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cumstanced, we have but to hold out suitable encouragement, to attract what is most brilliant and profound, from that quarter. Indeed, had we, or could we be brought, to offer very moderate rewards, we might become to the world what Athens was to Greece, the chosen asylum of talent and excellence both in the sciences and the arts.

Since Washington has been definitively consecrated as the metropolis of the American nation, it should, pursuant to its character, be made the great focus of knowledge. The people must desire to see their government, in the seat of deliberation, surrounded by all human lights; for there is none which may not minister to its purposes. They must desire, too, for the general glory, the utmost embellishment of their Capital, even in material decoration. A noble edifice devoted to science, on the immediate theatre of the federal system, would be a signal homage to that system, which would bear the proper evidence with posterity, in favour both of our national spirit, and of the elevation of our views. Those who wish that our federal system-the present American nation-should make an impression upon distant 2g23 akin to that which the ancient republics have produced an ong the moderns, and there would be something abject and co tracted in the absence of this ambition,-must concur in ornamenting the national capital with massive and tasteful monuments. Architecture is one of the most imposing indications of national magnificence; and magnificence is generally and properly received as an indication of greatness. The remains of the temples of Greece, and of the amphitheatres of Rome, would be enough of themselves, to make the nations who reared them objects of our admiration. The magnificence, the taste, the public virtue, the speculative philosophy of the Greeks and Romans, are every thing; their wealth, their tactics, their victories, their conquests merely as such, almost nothing, in the sober, unsophisticated judgment of posterity.

The tendency of a national university in contact with the government, to foster a federal spirit, is too evident to be denied. This spirit would be strongly imbibed by the pupils, and by them constantly diffused throughout the states. State patriotism, as contradistinguished from federal, General Washington would have exploded, at least in the management of the national concerns. The framers of our constitution dreaded it as the bane of their fabric, and they divested the states, as far as possible, of all that could strongly engage the fancy or affections of the people. But they have not succeeded in their object. We have seen state and even district attachments predominate in the federal legislature. We have felt the federal system, in times of difficulty, to be but weak as a bond of union, and an incentive to persevering national exertion. We know, that several of the states, under a heavy pressure, and in a season of dismay, were ready to make it the

first sacrifice to party-resentment combined with the hope of separate security. The multiplication of the states weakens its force; the magnitude of several of them threatens it seriously. The Mississippi territory now soliciting admission into the union, has an extent of surface sufficient to make a great power, and great powers are not of a temper to remain long, yoke-fellows under any national, or indeed merely federal system.*

To shield our constitution from this and other perils which might be specified, no means within its competency, should be neglected to strengthen its influence. The national university must be wretchedly misshapen which would not be the best

*The following extract from a newspaper contains what is sufficient to awaken some apprehensions concerning the perpetuity of the union, or at least, of the Balance of Power in the West.

MISSISSIPPI TERRITORY.

We notice the second number of a publication in the Natchez papers, addressed to the people, on the subject of admitting that territory into the union as an independent state. The writer, with considerable force of reasoning, attempts to prove that it is unwise in the people to desire to be admitted as one state, and that it would be impolitic in Congress to permit them. He states, the territory contains upwards of one hundred thousand square miles, equal to about sixty millions of acres.

Which immense size the writer contrasts with some of the largest states in the union;

Virginia has about

Pennsylvania

New York

Massachusetts and Maine

Kentucky

Ohio

Square Miles.

70,000

48,000

44,530

47,000

50,000

30,000

Acres. 44,000,000

28,756,000

23,100,000

30,080,000

32,000,000

19,200,000

Before drawing conclusions and pointing to the consequences of a further increase of the inequality of sizes of the states composing the union, he brings into

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Thus we find the Mississippi territory almost doubles the whole of the 8 states last mentioned, and is more than double the size of any two states in the union, except Virginia.

The representatives of the states, we should presume, will never agree that a state should include the whole territory. If the division be once made, there is very little doubt but within a short time two states might be added to the union; without it be divided we do not imagine it ever will; we have not forgot how the attempt miscarried last winter. For many reasons we wish success to those aim. ing at state sovereignty in this quarter of the union, but we should be very unwilling to see the whole territory in one. Tennessee and Kentucky would be but pigmies near such a giant.-Clarion.

possible nursery for the spirit, and oracle of the principles of Republicanism. At Washington, the federal government, the great factor and guardian of republicanism, would be constantly before the eyes of the principal youth, the future guides of the people, for their study and veneration. The federal system would be visible to them in its action, and unfolded to them in its true theory, as the real depository of the sovereignty, and representative of the majesty, of the American people; as the supreme head of the American commonwealth, created, not by the states as bodies politic, but by the people at large in convention; as the paramount jurisdiction to which the states (divested by the decree of the people and their own concurrent abdication, of all the solid attributes of sovereignty,) swear and owe fidelity; which guarantees to them a republican form of government, protects them from invasion, &c.-which is the keystone of our whole arch of empire. The pupils would be habituated to view the states, in the proper, constitutional light, as local authorities reserved for the purposes of municipal legislation and domestic convenience; of aid and nutriment to the federal system, and not of control or opposition, and much less of destruction, except in an extreme case when the people at large might choose to employ them as the most suitable engines to undo their joint work. It was the intention of the immediate architects of the constitution, and it is evidently the drift of its first commentators, that we should regard ourselves not as an aggregate of states or bodies-politic, but as one commonwealth and nation. The American nation, and not the multifarious republic, would be constantly in the view, the national weal, and not that of any particular member of the union, would be fixed in the hearts, of the Alumni of the nation, as those of the university might be styled.

Such an institution would not only serve to spread throughout the states federalists in the just acceptation of the name, but might be made to furnish a race of legislators and administrators in the sense in which they will be hereafter more particularly required. A faculty of law calculated to afford these is unknown to us, and could be easily formed. We might see taught in a proper way, the jus naturale et gentium, not so much in the meaning of Grotius and Puffendorf as in that of Cicero; that is to say, Jus non ex duodecim tabulis neque ex edicto prætoris, sed ab intima pene natura deductum." We should have the principles of the Roman and English law, the spirit of laws; political economy, and the American political, international, and municipal code, expounded and studied as they should be to make real jurisconsults and statesmen.

The scheme of a national university would naturally embrace a school of theoretic diplomacy. The diplomatic character requires, in order to be any way perfect, an extensive technical acquaintance with modern diplomatic history, with our statistics, with the

statistics and mutual relations of other states, besides a knowledge of our and their constitutional forms and principles, and of foreign languages. All this calls for a course of systematic instruction on these heads, which we cannot hope to see established, any more than the faculty of law of which I have spoken, but as parts of a national university situate at Washington.

He must be, indeed, ignorant of history and human nature, who does not know that the prosperity, even the fate of nations may depend as much upon negotiation as war. It is incredible what some of the European states have effected by means of a diplomatic agency combining general knowledge with experience. The annals of Europe from the middle of the seventeenth to that of the eighteenth century are full of its achievements and triumphs. According to its particular character, whether accomplished or otherwise, the most brilliant successes in arms may prove utterly barren or but poorly productive, as the most signal disasters may be greatly mitigated, or wholly counteracted, in. their natural effect. The harvest of war is blasted or secured, as the negotiator is more or less qualified for his momentous charge. A consummate ambassador would be worth more to us than a consummate commander, and might save us many campaigns. We have embarked in treaties and diplomatic communion with the leading members, and have, from necessity, ourselves become a member, of the great Christian commonwealth of nations. We have, in reason and policy, no option left on this score, and we must be prepared for the warfare of the cabinet as we would be for that of the field-with European science and tactics and experimented skill. The plenipotentiary of the American people is, too, their representative abroad, and by him are we, for the most part, judged. It is easy to see what he ought to be, viewed in either capacity. One of his essential functions is to keep his government fully apprized of the plot, action, characters, the underplots and asides of the particular drama of his residence, following at the same time, the movements of the great theatre of Europe, to furnish a better explanation of the whole. How various should be the acquirements, how many the means of obser vation, of the one upon whom this task is devolved!

Great Britain, since the subversion of the French despotism, has become the power against whose force and designs we shall have especially to struggle. The nations of the European continent are jealous of her maritime ascendancy;-they must suffer by her depredations, and will therefore be always disposed to second us in our views of defence, or to employ us as instruments of their own views whether of the same kind, or of envious aggression. It is through them that we may accomplish more than we can hope to be able, for some time, to effect by our military prowess. We may, by address, without entangling ourselves in formal alliances, make their dispositions serve as our best auxiVOL. I.

d

liary. For this purpose, however, those dispositions should be constantly and sagaciously watched, as well as the concurrence of circumstances. With the same view, we should have a constant insight into their mutual dispositions and relative position, and a knowledge of their cabinet-intercourse respecting the common object. Great Britain should be convinced that the American government had put itself in a situation always to interpose the continent between them, and this conviction would operate as the most effectual restraint on her jealousy and cupidity.

To these ends, an extensive and regular chain of diplomatic posts would be necessary, which must be found less costly than war, though we should allot to our foreign agents the means now wanting to them, of appearing in a manner not absolutely unworthy of all national dignity. It would not be enough to extend and methodize our system of diplomacy-if system it can be called-upon a plan which this is not the place to suggest; but we must provide for a better choice of missionaries. It is not by means of men, who, to say nothing of the nature of their studies and pursuits up to the moment of commencing their new career-do not even speak or understand the languages of the continent, that our government can be kept as it were in the centre of European affairs, and effectually served in the great object of turning those affairs to account. What we have lost by the strange composition of our diplomatic corps we may not be able to ascertain, or would not, perhaps, acknowledge, if it were shown, but as our foreign relations must inevitably assume a character of the utmost importance and complexity, the future will exact that description of intellect which is produced by special training and this can never be complete under any other auspices than those of a national university.

It will be perceived that I have confined myself in the present volume to a cursory notice of the literature of the European Continent. I have been obliged to reserve for the next, the particular account which I intended to give, of English and American literature. The press of England has yielded an abundant harvest, for the two last years, in all departments of knowledge; much that is profound and practical in the physical and mathematical sciences; and still more in the moral; in general literature and classical erudition. The inventory presents excellent histories, many highly interesting and valuable books of travels, didactic treatises on the conduct of human life, works of fiction of consummate merit, the most splendid specimens of typography upon the largest scale, besides an incalculable mass of criticism of which no small portion is characterised by learning, acuteness, and good taste. Editions have been more copious and expensive than formerly, to a degree that indicates an increase both of appetite and means for the acquisition of the sources of knowledge. In variety and utility, the productions of the British press for the

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