manners of gentlemen, tends still farther to remove this class from the agricultural laborers and renders it an entirely unproductive class by preventing the acquisition of habits of industry. The planters, in process of time, thus become unenterprising and indolent, and the whole community is supported by the labor of a part, and in the case referred to of scarcely two fifths of society. The fertility of the soil and the high price of their peculiar productions, have hitherto enabled those States to prosper, notwithstanding the disadvantage of so large a portion of their population remaining unemployed, and the residue being engaged solely in agriculture. ceeds of that crop, the plantation is supplied with what it requires for is consumption during the next year. The active population of the towns, chiefly consist of factors who purchase the produce, or shop keepers who furnish the supplies to the planters, and they are consequently small, and without the capacity of increasing beyond a very limited extent. The greater part of the transportation both of produce to the sea coast and of foreign productions into the interior, is carried on by means of the rivers, and during only a portion of the year. Their sole market is a foreign country, and their supplies are wholly derived from abroad. Hence a deNo efforts, consequently, have ficiency of good roads and canals, been made to divert their pro- which there are not so much ductive labor to other pursuits, needed as in other portions of the and none probably will be made, country, where the pursuits of until the low rate of profits in ag- industry are more varied and riculture shall, by rendering the where large cities inhabited by planters poor, compel them either mechanics and merchants, impart to labor themselves or to devise a greater and more constant acnew modes of employing their tivity to commerce. slaves. Until necessity furnishes a spur to invention, they will not readily believe that a subsistence can be obtained except by planting, and their whole domestic and external policy will be, as it hitherto has been, governed by considerations resulting from this peculiar structure of society. ual improvement, which can only This whole tract of country is result in bringing plantations in intersected in almost every part the interior of the country, as by navigable rivers, on the banks competitors into a market already of which, the plantations are most- overstocked. ly situated. These circumstances have given to the planting States a settled policy, which aims only to foster and sustain their own peculiar branch of industry, and finds no desirable object to be attained in the application of the National funds to construct works of inter The same reluctance is evinced After the crop is gathered in, it in aiding any of the peculiar obis transported on these streams to jects of the patronage of the the sea coast, and from the pro- Federal Government, and the army, the navy, the system of terprise, activity, and vigor, and fortifications, and generally all those measures which aim at protecting and cherishing the great National interests, have not recommended themselves to the favorable consideration of the public men from that portion of the Union. Their interests, therefore, incline them to anti-Federal principles, and it is in those States, that the policy, which the developing strength and interests of the country have compelled the General Government to adopt, has been denounced as a violation of the Federal compact. The residue of the Union which is under the influence of different interests, comprehends a line of territory about 1500 miles in length and 350 in breadth, extending from the Mississippi to the river St Croix. The States comprising this part of the Union, possess 305,000 square miles of territory and 7,500,000 inhabi tants. In many of the States comprising this territory, slavery never existed. In all of them it is nearly extinct except Maryland, where it no longer operates either to affect the investment of capital or to control the policy of the State. All these States are inhabited by freemen, among whom industry is honorable, and by the abolition of entails and the laws of primogeniture, overgrown fortunes are prevented from accumulating, and each generation is compelled to go through the same career of active industry by which their predecessors obtained wealth. They consequently abound in en on every side are to be found striking proofs of the rapid improvement of the country and the ever wakeful intelligence of its inhabitants. The sea coast is studded with cities inhabited not merely by merchants, but by mechanics and manufacturers, whose productions vie with those of the workshops of Europe. The interior too is filled with villages and towns, some of which bid fair to rival both in population and the arts the older cities on the Atlantic coast. A domestic market is created for the country produce, and vigorous efforts are made to supply their wants from domestic workshops. An active internal commerce is thus created, requiring good roads between the towns and villages, and canals to connect the navigable streams. Hence strong interests are here enlisted in behalf of internal improvement, and as the chief sources of revenue are surrendered to the General Government; from that quarter aid is expected in promoting these works so necessary to the internal intercouse of this part of the country. The foreign commerce of the whole Union is carried on by a class from a portion of these States, and as either directly or indirectly connected with the commercial interest, the Judiciary, the navy, the army, the system of fortifications, and generally those measures, which tend to advance the national character, find their friends in the representatives from the same States. The policy of this part of the country, however, is not so settled and stable as that of the Southern community, and the attention States. The questions constantly arising between the conflicting interests of a community whose rescources are so rapidly developing in themselves, furnish a fruitful source of political divisions. The varied pursuits of society, the great natural division between those who subsist by the labor of their own hands and those of independent circumstances, in a country where all possess equal rights, are also productive of political parties. These States are thus, by the structure of society and the very activity and enterprise, which cause their superiority in population and wealth, divided into local parties, and prevented from acting in the national councils with that unison and concert that prevails among the representatives from the Southern States. The periodical press in the United States operates to increase these divisions at the north, while little or no effect can be produced upon the public mind at the south, where no countervailing causes are brought in opposition to the notions which induce them to adopt their favorite and settled policy. In the Southern States the newspapers are few in number and those mostly political. They are chiefly supported by political men, and of course they advocate the sectional policy of their patrons and leaders. The newspapers in the other parts of the country find their most valuable patronage to be derived from the commercial required to provide the foreign and domestic intelligence demanded at their hands by the merchants, prevent those papers which best represent the public interests from becoming leading political journals. Journals of this description indeed exist, but they are established merely to represent a particular party, and their object is to avail themselves of the various conflicting interests prevailing in their immediate neighborhood, and so to combine them as to secure the ascendancy of their own party. The political press, therefore, is not generally so fair a representation of the interests and deliberate judgments of the community, as of its passions and its prejudices; and skilful editors, not scrupulous as to the means, find it easy so to inflame those passions and to exasperate those prejudices, as often to carry a majority in direct opposition to the true interests of that portion of the Union. This tendency to a misrepresentation of the Northern and Middle States, is augmented by the political machinery, that is there used to concentrate the votes of the several parties upon the candidates respectively presented by them for public office. The more active and industrious classes find their attention engrossed in their occupations, and it is only when the measures of the Government directly interfere with those pursuits, or when some signal violation of the Constitution arrests the public attention, that they are diverted from those occupations to political affairs. An This view of the political situation of the United States is necessary to a full understanding of the policy adopted by the Pres→ ident upon his assuming the direction of affairs. other class of the community various interests they represent whose private concerns are not into several parties, and by the of so engrossing a character, habit of conflict into two great furnish the active politicians, who parties, those from the south ac give a character to the respective together upon all questions of genparties. In presenting the can- eral interests; and exercise an didates for the popular suffrages influence in the national counin the Northern States, conven- cils altogether disproportioned to tions are called, composed of their numbers. delegates selected at meetings of the voters, in various parts of the district represented in convention, and these assemblages designate the candidate to be supported by the party. The opposite party pursue the same course, and thus candidates are presented professedly the choice of representatives appointed to make a selection of the best qualified candidate, but in reality the choice of a majority produced by a combination of some factitious and ephemeral interests, entirely distinct from the common weal. As the persons concerned in the formation of these conventions are comparatively few in number, the patronof the Government is readily exerted to procure an influence over them, and it is thus that the Federal Government is enabled directly to interfere in the elections of those States where this machinery prevails. age In the southern States the candidates are self nominated, and coming before the people without any adventitious influence, they succeed by force of those personal qualifications, which in public opinion best fit them to enforce the settled policy of that portion of the Union. Hence it happens, that while in Congress, the representatives from the north are divided by the On the questions of protecting certain branches of domestic industry by high duties, of constructing works of internal improvement and of chartering a national bank; the south had shown itself hostile to the exercise of power by the Federal Government The Secretary of State (M Van Buren) had, previous to his elevation, manifested his predilections for the southern policy, but not in that open and decided manner which generally characterised the course of men holding so prominent a station before the public. Three of his colleagues, Messrs Eaton, Branch, and Berrien, in the Cabinet, were from that part of the Union, and its sectional policy was supposed to be favored by the administration. As the President determined, contrary to the practice of his predecessors, to hold no cabinet councils, no definite plan of policy was adopted as the result of the joint deliberations of his constitutional advisers. His opinions, therefore, and especially on subjects with which he was not intimately acquainted, were liable to be influenced by the superior ability, or the dexterous management of any individual near him, who might obtain an undue share of his confidence. Some allusion was made in the last volume to the means by which the Secretary of State obtained an acendancy over the Vice President in the confidence of the the President, and the breach which was finally produced bethese high dignitaries. From that moment the policy of the administration was controlled by the Secretary of State, and was in accordance with his opinions, so far as they were understood. As a large majority of the inhabitants of the Western and Northern States had indicated a preference for a protecting tariff, the administration on this question avoided the expression of any decided opinion; but expressed a hope that all might unite in diminishing any burthen of which either section could justly complain. Towards the system of internal improvement and the United States bank, hostile feelings were exhibited, but so tempered and modified by expressions calcu-, lated to soothe the friends of those measures, as to leave it doubtful whether the administration was guided by any settled principle of action, or merely by considerations of temporary expediency. While suggesting doubts of the constitutionality of devoting the national treasure to the construction of works of internal improvement, the President stated that he might not feel himself bound to negative a bill for the con struction of works of a national character. This limitation of his doubts to works of a mere local description, was a surrender of the whole constitutional question; as the distinction between those national and those strictly local, was so difficult to be drawn, that the Government would be left without any intelligible rule of conduct, and must necessarily be solely guided by considerations of expediency. This intimation, however, was again qualified by a suggestion of the inexpediency of entering upon any system of internal improvement until the national debt should be paid off, and until the Constitution should be amended so as to define the powers of the Federal Government over the subject. A similar policy was pursued in relation to the United States bank. The constitutionality and the expediency of such an institution were first questioned, and then a suggestion was made that a national bank, founded upon the credit and revenues of the Government, would avoid all Constitutional difficulties, and at the same time secure to the country the advantages that were pected from the present bank. ex This policy, which was denominated a non-committal policy, was well calculated to promote the success of an administration relying upon the entire support of the south, and a numerous, zealous and united party in the rest of the Union, aided by the patronage of the Federal Government and a periodical press, sustained and supported by the offi |