awoke Jefferson, as he said, like a fire-bell in the night, and sounded like the knell of the Union. He lived to witness this second conflict between his policy and its old enemy; the sight sickened him, and he almost despaired of the final success of one of the great measures of American Democracy.

In the admission of Missouri, the principle was greatly crippled by the adoption of an unconstitutional restriction, which violated every principle of justice and right between the North and the South upon which the common blood and treasure of the Revolution had mingled. The equal footing upon which Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee had come into the confederacy of States, was denied Missouri. But the thing was accomplished, and fanaticism seemingly slept again for a season, but only to wake with a more deadly fury. The third great conflict commenced in 1848.

The Democracy had the courage, in 1850 and '54, to place this question back, where it had been left by the fathers of the Republic, and where it had been recognised to be, by the Government, during the first thirty years of her constitutional existence (from 1789 to 1821). The smouldering brands that had gathered from the ruins of federalism, the first enemy to our youthful dream of empire, not only inspired with its old. hatred, but seemingly strengthened by its repulse, and invigorated by the universal contempt in which it had been held by the American people, now assumed a form more dreadful to encounter than at any other period of our national history.

Arrayed like this, it came forth, recruited by its long sleep, and settled, like an eternal hunger, upon the very vitals of the Union. It crossed the threshold of legitimate party opposition, and grappled with the existence of the Government, and proclaimed an exterminating war upon established institutions. Upon this revolutionary idea the opposition fought the Presidential campaign of 1856. They were defeated then, and this will be their destiny as long as the Democratic party adheres to the principles of its past strength and success, and continues to maintain the great truth of national equality-the co-ordinate province and free sovereignty of the institutions and laws of every state.

While it is a matter of historical pride, that the triumph of a policy which has sent liberty and civilization over an extent of territory as vast as the invading swords of despotism ever conquered, it is no less a trophy of the philosophy which has reared a historical monument to the genius of a party whose wisdom has, for over fifty years, swayed that policy with almost uninterrupted success. This history marks the development of two ideas; the one broad, comprehensive, and progressive, and the other, narrow, imperious, and aggressive. The latter spirit has always preponderated in the conduct and councils of the opposition to Democracy --whether in respect to the prerogative and domain of the Federal authority in its domestic relations to the people and the states, or with reference to the expansive omens of foreign policy and the international interpretations and usages sought to be incorporated in our public and political code.

In the great contest that divided political parties in this country, we have witnessed the tendency of conservatism as one of the guides and guardians of the Democratic sentiment. It took root before the smoke of the Revolution had fairly subsided, and has travelled with the party that fostered its infancy from that time onward until now; it is so woven into the great interests of the nation, that the party by which it has been promulgated has become one of the most powerful political organizations of either ancient or modern times. As a party, the Democratic party stands out upon history as one of the greatest that ever did, or ever will, probably, exist. It has become great by its great principles; by the bold and fearless manner in which it has dealt with public questions; by its patient faith in the sober intelligence of the people, and its belief in their capacity for self-government. Its statesmanship has always occupied the frontier of national sentiment and advocated a policy of our own-the growth of our resources. No sacrifice of principle for expediency, and no surrender of principle in the hour of temporary excitement, when the public judgment is so warped as to render it unfit to comprehend its own best interest. These have been the great qualities that upon every trying crisis in our history

have marked the statesmanship of the Democratic party. It is a party formed to meet great questions and great exigencies-formed to save, by its foresight and courage, what, in the hour of sudden phrenzy, a wild passion would lead to anarchy under the best regulated system of government; for no government can be so perfect that it can perform its various functions without the aid of statesmanship to guide it. To guide and direct this Government, under a policy conceived in the wisdom and genius of its institutions, has been the fortunate mission of the great conservative, yet progressive, elements of this old and tried party. Is it not sufficiently competent in the future as in the past? Will not the people trust it as they have in the past? We ask the American people, in what respect has it forfeited their confidence?

Upon the probability of the existence of an organized opposition to the Democracy, the experience of the past is our best and safest guide. That a positive and negative policy, upon the great questions that lie at the foundation of our national prosperity, will ever exist, must be the sober conviction of every thinking mind. It is a result of our situation, and one we cannot, nor should not, shut our eyes to.

A preponderance of free States, the inevitable consequence of climate and production, will still form, as it now does, the materials of a negative fanaticism upon the great question of the spread of empire. Though this negatism is, in logical philosophy, a paradox, yet it is the modus operandi in which northern ideas mature; hence, the necessity of time in the settlement of all great questions approximating a correct policy. The policy must be established by statesmanship far in advance of the common mind, and the people must have their own time in which to determine its correctness, that they may repudiate it, if at all, upon mature reflection. This reflection is the sober second thought upon which the great principles of Democracy have rested in every trying crisis in our history. A weakness of faith in the efficacy of a measure always places a large class of the masses upon the fence; this class, being easily led into the ranks of an open

opposition, presents the phenomena of the periodical uprising of the northern mind, under the lead of some brilliant demagogue seeking a temporary promotion. These things are often mistaken for a great and permanent revolution in the public mind.

That the American people think correctly, and view public questions correctly, when they probe them to the bottom, is proved by the final disposition of the issues that have agitated the country. Their settlement has always been with the people and the people's rights.

Whenever an attempt has been made to introduce a line of policy antagonistical to these rights, they have emerged from . the contest with the Democracy, though many of them entered the field as its bitterest opponents. This is a proof of the not too oft-repeated proverb, that the Democracy are always with the people.

The expansion of the bounds of this Republic has been viewed both at the North and South, in so many sectional lights, and its great objects been obscured by so many sectional jealousies, that its agitation has become the standing food for demagogues and ambitious aspirants of all possible stripes and conditions. It is an evidence of the facility with which the public mind can be diverted from the legitimate channel of investigation, through the machinations of the designing and unscrupulous. To mark well these unholy designs upon public credulity, and to expose the frauds through which they are practised, requires the most watchful vigilance of the philanthropic statesman; a vigilance that begins with the earliest dawn of his public life, and ends only with the latest existence. It is a vigilance also committed to the Press, having for its peculiar object the dissemination of sound national sentiment. To counteract the subterfuge thrown out upon the reading world by an unscrupulous and irresponsible department of this great lever of thought, has cost the national Conservatism of our country many sacrifices, and will cost many more.

No truer sentiment was ever uttered than that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

This vigilance has been a universal sentiment with the American people; it is a key to their prosperity, that unlocks the door to their greatness. It is taught the youth of our land, and ripens with his manhood. Without it, no Statesman of this country has ever made his mark-no warrior written his history with his sword, and no scholar ascended the ladder of fame. It is a sentiment wherein dwells all the hope of a future Republican Empire, that travels with the journey of the sun from a Northern to a Southern ocean, bearing upon its waters the commerce of a world, hitherto locked within the walls of an unchristianized superstition, where enterprise was, for ages, forbidden a shelter, and man kept a stranger from his fellow-man. These are among the wonders of Empire, whose star takes its westward way until it encircles the globe, and shines in the East.

THE REOPENING OF CONGRESS-BOLD ISSUES LOOMING UP BEFORE THE PEOPLE.

HE period for the opening of the last session of the Thirty-fifth Congress of the United States is drawing near. The first Monday in December ensuing, pursuant to legislative appointment and usage, will witness the re-assemblage at the Federal Capitol of the representatives of the people and the states, with the concluding stages of that Congress summoned into being by the sovereign disposal of the independent electors of the United States, simultaneously with the present National Administration two years since, whose history from its inauguration onward is widely known to the country, and immortalized in our annals from the memorable