II. RETURN OF THE PARENTS. By Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. III. CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL. By the author of "Twice Told Tales." IV. THE OLD SOLDIER REVISITING THE SCENE OF HIS EARLY STRUGGLES. Document No. 126. House of Representatives. Executive. Twen- ty-fifth Congress, Second Session. Maine Boundary-Mr. Gree- Senate Document No. 319. Message from the President of the United States, transmitting all the correspondence between the United States and Great Britain on the subject of the Northeast- ern Boundary, in compliance with a resolution of the Senate. Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr. Buchanan, Chairman. In Senate of the United States, July 4, 1838,-on the Bill to provide for surveying the Northeastern Boundary Line of the United States, according to the provisions of the Oration delivered at the Democratic Republican Celebration of the sixty-second anniversary of the Independence of the United States, in the city of New York, fourth July, 1838, by Edwin Forrest, - 50 THIS NUMBER CONTAINS ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR PAGES, OR SIX SHEETS. 'Watchman, how wears the night?'-is the question many a time asked during the intervals of the storm, by those who sleep securely in their reliance on the vigilance of the humble but faithful guardian of the public tranquillity;-and happy is it when the answer is returned, that the storm is over and the day is breaking.' Such is the answer we can return, from our watch-tower of observation, to the friends who would ask how fares the cause of the Democracy, through the season of night and storm through which it has had to pass. The storm is over and the day is breaking,—a day of triumph and rejoicing;-and though it is yet to be marked by an arduous contest, yet we have at least the light prayed for by the Grecian hero; and with so righteous a cause, under a banner that we are so well assured to be invincible, we can have no misgivings as to the issue with which it is to be closed and crowned. There is every thing, in the present aspect of the great contest that is in progress throughout the country, to cheer and encourage the friends of the Democratic cause,-every thing to cause their bosoms to swell high with patriotic hope and an honorable pride. All the signs of the times which are exhibiting themselves over the surface in every direction, confirm the view we have before taken of this important Political Crisis, in the pages of the Democratic Review, that it is one of those periodical castings of the skin' which are equally unavoidable, to a strong democratic majority long in the ascendant, and indispensable to preserve it in perpetual health, youth, and vigor. This process, though always painful and critical, is now in progress with the most favorable circumstances and auspices that we could desire; and our confidence in its result, which has never wavered an instant, is receiving every day a new and clearer confirmation. Such will continue to be the history of the democratic party in this country, from time to time, so long as our government, both Federal and State, is administered on the principles which have heretofore directed it, of legislating upon the private and partial interests of individuals and classes; especially if its connexion with the great moneyed interests of the countrynow so happily loosened, to a considerable extent-should be resumed. In that case the experience of the future will most assuredly confirm, again and again, that of the past, viz. that the power of the majority will constantly tend more or less to abuse, to favor the interests of a certain influential class of political leaders, who, deriving their prominence originally from the generous zeal of their Republican opinions and sentiments, in early life, become insensibly warped from the great and broad abstract principles of that faith, by the too long possession both of political power and personal influence,-so as in truth to be no longer fit and worthy leaders to a party whose animating spirit must always be a generous enthusiasm in behalf of those great principles. Democracy is bold and energetic, unresting in its perpetual striving after a better good, a higher perfection of social institutions. None can be unconscious that our whole scheme of political institutions, under both the Federal and State Constitutions, is very far from being purely democratic. Though democracy is their prevalent principle, and their original root and basis, yet in all it is more or less combined with so many checks upon its freedom of developement, and so large an infusion of elements of an opposite character, that they are far indeed from perfection; and far indeed from producing all those glorious and beneficent results, of general social well-being, towards which the imagination of the political enthusiast so earnestly aspires, and of which he is so profoundly convinced that, in their simple natural purity, the great principles of his faith do contain the germs. mocracy, then, among us must always be a restless, progressive, reforming, principle. The utmost extent to which it can ever be deemed possible by any one to carry forward the great mission of democratic amelioration in the condition of society, in any present generation, must still fall very far short of that ideal standard which must exist in the mind, and in the prophetic hope, of every democratic thinker, truly imbued with the spirit of his noble and sublimely simple faith. But it must be perpetually tending forward towards such amelioration, perpetually engaged in some new reform, some new simplification, or the extirpation of some element in our institutions of which time has practically developed the evil character and influence. Such being the inherent character of democracy, it is impossible for such a class of men as referred to above, the old influential leaders and managers of the party organization, who gradually form themselves like a crust over its surface, always to retain that relation to the broad mass of their party, which they originally owed to the enthusiasm and devotion now chilled by the torpor and natural timidity of age, and too often corrupted by the acquisition of wealth,-favored and facilitated by the direction De |