the favor, the adroitness, the probable bias, or the theoretic views of our candidate, but only of his fame, his courage, his eminence of character, and his fitness to moderate in the affairs of a great and peaceful empire. We are to seek henceforth, for the qualities of an Alfred, a Franklin, a Madison, and not for those of a Walpole, a Van Buren, or a Peel. Schemers, theorists, and politicians of two faces, are struck from the list, by this election. The people have recovered their courage and their self-respect; and are resolved from this time forth to make their own laws, by their own agents, under the regular forms of their old government. power, in agreement with the Constitu- | quire not of the political skill, the finesse, tion; which appoints a House of Representatives, to express the opinion and the policy of the people, and a Senate, to stand for the interests and rights of the governments, or States. The success of the election shows, that the majority of the nation are resolved to maintain their old law, in its original purity, and will not allow legislation to proceed from a power appointed only to execute laws. Despotism, whatever be its name or shape, is one and the same thing with the union of executive, legislative, and judicial power in one man, or in one body of men. An executive forbidding laws, or suggesting them with authority, and at the same time, influencing their construction in the courts, is a despotic executive; be it a king, a representative body, an aristocracy, a committee of public safety, or a dictator. This, then, as proved by the late election, is the first doctrine of the Whigs, that the President shall not assume the functions of a legislator, nor affect to carry out the measures of his party. If the party which elected him prevails in Congress, in the natural and constitutional order of events, he shall execute their laws if the other party prevail, he shall execute theirs; provided, in either case, they have not violated some direct and obvious provision of the Constitution; nor have not hurried through, with an indecent haste, a question that required time and deliberation. The Whigs, by their late successes, have therefore, not only vindicated the Constitution, and established one of its most important and democratic features on a new foundation, namely, that of the approbation of the majority; whereas, before it was not known how far the spirit of the nation might not incline toward a despotic and monarchic construction of the laws; but they have changed the character of the great election, and put it on a new footing. It will never again be necessary for a party to select a candidate for his skill in political intrigue, and his art of managing Congress and the people. The reasons of a party choice must now be found in the superior virtue of the candidate, in his dignity, his firmness, his weight of character, his personal and moral attributes; hereafter, we are to in So much for the first principle and corner-stone of the Whig platforın, which was not made over-night, by a circle of wire-pullers, heated with a heavy supper and flowing cups, and published in a morning, like the daily news, or the face of a sycophant, modelled to the time; but rather, by the simultaneous movement of millions, over the face of the continent. The present generation, who had come into active life within the last age, under the influences of the Jackson dynasty, could not at first understand the merit of this renunciation. They insisted upon knowing the private and speculative opinions of the candidate, as, whether he believed in such or such a tariff, permitted by some President of the Dynasty,-whether he would, if elected, extend his royal favor to those humble and meritorious citizens who live by the labor of their hands, and would permit his Congress, if they desired, or force them if they did not desire, to pass laws against English and French interferences. The candidate replied merely, by reiterating the doctrine of the old Whigs, that the opinions of a President could not, in any case, have the force of laws, either to forbid or to compel the adoption of particular measures; and that they were consequently "of no importance to be known to the people." Still, numbers were dissatisfied. Those who looked upon government as merely a board of commissioners for the suppression of nuisances, and who wished to convert the White House into an office of agency for Philanthropic Associations, did not approve of a candidate whose theoretic opinions were to be of less consequence to the nation than those of Messrs. Orators Smith, or Jones. With all their protestations and declamations about liberty and the rights of man, they betrayed a fatal ignorance of the laws, and of the tendency of events, and showed no confidence in the people; for if they had possessed that confidence, they would not have looked to a President, but to a majority in Congress, to carry out their measures; and their first desire would have been to elect a President who would so far respect the people and the Constitution, as to suffer public opinion to do its proper work in Congress. Or if they did perceive all this, they were striving to effect good ends by evil means, and to make the vice of the government serve their virtue; a virtue, indeed, which draws great suspicion upon itself when it enters into so close a league with faction, and takes falsehood to be its leader. So much, we repeat it, for the principle of the election; an election to which the name of expediency may be applied with the greatest justice; ours is, indeed, an expedient election. Partial elections, founded on factious schemes, or on the narrow basis of a single measure, are indeed not expedient, as the event has shown, though the odious stigma of "availability," in a bad sense, may be very justly set upon them. But this doctrine of the Whigs, expressed by their candidate, was not the sole cause of their success, though it well might have been, had its importance been sufficiently known to the people. Other causes, of vast moment, each sufficient of itself to concentrate the action of the party, were in operation to produce the result. Setting aside the formidable usurpations of power, the twenty vetoes, the corruption, and the intrigues, there were three great points of policy in which the character of the usurping dynasty had made itself odious to the nation. These were, in its maltreatment of Mexico, its neglect of the interests of labor, and its mismanagement of the revenue: the first betraying injustice, and a disregard of the law of nations and of conscience; the second discovering a disposition to separate the interests of government from those of the people; and the third showing either a want of knowledge of the common principles of trade, or a determination to injure and impede the business of the country. First, then, in considering the CAUSES OF THE SUCCESS OF THE WHIGS, in the late election, let us review in brief the course of conduct of the Administration, from the beginning of the war, which was at the instant of that precipitate and ill-considered measure which brought a new republic into the Union encumbered with a war with one of our natural allies. After all that has been urged and argued against the admission of the State of Texas, there remains but one real and inevitable charge against the Administration in the conduct of that affair, and that is, that they neglected to mediate before they annexed. Previous to annexation they stood in the position of a mediator between Mexico and Texas, and might easily have adjusted all difficulties, by the payment, perhaps, of a less price than has been agreed upon for California and New Mexico. By such a course of conduct they subjected themseves to the charge-either, Of having committed a great error. And in the management of public affairs, where counsel is neglected, a blunder is a crime. Or, if incapacity was not the reason of their fault, they fell next under the shame of a precipitate and hasty conduct; a want of foresight and deliberation, sufficient to render the friendship and the enmity of such a government equally undesirable. Or, if neither of these charges hold good against them, then they must be condemned for a deliberate undertaking of the war, contrary to the system of our national policy, and contrary to the law of conscience. It is not necessary here to enter upon any conjecture of the motives or influences which actuated the Administration, in taking this step. When the new State was annexed, its wars and the difficulties of its boundary were known to be annexed. It was the plain duty of the Administration to act as a mediator and pacificator in the first instance; and if they failed in that, and it was thought to be a point of duty and of honor to protect our citizens in Texas history of our glory begins with the fall of Rome, and goes on brightening in a line of victories by land and sea, through a course of ten centuries; nor has our courage been called in question on this side the peace of 1812--our gain lies in the wisdom of experience; in a demonstration of the soundness of the policy established by the fathers of the Revolution, and of the debts and disasters that are incurred by every departevidence in the consequences of this war, that a single instance of neglect, dishonesty, or precipitation, on the part of our government, may do more mischief than an age can mend. against the invasion of Mexico, the next | step might have been a remonstrance, to be followed, if necessary, by a display of force; as in aid of an ally, with whom we had concluded a treaty offensive and defensive. And when, by lawful methods, an honorable peace had been concluded, and Mexico persuaded into a reasonable treaty, the annexation would have followed without the disaster and miseries of a war. But by forc-ure from that policy. We have a clear ing the annexation of the new State, engaged as it then was, in a quarrel with the parent republic, we embraced not only the responsibilities of a dangerous and costly alliance, but the shame and odium and enmity of a partnership in the quarrel itself; a course which brought upon us the hatred of the Mexican nation, with all its unhappy consequences. The nation did indeed partly rescue itself from the disgrace of this conduct by indemnifying Mexico at the close of the war, in a sufficient sum; receiving from her a range of territory which, there is little doubt, she would have gladly sold before the war. But for this we are to thank, not the Administration, whose entire line of policy was opposed to such a step, but the opposition in Congress, and the voice of the nation, both of whom demanded peace. Thus it appears, that by a single instance either of neglect, or of maladministration-the neglect to mediate in a sufficiently dignified manner between Mexico and Texas, or the entrance into the petty quarrels of a neighbor-the Administration involved us in a great debt, sacrificed a considerable army, with many valuable officers, and obliged us, in mere defence of our honor, to pay for an acquisition which our neighbor would no doubt have sold us, had we applied for it at the proper time and in a proper spirit. To say that this is the most notorious instance either of incapacity, or of evil counsel, that has appeared in the history of this country, is to say nothing; there are not many instances to be found parallel with it in the history of our race. Still, it cannot be denied that on the whole we have gained something. Not in the demonstration of our prowess, indeed; for we knew as well before the war as we do now, that we are descended from the most warlike races of the world, that the "We have discovered, that by an eternal law, Providence has decreed vexation to violence, and poverty to rapine. We have opened our eyes to the ill husbandry of injustice. We have found that the tyranny of a free people is of all tyrannies the most exasperating and the least to be endured." In estimating the causes of the late victory, it seems proper, therefore, to attribute as great weight to the one which we have just noticed, as to the one considered before it; these two, the necessity of restoring the people and their Congress a due influence in the affairs of the nation, and the odium of mal-administration in the affair of Mexico, might be deemed sufficient reasons for the change in public opinion. But there are others of perhaps equal importance. Passing by the absurd conduct of the Administration party, in the affair of the Oregon boundary, when after insisting with a silly eagreness on the possession of an entire disputed territory, either through an ignorance of common decency, or a desire to embroil us in a quarrel with England, about wild lands, as in the Mexican business, losing to us all that superior credit of moderation and courage that would have been gained by a quiet adjustment of the difficulty in the first instance, and reflecting an irretrievable discredit upon our sense;-passing by that notoriously absurd affair, let us come to the third of those causes enumerated, namely, the separation of the interests of government from those of the nation in the system of the tariffs. The election of the present Administration is known to have been brought about by a deliberate deceit practised by the aspirants to office upon the people of Pennsylvania, who were assured that the candidate offered them was as great a friend to the protection of their manufactures, their mines, and their industry generally, as Mr. Clay. Now the well known doctrine and practice of the present Administration, elected by the Kane letter, is that tariffs should be merely for revenue, and if any protection comes by them, it is and must be incidental merely; that is to say, it must be unintended. on a sudden, Timon like, into the attitude of a dignified and stoical misanthropy. The people were no longer to be trusted; "Perish credit, perish commerce," cried an orator in the House, but let the government keep its money at all hazards. Accordingly, a great maxim began, from that day, to dignify the measures of the dynasty. This was, that the government should pay no regard to the business of the country while engaged in collecting its revenue. This maxim led to two results; first, to a discarding of the doctrine of protection, and a refusal in general to take the interests of agriculture, manufactures, or commerce into the account, while adjusting the tariff for revenue; and secondly, to collect all duties whatsoever in specie, depositing these collections in the iron chests of the government. for the purchase of lands, the stocking of farms, &c.; and the second from a moral observation on the injurious effects of gold and silver on the disposition of the people. Accordingly, all the gold and silver in the country began to be collected at the post offices and custom houses, and the people, properly punished for their immoralities, in pursuit of these idols, had to invent a paper currency, of sixpences, shillings, &c., as a substitute. The doctrine of the party of that Administration is that government shall collect its revenue as is most convenient for itself, without regard to the well-being or the prosperity of the people. This doctrine applies of course to all classes of men, and all classes suffer by it; but consistent as it is with their great plan of raising the The first of these acts arose apparently Executive Power to an independence of from a general distrust in the honesty of Congress and the People, it seems to have the laboring or poorer classes, who are originated from the experience of the Jack-most apt to borrow money on long credit, son Administration, when those wise and far-sighted politicians distributed the treasures of the Empire in loans without security to the directors of a number of banks in various parts of the Union: telling them at the same time to make a patriotical use of the money, and on the strength of it to extend all the credit they thought fit to those who needed it. The directors fulfilled these instructions to the letter, and for every dollar of the public money issued six or seven in promissory notes of their own, The philosophers of the Dynasty made based upon the private notes of a multi- also another discovery of great importance tude of land and stock speculators in all to humanity, turning upon the difference of parts of the new countries. It is a mel- race and climate. This was, that labor ancholy reflection, to think on the ingrati- ought to be divided equally among the tude and waste of these people, after the nations. They determined, from a great confidence shown them by the govern- and profound study of the English charment; and so severe was the lesson, from acter and climate, that that people were that time forth, it became a maxim with particularly fitted to be manufacturers, not the dynasty to place no confidence in the only because of the situation of their people, and never to let them finger a dol- island, and the propriety that the greatest lar of the public money on any account maritime power should command the whatsoever. They resolved then, with a markets of the world, but that their moral virtuous indignation, that the people did superiority entitled them to that prefernot deserve any help from the government, ence; whereas the grasping, money-getno, not if they starve for it. As their phi- ting, ambitious temper of the Americans, losophy had been before in the extreme of could never be kept in check, unless they generosity and goodness of heart, even, were chained to the hoe and plough, and we regret to record, to a degree of weak-driven by a stern and independent governness, but who will not pardon so gene- ment into such pursuits as were a proper rous, so amiable a fault?—so, it now rose check on their ambition, These philosophers had observed that the surplus wealth accumulated by farmers serves only to demoralize them, being either invested in manufactures or shipping, or spent in idle pleasures and the useless luxuries of education. This cause of national deterioration chimed in happily with their observations of the English character, which they saw was not so injuriously affected by a superabundance of wealth. They therefore proposed, that the farmers of America should be restricted in their gains to such profits as might happen from time to time by a European famine; and if they should be led by such a circumstance to produce a surplus of corn and pork, and the price of their produce should so far fall as to give them no profit, that also would have a good effect in checking their unreasonable eagerness for gain. Moreover, it was a part of this system, that the establishment of manufactories in the neighborhood of farms and villages affords too easy and rapid a means of accumulating wealth; for in that case the farmer, having a population of operatives directly at his door, eating his wheat and pork and potatoes, would become independent and insolent-set himself up to read newspapers, frequent political meetings, and criticise the conduct of the government; a condition which a stern and independent executive ought not to tolerate; for if things were to go on in that way, all dignity and power would be soon lost to the rulers, and the influence falling into the hands of the multitude, the country would be ruined. In this way then they reasoned. "If we allow manufactures to increase in this country, they will prevail to that degree that a third if not a half of the population will by and by be interested in them, which would be a great calamity. For if the farmers have this immense market of ten millions of persons opened to them, their sons will stay at home and accumulate wealth, instead of going to the West to people the new territories which our glorious conquests will by and by add to the Union. We who know how important it is to keep farm labor low, and widely scattered, need no arguments to convince us of this. Population would double in the Northern States and would remain there, to the detriment of the newly conquered territories. Where hamlets are, would by and by be villages. Where villages, manufacturing towns. Where towns, trading cities. Who knows too, whether the balance of power might not pass entirely out of our hands if we suffer these things?" In conclusion, our philosophers resolved that England should do all our manufacturing, and that the surplus wealth of the farmer and small planter should be spent in the expenses of transporting grain and other raw material to England, or in the profits of English importing houses. They consequently agreed that trade ought to be free, in order that England might continue to supply us with manufactures, and we her with bread, whenever there happened to be a famine. And when there was no famine, we might buy English goods with gold and silver, and so diminish the quantity of those pernicious metals in the country. Besides, as some of these philosophers were cotton-growers, their scheme gave the wiser and more philosophic part of the community a just advantage over mere hoers and ploughers; for as England must have cotton, there would always be something to exchange with her for her manufactures, even when there was no famine. If these philosophers did not reason in this manner, they at least advised the conclusions of such reasoning as rules of conduct. For in 1846, the Administration forced a tariff through Congress, by which the manufacturing interests were nearly destroyed, and the producing interests brought to a very low pitch. By the peculiar operation of this tariff, which is adjusted to rise or fall with the prices of the commodities taxed, that great disease of trade, fluctuation in price, is increased to an extraordinary degree. For not only is the price of articles variable, occasioning the usual distresses and hindrances of business incident to other disturbances, but the duty itself varies so as to augment the variation in the price. By this adjustment ad valorem, to the value, a fall in price is accompanied by a proportionate one in the duty. The consumer being thus tempted to the purchase of a foreign commodity by extraordinary cheapness, a competition by home products becomes impossible, and the |