were practically unknown the evils that preceded the Constitution; and the new generation soon began to develop latent elements of discord, (like the present Kansas-Nebraska controversy,) which Washington, in his farewell legacy of 1796, had paternally foreseen, and against which he recorded his warnings; with how little effect let a late petition testify, of some hundreds of New-York clergy, headed by the Bishop of their diocese, "to make the caldron boil and bubble." And let testify also, the meetings, through the North, of laymen, without distinction of party, as is alleged-gatherings, without distinction of party, on a subject whose solution depends upon whether the Constitution shall be interpreted strictly or loosely,-a criterion that is the ultimate foundation of all our party divisions, in relation, not merely to the action of Congress on slavery, but on tariffs, public improvements, United States Bank, and every other permanent question of any moment on which our citizens have ever differed nationally. With as little absurdity might Christians assemble, without distinction of sects, to determine how the Bible shall be construed on the subject of baptism, extemporaneous prayers, formulas, hierarchies, &c. If the mingled sectaries should agree, they would no longer constitute different sects; and if our citizens of different parties agree that the Constitution permits Congress to exclude slavery from Kansas or Nebraska, they will all belong to the party of lax constructionists, designate themselves as differently as they may please.

The Bible says of God, that He wants obedience rather than sacrifice; and Washington, were he present, would say that he prefers obedience rather than the costly monument which we substitute in place of obedience, and which, in our zeal for his memory, we erect by obtruding pecuniary contributions therefor among our ballot-boxes, at the

expense, perhaps, of driving therefrom some sensitive poor men who have no ostentatious contribution to spare. Still, amid much to alarm patriotism for the perpetuity of our Union, among those who believe that its perpetuity depends upon a strict construction of the Constitution, and of which the present Kansas-Nebraska bill is a fruit, we may derive encouragement from the reflection that the New Testament existed fifteen hundred years before Christians learnt therefrom that to burn heretics was not fulfilling the gospel; while we, in about the third of a century from 1820, have so far learnt the true construction of our Constitution, that the Missouri Compromise, a cancerous excrescence on our confederative cohesiveness, has been declared void by a large majority of the United States Senate,* composed, as we may well believe, of the foremost men of our Republic. Knowledge is cumulative and progressive, and the true construction of our Constitution thus made visible, will probably result in a more perfect union than we have enjoyed for years; and the fruit of which being the extinction of geographical rivalries, we may extend the blessings of our liberty Canada-wards, or Mexico-wards, to as much new territory as Providence may think proper at any time to grant us by honest means; filling it with a contented, prosperous, and free people,-each locality of the broad whole conserving its own domestic interests, and yielding willingly alike precious liberty to all the others.

* The House of Representatives had not yet acted on the bill.

THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA QUESTION CONCLUDED.*

WHEN a ship is on the ocean and a sudden cry announces a man overboard, the deck immediately becomes thronged by the crew and passengers; and then may be seen huinan nature in its various phases. The timid will shrink from the ship's side, lest they also fall over; the selfish will bless God they are not in the drowning man's position; while the prejudiced will think he is only a rum-seller, a heretic, or a slave-holder-let him go; but a few, nature's true nobility, will plunge into the ocean to save the man, regardless of what he is, and thinking only of duty. Something like this is transpiring now. The United States, coursing on Time's fathomless ocean, is suddenly agitated; a principle is overboard, struggling between life and deaththe old continental principle that taxation and representation must not be separated into two bodies-one body to rule without sharing in the burdens thereof, the other to be ruled without sharing in the adjustment thereof. And here, also, may be seen human nature in various phases. The timid think they have no personal interest in Kansas or Nebraska, and keep aloof, lest they be endangered thereby; the selfish balance the advantages of opposition against the advantages of acquiescence, while the prejudiced see nothing but slavery in danger, and are desirous it shall perish but some rush to the rescue of a great national principle, regardless of their predilections in relation to the measure that happens to be in danger.

The large mass of mankind are, however, not included in any of the above classes. Want of leisure, or defective

*Published March 20th, 1854.

education, prevents most men from discriminating between measures and principles. They will destroy the liberty of speech, when any given speech is offensive to them; they will destroy the liberty of conscience, when a man worships as they think he ought not to worship; they will destroy the personal liberty of their neighbor, when he drinks what they think he ought not to drink; and they will destroy self-government in Kansas and Nebraska, lest the inhabitants should legislate favorably towards negro slavery. Lynch law is the worst example of a regard for measures irrespective of principles; still, in our zeal for particular measures, we often violate great principles by legislation, and such a violation differs from Lynch law in only sinning legally, instead of sinning illegally. If we admit law to be the only criterion of right and wrong, every species of tyranny may become justified.

The persons who thus subordinate principles to measures are generally honest, and their errors proceed from generous impulses, even in the worst exercises of Lynch law. On the enlightenment of the great mass of every community, in the discrimination between measures and principles, we must mainly rely for the preservation of our liberties, which will never be attacked except indirectly in the guise of measures that happen to be unpopular. A proverb says, "Take care of your cents and dollars will take care of themselves." We may parody the proverb and say, Take care of measures and principles will take care of themselves. Sectarian hate constitutes the best known type of "the worm that never dies and the fire that is never quenched." It caused the destruction, at midnight, of a nunnery in Boston, the demolition of a costly chapel in Philadelphia, the expulsion of the Mormons from Missouri, and our own occasional, though not recent, petty

persecutions of the Shaking Quakers of New-Lebanon. But with this hate born in every man, what caused universal toleration of opinion to be guaranteed to all men by our State and National Constitutions? It was a knowledge that in a mixed population like ours no safety exists for any sect but in a universal protection of all. Our institutions will not be safe till we understand that a like universal protection is necessary to every measure that concerns any of the great principles that constitute the glory and happiness of our country; and perhaps the necessity of protecting all, if we would insure the protection of any, is a means designed by Providence to restrain the personal selfishness and self-will which are inseparable from human nature.

Still, the necessity of tolerating measures for the sake of great principles is so little understood, that, at a late gathering in New-York of several thousands of native Germans, they remonstrated against the passage of the Maine Law and the Kansas-Nebraska bill; unconscious that, if we may dictate what the people of Kansas shall do with slavery, one portion of our people may as properly dictate what another portion shall drink. When the drink war commenced against every man's sovereignty over his own stomach and pockets, the prohibition was only against alcohol, and the drinkers of good wine, beer, and cider became ready partisans in the war against vulgar alcohol, which they never drank; not knowing that the principle which justifies interference with one beverage will justify an interference with all, and that the security from molestation of any depends on a defence of all.

Many of our Irish citizens are exhibiting a like indiscrimination between measures and principles. They abandoned Ireland because it is governed by a British Legislature; still they oppose the Kansas-Nebraska bill because