is the fact that, like all other people, we are governed by the laws under which the universe was created;" and as a consequence, according to their theory, we can neither augment our power nor extend our dominions beyond the limits originally allotted to us as a nation. The illogical conclusion arrived at, in the application of this law of the universe to human government, is obvious to every child; and the ridiculous position these "wise men of the East" have placed themselves in, must excite the laughter of every intelligent person. If amongst them they could claim a "Joshua," with authority to command the sun and moon to stand still whilst they fought the battles of Republicanism, then indeed they might hope to check the progressive movements of the people of the United States, but not otherwise. The ark of the Democratic covenant is moving onward; and if they place their puny hands upon it they will wither; if they raise their voices against it, their tongues will cleave to the roofs of their mouths. "We are governed by the laws under which the universe was created;" and therefore, in obedience to those laws, we must of necessity move forward in the paths of destiny shaped for us by the great Ruler of the universe. Activity and progress is the law of heaven and of earth; and in the "violation of this law there is danger."

We believe a great duty devolves on the American people in connexion with the spread of free institutions; and that every barrier erected by foreign powers against the extension of our theory of government will speedily disappear. It cannot be otherwise. Despotism cannot long continue to chain down and crush out freedom, especially within sight of our Republic. The children of Cuba, Central America, and Mexico, must fraternize with those of the United States. They can look to no other quarter for protection or safety. They have felt the iron grasp of foreign power, and they are falling away under the oppressor's hand. It is time they should repose under the panoply of this free and prosperous country, and reap the fruits of their own labor. But, unfortunately, they are met and repulsed by those who should welcome them among us, thus imposing upon the Democratic party the double task of preparing the way at home for their reception, and of holding at bay their enemies abroad. This we are prepared to do, and the fact that the recent measure of President Buchanan was not carried into effect during the last session of the thirtyfifth Congress argues nothing to the contrary.* The bills intro

On Friday noon, Jan. 25th, Mr. Slidell's bill was taken up by the Senate, with a firm determination to ascertain the sense of that body on the proposition; and

duced in the Senate and House of Representatives, in conformity to the recommendations of the President, looking to the acquisition of Cuba, would have become a law before the adjournment, except for the factious course of the opponents of the measure, whose highest aim seems to have been to defeat the appropriations necessary to carry on the government, thus forcing the majority to waive, until the next session of Congress the long session-all action on the subject.

In the meantime this measure has become the paramount question before the country. The Opposition have arrayed themselves against it, with few exceptions. The position. assumed by the minority of the committee in the lower house of Congress has been endorsed by the representative men of the Republican party throughout the country.

The speeches of Senators Seward, Wilson, Doolittle and Hale all breathe the same language, denouncing, in the bitterest terms, the Administration for proposing the purchase of Cuba. The former gentleman, forgetting his uniform dignity and decorum, stigmatizes the proposition as "the most atrocious act of legislation which the Senate could possibly adopt;" while the latter gentleman, in his usual ironical, unstatesmanlike manner, leads off in the following style :

"Sir:-I presume you have read the Arabian Nights; and if you have you may have read an account of some sovereign who had received a mortal wound, under which he languished, and that he was kept in life year after year, and year after year, by the assiduous attention of his nurse, who, every now and then, had to administer some extraordinary tonic to keep him in

one hour after midnight, Mr. Brown moved, as a test vote, to lay the bill on the table, announcing at the same time that he should vote against his own motion. The test vote was then taken, and the motion was lost by yeas 18, nays 30; majority in favor of the bill, 12.

YEAS-Messrs. Broderick, Cameron, Chandler, Clark, Doolittle, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Hale, Hamlin, Harlan, Kennedy, King, Seward, Simmons, Trumbull, Wade, and Wilson.

NAYS-Messrs. Allen, Bayard, Benjamin, Bigler, Brown, Chesnut, Clay, Clingman, Douglas, Fitch, Fitzpatrick, Green, Gwin, Hunter, Iverson, Johnson of Arkansas, Johnson of Tennessee, Lane, Mallory, Mason, Polk, Pugh, Reid, Rice, Sebastian, Shields, Slidell, Smith, Toombs, and Ware.

It will be seen that the Democrats sustained the bill, with the single exception of Senator Broderick, of California. On Saturday morning, Mr. Slidell, having attained the object of a test vote in support of the President's foreign policy, withdrew the bill, after a few remarks, showing that the factious course adopted by the Republicans was merely for the purpose of wasting the time of the Senate, in the hope thus to defeat the appropriation bills, and render an extra session of Congress necessary. In doing so, he announced that he should bring it up on the first day of the next session. Explanations were made by Senators Thompson, of New Jersey, Jones, Bright, and Davis, who were absent when the vote was taken, all of whom wished it to be understood that they would have voted with the majority.

life. Now, sir, the Democratic party in this country occupies just exactly the position of that eastern sovereign. In 1840 they received their death wound, and they have only lived a spasmodic life ever since. (Laughter.) They have been kept alive by tonics and stimulants. They took the annexation of Texas, and that was a very salutary dose. It gave them new life. Then they have taken various measures until they have run out all the ordinary nostrums that are advertised in the catalogue of patent political medicines; and there has been a Cabinet Council got together, and they recommend now a strong dose of Cuba as the only thing by which the party can possibly survive another Presidential election. (Laughter.) That is the way my political friends look upon it in New Hampshire; and, sir, I confess that I very much concur in the view which they take of it. Looking upon it in that way, they think that it implies a lack of courage and a lack of confidence in the discernment of the people to avoid this discussion."

We give the New Hampshire Senator the full benefit of his position, in this brief extract from his speech; remarking, however, that, if the great National Democratic Party received its "death wound" in 1840, it has been a long time expiring. It has managed, though in continuous spasms, according to Senator Hale, to govern the country for eighteen years after receiving its death-wound, and in a manner, too, to inspire confidence and to promote national activity and prosperity beyond all former example in the history of this or of any other nation. In regard to the "patent medicines" to which the Senator refers, -they were not " nostrums," nor were they taken by the Democracy; but they were "doses," administered by skilful Democratic physicians to their Republican patients, the effect of which, however, was death, and not renewed life, as the patient was incurable-the disease being leprosy of the darkest type, which, according to the Mosaic law, is incurable and unclean.

"The annexation of Texas," he says, "was a very salutary dose." Admit it, and what follows? Life to the Democratic party; life and prosperity to the country; but death to traitors and shame and annihilation to the political quacks who rejected the "medicine." Cuba, too, is a chalice placed to their lips, from which, if they now drink, it is too late to restore their failing breath; yet, if they refuse, they will surely die, as did their fathers before them.

The Arabian Nights' fiction quoted by the Senator is an imperfect illustration, extravagant as it is, of the wonderful achievements of the Democratic party, and of the progress of the country under its control. It is not over the birds' eggs of Sinbad the Sailor that this mighty people have been climbing for fifty years past, but over real mountains, hills, lakes, and valleys, until they have extended their domains from the rising to the setting sun. Empire after empire has been added to the original

territory occupied by our ancestors, through the expansive policy of the Democratic party, while millions upon millions of mineral treasures have been reclaimed from the bowels of the earth, and millions after millions of acres of land made to teem with more than golden harvests, all of which would have remained blank and barren under the policy of the Opposition, whose theory has ever been to restrain and prohibit the progressive spirit of the age. And it is this great policy and these glorious results that the senatorial Republican leader stigmatizes as "notorious in the catalogue of patent political medicines." If his party is satisfied with this mode of treating an important national question, it is, perhaps, not for us to complain; but we hope to be excused for remarking that it does not, in our opinion, comport with the dignity of the United States Senate, nor with the character of a great nation.

Following in the wake of Senators Seward and Hale, we observe Senator Doolittle, who, in his feigned readiness to meet the question as a political question, employs more respectful language than the other gentlemen, with, if possible, less regard to fairness.

He says:

แ "But, sir, as I said, looking upon this proposition as preparing the issue for 1860, it is entitled to some consideration; and for one, I do not care how soon the issue is formed. I am ready to go into it now, to take up this question and help to form the issue for 1860. We understand there is a great suit going on in this country-a kind of ejectment suit; it is coming off in 1860 before the grand jury of inquest. We know where we stand, we know what principle we are going for, we know what federal usurpations we are going against we know that to-day it is true as holy writ that the administration in power, judged by its measures and its policy, is but a federal administration-federal in all its notions, in all its operations. It is steeped and dyed in federalism to such an extent, that if it were possible for the spirits of the departed to take cognizance of what is now transpiring, the very bones of old John Adams would rattle in the grave at the measures put forward by the chief of this administration. On the other hand, the republican party of to-day, standing on the platform of Jefferson-identical in name, in principle, and in policy with the republican party of 1800-rallying the masses of the people of this country to its standard, are marching onward and onward to victory. They are not afraid to join issue with you in relation to this attempt to purchase Cuba, or in relation to anything else. The sooner the issue is made the better. It will be no Texas issue, you will find."

John Adams was a federalist, but nevertheless, an honorable, pure-minded man; and while we have ever regarded his domestic governmental policy as repugnant to the genius of our republican system, his love of country was never doubted, nor his attachment to her institutions questioned. His honor

able memory should not be reproached by so coarse an allusion to his once dignified and manly form, but now, alas, mouldering into its parent dust.

The effort of the Senator to call down and encircle around the Republican party the spotless mantle of the departed Apostle of Democracy, is still more sacrilegious. It would be a curiosity, if the Senator could point out one plank in his political platform upon which Jefferson could stand were he now among us. The utter impossibility of his countenancing, judged by his own well-known rule of action, the sectionalism of the Republican party, has been demonstrated a thousand times, and the fact that he could not favor the position of this same party on the question of the annexation of Cuba, appears evident from the first official correspondence relating to the subject, quoted in this article.

In referring to sectional agitation, now the main feature in the political platform of the modern Republican party, and in justification of which Senator Doolittle calls up the name of Jefferson, that pure patriot said, "It sounds like the firebell in the night, awaking me with fear."

The Senator is obviously unacquainted with the opinions of Jefferson, or else he is indifferent to his own position, for he is as unfortunate and untruthful in asserting that this great man occupied the same position on the acquisition of Cuba, that the republicans now do, as he is in claiming that Jefferson favored sectional issues. Let us prove the fact. As early as 1809, Mr. Jefferson earnestly advocated the annexation of Cuba to the United States, and in a letter to President Monroe, dated Jan. 23, 1823, from which we have previously quoted, he says;-" For certainly her (Cuba) addition to our Confederacy is exactly what is wanting to advance our power as a nation to a point of its utmost interest." Again, in another letter to President Monroe, written the following autumn, he says:"I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which will ever be made to our system of States."

The inquirer after truth will seek in vain for one line or sentence uttered by Mr. Jefferson in conflict with the position we have assigned him on the paramount questions of the unity of the States and the acquisition of Cuba, and yet the Republicans are falsely claiming that he is their pattern, and his example is followed by them. "The Republican party of today," says Senator Doolittle, "stand on the platform of Jefferson," and this audacious and groundless assertion is echoed through the land, regardless of the truth of history, and in contempt of the fair untarnished name of the founder of Democracy.