sadness, lamenting and sighing, despair | different arts; while painting, statuary, and melancholy, in all their various shades. Grace and sweetness, the beautiful and noble, the sentimental and grand, the pompous and pathetic, the marvellous and the tragic, the joyous and the comic, playfulness and gayety, rejoicing and wild jubilee, they all can be expressed in music. But it is not its office to describe, like poetry and painting, single and isolated pictures; it takes up the inner state of our heart in its wholeness, and portrays it after its own laws of association as a perfect æsthetical whole. Hence the insufficiency of the socalled descriptive music to convey to others the ideas it intends to represent. The painter can represent a beautiful scene, the poet can describe it, but music can only give the sensations of the heart produced by witnessing such a one. But our greatest composers have fallen into such an error. Beethoven has given us "The Battle of Vittoria," one of the weakest of his compositions. We need hardly mention such abortions as "The Battle of Prague," "The Falls of Niagara," and a hundred other compositions, which only serve to despoil music of that garb which forms its greatest charm. and poetry have, in consequence of their narrow limits, only reproduced a certain number of principal ideas, which for centuries have only varied in form. The poems of Homer and Pindar, Anacreon and Virgil, live again in the works of our modern poets; our bas-reliefs and statues differ only from the products of the ancient master's chisel by the superiority of one over the others. Painting has only been enriched during centuries by the science of perspective and coloring; but what is there in common between the music of the Greeks, the Hindoos, the Arabs, the Chinese, the harmonic psalmody of the middle age, the counterpoint of the sixteenth century, and the art of a Beethoven, Von Weber, Mendelssohn, Bartholdy, and Rossini? With these different nations, during these different epochs, music seems to have had neither the same principles nor the same destination. One nation considered it as a science, another as an art, and a third as the mere language of the heart. As an art, it has the same object with its sister arts. It is intended to reproduce on others an impression which any particular object has made on the mind of the artist; save that in those the object represented speaks first to the mind and then to the heart, while in music it speaks first to the heart, and through that If we compare the advancement of music to that of other arts, we find that, on account of its less positive ideas, it has been more subject to transformations, which seemed to make of it just as many | to the mind. H. S. S. EVERY presidential election in this Re- | Plaquemines and Pennsylvania frauds ; public must be a memorable event. That of the year eighteen hundred and fortyeight now appears among the most memorable of the past. By it the spirit of monarchy has been exorcised from the body politic, and the Republic has been made whole. The sordid spirits of corruption and the frantic demons of rapine and bloodthirsty war, have been banished by a moral exorcism. Visions of magnificent empires and of barbaric pearl and gold have faded, and the public mind embraces rational views of patriotism and philanthropy. A faction which had long occupied a bad eminence in the government, engrossing all powers and honors and emoluments for selfish ends, setting war, peace and all domestic interests to sale for votes, appropriating the spoils of the people for the enrichment of a party, and in the crucible of a corrupt patronage, transforming official fidelity into lucre, was suddenly hurled from its high places by the quiet energy of the popular will. This signal revolution has given to history many lessons worthy of remembrance. One of them deserves to be set conspicuously be fore the eyes of politicians and people, for encouragement to the patriotic, and for a warning to the factious and corrupt. The means on which the deposed faction has relied to perpetuate its ascendency, have utterly and disastrously failed. To point out these ineffectual means is to point out, in part, the lesson of this faction's fall. debased by the recent and successful pursuit of the most illustrious character in the republic, with calumnies more damning to those who used them than to him who fell under them, "like a deer stricken by many princes;" and fettered by the edicts of an unelected congress of placemen and place-hunters. Such an administration became, by the law of its origin, the representative of a faction and the executive of its unscrupulous will. Too infirm to expiate the original sin in which it was born, by a resolute devotion to the public good, it sought to escape retribution and to make its days long in the land by honoring its fathers, the confederates who had brought it into being, by the prostitution of public trusts. Demagogues and partisan brawlers, the managers of caucuses and the accomplices in fraud, were promoted. The heads of the Baltimore Convention soon rejoiced in diplomatic appointments, collectorships or attorneyships. Bureaux, post-offices, and, eventually, the highest grades of the army were thrown open to such as had the gift of knowing their master's crib. In every department, the offices which the laws had inscribed, like golden apples, "to the most worthy," were thrown down within the party ring to be scrambled for by the most greedy. "To the victors belong the spoils," was the admitted law of patronage, and thus the vast treasures of the government were converted into innumerable bribes. Thus proclamation was made of political warfare, and a reward was offered to all the Vicars of Bray. To signalize The party which styles itself "Demo- | pay and plunder to all the Dalgetties of cratic" foisted into power, in 1844, an administration deeply stained with the the principle on which offices were be- | trolled. They promulgated their ukases, stowed, the judicial ermine fell upon the recipient of the "Kane letter," and, still more pointedly, the leader of the Baltimore Convention was made an attorney of many fees, and afterwards was suddenly deprived of his share of the spoils, when he dared to become the leader of the heretical synod of Buffalo. It seemed, therefore, that they who received the bounty were held to an engagement for future fidelity to the faction under all circumstances. Many have recently fulfilled this engagement in a conspicuous manner. All "hands" employed by Mr. Polk, from the prime minister to the scullion of the kitchen cabinet, were mingled with the combatants in the recent presidential battle, and devoted to a faction the zeal which was due to the Republic. This indecent spectacle put honorable men to the blush, and served to illustrate the systematic corruption by which the unscrupulous party just vanquished by the people, had plotted to perpetuate its powThe administration might have been justified in filling the chief confidential offices with honorable men of its own political faith exclusively, or in preferring them for all appointments for which they were well qualified, if merit had governed the selection even among the adherents of the appointing power. But it is notorious that the surest of passports to favor was the most unscrupulous employment of electioneering strategy. Hence the influx of incapacity and dishonesty into official places has been so great, that the incoming administration, in order to be barely honest, must seem to be proscriptive. Doubtless it will do its whole duty. It will then no longer be said with truth, that this is " a people robbed and spoiled; for a prey and none delivereth; for a spoil and none saith, restore." er. A party which squandered the governmental patronage for the purchase of all the venal influences in the country, did not squeamishly hesitate to subject the entire policy of the nation to the same selfish design of retaining the spoils. A ready mode of achieving this was for the few leaders who had the success of the faction in their keeping, to dictate, in advance, the action of the constituted authorities, and to require pledges of obedience as the equivalent for the votes which they con for the most part, under the sanction of a National Convention composed of their adherents, and into whose deliberations entered the welfare of the party, without the intrusion of adverse suggestions relating to the general welfare. That body itself adopts, without inquiry, the resolutions propounded by a committee whose consultations are private, and thus the unelected congress acts as a "Parliament of Paris" to record the decrees of the cabinet of the faction. These resolutions become the creed of the party, and are presented as test oaths to the candidates for the highest offices of the Republic. Subscription to them is the condition upon which the support of a powerful, organized and disciplined faction must be secured. Pledges being exacted and given, if the elections be carried, the men who for the time sway the action and the destiny of the nation, are solemnly engaged to effectuate measures devised for the interest of a party, before they take the official oath of fidelity to the constitution. Sometimes these are measures which have never been considered or approved by the body of the people, or even by that portion of them which adheres to the democratic faith, until they have been propounded by an unauthorized convention. Instead of being the fair expression of the popular will, they are dictated by a few designing men to "the party," and through the party to the country. The administration which is about to expire under the anathema of the people, came into power thus pledged and fettered upon the Oregon question. Obedient to the congress of a party, though it has spurned the congress of the nation, it began with an Inaugural Address like a Chinese proclamation, and thundered through a warlike negotiation as noisy and ineffectual as a Chinese battle. It is a puzzle to decide whether the braggadocia of the beginning betokened a reckless desire for war with England, or the impotent lameness of the conclusion has belittled all the belligerent demonstrations into a swagger and a pretense. In either view, the peace or the honor of the nation was made a mere counter in a political game, played by those who held the most exalted and sacred trusts. One senator of the dominant faction urged the enforce- | military ardor of the nation, to purchase ment of the Baltimore rescript, even to " inevitable war;" whereupon another, of the same political relations, assumed (in his own phrase,) to "cut him for the simples." Yet the patient in this operation was, in a few short months, the democratic candidate for president, and the surgical operator was his most conspicuous supporter. So steadfast is the cohesive power which binds them together. But whatever judgment we may pass upon the actors in that singular scene-of tragedy or of farce-it is well remembered that, for a time, they seriously disturbed the commerce and business of the country, and kept two nations suspended in anxious alarm. It is clear enough that this serious and unnecessary evil was produced by the unfounded pretensions recklessly set up by the Baltimore Convention of 1844, and the pledge it exacted from its nominees. It is not less apparent now that these pretensions were advanced for the selfish purpose of attaining success in the elections, by deluding the popular mind. For a similar purpose the annexation of Texas was accomplished by means of the same machinery, at a time and in a manner which made it repugnant to the deliberate sentiment of three-fourths of the American people. In due time the Administration deputed by the Baltimore Convention announced the completion of annexation, for the amazement of mankind, as "a bloodless achievement." In fact, blood had not then begun to flow, and perhaps many a brave citizen who now sleeps upon the plains of Mexico, and many a wife who now mourns the widowhood of battle, then heard, with patriotic pride, of the bloodless achievement. Even then it is probable that wisdom and a sincere love of peace might have averted the bloody consequences of annexation. Mexico was restive, but probably she might have been soothed or satisfied, without loss of honor or advantage to us. To goad her, however, to overcrow her spirit, or to conquer her armies, promised immunities and gains to the party which ruled the Administration. The golden moment for crushing the Whigs, by placing them in an anti-war attitude, was not to be thrown away. To appeal from the peaceful wisdom to the contractors with jobs, to add whole armies to the lists of patronage, and to hoodwink the tax-payers with martial glory, seemed an achievement so bloodless, and yet so gainful to the chief actors, that it would have been a crime against the ordinances of faction to let the occasion slip. War therefore was precipitated. As became its clandestine purpose, its incipient steps were taken by stealth. Its causes and the motives of its promoters dared not challenge the open discussion of the warmaking department of the Government until an overruling emergency should arise to forbid delay and stifle debate. Until then these motives operated in security within the private chamber of the Cabinet, or the more secret closet of some irresponsible party caucus. But when actual hostilities had been provoked, and the consummation of the gainful scheme had become inevitable, the representatives of the people were invoked to sanction what, it was thought, they could not prevent. The sequel was a continued blaze of glory to our arms, which the Administration soon beheld with envy, because it had labored in vain to appropriate it wholly to the purposes of its own faction. Whig generals conquered abroad in spite of the fire in front, but they conquered at home too, in spite of the fire in the rear. vince after province was conquered; but who may compute how many provinces can compensate the loss of heroic lives, the widowhood, the orphanage, and all the catalogue of ills entailed by an unnecessary war? At length peace was made for the Administration, if not by it. But for this equivocal circumstance, the expiring Executive might lay claim to a part of the epitaph written by a satirist for Cardinal Mazarin, who kept France many years embroiled in wars for "annexation," and happened to die just after he had concluded a treaty of peace. Pro "Il a fait la paix, il est mort; That unnecessary conflict opened a thousand sluices of national expenditure, and, its vigorous prosecution being important to the party, every other claim upon the treasury was rejected or deferred, if possible. Whatever would have been | der. Yet these notable articles were in "death to the war," would, in the language of GEN. CASS (writing of the Wilmot proviso), be "death to the party." It was a dynastic war, and, as usual, the dynasty must be sustained, whatever might become of the country. The payment of just debts and the improvement of our rivers and lakes were interdicted by the veto. Our creditors were denied, in order that we might have means to collect a debt from Mexico with summary promptness. Our own country was condemned to lie unimproved, in order that we might ravage the territories of a neighbor. That the future triumph of a party might be assured, the will of Congress was set at naught, and the monarchical prerogative of the President stretched to the verge of usurpation. In flagrant violation of the Constitution, the President also assumed to levy taxes, and to establish governments in Mexico, without the authority of law. But as all this evil was done that good might come to the party, the succeeding BALTIMORE CONVENTION ratified those usurpations which degraded the NATIONAL CONGRESS to a subordinate department, and applauded, in the name of a faction, all the offenses committed against the Republic. If it had not, it would have been ungrateful. If it did not shape its own policy so as to exalt the Executive at the expense of Congress, it would have been unfaithful to the purposes of faction. For he must be blind who does not see that the most serviceable instrument of a selfish and corrupt faction is a powerful and subservient President. terpolated into the creed of the party by its cœcumenical council of Baltimore, and thenceforward the faithful were required to subscribe them, on pain of being dealt with as heretics, and excluded from the distribution of the spoils. In partially reviewing the game which has thus been played by the Democratic party for place and power, it is impossible not to admire its boldness. No party ever before, in an enlightened country, ventured to practise, and to openly defend universal bribery by the use of Executive patronage, and at the same time to sacrifice the honor, the peace, and the prosperity of the nation which had confided in it, to its own selfish ends, without at least achieving some national advantage by way of atonement. The Democratic faction has made the boldest experiment upon popular credulity which history has recorded. But it has also deepened the enormity of all these abuses by elaborate efforts to debauch the understanding and the hearts of the people. Principles the most hostile to liberty and the purity of our institutions have been preached as well as put in practice. The people were exhorted to cherish and to venerate the undue supremacy of the Executive. They were addressed in violent harangues, tending to banish the love of peace and the sentiment of justice, to infuse into their breasts the lust of rapine and bloodshed, and, in a phrase well remembered, to "prepare their hearts for war." Pernicious heresies in political and economical science were sown among them. At the same time efforts were made to beguile their judgment by flattery. The very name of this party is a delusion, under cover of which they have violated fundamental principles of republican government. DEMOCRACY is their chosen watchword-their peculiar battlecry. They write it on their lintels, and on their doorposts, and on the hems of their garments. They inscribe it on their banners. They mouth it in their speeches. They print it in their books. By many of the people it has been accepted in sincerity as the sign of a popular principle. By others, too weak to be willingly on the weak side, it is simply regarded as the "In The internal prosperity of the country fell a sacrifice to the same designs which had governed the conduct of our foreign affairs. Its commerce was abandoned to the rigor of the sub-treasury-a clumsy system, borrowed by Mr. Van Buren from barbarous times, to cajole the people with the jingle of hard dollars. The industry and capital of the nation were stripped of protection, in order to conciliate a little band of sectional politicians. To pretend that either the sub-treasury or free-trade is approved by the popular judgment is to stultify that judgment, as evinced in 1840, at least, and to metamorphose the "Kane letter" from a villany to a blun-signal of victory, the ἐν τούτωνίκα, |