We have reason to believe, however, that Washington, Adams, and others, represented rather more than the average intelligence and honesty of the age in which they lived, and we are certainly convinced that the present Congress of the United States represents less than the average intelligence and honesty of this. It is true with us, that our very best men are seldom elected to public stations; and in view of this acknowledged truth, the question comes to us to-day with peculiar emphasis, why is it that in our day, as in the earlier days of the Republic, the very best men are not elected to office? The answer is in every mouth :-Because the most respectable, intelligent part of the community has abstained from participating in politics;-because intelligent men have found the politics of our country too rotten and corrupt. Many a Christian man reasons to himself thus :-I cannot countenance the dishonesty and rascality incident to the caucus system, without sullying the purity of my Christian character, hence I shall refrain from participating in the nominations of either party; but when both sides make out their tickets, I shall judiciously discriminate, and vote only for the very best men, wherever found. Does not such a one see that the mischief is consummated before he has an opportunity of judiciously discriminating. If we would have the stream pure, we must take care that the fountain does not cast forth bitter waters.

It is trying to one's patience to hear men talk of the corruption in politics and the incompetency of men elected to public stations, and to see these very same men make no effort themselves to bring about a better state of affairs.

It will be of very little consequence, if our government is to be destroyed, whether that destruction comes through the unbridled passions of an infuriated mob, goaded on to deeds of violence by ignorant, dishonest demagogues, or by the indifference of those who from their education, influence and position, ought to have been the voluntary and honest guardians of public liberty. If our Republic perishes in this fearful crisis, terrible will be the condemnation of those who cannot say, in the language of Macbeth, but with more truth, to the ghost of departed liberty, "thou canst not say, I did it."

Besides the danger arising from the general indifference of a very large number of our most intelligent men, our country is threatened with another danger, less formidable than the former, yet sufficiently great to arouse no little apprehension in the breast of every true lover of his country. We refer to the fact that the intelligence of the country is unequally distributed between the two great political parties.

In former years, the two. great parties,-the Whigs and Democrats, were not only pretty equally divided as to the number of votes cast by each party, but also the same equality was seen in the intelligence of the voters. The great questions then at issue were such that the best of men might honestly entertain directly opposite opinions. No party could lay claim to an exclusive possession of intelligence. With us it is different. Whatever may be its political bearing, the fact that one party to-day has a greater number of intelligent men in its ranks than the other, is indisputable. The students and professors of our American Colleges, for instance, have, to a certain extent, been regarded as the representatives of the intelligence of the nation. Now, of this large and respectable number of educated men, about seveneighths of them support the principles and vote for the candidates of the same party. Take, again, the great body of American clergy. Our ministers, as a class, are, without doubt, the best educated and most intelligent of our citizens, and here we find the same preponderance of votes.

With respect to other classes of the community, any one, by careful observation, can convince himself, if unprejudiced by any strong party predilections, that the same disparity exists, perhaps not so marked and distinctive as in the cases just mentioned, but sufficiently obvious to arrest the attention of the most careless observer. Now the presumption is in favor of the more intelligent party, that its policy and principles are founded on a truer interpretation of the principles of government. Besides this, it is evident, that the party deficient in intelligence is very liable to shape its policy and adapt its platform to the capacities and tastes of its numerous and unintelligent supporters, and thus a wide field for the display of demagogism will be opened, and many educated men, of little honesty, will be found ready to join the party, and sacrifice their principles and honest convictions of duty for their own personal aggrandizement. The triumph of such a party is dangerous at any time, but doubly so at this fearful crisis of our country's history. Whether its success will be beneficial to the great interests of our country, judge ye.

Another danger, arising from the condition and constitution of no particular party, but common to both, is found in the all-pervading rascality of a large majority of political men on both sides. "Every thing is fair in politics," has been the maxim universally received and acted on by the politicians of all parties. Horace Greeley says that the politician's ideal of government is, that it is a goose, and every man is a fool who does not pluck it. Accepting this figure, we may

say that our government is the goose that has laid so many golden eggs, which have been gathered by the people of the South, who now, in their mad desire of realizing the splendor and glory of that ideal nation are attempting, after the manner of the person in the fable, to take its life. It is also the goose, which, during the last three years, the shoddies of the North have been diligently plucking. Between the two, what a beautiful chance our country has for life. We have said that the politicians of both parties are equally corrupt and rascally; we may remark, however, that there may be a slight difference in favor of one or the other. If we were Democrats, we would probably say that the Republicans were most corrupt: if we were Republicans we would undoubtedly ascribe to Democracy this crowning feature of shame. There is not, however, enough difference between the two, to make it profitable for us to discass concerning the comparative amount belonging to each. Let us accept the fact, and profit by its severe teachings.

We have endeavored to show that there are three sources of danger to our country; first, the general indifference of the most honest part of our citizens to the claims of politics and country; secondly, the unequal distribution of intelligence; and, thirdly, the equal distribution of rascality throughout all political parties. Such are some of the dangers that now threaten us. We will not at this time trace them out to their probable consequences. Our country, institutions and government, are passing through the fiery ordeal of fire and sword. A few months may decide the fate of the nation. The past is beyond our control. If we have erred in giving our best energies to our own personal concerns, and neglected the important affairs of government, if we have innocently allowed the seeds of demagogism to take deep root in our political soil, if we have calmly stood by and seen our country bleed under the hands of dishonest peculators of public funds, it is now too late to remedy our disgraceful past. But there is still left to us a little present, and in that present the probable destiny of our country is involved.

We, as students, from our deep consecration to learning, are withdrawn from active participation in the great contest which is pending the stern arbitrament of bullets; but while we are only interested and anxious spectators of this contest, there is still another, to he decided by the peaceful instrumentality of ballots, in which we may be active and useful participators. It is to this contest that we are called, Let us, then, with a full sense of our danger, yet with a strong and abiding hope in the vitality of our institutions, resolve to be not merely

idle and indifferent spectators, in this decisive and historic period of our nation. Let us, with firm resolve and patriotic devotion, give our feeble energies to the great work of restoring the right and bringing back the good old days of our national strength and glory. To this end let us vote for that party and that candidate who will most effectually restore our country to a state of peace, founded on justice and righteousness, and bring us back to the sound basis of constitutional liberty.

The Right and the Crime of Revolution.

MAN is not created independent of his fellow-man. Not in solitude,. but in daily intercourse with his kind are his faculties developed: all skill in their application he learns from the accumulated experience of those who have preceded him by a few steps on the highway of human life. Society is the school which his Maker has substituted for his training:-its great end the moral and intellectual elevation of the individual and the civilization of the race.

In the accomplishment of this, its grand object, Society must look primarily to Government. Hereby social tendencies are developed and harmonized. Through Government alone can social power be concentrated and social authority enforced. Only as its supreme necessity and its rightful prerogatives are fully recognized, can Society confer its choicest blessings.

But Government instituted in beneficence may be perverted to sinful ends. Instead of the servant of Society, it may become the most grinding and tyrannical of masters, extending its arbitrary power over the fruits of man's labor, over his intellect, his conscience and his life. Here, since the great object of Government is ignored, the very life of Society assailed, the right of redress naturally reverts to the aggrieved party individuals, united by common distress, make common cause, and the nation rises in self-defense.

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people has an undoubted right to the redress of grievances; but shall this right, whenever grievances exist, be exercised in Revolution? Not while there remain other means of redress. Governments reared in darker ages may have the errors and sins of centuries built into their structure; and it will be a work of time to remodel the edifice; but is it better for this to destroy it? It is also a work of time to build. There are emergencies when Revolution is justifiable; but

when it brings in its train evils greater than those which it is undertaken to remove, it ceases to be a right and passes into a crime.

Governments are for the protection of permanent rights and the promotion of lasting interests. Man needs its offices not for a day nor for a lifetime merely, but for all years to come. He labors for the future and he labors believing that that which has been will be. The peaceful citizen will find little incentive to industry, invention or improvement, in the conviction that the law on which he relies to-day, will be powerless to protect him to-morrow; and violence will run riot in any land, when the criminal, consigned to perpetual imprisonment, can smile grimly at his dungeon walls and repeat," Forever! it means but until the next Revolution."

On the stability of Government national prosperity is built. The streams of commerce flow most freely in the channels where their course has been longest uninterrupted; and art and science accumulate their choicest treasures where they can be most securely guarded by the strong arm of the law. Revolution assails the element of stability in all Governments. Every throne in Europe trembled when the mobs of Paris drove Louis XVI. from his palace, and the National Assembly decreed his uncrowning. Power needs the prestige of age. A new system may secure many advantages; but the principle which produced it is a principle of death. Frequent Revolutions inevitably defeat their own end; for in the attempt to redress minor grievances, they attack the vital principle of all good Government, stability.

The influence of Government extends beyond its penal code. Men have a natural reverence for authority, a natural affection for usages transmitted to them from their fathers. Habit is as strong a tyrant as fear; and in every despotism the two strengthen each other's hands. But while a people may thus adapt themselves to a Government, the Government cannot remain wholly independent of the people. Inseparable as they are, the influences at work upon each cannot be entirely unfelt by the other. Austria to day practically recognizes this grand truth, as she extends her arbitrary surveillance over every issue of her own press and every printed line that crosses her borders, conscious that no despotism can retain its power over a people which questions its legality. But Revolution severs all ties of habit and association. It exposes to the contempt of the multitude that institution which has the highest claim and highest necessity for reverence. It sacrifices at a single blow those nice adaptations which are the results of the growth and development of centuries.

No human Government can constitute a perfect system of equity.