martyrdom in so glorious a cause, should give them an equitable title to participate in the substantial fruits and benefits derived from their intellectual labour, in their subsequent application to use by practical men and chartered companies. To the purport of these combined efforts of genius, mechanical labour, and corporate enterprise, it has been justly remarked, 'that no age has illustrated so strongly as the present, the empire of mind over matter, and the ability of man to rise with the resources of his own intellectual powers over the obstacles with which destiny has surrounded him.' And it is equally true, that whoever by his individual exertions, adds one ray of light to the general stock of intelligence, or contributes a single important improvement to any art or science, is as fully deserving of pecuniary reward as the enterprising mechanicians who apply them to practical use; and these classes of citizens, taken collectively, are still more deserving the gratitude of their species, who profess to cultivate and patronize the arts of civilization and peace, than the renowned class of pugnacious heroes, who spill the blood of their fellow beings in unjust wars for the dismemberment, or extension, of national empire. Yet it must be avowed, that in the present stage of civilization, and popular estimate of merit, the successful military hero, whether in self-defence or unwarrantable aggression,* receives the full measure of reward from all sects and persuasions, whether by artifice, blind habit, irresistible example, or sincere devotion to the sanguinary profession; and in like manner, those skilful mechanicians and corporate companies, who give the last touch to merchantable commodities, render them fit for social use, and transport them to our hands, have greatly the advantage over the intellectual labourers and inventors, in the eagerness of competitors for their finished products, on account of the more ready sale and the greater profits they command for immediate use, over the crude fruits of invention, which on account of their immature state, promise but remotely to contribute to the necessities, the comforts, or the luxuries of mankind. Thus too, upon the principle of present or proximate utility, are corporate or chartered facilities afforded by legislative acts generally confined to specific objects of art, commerce, and local improvement, according to the immediate prospects of profit held out to enterprise and speculation, to which most capitalists seem rather to graduate their optics, without sufficient regardfulness to a general system-American system if you please-of improvement; which, in truth, should embrace not only objects of immediate use and profit, but those also that contribute, however re

* UNWARRANTABLE AGGRESSION.-I cannot but anticipate the time, when by favour of a more propitious turn of events, the profession of the sword having become longer useless under the benign influence and culture of the arts of PEACE, will be regarded as odious as that of the pirate, the black-leg, or the highwayman-excepting always a well-organized militia, so justly considered the proper reliance for national defence in case of invasion, the only just occasion for war.

motely, to suggest and prepare the best materials or to facilitate their future subjection to social use, as well as to the abstract elegancies of life, which, as such, are not merchantable commodities at all: nay, more, it should likewise comprehend those other unmerchantable commodities of education, moral, religious, and political institutes; for these, after all, may well be considered the vivifying sources, the channels, and the effectual guaranties of usefulness to all the products of human ingenuity and industry, ministering to human comfort and luxury. Yet the cupidity of mankind in general, is such, that capitalists who have shown their skill in amassing wealth, rarely adventure in those unmerchantable commodities just glanced at, but eagerly press forward for corporate facilities for supplying the immediate objects of social use and consumption, while those more remote and less merchantable subjects, are left to the enthusiast virtuosos, to elaborate to their hand, without other reward but posthumous fame, that relieves not their families from indigence. If then, those trading companies who live upon the brains of the pioneers in discovery and improvement, and thereby hoard wealth for their posterity, find the purse strings of society so readily relax to aid and reward their enterprise, which could hardly fail of success, I would with due deference ask, if it be incompatible with good national policy, to afford substantial encouragement to the PIONEERS in improvement? The occasional munificence of Congress in these regards, do indeed, afford some hope that a more equal and systematic course will ere long be adopted, as a means of rendering the good intent of the patent right and copy right laws more efficient. But I must not be understood as cherishing a disposition to wage a quarrel with the INESTIMABLE CORPS OF EFFECTIVES, whether corporate or individual, whose opera

*INESTIMABLE CORPS OF EFFECTIVES WHETHER CORPORATE, &c.-The arts, the sciences, general education, and internal improvements of every description, should constitute the EFFECTIVE AMERICAN SYSTEM, to be the hand-maid of our REPUBLICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM, and be patronized by it—the opinions of Mr. Van Buren to the contrary notwithstanding. And how are these essentials to national prosperity to be rendered most effective but by their regular organization into a SYSTEM, by means of corporate institutions, whereby the combination and re-union of all the mechanical and intellectual powers of man may be brought to a focus. This re-union of effectives may emphatically be termed the STRENGTH OF SOCIAL MAN, the lever and moving power of communities, by which their magnificent operations can only be achieved. Whereas, on the other hand, INDIVIDUAL EXERTION is but little better than total inaction. And further, the CREDIT SYSTEM is the soul of all corporations. It is the anticipation of that wealth which its laudable and judicious application is calculated to realize, by putting into operation all the productive energies which real capital could do, and thus producing the wealth whose preexistence would otherwise have been necessary to set those operations in motion. The credit system is, therefore, a substitute for wealth, where it does not pre-exist; it produces wealth as it were, out of nothing; it is, in fact, wealth by anticipation; it has the magic power of generation and re-production of wealth, which, without this ingenious system, this device of profound statesmen and financiers, could never exist. The essentials to its success, are, a judicious object, and that well followed. But the motto of Mr. Van Buren's favourite CASTE of loco focos, literally is, 'perish credit, perish commerce, down with the banks, down with corporations, and

tions have done so much to advance the personal comforts of us all, with the general commerce, wealth and prosperity of our country. By the successful application of labour saving machinery, and a thousand other improvements in the different branches of industry, 'they have subdued the elements, annihilated space, supplied the defects, and in a great degree improved the advantages of nature.' Nay, to show our increasing gratitude to those who minister to our comforts, in proportion as they come nearest to contact with us in their endearing function, I might also here include a more humble portion of operatives, who, by giving in fact, the last touch to commodities of immediate necessity and luxury, may justly be reckoned among the beneficiaries if not the benefactors of our species. And it is upon this principle that the most heartfelt praise is frequently awarded to the tavern-keeper, the tailor, the milliner, and the cook, while even the ARCHITECT himself, in every sense of the word, is but too scurvily forgot.

the devil take the millionaire'-if you but divide their riches among the sansculottes. Let these anarchists and professors of agrarianism, carry out their doctrines, as taught at their head-quarters in New York, and we shall soon be without a rail road, a canal, a cotton factory or a steam mill, without insurance companies and a flourishing commerce, nay, without colleges and scientific institutes-a beggarly and ignorant, degenerate race, of which the hard money schemes, and indivi dual operations would hardly keep body and soul together, nor would the government patronage itself be longer worth scrambling for.

These reflections are cast out here, apparently out of place, I confess; but in fact, they would not be out of place on every man's tongue, and in every American's heart; therefore, the sooner they are expressed the better. And I will also here express the hope, that instead of the desolating purposes of the ruling dynasty being ever accomplished, the time may soon arrive, when there will be yet a further extension of the credit system somewhat in this wise: that the annual appropriations of Congress to meet the expenses incurred by the government for the current year, be paid in treasury securities or notes-which shall be again receivable by the treasury in payment of the customs and other dues to the treasury, but not re-issuable under any pretence. As a further arrangement in connection with this plan, it would conduce to its good results, to distribute annually, between the several states, any excess or surplus of revenue that might accumulate over and above the amount of appropriations or disbursements. Also, in the event of a sudden emergency, calling for appropriations exceeding the probable or customary income for any corresponding year, such contingency might be provided for by the constitutional provision of a temporary loan of the sum required; which sum might be repaid in all cases, by the instalments of subsequent yearly surpluses of revenue over the annual expenditures, until finally liquidated, instead of dividing those surpluses for the time being among the states; but such liquidation of such debt incurred by emergency being accomplished, the annual surpluses of the revenue thereafter accruing, to be again distributed among the states, as before. One of the great advantages of this system, would be to permit the full amount of the annual appropriations to remain in active circulation, uninterruptedly performing the proper functions of a sound currency, instead of being abstracted from circulation and locked up in idleness, to the great detriment of trade, and the hazard of incurring a mischievous fluctuation in the value of money. The annual distribution of any surplus would be a further guaranty against any considerable accumulation or abstraction of money from circulation; while the occasional borrowing of inconsiderable sums to meet possible emergencies, would be comparatively trifling objections, to the benefits derived from a constant and healthy circulation. On the other hand, the accumulation of $40,000,000 on special deposite, abstracted from circulation, would of itself, be sufficient to bankrupt the country. These, I should think, are clear propositions; and, for the present, I shall waive any examples or reasoning to illustrate them.

But although it is true, as a general rule, that the improvements in the arts, the sciences, and civilization, are jointly and severally progressive; yet of all the sciences, arts, and evidences of civilization, that of government for the general benefit of mankind, is the most tardy in its career of emendation, though confided to the management and control of a portion of the intelliligent few-who, indeed, taken in connection with the intelligent few of all other classes and callings of society, are always centuries in advance of the multitude, upon all subjects that contribute to the melioration of our social condition. But why this exception of tardiness applies to improvements in government, is one of the most important inquiries of the present day. If it be not entirely a new suggestion, it at least appears so to me, and I shall in the sequel treat it as such, with the best lights I can throw upon it under the circumstance of its novelty to my mind, contenting myself with this remark in advance-that the question will probably resolve itself into developments and demonstrations of that all pervading SELFISHNESS, which ever sways the human heart when there are great temptations and facilities offered for individual aggrandizement at the public cost, without adequate checks and responsibilities to restrain and counteract the dominant passion. And hence the intelligent few who happen for a time to be entrusted with the care of national affairs in a popular government, do not labour so much to perfect or improve this unique branch of science in which they are employed, and with the defective details of which, they have the best opportunities to be conversant; but on the contrary, rather seek all pretences in their power to obstruct its further emendation, and, on the fit occasions of great national calamity, popular excitement, and party strife, (of which the prominent public functionaries are generally the authors and plotters, the instigators and principal actors,) propagate the doctrine, that the emergency calls for the simplicity and energy of executive supremacy, after the example of those who demanded a DICTATOR in the trying times of the revolution. They urge these plausible pretences of public utility in curing or remedying the evils themselves have produced, with arrangements and preparations vigorously pressed to upset the foundations of the few improvements that may have been instituted, and obliterate the restraints and accountabilities that had been exacted by the public good to check executive wilfulness, and in the high tide of the popular clamour they have set in motion when the multitude are tossed to and fro upon uncertainty and doubt, whom to censure or whom to approve, they seize the occasion to gamble desperately and adroitly with each other for the prize of public favour, until again, when least expected by their supine, or half confiding, half confounded constituents, the brief experiment of a complicated popular government fails, probably for the last time, and is substituted by that of a single, simple despot's will!

If then, such be indeed, the doom that awaits your endeared political system, as seems but too probable from the rapid march with which the competitors on party hobbies, are pressing in that direction, yet still I would ask, have you not the cheering hope left, that you may, by the aid of wisdom and dear bought experience, so reorganize and amend that system, as to rectify the defects which time has discovered, and thereby ward off or retard your fate, and insure the greatest possible duration to the enjoyment of that invaluable boon of popular government which your sage and patriotic ancestors have bequeathed to you? Yes, undoubtedly, will be your cheering response; unless perchance you be so entirely of the predestinarian school, that no inspiriting hope can dissipate the thickening gloom, no admonition of danger can animate you to a vigorous effort to avert so pregnant a mischief; for truly, I have found in my personal intercourse at the seat of government, so great a proportion of the respectable intelligence of the country resident and sojourning here, who are of this disheartening, this sedative persuasion, that except for a somewhat more ardent temperament than falls to the lot of most men, I too should despond as they have done, at the contemplation of a hopeless task, and abandon the purpose of this book— to point out those defects of your institutions which destroy that beautiful proportion and solidity they were once supposed to possess, and to recount those numerous practical evidences of their dilapidating tendency, with which the inordinate lust for POWER IN THE FEW, has interspersed and befouled your political history, becoming, daily, still more numerous and daring, as the successful attempts of your treacherous agents increase their temptations to enlarge the executive power and patronage, as a means to subvert the freedom of elections and perpetuate their misrule, for the benefit of their individual favourites, or the emolument of their servile party agents. But it remains to be seen, whether I hope against reason, and vainly dedicate my untiring efforts to persuade you to make one more struggle to right your ship of state, and rescue her from the whirlpool of destruction, into the verge of which she has been rashly precipitated by her late unskilful, headstrong and ignorant commander, surrounded by a corps of the most corrupt upstarts and evil advisers. that ever disgraced the deluded confidence of their fellow-men.

In prosecuting, then, with a becoming zeal, and to the best of my ability, this laudable purpose, in a manner most promising of beneficial results, it will not be inappropriate, the more deeply to impress you with the awful bearing of the matters to which I have invoked your solemn attention, to lay before you a few striking EVIDENCES of the despotisms and the cruel persecutions out of which most governments have derived their frightful catastrophe; and to admonish you at the same time, to make the application and ask yourselves what have you to hope, if such is the dread end to which the political cycle of nations prematurely