loyal ever to entertain the idea that she | she thought she did. She had grace and could interrupt an engagement founded upon her plighted word. Affianced to Raoul from the day when she first comprehended the meaning of the word, the noble girl had since regarded herself, before God, as his spouse. The marriage also was in accordance with the wishes of the marquis; Raoul concealed his nullity under a brilliant varnish of grace and eloquence; was deficient neither in the seductions which belong to his age, nor the chivalrous qualities of his race; and, to say the truth, Madame de Vaubert, whose watchful eye never lost sight of her interest, was always ready, when occasion required, to lend him the intelligence and vivacity which he him self had not. All was going smoothly on, and nothing seemed to disturb the current of their prosperity, when an unexpected event broke in upon their happiness. beauty, love and youth, nobility and fortune; all around her seemed charmed with sweet looks and fresh smiles. Life promised only caresses and enchantments. Why was her young heart heavy? Why her beaming eyes veiled with sadness? Like the delicate and sensitive flower at the approach of the storm, did she shudder under the presentiment of her destiny? That same evening a cavalier of whom no one thought, was following the right bank of the Clain. Arrived at Poitiers less than an hour before, he had only delayed long enough for a fresh horse to be saddled, and then departed at full gallop, up the river. The night was dark, without moon or stars. At a turn of the path, on discovering the castle of La Seigliére, whose illuminated front lay in gleaming lines along the sombre ground of the heavens, he suddenly checked his horse by a strong pull at the bit. At this instant a sheaf of fire shot into the heavens, burst in the clouds, and fell in golden rain, in amethyst and emeralds, upon the towers and belfries. Like a bewildered traveller who had lost his way, our cavalier threw around him an unquiet look; then, as if reassured upon his route, he gently pulled at his bridle and proceeded. He soon dismounted at the gate of the park, and, leaving his horse, entered just at the moment when the rustic revellers, in a paroxysm of enthusiasm, were mingling their shouts of "vive le roi!" with those of "vive le marquis!" All the windows were encased with foliage and decorated with transparencies-the most remarkable, a chefd'œuvre which had exhausted all the artistic skill of the castle, offered to the ravished eyes the august head of Louis XVIII., surmounted by two allegorie divinities who were wreathing his brow with olive branches. At the foot of the steps leading to the portico, the band of the regiment in garrison at Poitiers were vigorously playing the national air of Vive Henri Quatre. Doubting whether he was awake, observing all and comprehending nothing, impatient to know and fearing to ask, the stranger lost himself in the crowd without being remarked. They were celebrating on the same day, at the castle, the king's birthday, the third anniversary of the marquis' return to his lands, and the espousals of Raoul and Helen. This triple celebration had brought thither all the higher nobility of the city and the surrounding neighborhood. At nightfall the castle and the park were brilliantly illuminated, and fireworks were sent up from the top of the hill; then followed the dance in the saloons, while without, the villagers, swains and damsels, hopped merrily to the sound of the bagpipe underneath the green boughs. Madame de Vaubert, who now touched the end of her ambition, made no effort to conceal the satisfaction which she at this moment experienced. The presence alone of her daughter sufficiently justified the pride and pleasure which, like a double halo, beamed from the brow of Raoul. As to the marquis, the cup of his joy was full and unadulterated. Whenever he presented himself on the balcony, his vassals made the air resound with grateful and boisterous vivats, a thousand times repeated, and with an energetic earnestness that proved their sincerity. Stamply had been dead some months. Who thought of him? Nobody -but Helen; she had piously guarded his memory; she had sincerely loved him. This evening she was distracted, dreamy, pre-occupied. Why? She could not tell herself. She loved Raoul at least, | After having wandered about for some time, like a shadow, among the different, host's return, the death of Stamply, and THE REPUBLIC. NO. IV. THINGS AS THEY ARE AT PRESENT, COMPARED WITH THE PAST. WE now see what the government was at first, when the few and evil days of "the confederacy" were at length succeeded by a real union between the thirteen primary States. And first, it was a true government, as well in the general as the particular economies, and no longer a confederacy of States in the former, more than of counties in the latter. Above and below, at Washington and throughout the territorial departments, it made laws for the people as individuals, and gave effect to its laws, not by negotiation or entreaty, much less by military force, but by court process. Secondly, it was a pure agency government, a republic; with a guaranty in the federal charter that it should continue such. A part of the sovereignty was delegated for purposes of direct administration, and the residue lodged with a very large, but not promiscuous body of the citizens, at once to maintain the personal organization of the system, and to keep watch and ward by night and by day over the uses made of its powers in the management of its affairs; the two sovereignties, (if I may call them so,) being both alike functionary under the Constitution, though in provinces of duty quite distinct from each other, and separated by a wall of partition never to be passed, the one way or the other, for any purpose of reciprocal interference. In the third place, it was a government homogeneously framed in the relative constitutions of the head and the members; its agents everywhere acting for and representing the people, and nowhere, corporations of the people. Nor was there any known disparity of endowment among the several agency groups of the system in the matter of power, save what arose necessarily, or at least naturally, out of its scheme of divided jurisdictions. The power of the State governments was ample for what concerned their local line of business. The common law stood sponsor for this. The government of the Union, designed as it was for a sphere of action limited to the foreign or international relations of the country, and the inter-state relations (so to call them) of its interior subdivisions, had no authority but by special grants looking mainly to that sphere. Still, within the prescribed limits, federal functionaries had the same common law to adjust the measure of their powers, that State officers had in their departments for the like important service. Nor was there to be a particle of difference in the rule of construction applicable to the two cases. Finally, it was a government distributed, balanced, checked, guarded, and accomтоdated to the actual state of society, in a very remarkable manner. On the one hand, its founders were afraid of public power. They knew the views of that kind of power. They knew it had been the great oppressor of mankind in all ages, and they had nothing more at heart than to secure themselves and their posterity from its grasping, overreaching, perverting tendencies. On the other hand, they meant it to be decently accommodated to social facts. Exact equality of treatment might be unattainable as regarded the various classes, callings, and conditions of men; but an effort of approach towards it was both just and prudent; it was practising, in the construction of the system, the very principle that was to form the characteristic merit of its subsequent operation. As to power, the first thing done was that of cutting it up into jurisdictional parts. The making, interpreting, and executive oversight of the law, were assigned to different agencies, with strong lines of demarcation between them. This was the funotionary division. A territorial division was added, by which the details of government business were scattered over the country among thousands of political corporations. The lowest grade of these, were townships and villages. Over the townships there were counties, for concerns of corresponding extent. Over the counties, there were States; and over the States, a Union. The townships had some powers each that were ultimate, and consequently sovereign. So had the counties. But for the most part, appeals lay upward from township to county, and from county to State. The powers of the States were nearly all sovereign. Like those of the smaller districts, however, they looked only to internal and domestic matters; having no bearing that was properly national, nationality belonged to the Union alone. This scheme of jurisdictions adjusted, the policy of the lawgivers descended next to the minuter features of the system. estates, the usual fruit of industry, good habits, and good principles, and should have maintained, or have been ready to profess, the character of Christians, the choice would be as likely to result well, as in human circumspection it could be made to do. These, at any rate, were fair grounds of popular judgment, and they were made indispensable conditions in the case. Nor did paternal solicitude stop here. So vital were the interests involved, that other precautions were resorted to. If all the people were to be constituted electors, nothing could well save the majority from mischances in the use of their power. It was therefore deemed expedient to put conditions on the right of suffrage itself, and so to restrain the possession of it to the stauncher portion of society; making not only years of manhood, and a short local commorancy, but even a pittance of property (in general a freehold) necessary qualifications for the function of the polls. By which arrangement the number of allowed electors, compared with the entire popular mass of both sexes, must have been limited to a sixth or seventh, more probably a tenth, of the whole. A striking fact in several bearings. How it illustrates the doctrine of representation, as depending on duty, not constituency. Were the men of straw unrepresented in those days? Are women and children unrepresented now? How it exhibits the franchise of elections as a thing of trust for the good of all, apart entirely from the claims or pretensions of special interest in those honored with the use of it! Away with the preposterous folly of scrambling or contending as individuals for a right which at the best is but fiduciary, and no object of selfish demand to any one! How it shows off the slow and thoughtful and painstaking husbandry of the patriarchal statesmen, as contrasted with our modern steamploughing! There are things which it is more important to do well than quickly. And they began, here, with limiting rigidly the order or description of persons from among whom the more considerable agents of the government were to be selected. The door of office might, they apprehended, be opened too wide for the general safety. It was necessary, therefore, to be cautious. Precise rules of eligibility must be fixed upon, to guard against mistakes. "Is he honest, is he capable," was the great practical inquiry for the electors in all cases; but to bring them to just or prudent conclusions on the subject, marks of probable honesty, probable capability were wanted, that might afford invariably some reasonable chance of safe judgment. To which end, mature age, a term of residence, some property, and a religious profession, perhaps the most reliable circumstances that could be hit upon as practical indications in the matter, were made conditions of access to public life in its more eminent stations. Outward, sensible tokens were necessary, and these answered that description. Clear certainty was out of reach; probability was all that could be hoped for; and it was thought that if the people were required to choose for the public service persons of from twenty-one to thirty-five years of age, who should have lived from one to ten years under their eyes without reproach, should have acquired considerable | pected to act independently, conscien Thus then, to reach the great objects of a safe personal organization of the Government, the population of the country was to be doubly sifted: first, for a class of persons fit to stand before the people as candidates for election; and next, for a community of voters, who might be ex tiously, wisely, in putting forward the | talents and qualities into public life as a best of those candidates to serve the commonwealth. No doubt the fathers (the greater part of them) thought it desirable to keep their men somewhat longer in office than a single year. And such exceeding care in choosing them might render this admissible. The fathers meant to have a decent tone of government a decent consistency and vigor of administrative policy. In order to which if public sentiment required that some officers (the larger houses of legislation for example) should die out annually, others (such as chief magistrates and senators) must have a longer lease of life-a lease that might bring them acquainted with two or three generations of their more transient brethren, so that some sort of connection might be kept up between the past and present, and the notable principle of rotation in office might not have a speed and sweep of action that should put everything in a whirl. Change, doubt it who will, is the besetting curse of free institutions. This desperate evil was to be put, if possible, under some restraint. The tossing floods were to have shores to beat upon. Accordingly, while members of assembly in the State legislatures were allowed to hold an incessant correspondence with the popular mind by annual elections, governors and senators, for the most part, had terms of from two to five or six years assigned them. Federal agents were similarly dealt with; the President holding for four years, and the upper house of Congress for six, while members of the representative chamber were restricted to two. In which respect, as in most others, the whole system of the country was symmetrical, and the policy of its arrangements uniform. Can a question be raised as to the advantage of all this? Who will confess a doubt, for instance, whether the executive administration of a State is likely to be better managed, or, at least, with more consistency and dignity, for a dozen years together, by three successive chief magistrates than by twelve, even admitting the men to be all of a stamp? And then is this admission likely to be true in matters of fact? Is it likely that an official term of one year will attract the same rate of term of three or four? The term of office is one of its dimensions. Curtail the term unduly, and you belittle the office. Incumbents may be found undoubtedlythere are placemen of all calibres; but to think of getting petty offices filled by men fit for the greatest is idle, unless indeed you are prepared to buy their condescension with enormous salaries. It is pleasant to trace the old harmonies of the republic as between the head and the members. There are breaks in some of those harmonies now, but the recollection of what they once were is music to a patriotic ear. Take, as a further specimen, the great principles of a completely independent judiciary, once common to the federal and State economies, and sustained alike in each by what is called the good-behavior tenure. It was a glorious sight to look at, when the dispensers of human justice went forth erect in their full stature, unswayed by government, unindebted to political parties, judging the cause of the fatherless and widow, as well as of principalities and powers, without respect of persons, and only liable to be judged themselves, as God judges men, by their deeds. The Union and the States had also, in fair proportion with each other, the patronage of many appointments, and were aggrandized by it exceedingly in the public eye. Not only the States and the Union as bodies politic, but the people at large were the better for this. Appointments were better made for many purposes by government officers than it was possible they should be in the way of popular elections. Indeed the agreement between the larger and smaller economies was general. Both were concise in the written expressions of their plans and principles. Both, with a few local exceptions, rejected bills of rights as useless, perhaps hurtful substitutes, of form for spirituality! Both preferred to rest upon the people's common law the unwritten code of usage and common sense-as the true basis of men's rights, the rock of their liberties. To both, religion was a first element of life. It was deemed a main support of all civil and political obligations; a guar |