sovereign, and whether in a republic, where such things take place without resistance, the monarchical principle has not gained the ascendency? It would be under-rating Mr. Adams's talents, to presume that he is not sufficiently aware of his own strength to enforce the suggestions of a fanciful and an ambitious mind. He is now again at the head of the party which so evidently proved to the Union in 1812, that they were tired of the Republican Constitution. He renounced them at that time, because they wanted to range themselves, not under his banners, but under those of Great Britain. At present he is again in union with them; they are literally his phalanx, himself their chief. By means of this party, he has all the New England States, and part of New York and New Jersey on his side. In both these latter States, as well as in Virginia, public opinion amongst the higher classes declares itself almost openly for monarchical government. To what extent corruption and depravity have arrived in the west, the President's election has made manifest. Daily experience tells us how patiently the nation submits. What are we not to expect from a man who is endowed with a sufficient stock of calculating

prudence to wait for time and tide? The United States are approaching to a crisis which will decide whether the republican or the monarchical government is eventually to prevail. If Mr. Adams should be capable of maintaining his ground at the next election for the President's chair in 1828, then the nation may be justly said to have lost all sense of honour and of liberty, and to be sufficiently tamed for the yoke. It will then be as ripe for the blow, as the Romans were with their expiring liberty, and without any violent convulsion, Mr. Adams may pursue the measures which he and his party have prepared for his usurpation and his eventual accession to a throne. No doubt then remains about the fate of the northern divisions. Its separation from the Southern and Western States with an hereditary President, perhaps a crowned head to govern it, will be the natural consequence. The veil will be then removed, and we shall be able to discover why the same Mr. Adams, who opposed so strenuously, when Secretary of State, the acknowledgement of the South American Republics, is become at once their most enthusiastic defender at the risk of incurring the irreconcilable hatred of the Southern States of the Union.

CHAPTER VI.

Opposition-Randolph-Pennsylvania-The Future
Election.

It would be injustice to the nation to assert that it is an indifferent spectator of these proceedings. It is fully sensible of the injury done, and the most distinguished men of the south and west, have combined to avenge it, directing their attacks against the present administration. But they have not succeeded in giving the nation a clear idea of its real situation, and of the views entertained by its present leaders: they only discover in the last election of the President, the corruption of Mr. Clay. He is the object of all their hatred, and he is treated by the members of the Opposition like the stone which the dog is eager to seize, forgetting the hand which set it in motion.-In their opinion, for the breach of trust committed by the Speaker and some of the representatives, the whole House is to be punished, and the election of President is in no case to be left to its decision. They expect in this manner to secure

themselves against any future corruption, forgetting, at the same time, that in healing a wound they spread infection through the whole system. It is with constitutions as with paper-money, the more that is added, the more it becomes depreciated in value and in credit. Whether

this paper bulwark would be strong enough to resist the combined attacks of Mr. Adams and his party, is very doubtful. It is not from the form of the law of election, neither is it from the Speaker, were he even a Clay, nor from the House of Representatives, that the United States can have grounds for future fear. Clay, with all his depravity, and that of his Kentuckians, would not have effected anything with Crawford, nor even with Jackson, because they respect public opinion. The coup d'eclat of Mr. Clay, bears so much the character of depravity on the face of it, that it is certainly doing him too much honour to change the law of election on his account, and to make him the only object of attack. The man who answers such attacks, no matter whether made in the Senate or in the newspaper, in language both scurrilous and abusive, will have influence only in Kentucky. To the Union he is surely not dangerous; and to entertain the thought

of his being elected President is an absurdity. But to observe most rigorously the laws of decorum, and to be a strict economist, though at the expense of a poor mantua-maker; to keep the statutes inviolate, neither to ride nor to play, nor to indulge in the least pastime on a Sabbath, but to study in silent meditation how on Monday to deprive a neighbour and fellow-citizen of his property or his liberty; to be liberal towards ministers; to have no religion; not to be put out of countenance by the most sarcastic attacks of an adversary, but to wait with Christian patience, until the opportunity offers for revenge in a diplomatic style-this is what we must do if we desire to obtain a character for steadiness with brother Jonathan. Our prototype in the north is Jacob, who robbed Esau of his birthright: and in this similarity of character with the descendants of Jacob, we may find the key to the rare and sincere attachment of the northern people

to so

consummate a leader as Mr. Adams. The south does not admire this half-monkish, half-hebrew turn of mind; but to complete the parallel, resembles old Isaac, who in his blindness directed his whole attention to the goat-skin, if it be not improper to call Mr.