making it to depend upon the interest and caprice of large capitalists. It is corrupting public justice through venal juries, no longer impartially selected, but chosen from the hangers-on of courts, whose sole subsistence is the bribe of the wealthy litigant. It is filling the noble profession of the law with mendicant attorneys, prostituting the solemn priesthood of their office by opening the subterfuges of leg chicanery to villainy and fraud. It invades even the sanctity of the bench, and overwhelms judicial integrity by the pressure of political and commercial combinations. It is converting public office from a ministry of sponsibility and trust into a place of emolument, where the perquisites to be enjoyed outweigh the duties to be performed. And, worse than all, it is sapping the truthfulness, the honesty, and honor of private life, and silently destroying the moral bonds by which society is held together. Through all its grades, from the highest to the lowest, every man is striving to outstrip his neighbor in the possession and exhibition of wealth; and the most sacred claims of love, and all the sweet charities and refinements of social life, are sacrificed upon the altar of universal greed.' (p. 22-23.)

Now, all this is, no doubt, as true in the main as it is eloquent. But there is in this eloquent passage one sentiment, at least, to which we cannot yield our assent. It is this: Materialism, sitting in the schools and speaking through the forms of philosophy, is not, perhaps, much to be dreaded. It is too monstrous to be believed. By no means. There is nothing too monstrous to be believed, not only by the ignorant and vulgar, but by the educated, learned, and most influential members of society. Is not materialism, at this very moment, sitting in the schools, and, through the forms of philosophy, giving utterance to the heresies of a Darwin, a Huxley, a Spencer, a Tyndall, and a Mill, by which so many thousands of our fellow-men are seduced into fatal error?

'Too monstrous to be believed'! Too monstrous for belief, no doubt, as it appeared to the mind of Dr. Palmer; but as it appeared to the man who, of all the leading politicians of this country, exerted the greatest influence on its destinies, it was

6

anything but monstrous. It was, on the contrary, the simple, the exact, and the unquestionable truth. To say that a thing is not material is to say that it does not exist,' is the dogmatic utterance of Thomas Jefferson. If this be true, then is there in the wide universe nothing beside matter and local motion, and God himself is either a material being, or else a mere dream of divines and metaphysicians. Nothing more grossly materialistic than this can be found in Helvetius, or Condillac, or in any of the French ideologists, whom Mr. Jefferson so greatly admired, and whom the first Napoleon so greatly abhorred. Was it in spite of this fact, or only in norance of this fact, that Dr. Palmer, in the very Address before us, adopts the immortal Jefferson' as his great guide in preparing his message for the young thought and hope' of the South? It was many years ago that we first read, in the writings of Mr. Jefferson, the sentence, that 'to say a thing is not material is to say that it does not exist'; and, from that day to this, we have never ceased to repudiate the superficial dogmatist as a guide in philosophy. We deemed his opinion then, as we deem it. now, 'too monstrous to be believed,' except by those who have deserted Christ to camp with Helvetius. But we have never, for one moment, doubted that, coarse and revolting as it is, it is an opinion much to be dreaded.' Behold, at this day, the Darwins, the Huxleys, the Tyndalls, the Spencers, and the Mills, by whom this debasing opinion is so warmly embraced and so eloquently espoused!

But, after all, what does the passage from Dr. Palmer amount? To this, and to this only, an eloquent 'caveat" against the dread spirit of materialism, the angel of pestilence, which every where drops the seeds of death from the overshadowing sweep of its black wing. All this is very well, nodoubt, and would be infinitely consoling, if caveats were only cures. But, unfortunately, they are of no more avail against the awful evils of the present crisis,' than they are against the devouring fury of earthquakes, or whirlwinds, or conflagrations, or wars, or pestilence, or famine. These evils just work on, degrading all they do not destroy, and heed our fine. words, or glowing eloquence, as little as they do the idle winds.

Hence, although charmed, we are not edified by the Address of Dr. Palmer. It leaves us precisely where it found us. We still sit in darkness, in the region and shadow of death, without one additional ray of light, or hope, or joy, to gild the gloom around us. Nay, if anything, it deepens and intensifies this gloom, for it shows that if anything useful, or hopeful, may be said respecting the present crisis and its issues,' our guides do not know what it is. Hence, whch we ask for a cure, they give us a 'caveat'; when we implore light, they send a shower of meteoric words, which gleam in the darkness for a moment, and then leave it denser than before; when, in the great agony of o distress, we go to them for a remedy, they only give us rhetoric- very fine rhetoric, it is true, and beautiful in its season; but, then, it is not exactly the thing for the present awful crisis.

What we need is, that some one will tell us, if any one can, the causes of the dark crisis which is now upon us. For it is an axiom with all doctors, whether doctors of medicine, or law, or divinity, that until the cause of a disease, a social disorder, or a moral evil, be ascertained and known, it is worse than idle to think about the remedy. This fundamental, this universal maximn, is perfectly well known to Dr. Palmer. Accordingly, he first seeks the great cause of our present troubles, and then suggests the remedy. The great cause of our troubles! This is the critical point of the inquiry. For, if the true cause be not found, it is evident that the remedy may, as usual in such cases, only aggravate the evil and so prove far worse than a mere caveat against the crisis.

The great cause of our present troubles is, according to the Address before us, a departure from the political principles, or faiths, of 1787. These principles, or faiths, were right, sound, wise; and it was the departure from them which produced the tremendous convulsion of 1861, and the subsequent crisis. Hence the only remedy he knows, the only hope he cherishes, is to be found in a return to those 'original faiths,' and the reënthronement of the Constitution of 1787 as it came from the hands of the fathers.' 'If there be,' says he, 'any deliverance for us in the present crisis, it must be sought in a

return to those cardinal truths now so much in danger of going by default.' Now, if we ask, how this grand return is to be effected, and the fortunes of the country snatched from the jaws of the present crisis,' he points us-aye, however strange it may seem- he still points us to the virtue and intelligence of the people' as the only ground of hope!

6

'The only gleam of hope,' says he, amidst these dark forebodings is, that possibly yet, far down in the people's heart, both North and South, these original faiths may be slumbering still, beneath the prejudice and passion that are working out the behests of a bitter, persecuting party rule. Political heresies, however great, may not be suficient to deepen into that final apostacy from which there is no recovery. Possibly yet, when the excruciating test shall put the virtue of the country upon its last probation, some master prophet will arise whose voice shall rouse these sleeping convictions into play, and the majesty of the people's will shall once more enthrone the Constitution upon its old supremacy.' 14-15.)

(pp.

'Do you ask,' he continues, ' for the enunciation of those doctrines upon whose re-assertion the perpetuity of the Republic depends? They are written in letters of gold upon those great instruments of Confederation and Union drawn up by the first fathers of the State. They are in the catechism of every honest party by which this country has been ruled. They are engrossed upon every page of our history, until these last days of disaster and of shame. They are graven, as with a diamond, upon all the institutions of the land. I had supposed them to be woven into the very tapestry of the people's thought. But familiar as these principles may be, like the Twelve Tables to the ancient Roman youth, I choose this day to give them voice and tongue: if, perchance, the faint whisper may gather volume as it is borne upon the breeze, and, with its echoes rolling back from myriads of patriotic hearts, may fill the country with the sound. And you will pardon the timidity, springing from unacquaintance with political themes, which takes refuge in the exposition given by the immortal Jefferson. In his first Inaugural, upon the th of

March, 1801, the following commentary on the doctrines of the Constitution was delivered: "About, fellow-citizens, to enter on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our government. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear: Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most compete administrations of our domestic concerns, and the surest buwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the Federal Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people; a mild and safe correction of abuses, which are lopped by the sword of revolution, when peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which there is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace, and for the first moments in war, until regulars can relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burdened; the honest payment of our debts, and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffion of information, and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion, freedom of press, freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles," adds this eminent statesman, "form the bright constellation that has gone before and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust. And should we wander from them in moments of error and alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road which alone leads to