him into private life the esteem, the respect, and admiration of his countrymen. He will ever be regarded as a patriot and a statesman, and he will take his rank with the most illustrious of his country's sons.

A high and imperious duty devolves upon the democracy to assert their rights, and to drive from place and power the unscrupulous party which now corruptly and tyrannically sway the destinies of this state. Their liber

ty and happiness, the prosperity of their country, loudly call upon them to put forth their best energies to achieve this great deliverance. To accomplish it, they must inculcate unceasingly the principles of democracy-they must press upon the minds of the old and the young, the great fundamental principle upon which all the others repose, "the equality of men in civil and political rights.” That all legislation which disturbs this equality is antirepublican. That grants of special privileges to one man, or to any set of men, are attacks upon the rights of every other man in the community. That a good government is that which restrains men from injuring one another, but "leaves them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement," and which does "not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." That debts, individual, state and national, produce a condition of dependence subversive of equality among men, and destructive of freedom of action among states and nations. That the following are among the essential principles of our government :— Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;" "economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burdened;" the honest payment of our debts, and sacred preservation of the public faith; "the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason."

Democratic republicans! we call upon you to stand by your arms; to redouble your exertions. We conjure you to use as your weapons truth and justice; to diffuse information; to expose the designs of the federal aristocracy; to press upon the people the startling fact, that if the whig party continue in power, their lands and labor will be mortgaged for the payment of a forty and perhaps

a seventy million debt; that grinding taxation will be their inevitable fate; and that a great national bank will be fastened upon the country. If every democrat does his duty, the days of federalism in the empire state will be numbered, and democracy will achieve a triumph which will be perpetual.

DEMOCRACY.

[AN EXTRACT.]

DEMOCRACY must finally triumph in human reason, because its foundations are deep in the human heart. The great mass, whose souls are bound by a strong, paternal sympathy, once relieved from ancient prejudice, will stand forth as its moveless champions. It fastens the affections of men, as the shield of their present liberties and the ground of their future hopes. They perceive in it a saving faith, a redeeming truth, a regenerating power. It is the only creed which does justice to man, or that can bind the entire race in eternal chains of brotherhood and love. Nothing sinks so deep into the hearts of the multitude, for nothing else is so identified with their moral and social good. Though the high and mighty of the earth may deride its simple truths, these are willing to die in their defence. Those truths are blended too closely with all for which it is worthy to live and glorious to perish, to be relinquished without a struggle or a pang.

They are too firmly allied to the imperishable hopes, the deathless aspirations, the onward triumphant march of humanity, ever to be deserted. The fortunes of individuals may change, empires be born and blotted out, kings rise and fall-wealth, honor, distinction fade as the dying pageant of a dream; but democracy must live. Its origin is among the necessary relations of things, and it can only cease to be when eternal truth is no more.

It is the principle of this democracy we wish to unfold. Our design is to expound in our own way its nature, tendency, beauty, and end. We are drawn to it by strong cords, and cannot but explain the grounds of our love. There is a clear region of philosophic inquiry above the clouds of party strife. To procure exemption from common errors and ordinary modes of thought, one must breathe its pure and wholesome air. He must retire from the din of daily warfare; he must live in the calm study of his own soul in the silent observation of man. Freedom from prejudice is the indispensable condition of free thought. In the sacred depths of retirement the soul alone is free-for there it roams gladly over the universe -communes with its own deep experience-consults the sublime spirits of the past. We speak, therefore, not to parties, but to men. The interests of party fluctuate like the ceaseless flowings of the sea, while the interests of humanity are as permanent and eternal as the hills.

Yet' if there be associations of men which above others recognize the principles we maintain; if there be a party, how obscure or dejected soever, which holds the truths we hold, as the distinctive ground of their political faith, as the badge of their paternity, we hail them as brothers -extend the right hand of fellowship-unite with them in the great cause.

Democracy, in its true sense, is the last best revelation of human thought. We speak, of course, of that true and genuine democracy whose essence is justice, and whose object is human progress. We have no sympathy with much that usurps the name, that monstrous misgrowth of faction and fraud. The object of our worship is different from these, the present offering is made to a spirit which asserts a virtuous freedom of act and thought, which insists on the rights of men, demands the equal diffusion of every social advantage, asks the impartial participation of every gift of God, sympathizes with the down trodden, rejoices in their elevation, and proclaims to the world the sovereignty, not of the people barely, but of immutable justice and truth.

The subject, in every aspect it may be regarded, is obviously important. It involves questions of the highest

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34

moment. The condition of society is modified by every change in this doctrine of rights. No other doctrine exerts a mightier power over the weal or woe of the whole human race. In times which are gone, it has been the moving spring of revolutions-has_aroused the ferocious energies of oppressed nations-has sounded into the ears of despots the fearful moanings of coming storms has crimsoned fields of blood-has numbered troops of martyrs-has accelerated the downfall of empires-has moved the foundations of mighty thrones. Even now, millions of imprisoned spirits await its march with anxious solicitude and hope. It must go forth, like

a bright angel of God, to unbar the prison doors, to succor the needy, heal the sick, relieve the distressed, and pour a flood of light and love into the darkened intellects and dreary hearts of the sons of men.

Man has rights. He has a right to expand and invigorate every mental power, to cultivate every mental gift, to lay up knowledge in stores, to investigate every science, to comprehend all arts. Who shall restrain thought in its free passage over the broad universe-who shall clip the restless wings of imagination, or imprison the giant energies of the will? Man has the right to think; not only to think, but to utter. Thank heaven,. no chains can bind the viewless thought-no tyranny can reach the immaterial mind.

Whatever his mind, in the wide circuit of its musings, may conceive, his mouth, in the presence of the world, may speak; what his noble spirit feels, he has the right to express. He may send forth his "truths of power in words immortal;" he may seek to convince and persuade his fellow-men; to make known his convictions; to declare his aspirations; to unfold the truth; to discover new relations of thought; to promulge novel doctrine, to question error; and, if he be able, to move men towards a triumphant assault on evil institutions and corrupt laws. As a moral being, he has a right to decide on the duties of the sphere in which he is placed; he has the right to indulge the tenderest as well as the loftiest sensibilities of the heart; to sigh with the sorrowful; to commiserate the oppressed, and to weep the bitter tears of a

broken heart over misplaced confidence. He has the right to nourish the sense of duty, the power of enduring; the energies of self-command; to conquer passion with manly force; to throw back temptation with lusty arm; to resist the myriad fascinations of deceitful life with iron heart and iron will. He has the right to act according to that conscience which his God has given; to oppose vice, though millions swell the ranks of its worshippers; to espouse and uphold truth, despised as it may be. These rights of man belong to him as man; they are neither gifts, or grants, or privileges, but rights. He traces them to no concessions granted in the plenitude of aristocratic generosity, but to a higher source, the God of his spirit, the Creator of the worlds. They belong to man as an individual, and are higher than human laws. The charter on which they depend was drawn from the skies, and bears the signet and stamp of heaven.

To fetter the freedom of man is not only to act the part of tyranny, but to inflict a gross wrong, to outrage a high gift, to trample on a creation of God.

The rights and happiness of the many will prevail. Democracy must finally reign. There is in man an eternal principle of progress which no power on earth may resist. Every custom, law, science, or religion, which obstructs its course, will fall as leaves before the wind. Already it has done much, but will do more. The despotism of force, the absolutism of religion, the feudalism of wealth, it has laid on the crimson field; while the principle, alive, unwounded, vigorous, is still battling against nobility and privilege with unrelaxing strength. It is contending for the extinction of tyranny, for the abolition of prerogative, for the reform of abuse, for the destruction of monopoly, for the establishment of justice, for the elevation of the masses, for the progress of humanity, and for the dignity and worth of the individual man. In this great work it has a mighty and efficient aid. Christianity, self-purified and self-invigorated, is its natural ally. Christianity struck the first blow at the vitals of unjust power. The annunciations of its lofty Teacher embodied truths after which the