busybodiness of the mandarins is well known. Then follow Russia, France, Austria, Prussia, etc., with their public, secret, and detective police, gendarmes, custom-line guards, standing armies, etc., etc., contrivances which, in their nature, interfere with industry, are galling to the people, and undermining the stability of governments. People, with a delicate frame of mind, revolt at the idea that a government may fetter the press, confiscate books and papers, or tamper with the spelling and readingbooks in schools. The first may cost Napoleon III. his crown, the second will deprive a republican government of its dignity, the crown which adorns it and gives it authority. Also, the business of teaching should enjoy full liberty. Upon the use of school-books the teacher has to decide, and not statesmen.

Suppose there should be a class of the citizens, from theological reasons, opposed to the use of the bible in the public schools, and a political party interested in the vote of this class, and the legislature attempted to enforce by law the use of the bible for instruction, then this party would oppose the law, in order to profit by that vote. If now the use of the bible depends upon the law or state interference, and not upon the free agency of teachers and parents, the bible will likely remain excluded from ALL public schools as long as the government is allowed to interfere with such private affairs; while the use of this book would be almost general if it depended, as it ought, wholly upon teachers and parents to decide whether it shall be used or not. But let me conclude this rambling over the immense field of occupation, industry, and business.

LETTER XLI.

Election Impulses. - Social Movements organized in the United States, Health producing. - Social Movements in Europe destructive. - Famine, Gold, Conquest, Religion, Liberty.. Main Social-Impulses: - LibertyImpulse of the Republican Party. — American Party acting unimpulsive. - Dear Union-Impulse of the Democratic Party.

I ADD an article, for the benefit of party politicians, written on the result of the presidential election in 1856, which may have a bearing upon the election in 1860.

Masses and large assemblages move by impulses, which may be right or wrong, genuine or sham, according to circumstances. Masses do not reason like individuals. Reason is cold, void of caloric, the impulses of society are warm, electric, and powerful, like those which lift the ocean waves from their repose, while those of individuals are like the forces which make a rivulet meandering. Still individuals and society, like rivulets and oceans, require for their health MOTION. In free society like ours the motion of the masses is foreseen, organized, legalized, the individual is master of himself; in subject society, however, like that in Europe, its motion is left to nature, social tempests, called wars, emeutes, revolutions, and the individual is bemastered by restrictions, caste distinctions, and a great many other political and clerical contrivances well known. Social movements in Europe are mostly destructive, while with us they are a necessary part of our social regimen and well-being. As a general thing famine, gold, conquest, religion, and liberty are the main impulses of grand social

movements.

The presidential election which just moved the social sea of twenty-six millions can not be understood without an examination of the various impulses at work. The movement of the republicans was propelled by the impulse of liberty (and gold or offices besides), that of the democrats by the impulse of union (with the same indispensable golden appendage); the effort of the Americans did not amount to an impulse. Hunger or famine, conquest or religion, the great social impulses in Europe, Asia, etc., had, of

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course, nothing to do with the fourth of November, this movement being appointed by law. It is obvious that in free society only that impulse should succeed at national elections which is just required by circumstances. Now, I ask, was the liberty-impulse of the republicans, indeed, a necessity, or merely manufactured for the political trade? My opinion is that it was spurious and mere sham, because in our country the impulse of liberty has been long ago, at the time of the revolution and by the successful establishing of the federal constitution, entirely used up; both events have rendered us sufficiently free, independent, and self-governing. When the republicans cried out on the stump, in the tabernacle, in Wall street, 66 we strike for liberty," everybody must have been struck by the folly and absurdity of the thing in our absolutely free society.

But there are slaves in the southern states! Well there are. Can they, in our free and well-organized society, be freed by a social movement, or anybody else but their masters? Sane men in Massachusetts have as little to do with this business in Georgia or Kansas, as with the liberation of the subjects in Great Britain and of the serfs in Russia. This sham liberty impulse has been justly rebuked in the city of New York. It failed there in spite of the most tremendous exertion of a host of able editors, powerful speakers, and inspired preachers to the contrary notwithstanding. People here appreciated this charlatan liberty-cry well. But not so in the distance; there people believe in the Metropolitan and Boston liberty stuff, as they are apt to patronize other charlatans from these latitudes. Hence the total failure of the republicans here, and their comparative success in the provinces. Nobody is easier carried away by the liberty impulse than the Europeans, from very natural reasons. The most influential German newspapers joined the republicans.

The Americans have been entirely unsuccessful because they acted unimpulsive from the beginning. A SECRET society for the control of the PUBLIC affairs is not impulsive, but to a great many indeed repulsive, and so it is the disapproving of the abolition of the Missouri line; so it is the prolongation of the Congressional naturalization term of five years, actually disregarded by all state legislatures. Even the sentiment that we shall be ruled by our own laws, can never act as a social impulse, because it is a plain

matter-of-course.

All this is not moving, not propelling, not warming-it is political, cold water clinic.

Now, was the union-impulse, which moved the democratic masses, the true one in our time? The result of the election says, yes! It was high TIME to settle in the Union by a decisive popular vote the most vexatious business-question: shall the legislation of the late Congress in regard to the equal rights of our citizens in the territories to rule themselves by their own laws, as the rest of us, also in regard to free and bound labor, be conclusive or not? That people in Pennsylvania were not deceived by the liberty agitation, like others, is owing to their steering for this unionresult since 1819, by resolves of their legislature and state democratic committee, an important item in the history of this election.

The plain result of this grand election movement is, then, that the union sentiment is a stronger social impulse than abstract liberty, and justly so, because without a firm harmonious union we could not enjoy our liberty at all. May this sentiment predominate for ever.

I mentioned the year 1860. Then returns the presidential election and a new run for the offices and their emoluments. It may be that pretext, liberty of the slave, will then be again made use of to strengthen the party out of office and power. You will know then what it means, and not be deceived.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

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LETTER XLII.

Declaration of Independence. - Defining of the Position of the Young Na"that all men are born equal.".

tion. Explanation of the Sentence, - Jefferson's Letter explaining it.

In this letter I devote a few words to the Declaration of Independence, adopted, after an animated debate, on the 4th of July, 1776, by the Congress. Its author, as you know, was Thomas Jefferson, the most illustrious compeer of Washington. The principal object of this celebrated document was: To define the position of the young nation and its government; to declare why a separation from the government of Great Britain had taken place, and to enlisten the sympathies of the civilized nations and their governments in their favor. This declaration bears the character of the exciting times; it boldly defies the authority of a proud royal master, who could not listen to humble reiterated petitions for relief and remonstrances against arbitrary legislation in small matters, involving, however, important principles. It was, for the time-being, the platform of the young American nation, upon which the war of the Revolution was fought. You may call it an arraignment, an appeal, a challenge, or the "shriek" of an outraged people; but it is no law. It takes high ground, in powerful words, which, when sharply examined, would not always bear criticism. The sentence, that all men are created equal, is not exactly true, both physically and politically. Not two men, even not two children in the same family, are created alike. The same diversity which distinguishes all created things, animate and inanimate, prevails in our race. Politically men are as different as the policies under which they are born. Not two men are politically equal, and never will be. Women and men are never absolutely equal in political regard. There is no absolute equality of civil rights, although every member of society has a right to be treated according to the general principles of justice. Such allocutions to nations, or to masses, meetings, etc., are of a rather poetical