of the times. While our own numbers are increasing in an unexampled ratio, Europe is pouring in upon us her hundreds of thousands annually, and new regions are added to our domain, which we are obliged to count by degrees of latitude and longitude. In the mean time, the most wonderful discoveries of art, and the most mysterious powers of nature, combine to give an almost fearful increase to the intensity of our existence. Machines of unexampled complication and ingenuity have been applied to the whole range of human industry. We rush across the land and the sea by steam; we correspond by magnetism; we paint by the solar ray; we count the beats of the electric clock at the distance of a thousand miles; we do all but annihilate time and distance; and, amidst all the new agencies of communication and action, the omnipotent press, the great engine of modern progress, not superseded or impaired, but gathering new power from all the arts, is daily clothing itself with louder thunders.

almost with awe,

While we contemplate with admiration, the mighty influences which surround us, and which demand our coöperation and our guidance, let our hearts overflow with gratitude to the patriots who have handed down to us this great inherit

ance.

Let us strive to furnish ourselves, from the storehouse of their example, with the principles and virtues which will strengthen us for the performance of an honored part on this illustrious stage. Let pure patriotism add its bond to the bars of iron which are binding the continent together; and, as intelligence shoots with the electric spark from ocean to ocean, let public spirit and love of country catch from heart to heart!

ATTENTION THE SOUL OF GENIUS.-O. Dewey.

THE favorite idea of a genius among us is of one who never studies, or who studies nobody can tell when, at midnight, or at odd times and intervals; and now and then strikes out, “at a heat," as the phrase is, some wonderful production. "The young man,” it is often said, "has genius enough, if he would only study." Now, the truth is, that the genius will study; it is that in the

mind which does study: that is the very nature of it. I care not to say that it will always use books. All study is not reading, any more than all reading is study.

Attention is the very soul of genius; not the fixed eye, not the poring over a book, but the fixed thought. It is, in fact, an action of the mind which is steadily concentrated upon one idea, or one series of ideas, which collects in one point the rays of the soul, till they search, penetrate, and fire the whole train of its thoughts. And while the fire burns within, the outside may be, indeed, cold, indifferent, negligent, absent in appearance; he may be an idler, or a wanderer, apparently without aim or intent; but still the fire burns within. And what though "it bursts forth," at length, as has been said, "like volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force"? It only shows the intense action of the elements beneath. What though it breaks forth, like lightning from the cloud? The electric fire had been collecting in the firmament through many a silent, clear, and calm day. What though the might of genius appears in one decisive blow, struck in some moment of high debate, or at the crisis of a nation's peril? That mighty energy, though it may have heaved in the breast of Demosthenes, was once a feeble, infant thought. A mother's eye watched over its dawnings. A father's care guarded its early youth. It soon trod, with youthful steps, the halls of learning, and found other fathers to wake and to watch for it, even as it finds them here. It went on; but silence was upon its path, and the deep strugglings of the inward soul silently ministered to it. The elements around breathed upon it, and "touched it to finer issues." The golden ray of heaven fell upon it, and ripened its expanding faculties. The slow revolutions of years slowly added to its collected energies and treasures, till, in its hour of glory, it stood forth embodied in the form of living, commanding, irresistible eloquence. The world wonders at the manifestation, and says, "Strange, strange that it should come thus unsought, unpremeditated, unprepared!” But the truth is, there is no more a miracle in it than there is in the towering of the preeminent forest-tree, or in the flowing of the mighty and irresistible river, or in the wealth and waving of the boundless harvest.

THE SOUTH AND THE UNION.-A. P. Butler.

THERE has been much said about the feeling of a portion of this Union, as being ready to dissolve it. I am not to be terrified or controlled by any imputations of that kind. This Union has its uses, just according to the use that is made of it. It made of it. It may be used as a great trust to effect the greatest ends that time ever committed to human institutions; and it is in the power of patriots and statesmen to make it subserve these ends. But when it shall be made a mere instrument of partial legislation, and to pander to the views and ends of hypocritical demagogues, it will cease to be an object of veneration, unless its worshippers shall be like those of Juggernaut, who regard it as a pious service to prostrate themselves and be crushed by the wheels of his car. I believe I am one of its real friends, and the charge of criminal design upon its duration comes with an ill grace from those who have adhered to selfish and unjust purposes.

Those who have introduced here the doctrines which we are called upon to question have no right to measure the extent of my opposition. What that measure will be I do not know. I am willing to accede to any peaceful constitutional measure which will tend to preserve the Union itself; these means may be too long disregarded; there is a limit. I am astonished when I hear the language sometimes used by the representatives from the "old thirteen," from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey, making war upon their brethren of the southern sections of the Union, which seems to me but the policy that results in their own suicide. They give way to these wild, fanatical suggestions of policy, in disregard of those admonitions which should address themselves to them from their past history, as well as in view of their future destiny. They are waging a war against their interest, under the influence of feelings which were inculcated by their ancestors, and sowing the seeds of disunion.

I have said what I designed to say at this time; but with it I would, if I dared, make a suggestion to the administration, which has now, in a measure, the control of the destinies of this country;

and it would be that they should not experiment upon the disaffection which exists in one portion of this Union. I know, sir, it is deeper, far deeper, than has ever been exhibited on this floor. I fear it has been too much disguised. And it is not confined to South Carolina, as some seem to consider. Some would be glad to see her isolated from others, and thereby made an easier victim. The people of other Southern States are speaking out; and, if events are not arrested, there will be but one voice, and that voice will come from the mass of the people. The press and politicians cannot much longer delude them. What state may be the first to be involved in measures of resistance, I know not. South Carolina has sometimes cried out as a sentinel. But there are others having greater interests at stake, and which will be put ultimately in great danger. They will look to their security and interests, and all will move as one man. It is for those who have the destinies of this nation in their hands to say how far they will respect the feelings of the South.

IGNORANCE A CRIME IN A REPUBLIC. H. Mann.

In all the dungeons of the Old World, where the strong champions of freedom are now pining in captivity beneath the remorseless power of the tyrant, the morning sun does not send a glimmering ray into their cells, nor does night draw a thicker veil of darkness between them and the world, but the lone prisoner lifts his iron-laden arms to heaven in prayer, that we, the depositaries of freedom, and of human hopes, may be faithful to our sacred trust; - while, on the other hand, the pensioned advocates of despotism stand, with listening ear, to catch the first sound of lawless violence that is wafted from our shores, to note the first breach of faith or act of perfidy amongst us, and to convert them into arguments against liberty and the rights of man.

The experience of the ages that are past, the hopes of the ages that are yet to come, unite their voices in an appeal to us; they implore us to think more of the character of our people than of its numbers; to look upon our vast natural resources, not as tempters

to ostentation and pride, but as a means to be converted, by the refining alchemy of education, into mental and spiritual treasures; they supplicate us to seek for whatever complacency or self-satisfaction we are disposed to indulge, not in the extent of our territory, or in the products of our soil, but in the expansion and perpetuation of the means of human happiness; they beseech us to exchange the luxuries of sense for the joys of charity, and thus give to the world the example of a nation whose wisdom increases with its prosperity, and whose virtues are equal to its power. For these ends they enjoin upon us a more earnest, a more universal, a more religious devotion to our exertions and resources, to the culture of the youthful mind and heart of the nation. Their gathered voices assert the eternal truth, that, in a republic, ignorance is a crime; and that private immorality is not less an opprobrium to the state than it is guilt in the perpetrator.

OBEDIENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION.

-S. A. Douglass.

OUR forefathers held that the people had an inherent right to establish such constitution and laws, for the government of themselves and their posterity, as they should deem best calculated to insure the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; and that the same might be altered and changed, as experience should satisfy them to be necessary and proper. Upon this principle the constitution of the United States was formed, and our glorious Union established. All acts of Congress passed in pursuance of the constitution are declared to be the supreme laws of the land, and the Supreme Court of the United States is charged with expounding the same. All officers and magistrates, under the federal and state governments, executive, legislative, judicial, and ministerial, are required are required to take an oath to support the constitution, before they can enter upon the performance of their respective duties. Every person born under the constitution owes allegiance to it; and every naturalized citizen takes an oath to support it. Fidelity to the constitution is the only passport to the