be made to adapt themselves, like the perfect laws of nature, to every varying circumstance, requires that they should constantly be modified in accordance with the variations in the circumstances they are intended to regulate or control.

11th. That these necessary alterations in human laws can only be made as promptly as is necessary to the well-being of the governed, by leaving each locality, the more restricted the better, to legislate for itself in regard to all matters that only affect local interests.

12th. That the more general interests of humanity can only be properly regulated by general conventions of nations, which should establish and recognize the inherent rights of man, and incorporate them in the law of nations, to which all should be made to conform.

13th. That all and every centralization of power is injurious to humanity, because a distant authority can never become properly acquainted with the varying wants of each locality. The laws of a centralized government must encounter varying circumstances in each locality in which they are to be enforced, and thus a law which is beneficial in one locality, may prove injurious in other localities. Therefore, local laws alone can prove beneficial to man.

Thus far every system of human government ever organized has proved a failure, if we consider the well-being and happiness of humanity the proper object of government. Is there not something very significant in this constant failure in the

attempts to insure the happiness of man through the action of governments? Why has not man deduced long since the true principle it reveals? Does it not prove that arguments and examples are the only power which man should exercise over his fellow men? When we perceive that the actions of humanity are constantly and efficiently controlled by the natural laws of the Omniscient and Beneficent Ruler of all things, how can we continue to believe that the well-being of man is dependent on the short-sighted laws enacted and enforced by fallible men?

*

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

THE character of Abraham Lincoln is not an easy subject to discuss at this day. The effects of much that he has said and done remain yet to be seen. Beneath the good-humored, kind-hearted manners of Mr. Lincoln lay much that was stern and unsolvable. He was no unsophisticated man, nor yet was he a man of profound analytic powers. In all his public addresses it will be noticed that he addressed himself to the masses" the plain people," he called them-and that provided enough was said to gain their approbation very little more was said. In this way Mr. Lincoln said many shallow thingsthings which at this time may to many of his fervent admirers seem profound and oracular enough, but which time and history will condemn as wanting cogency and breadth. Such, for instance, was that much-quoted paragraph of his in favor of revolution delivered in the House of Representatives, January 12, 1848:

"Any people, anywhere, being inclined and HAVING THE POWER, have a right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may op

pose their movements. Such minority was precisely the case of the Tories of our own Revolution."

Reduced to plain language, this is equal to saying: Both the right to revolutionize and to counter-revolutionize is derived from the power to do so. Therefore the greater the power the greater the right: which is an absurdity.

In his first message to Congress Mr. Lincoln said, " Again: if one State may secede, so may another; and when all shall have seceded, none is left to pay the debts." Surely the Union required no such feeble argument to prop it up.

Mr. Lincoln was not incapable, when it served his purpose, of addressing himself successfully, not indeed to the convictions but, to the emotions and sentiment of the better classes. What can be more impressive, for instance, than the italicized lines in the following address of his, recommending the adoption of the Emancipation proclamation to Congress?

"I do not forget the gravity which should characterize a paper addressed to the Congress of the nation by the Chief Magistrate of the nation. Nor do I forget that some of you are my seniors; nor that many of you have more experience than I, in the conduct of public affairs. Yet, I trust that in view of the great responsibility resting upon me, you will perceive no want of respect to yourselves, in any undue earnestness I may seem to display."

"Is it doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted, would shorten the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and blood? Is it doubted that it would restore the national authority and national prosperity, and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we here-Congress and Executive-can secure its adoption? Will not the good people respond to a united and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can they, by any other means, so certainly or so speedily assure these vital objects? We can succeed only by concert. It is not 'can any of us imagine better,' but can we all do better?'

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

"Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We, of this Congress and this Administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to

save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We-even we here -hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free-honorable alike in that we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.

Nay, besides being impressive, it possesses many of the ele ments of a high order of poetry. But here his power to sway the thinking classes ended. He was incapable of employing abstract arguments-he never used generalizations, but supplied their place with familiar illustrations and homely morals. Called to execute the wishes of thirty millions of people, Abraham Lincoln was altogether too original a character to permit