1842.] Theory and Practice of the Federal Government. 211

that the decision was directly against law, drew up a statement of the case, which convinced the court that they ought to proceed without a jury.

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Accordingly, on Tuesday the nineteenth of June, 1769, the trial commenced in Boston, before the following commissioners - Sir Francis Bernard, governor of Massachusetts; John Wentworth, governor of New Hampshire; Samuel Hood, commodore and commander of his Majesty's ships; Thomas Hutchinson, lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts; Jonathan Warner and George Jaffrey, of his Majesty's Council in New Hampshire; Robert Auchmuty, judge of the court of viceadmiralty for Massachusetts; John Andrews, judge of the court of vice-admiralty for Rhode Island; Andrew Oliver, secretary of the province; Robert Trail, collector of the port of Portsmouth; John Nutting, collector of Salem; Joseph Harrison, collector of Boston.

"The trial occupied a week. The fact of the homicide was clearly proved; but it appeared that neither the lieutenant nor any of his superior officers were authorized to impress, by any warrant or special authority from the Lords of the Admiralty; and the court was unanimously of opinion, that the prisoners had a good right to defend themselves, and that they ought to be acquitted of murder, with which they were charged; and that, at common law, the killing would not have amounted to manslaughter.

"The prisoners were accordingly discharged, and a midshipman of the Rose was immediately arrested in an action for damages for the wound inflicted in the arm of one of them, and gave bail in the sum of three hundred pounds."-pp. 297–300.

ART. VIII.-1. The Jubilee of the Constitution; a Discourse delivered at the Request of the New York Historical Society in the City of New York, on Tuesday, the 30th of April, 1839; being the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Inauguration of George Washington, as President of the United States, on Thursday, the 30th of April, 1789. By JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. New York: Samuel Colman. 8vo. pp. 136.

2. An Oration on the Material Growth and Territorial Progress of the United States, delivered at Springfield, Massachusetts, on the Fourth of July, 1839. By CALEB CUSHING. Springfield: Merriam, Wood, & Co. 8vo. Pp. 32.

3. Representative Democracy in the United States; an Address delivered before the Senate of Union College, on the 26th of July, 1841. By BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Butler. Albany C. Van Benthuysen. 8vo. pp. 43.

It is the commonest thing in the world for great schemes to turn out great failures. The Constitution of the United States has been a splendid exception. If we were to break up to-morrow, and go back into the dismal condition from which it drew us, as it were by the hair of the head, still it would have proved a most beneficent institution; and had it accomplished but a tithe of its actual benefit, it would have perhaps fully met the average expectations of its projectors. With an uncertain future before them, — with fair chance that its early trials would not be of peculiar hardship, they were as far as possible from being sanguine as to its sufficiency; could they have looked but a little way into coming time, and seen in what a shaking of the political elements it was to have the training of its infancy, they could scarcely have failed to despair. Nobody was exactly suited; some for one reason, and some for its opposite, these, because they detested a monarchy, those, because they distrusted a republic, were all but utterly disaffected. Nothing brought about a union, as to the instrument finally matured, except the soberest "certainty of waking woe." With no credit abroad; no authority, that the rest of the world would treat with; public bankruptcy already incurred; private bankruptcy fast becoming universal; commerce ruined; agriculture at a stand; the administration of justice defied; the States already at feud with one another, and their citizens, unawed by such a poor shadow of authority as confronted their discontent, mustering for those disorders which want makes unmanageable and goes far to excuse, hardly could the condition of things be made worse by any change. What good and wise men had to do, was to arrange some compromise of their discordant opinions, and give it a fair trial, with the advantage of as much of a spirit of mutual forbearance and accommodation as they were able to diffuse from their own, through the public mind. Their part was, to do for the best, and then hope the best.

That they could not hope confidently, was only their misfortune. That, nevertheless, they deliberated diligently, ac

commodated each other patiently, and generously addressed themselves, in their respective spheres, to recommend the fruit of their joint counsels to the public acceptance, and make it as far as possible an instrument of the public good, this was their admirable merit. Providence is apt to smile upon labors of a disinterested wisdom, and with a most bountiful benignity did it smile upon theirs. History will remark the beautiful coincidence of the sudden establishment of social order with sufficient safeguards on this continent, just in season to watch the pompous social fabric of the older world tumbling into a sudden ruin. The little craft was just put into perfect trim, her complete suit of new gear had been strongly set up, her stout crew were posted at their stations, and the world's best pilot had grasped the wheel, just before an unlooked for hurricane swept the surface of the great deep. She was only in the skirts of the storm, but near enough, had there been any thing weak about her, to be sucked in and engulfed, like so many prouder vessels. She staggered and reeled, as it was, but she minded her helm like a beauty; not a rope parted; not a spar was sprung; and presently she was seen under all sail for as prosperous a voyage as ever good fortune and good management conducted.

Mr. Adams, a younger contemporary and coadjutor of the patriots, who set the American government in motion, himself experienced in its highest trusts, and in the anxieties of its most perilous trials, looks back on its operation through half a century, to congratulate his countrymen upon the signal success of the great experiment. The Historical Society of the State of New York, having resolved to celebrate, with suitable ceremonies, the Jubilee of the Constitution, with unquestionable propriety selected the veteran statesman of New England to address them on that occasion. Mr. Adams profited by the opportunity to lay before the people of the United States some weighty comments upon the Declaration of Independence, by the Congress of 1776, and upon the Federal Constitution of 1787, which embodied and practically applied its principles. He urged, in particular, that "this Union was formed by a spontaneous movement of the one people of the thirteen English colonies;" that it was by this one people, through their representatives, and for them, as one, that Independence was declared; that the subsequent "Articles of Confederation," in their full recognition of the princi

ple of state sovereignty, contained a fatal departure from the principle of the Declaration; that the League of States, under those articles, was not entered into by the people, but was an act of usurpation on the part of their delegates in Congress; that the misfortunes which followed were but the proper consequence of such an unnatural state of things, and of the adoption of such a vicious form of government; further;

"That the tree was made known by its fruits. That after five years wasted in its preparation, the confederacy dragged out a miserable existence of eight years more, and expired like a candle in the socket, having brought the Union itself to the verge of dissolution.

"That the Constitution of the United States was a return to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and the exclusive constituent power of the people. That it was the work of the ONE PEOPLE of the United States; and that those United States, though doubled in numbers, still constitute, as a nation, but ONE PEOPLE.

"That this Constitution, making due allowance for the imperfections and errors incident to all human affairs, has, under all the vicissitudes and changes of war and peace, been administered upon those same principles, during a career of fifty years.

"That its fruits have been, still making allowance for human imperfection, a more perfect union, established justice, domestic tranquillity, provision for the common defence, promotion of the general welfare, and the enjoyment of the blessings of liberty by the constituent people, and their posterity to the present day."— p. 118.

Mr. Adams concludes in the following tone of patriarchal exhortation.

"And now the future is all before us, and Providence our guide

"When the children of Israel, after forty years of wanderings in the wilderness, were about to enter upon the promised land, their leader, Moses, who was not permitted to cross the Jordan with them, just before his removal from among them, commanded, that, when the Lord their God should have brought them into the land, they should put the curse upon Mount Ebal, and the blessing upon Mount Gerizim. This injunction was faithfully fulfilled by his successor, Joshua. Immediately after they had taken possession of the land, Joshua built an altar to the Lord, of whole stones, upon Mount Ebal. And there he

wrote upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written in the presence of the children of Israel; and all Israel, and their elders and officers, and their judges, stood on the two sides of the ark of the covenant, borne by the priests and Levites, six tribes over against Mount Gerizim, and six over against Mount Ebal. And he read all the words f the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that was written in the book of the law.

"Fellow-citizens, the ark of your covenant is the Declaration of Independence. Your Mount Ebal, is the confederacy of separate State sovereignties, and your Mount Gerizim is the Constitution of the United States. In that scene of tremendous and awful solemnity, narrated in the Holy Scriptures, there is not a curse pronounced against the people upon Mount Ebal, not a blessing promised them upon Mount Gerizi.n, which your posterity may not suffer or enjoy, from your and their adherence to, or departure from, the principles of the Declaration of Independence, practically interwoven in the Constitution of the United States. Lay up these principles, then, in your hearts, and in your souls, bind them for signs upon your hands, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes, teach them to your children, speaking of them when sitting in your houses, wh n walking by the way, when lying down and when rising up, write them upon the door-posts of your houses, and upon your gates, cling to them as to the issues of life, adhere to them as to the cords of your eternal salvation. So may your children's children at the next return of this day of jubilee, after a full century of experience under your national Constitution, celebrate it again in the full enjoyment of all the blessings recognised by you in the commemoration of this day, and of all the blessings promised to the children of Israel upon Mount Gerizim, as the reward of obedience to the law of God." - pp. 118–120.

Assuming a similar point of view, Mr. Cushing (now Chairman of the Representatives' Committee of Foreign Relations) addressed the citizens of Springfield, on "the Material Growth and Territorial Progress of the United States." "Material growth," though not a certain or unalloyed, is of course a very desirable good, and a legitimate and primary object of government. The questions, how great a good a given "territorial progress" of these United States may be, and under what conditions it will prove any good at all, are among the deepest which an American statesman and patriot has to weigh. The acquisition of Louisiana,