distress and diffuse more blessing - when the Public Opinion, not of the poor only but of the rich, shall hold the consumer in idle and selfish luxury of a bounteous income, a craven-hearted object of pity, rather than of scorn

when he who in cheerful poverty and serene humility most worthily hews out, from stubborn wood or more obstructive stone, the subsistence of a numerous family, shall, unseeking, be sought out for public trusts and honors, when, in short, honest industry and modest worth shall be sure of respect and competence, while scheming knavery and bloated pretence shall be equally sure of detection and defeat — the work of the true teacher will be easy, the progress of the pupil rapid, compared with what we now witness. The perpetual and gigantic obstacle which confronts the instructor now, is the opposition of the incessant teachings of the street, the gathering, and alas! the family fireside, to his own. Does he speak reverently of virtue, and its superiority to rank, wealth, power or any outward success he finds his pupils puzzled, if not swerved, by the palpable, notorious truth that, tested by superficial and vulgar standards, virtue is not popularly esteemed and rewarded. The coterie or the club-room rings with the general laugh, at any supposition that a man has done a heroic act, has sacrificed popularity or property, from any other than a sordid impulse; and the child is taught, if not expressly, yet virtually, by the very mother that bore him, to ingratiate himself with schoolmates excelling him in station, affluence, talents, expectations - anything, in short, but essential goodness. To combat and overbear these insidious influences, to make the pupil see through the misleading mists of opinion, and test every event by eternal instead of transitory consequences, is the high duty of the true monitor and guide of the feeble, faltering steps of youth.

THE WILD FLOWERS.

By D. H. HOWARD.

PALE blossoms, ye appear
Not in the pageant hues,
Not with the fragrant breath
The garden's favorites bear;
But silently the dews,

On the untrodden heath,

Into your small bells pour the trembling tear!

How sweetly do ye look,

When breathes the warm south wind
Upon the budding earth,

From every sun-lit nook
Wherein ye lay enshrined,
Rejoicing to come forth

And smile by hill-side, meadow, bank and brook.

Ye make the solitude
Glad, as ye cluster there;
And gracefully ye bend
In green and lonely wood,
And through the summer air

Your faint, sweet odors send,

From every spot which Spring with beauty hath renewed.

Ye are like those who dwell
Far from the busy crowd,
To whom the books of fame
Are sealed, yet who can tell
Of sweetest joys bestowed
By conscience void of blame

Of peace earth cannot give, nor all its storms dispel.

ABOLITION REASONS AGAINST DISUNION.

BY S. P. ANDREWS.

THE relations of the Constitution of the United States to American Slavery, and the duty of American citizens as respects the Union, are daily becoming subjects of more intense interest. The last number of this Magazine has an article from the able pen of Wendell Phillips, displaying the argument, or perhaps, more properly speaking, stating the positions, (as little more could be done in the space occupied,) of the advocates of disunion. Mr. Phillips assumes, indeed, that all Abolitionists are suchwhich, in view of the facts, might be objected to as in bad taste. This assumption, however, is unimportant. The argument deserves attention.

It may well be doubted whether the dissolution of the Union, if it were effected, would prove adequate, as an instrumentality, to the overthrow of Slavery. This point need not, however, be discussed. Assuming that it would be effective, the writer of this would still object to the dissolution of the Union as an expedient, on the ground that it is more difficult, in his apprehension, to be attained, than the end itself for which the dissolution is demanded. To one holding this position, it is inconclusive to prove that if the Union were dissolved, Slavery would be abolished.

The question, however, still remains open, whether there be not something more cogent than expediency, pressing on the conscience, and demanding of honest men to dissolve their connection with the existing Government. Mr. Phillips, and those who think with him, believe that there is. They think they find it in the four clauses

quoted from the Constitution of the United States, in his article.

ART. 1, SECT. 2. 66 Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States, which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers; which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons." Congress shall have power

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ART. 1, SECT. 8. press insurrections. ART. 4, SECT. 2. "No person, held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. ART. 4, SECT. 4. "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government; and shall protect each of them against invasion; and, on application of the legislature, or of the executive, (when the legislature cannot be convened,) against domestic violence."

"The first of these clauses," says Mr. Phillips, "relating to representation, gives to every inhabitant of Carolina, provided he is rich enough to hold five slaves, equal weight in the government with four inhabitants of Massachusetts and accordingly confers on a slaveholding community additional political power for every slave held among them; thus tempting them to continue to uphold the system."

This is denied on the following grounds: - The clause gives to the slave-holder nothing. It does not deal with an "inhabitant of South Carolina," in any form whatsoever. It deals with States, as such, and apportions their representation in the Congress of the United States. If an unequal portion of political power is given to one inhabitant within the State of South Carolina over another inhabitant within the same, it is not the Constitution of the United States which makes the gift, but the laws of

the state.

If it be said that the Constitution was formed in view of the existence of the fact that the laws of South Carolina were thus unequal, it is replied, So was the American Anti-Slavery Society. It is a great mistake not to distinguish between the recognition of a fact and the approbation or sanction of a principle. It is possible to couple, in the same document, the notice and admission of a fact with the repudiation of the principle to which the fact owes its being, and even with measures devised expressly to invalidate the fact, or to put an end to its existence. The illustration is found equally in the Constitution of the United States and in that of the Anti-Slavery Society. It is admitted, nevertheless, that the Constitution of the United States has been so administered as to foster the growth of Slavery; and it must be admitted that it is within the range of possibility, that the Constitution of the Anti-Slavery Society, even, should have been so administered likewise, and yet that such abuse would not have changed the essential character of the document.

In Massachusetts, the political power is vested, by the laws of the state, in the males, to the exclusion of females. Should this provision be found to work out some great political or social wrong, we should hardly charge such wrong upon the Constitution of the United States, on the ground that the Constitution was adopted in the face of the fact, while the fact owed its existence to a distinct system of laws, over which the Constitution had not, and could not obtain, the control.

The Constitution, so far from "conferring on a slaveholding community additional political power for every slave held among them," as affirmed by Mr. Phillips, does precisely the contrary. It withholds a portion of that to which they would be otherwise entitled. Nothing is clearer than this. The community of South Carolina would immediately obtain an additional representation.