just ideas of Government. I will not degrade the character of popular representation. I will not blindly confide, when all my experience admonishes to be jealous. I will not trust Executive power, vested in a single magistrate, to keep the virgils of liberty. Encreachment must be resisted at every step, whether the consequence be prejudicial or not, if there be an illegal exercise of power, it must be resisted in the proper manner. We are not to wait till great mischief comes; till the Government is overthrown, or liberty itself put in extreme jeopardy. We would be unworthy sons of our fathers were we so to regard questions affecting freedom."

In 1862 the Racine (Wis.) Journal, in an article looking to the "new order of things,"

said:

"Let the main disposition be to aid the army, the Congress, the Cabinet and the President, in every bold and proper method to put down the rebellion. The Democrats must not clamor for the Union ac it was. The thing is absurd and never will be seen again."

MOULDING PUBLIC OPINION.

Says the Boston Liberator:

"The Republican party is moulding public sentiment in the right direction for the specific work the Abolitionists are striving to accomplish, viz: the dissolution of the Union, and the abolition of slavery throughout the land."

MR. LINCOLN IN 1851.

Mr. LINCOLN made a speech at Peoria, Illinois, on the 16th of October, 1854, in which

he said:

"What I do say is this: that no man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.--Howell's Life of Lincoln, p.

279.

MR. SEWARD AND VIOLENCE.

Mr. SEWARD, in the Senate, March, 1858, one year before the John Brown raid, said:

"The interests of the white race demand the ultimate emancipation of all men. Whether that consummation shall be allowed to take effect with needful and wise precautions against sudden change and disaster, or be hurried on by violence, is all that remains for you to decide."

MR. SEWARD ON THE "LAST STAGE OF CONFLICT."

Mr. SEWARD made speech at Boston, 1860, in which he thus foreshadowed the purpose of the Abolition party :

"What a commentary upon the history of man is the fact that eighteen years after the death of John Quincy Adams, the people have for their standard bearer, Abraham Lincoln, conferring the obligations of the Higher Law,

which the Sage of Quincy proclaimed, and contending for weal or woe, for life or death, in the impressible conflict between freedom and slavery, I desire only to say that we are in the last stage of the conflict, before the great triumphant inauguration of this policy into the government of the United State." MR. SEWARD'S JUSTIFICATION FOR DISUNION. Mr. SEWARD, in the Senate, threw this firebrand at the South:

"Then the Free States and Slave States of the Atlantic, divided and warring with each other, would disgust the Free States of the Pacific, and they would have abundant cause and justification for withdrawing from the Union, productive no longer of peace, safety, and liberty to themselves," &c.

"NATIONAL" STRICKEN OUT.

In the Republican Convention of Chicago, 1860, at which Mr. LINCOLN was nominated, we find the following among the proceedings, as published in the New York Tribune of May 18, 1860:

"Judge Jessup said that he desired to amend a verbal mistake in the name of the party. It was printed in the resolutions National Republican party.' He wished to strike out the word 'National,' as that was not the name by which the party was properly known."

The correction was made. And does not this, of itself, show the sectional, disunion aims of the leaders? They could not bear to be called National, because that implied fealty

to the Union.

BANKS PREDICTS A MILITARY GOVERNMENT.

N. P. BANKS, in a speech in Massachusetts, in 1856, thus predicts a Military Dictatorial Government":

"I can conceive of a time when this Constitution shall not be in existence-when we shall have an absolute military dictatorial Govern

ment, transmitted from age to age, with men commission, or who claim an hereditary right at its head who are made rulers by military to govern those over whom they are placed."

CARL SCHURZ ON REVOLUTION.

Mr. SCHURZ, in 1860, said:

"May the God in human nature be aroused and pierce the very soul of our nation with an energy that shall sweep, as with the besom of the land. You call this revolution. It is. In destruction, this abomination (slavery) from this we need revolution; we must, we will have Let it come!'

it.

JOHN P. HALE ON DISSOLUTION.

On the 12th of July, 1848, JOHN P. HALE said:

"All the terrors of dissolution I can look steadfastly in the face, before I could look to that moral Union which must fall upon us when we can so far prostitute ourselves as to become the pioneers of slavery in the territories."

In the Senate, February 26, 1856, Mr. HALE in speaking of the conflict said:

"Good! good! Sir, I hope it will come, and if it comes to blood, let it come. No, sir, if that issue must come, let it come, and it cannot come too soon."

GENERAL BEN. BUTLER FOR "MODERN IMPROVEMENTS."

An "ovation" was given to General BUTLER, on his return from New Orleans, by the Republicans, in New York. The General of course made a speech, and of course took ground which pleased his admirers. He said: "And now my friends, I do not know but that I shall commit some heresy; but as a Democrat, and as an Andrew Jackson Democrat, [God save the mark.] I say, I am not for the Union as it was, I have the honor to say, as a Democrat, that I am not for the Union to be again as it was. * 2 I am not for the reconstouction of the Union as it was. I have spent tears and blood enough on it, in conjunction with my fellow citizens, to make it a The old house was good enough for me, but as they have pulled down the early part, I propose that we rebuild it, with all the modern improvements!" [That is the "Strong Government" Abolition "improvements."]

little better.

*

*

At this period, be it remembered, the Republicans indignantly spurned the idea that they had any sympathy with abolitionism; but let us see how very like its father Mr. THAYER perceived their likeness.

"The anti-slavery sentiment as a moral conviction and opinion in the minds and consciences of men, no matter how strong is a passive sentiment, and remains such, until introduced into politics. It then becomes an active agency, nothing of the party but what is based on this, and if it alone constitutes a party-if there is then we must see what is its antagonism-what it is directed against-for every party is an active, opposing force, formed for positive and aggressive action. Now, will you tell me what there is for a party, based solely on anti-slavery to oppose, to fight against? Not certainly the extension of slavery in the territories-that contest is ended. (Applause.) Not the revival of the slave trade-for this finds too few advocates to make an issue. (Applause.) Then certainly it must oppose slavery, as it exists, or its office is at an end-"Othello's occupation is gone." (Applause.) [How strictly this has been verified.] There will of course be many classes under this general head-as many dif ferent shades of Abolitionists as there are colors in the African race-varying from real jet of Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom' to the Octoroon of Bourcicault. (Applause.) Some, only a

TION AGITATION.

The Hon. ELI THAYER, an "old line Whig" and a conservative Republican, addressed a Union meeting in New York, in 1859, in which he set forth the objects and consequences of the slavery agitation in its true light. We make room here for a valuable extract, as showing the well grounded fears of the conservative Union men of that day, in reference to this "wolf," which JEFFERSON said we had "by the ears, and can neither hold him nor safely let him go,” and also to show that the agitators of that day had their eyes open-that knowing the consequences, they persisted in the course of dissolution-as we believe using the slavery imbroglio as a means to effect their ends-the

dissolution of the Union. Mr. THAYER said:

would countenance an insurrection, [see John if they did not use them. [Just what they did Brown raid at a sample] would furnish arms, do.] Many will intensify and inflame the bitter hatred to slavery and slave bolders, [this they did do] till the very weight of animosity and aversion engendered will make the Union unbearable!")

No prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah ever proved more true than this. Indeed, all penetrative minds could not have failed at that time,

to have seen the result from causes then matur

ing. The radicals knew that envy would be the parent of hate-that hate would beget crimination, that crimination would propogate its own species, and that the progeny of all these would be dissolution. They knew this fact. They could not have been ignorant

views, because many seem to argue that any compromise in reference to the affairs of Government is the highest of crimes, but it will be our purpose to show that these very men enjoy their liberty to denounce compromises from the very fact that our fathers did compromiseyea, and compromised, too, the slavery question. As illustrating something of the nature of controversies arising in forming and operating a Government, and the necessities of compromise, we feel justified in presenting copious extracts from early publications, which will shed sufficient light, we trust, on the difficulties and dangers attending the formation of our present Union, to enable those anti-compromisers of the present day to appreciate the value and necessity of conceding something to obtain much. WASHINGTON's advice to frequently have recourse to "fundamental principles," is as good to follow now as ever, and while the world is convulsed because our people have ceased to study the fraternal precepts of WASHINGTON, let us consider

THE COMPROMISES OF THE CONSTITUTION.

The struggle in the National Convention of 1787 for a supremacy of "ideas" and principles, good and bad, was as vigorous as any contest that has transpired since that epoch. Men of that day were governed by all the ambition and qualities of mind that distinguish men of the present era. All parties of all sections endeavored to secure the most for self and location. The larger States strove to overreach the smaller ones, while the smaller ones were jealous of their more powerful neighbors.

As already stated, in another portion of this work, the National Convention was divided in sentiment as to the nature of the Government to be adopted. There was the extreme Democrotic element, in favor of shearing the power of the General Government to the lowest dimensions; the Democratic Republican party, in favor of uniting a Democratic and a Republican form of Government as near as might be. so as to give sufficient strength to the Union to make it serviceable for the purposes intended; a Federal party, in favor of confederating power in a General Government, under the Republican form, and a party of Monarchists, in favor of a monarchical government, having unlimited sway over the States and the people. As might be expected, these clashing elements were hard to harmonize, and nothing but a spirit of compromise could do it.

For weeks, said FRANKLIN, the contest hung in doubt, as to whether any government would be formed, and at one time dissolution and eternal separation seemed inevitable.

Two members from New York, Mr. YATES and Mr. LANSING, left the convention, to return no more, because they failed to carry certain points, and in a joint letter to Governor CLINTON, they say:

"Thus circumstanced, under these impressions, to have hesitated would have been to be culpable. We therefore gave the principles of the Constitution, which has received the sanction of the majority of the convention, our decided and unreserved dissent. We were not present at the completion of the new constitution; but, before we left the convention, its principles were so well established as to convince us that no alteration was to be expectel to conform it to our ideas of expediency and safety. A persuasion that our further attendance would be fruitless and unavailing, rendered us less solicitous to return.

Now, supposing that all the members of that convention, who were displeased with some portion of its results (and we believe there was not one but that objected to some part of the instrument adopted) had left the convention because their views were not accepted by the majority, we should have had no Constitution, and of course no Union, but compromise brought the Convention together-compromise kept it together-compromise preserved it from wild disorder and dissolution-compromise saved its labors to bless posterity.

Many of the delegates were trameled by instructions. Those from Delaware were instructed to "yield no point that did not secure equal suffrage, as by the original articles of confederation"-which was an equal vote in Congress, under the new government, with any other state. This, of course, was preposterous, for a state hardly the size of some of the counties in others, to demand equal power and voice in the new government. But Delaware was sovereign then, and had a sovereign right to demand conditions. But other states would not grant these conditions. Here was a dead lock, to begin with. Supposing that all the other states should have said we will yield nothing of the kind-would not that have been an end of the matter, unless one or the other party receded, which was not to be expected. The matter was of course compromised, by giving Delaware an equal voice in the Senate, and her relative power in the popular bran

This claim set up by Delaware then, was the cause of that particular feature of representa. tion in our Constitution.

Maryland contended that Virginia had claimed more than her share of the power of suffrage [see Luther Martin's Letter in Elliott's Debates, v. 1, p. 346] and that her representation was too large, while Virginia contended that such was not the case. This matter was compromised in the system of suffrage agreed upon-Virginia yielding a little, and her sister states receding a little-neither victorious neither vanguished.

The Convention agreed by resolution to consider propositions as well as a schedule for the whole Constitution in the committee of the whole House, and that after the committee had agreed upon any plan or system, any member might offer amendments or new propositions in open convention.

To show the compromising spirit that ed, we present here a plan for a constitution which passed the committee of the whole, and which the spirit of opposition on one side and compromise on the other materially modified, as the reader will see by comparing this with the constitution as adopted.

"1st. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee that a National Government ought to be established, consisting of a Supreme, Legislative, Judiciary and Executive.

2d. That the Legislature ought to consist of two branches.

"3d. That the members of the first branch of the National Legislature ought to be elected by the people of the several States, for the term of three years, to receive fixed stipends, by which they may be compensated for the devotion of their time to public service, to be paid out of the National Treasury; to be inelligible to any office established by a particular State, or under authority of the United States. except those particularly belonging to the functions of the first branch, during the term of service and under the National Government, for the space of one year after its expiration.

"4th. That the members of the Second Branch of the Legislature ought to be chosen by the individual Legislatures, to be of the age of 30 years, at least, to hold their offices for a term sufficient to insure their independency, viz.: seven years, one third to go out biennially, to receive fixed stipends, by which they may be compensated for the devotion of their time to public service, to be paid out of the National Treasury; to be inelligible to any office by a particular state, or under the authority of the United States, except those peculiarly belonging to functions of the Second Branch, during the term of service, and un

"Sth. That the right of suffrage in the second branch of the National Legislature ought to be according to the rule established in the first.

9th. That a national Executive be instituted, to consist of a single person, to be chosen by the National Legislature for the term of seven years, with power to carry into execution the national laws-to appoint to offices, in cases not otherwise provided for-to be ineligible a second time, and to be removable on impeachment, and conviction of malpractice, or neglect of duty-to receive a fixed stipend, by which he may be compensated for the devotion of his time to public service-to be paid out of the National Treasury.

"10th. That the National Executive shall have a right to negative any legislative act which shall not afterwards be passed, unless by two-thirds of each branch of the national legislature.

11th. That a national judiciary be established, to consist of one supreme tribunal, the judges of which to be appointed by the second branch of the national legislature, to hold their offices during good behavior, and to receive punctually, at stated times, a fixed compensation for their services, in which no increase or dimunition shall be made, so as to affect the persons actually in office at the time of such increase or diminution.

"12th. That the national legislature be em powered to appoint inferior tribunals.

"13th. That the jurisdiction of the National Judiciary shall extend to cases which respect the collection of the National revenuecases arising under the laws of the United States-impeachments of any National officer, and questions which involve the National peace and harmony.