can people into two or more republics, nations, confederacies, or other forms of political organization. We are united and shall remain united under some form of government, whatever it may be. Are we as sure of our freedom as of our unity? That depends upon the preservation of the States in the plenitude of their power, as they stand under the Constitution, nothing added and nothing taken away by unjust interpretation or unlawful force. Security for person and property is more important even than unity. For this security we depend upon the States. To be a State of the American Union is to be sovereign in everything within its own borders, except where the sovereignty in a certain limited number of things has been granted to the common Government of all the States. "Sovereign States" should be kept as a good old-fashioned expression. Long may it live! State rights got a bad name because they were pushed to excess -nullification was a folly, and secession was a crime-but because this folly and this crime were committed in the name of State rights, it would be folly to infer that the name may not have a good meaning and represent a useful thing. "Confederacy” was a name abhorred when we were fighting the Confederate armies, but we are not now to be frightened by a word. The ceiling of the Representatives' chamber in the Capitol is divided into panels of glass, through which the sunlight pours into the room, and on which are painted, one after another, the names and escutcheons of the several States whose representatives sit below. There is the emblem of New York and her motto "Excelsior," and there the emblem of Virginia and her motto "Sic Semper Tyrannis"; Massachusetts, with sword uplifted, writes "Ense petit placidan sub libertate quietem"; and Pennsylvania displays her eagle crowned with light, and proclaims "Virtue, Liberty, and Independence." Every escutcheon set above the chamber represents a sovereign State, which has a history, a pride, and a policy of its own. In the same ceiling are vacant panels, left for future States as they are expected to come in long procession. A thoughtful person, looking up at them, can not but ask himself, Will they ever be filled? That depends on the men who sit beneath, and on the people who send them there. MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS. THE POLITICAL WRITINGS OF WILLIAM LEGGETT.* Article by Mr. Field, published in the "New York Review," April, 1841. ALTHOUGH the political writings of Mr. Leggett are, for the most part, in direct opposition to the established principles and to the uniform spirit of our journal, we confess that we lay down these volumes disarmed of every disposition to criticise or condemn them. Admiration for the author's talents and respect for his fearless independence are the predominant feelings which the perusal of them has left upon our minds; and we here make our acknowledgments to Mr. Sedgwick for rescuing them from the oblivion into which they must have fallen but for the more permanent form in which he has presented them. It was, we learn, an act of pure friendship on his part, the proceeds of the publication being wholly for the benefit of Mr. Leggett's family; and we regret that the work has not as yet received the attention from the public to which its merits entitle it. Mr. Sedgwick has done well the work which he undertook. He has selected and arranged from the miscellaneous editorial * A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett. Selected and arranged, with a Preface, by Theodore Sedgwick, Jr. In Two Volumes. New York: Taylor & Dodd. 1840. |