If it be impossible to anticipate a period at which the Americans of the south will mingle their blood with that of the negroes, can they allow their slaves to become free without compromising their own security? And if they are obliged to keep that race in bondage, in order to save their own families, may they not be excused for availing themselves of the means best adapted to that end? The events which are taking place in the southern states of the Union, appear to be at once the most horrible and the most natural results of slavery. When I see the order of nature overthrown, and when I hear the cry of humanity in its vain struggle against the laws, my indignation does not light upon the men of our own time who were the instruments of these outrages; but I reserve my execration for those who, after a thousand years of freedom, brought back slavery into the world once more.
Whatever may be the efforts of the Americans of the south to maintain slavery, they will not always succeed. Slavery, which is now confined to a single tract of the civilized earth, which is attacked by Christianity as unjust, and by political economy as prejudicial, and which is now contrasted with democratic liberties and the information of our age, cannot survive. By the choice of the master or the will of the slave, it will cease; and in either case great calamities may be expected to ensue. If liberty be refused to the negroes of the south, they will in the end seize it for themselves by force; if it be given, they will abuse it ere long.
WHAT ARE THE CHANCES IN FAVOR OF THE DURATION OF THE AMERICAN UNION, AND WHAT DANGERS THREATEN IT.
Reasons why the preponderating Force lies in the States rather than in the Union.—The Union will only last as long as all the States choose to belong to it.—Causes which tend to keep them united.—Utility of the Union to resist foreign Enemies, and to prevent the Existence of Foreigners in America.—No natural Barriers between the several States.—No conflicting Interests to divide them.—Reciprocal Interests of the Northern, Southern, and Western States.—Intellectual ties of Union.—Uniformity of Opinions.—Dangers of the Union resulting from the different Characters and the Passions of its Citizens.—Character of the Citizens in the South and in the North.—The rapid growth of the Union one of its greatest Dangers.—Progress of the Population to the Northwest.—Power gravitates in the same Direction.—Passions originating from sudden turns of Fortune.—Whether the existing Government of the Union tends to gain strength, or to lose it.—Various signs of its Decrease.—Internal Improvement.—Waste Lands.—Indians.—The Bank.—The Tariff.—General Jackson.
The maintenance of the existing institutions of the several states depends in some measure upon the maintenance of the Union itself. It is therefore important in the first instance to inquire into the probable fate of the Union. One point may indeed be assumed at once; if the present confederation were dissolved, it appears to me to be incontestable that the states of which it is now composed would not return to their original isolated condition; but that several Unions would then be formed in the place of one. It is not my intention to inquire into the principles upon which these new Unions would probably be established, but merely to show what the causes are which may effect the dismemberment of the existing confederation.
With this object I shall be obliged to retrace some of the steps which I have already taken, and to revert to topics which I have before discussed. I am aware that the reader may accuse me of repetition, but the importance of the matter which still remains to be treated is my excuse; I had rather say too much, than say too little to be thoroughly understood, and I prefer injuring the author to slighting the subject.
The legislators who formed the constitution of 1789 endeavored to confer a distinct and preponderating authority upon the federal power. But they were confined by the conditions of the task which they had undertaken to perform. They were not appointed to constitute the government of a single people, but to regulate the association of several states; and, whatever their inclinations might be, they could not but divide the exercise of sovereignty in the end.
In order to understand the consequences of this division, it is necessary to make a short distinction between the affairs of government. There are some objects which are national by their very nature, that is to say, which affect the nation as a body, and can only be intrusted to the man or the assembly of men who most completely represent the entire nation. Among these may be reckoned war and diplomacy. There are other objects which are provincial by their very nature, that is to say, which only affect certain localities, and which can only be properly treated in that locality. Such, for instance, is the budget of municipality. Lastly, there are certain objects of a mixed nature, which are national inasmuch as they affect all the citizens who compose the nation, and which are provincial inasmuch as it is not necessary that the nation itself should provide for them all. Such are the rights which regulate the civil and political condition of the citizens. No society can exist without civil and political rights. These rights therefore interest all the citizens alike; but it is not always necessary to the existence and the prosperity of the nation that these rights should be uniform, nor consequently, that they should be regulated by the central authority.
There are, then, two distinct categories of objects which are submitted to the direction of the sovereign power; and these categories occur in all well-constituted communities, whatever the basis of the political constitution may otherwise be. Between these two extremes, the objects which I have termed mixed may be considered to lie. As these objects are neither exclusively national nor entirely provincial, they may be attained by a national or a provincial government, according to the agreement of the contracting parties, without in any way impairing the contract of association.
The sovereign power is usually formed by the union of separate individuals, who compose a people; and individual powers or collective forces, each representing a very small portion of the sovereign authority, are the sole elements which are subjected to the general government of their choice. In this case the general government is more naturally called upon to regulate, not only those affairs which are of essential national importance, but those which are of a more local interest; and the local governments are reduced to that small share of sovereign authority which is indispensable to their prosperity.
But sometimes the sovereign authority is composed of preorganized political bodies, by virtue of circumstances anterior to their union; and in this case the provincial governments assume the control, not only of those affairs which more peculiarly belong to their province, but of all, or of a part of the mixed affairs to which allusion has been made. For the confederate nations which were independent sovereign states before their Union, and which still represent a very considerable share of the sovereign power, have only consented to cede to the general government the exercise of those rights which are indispensable to the Union.
When the national government, independently of the prerogative inherent in its nature, is invested with the right of regulating the affairs which relate partly to the general and partly to the local interest, it possesses a preponderating influence. Not only are its own rights extensive, but all the rights which it does not possess exist by its sufferance, and it may be apprehended that the provincial governments may be deprived of their natural and necessary prerogatives by its influence.
When, on the other hand, the provincial governments are invested with the power of regulating those same affairs of mixed interest, an opposite tendency prevails in society. The preponderating force resides in the province, not in the nation; and it may be apprehended that the national government may in the end be stripped of the privileges which are necessary to its existence.
Independent nations have therefore a natural tendency to centralization, and confederations to dismemberment.
It now only remains for us to apply these general principles to the American Union. The several states were necessarily possessed of the right of regulating all exclusively provincial affairs. Moreover these same states retained the right of determining the civil and political competency of the citizens, of regulating the reciprocal relations of the members of the community, and of dispensing justice; rights which are of a general nature, but which do not necessarily appertain to the national government. We have shown that the government of the Union is invested with the power of acting in the name of the whole nation, in those cases in which the nation has to appear as a single and undivided power; as, for instance, in foreign relations, and in offering a common resistance to a common enemy; in short, in conducting those affairs which I have styled exclusively national.
In this division of the rights of sovereignty, the share of the Union seems at first sight to be more considerable than that of the states; but a more attentive investigation shows it to be less so. The undertakings of the government of the Union are more vast, but their influence is more rarely felt. Those of the provincial government are comparatively small, but they are incessant, and they serve to keep alive the authority which they represent. The government of the Union watches the general interests of the country; but the general interests of a people have a very questionable influence upon individual happiness; while provincial interests produce a most immediate effect upon the welfare of the inhabitants. The Union secures the independence and the greatness of the nation, which do not immediately affect private citizens; but the several states maintain the liberty, regulate the rights, protect the fortune, and secure the life and the whole future prosperity of every citizen.
The federal government is very far removed from its subjects, while the provincial governments are within the reach of them all, and are ready to attend to the smallest appeal. The central government has upon its side the passions of a few superior men who aspire to conduct it; but upon the side of the provincial governments are the interests of all those second-rate individuals who can only hope to obtain power within their own state, and who nevertheless exercise the largest share of authority over the people because they are placed nearest to its level.
The Americans have therefore much more to hope and to fear from the states than from the Union; and, in conformity with the natural tendency of the human mind, they are more likely to attach themselves to the former than to the latter. In this respect their habits and feelings harmonize with their interests.
When a compact nation divides its sovereignty, and adopts a confederate form of government, the traditions, the customs, and the manners of the people are for a long time at variance with their legislation; and the former tend to give a degree of influence to the central government which the latter forbids. When a number of confederate states unite to form a single nation, the same causes operate in an opposite direction. I have no doubt that if France were to become a confederate republic like that of the United States, the government would at first display more energy than that of the Union; and if the Union were to alter its constitution to a monarchy like that of France, I think that the American government would be a long time in acquiring the force which now rules the latter nation. When the national existence of the Anglo-Americans began, their provincial existence was already of long standing; necessary relations were established between the townships and the individual citizens of the same states; and they were accustomed to consider some objects as common to them all, and to conduct other affairs as exclusively relating to their own special interests.
The Union is a vast body, which presents no definite object to patriotic feeling. The forms and limits of the state are distinct and circumscribed, since it represents a certain number of objects which are familiar to the citizens and beloved by all. It is identified with the very soil, with the right of property and the domestic affections, with the recollections of the past, the labors of the present, and the hopes of the future. Patriotism, then, which is frequently a mere extension of individual egotism, is still directed to the state, and is not excited by the Union. Thus the tendency of the interests, the habits, and the feelings of the people, is to centre political activity in the states, in preference to the Union.
It is easy to estimate the different forces of the two governments, by remarking the manner in which they fulfil their respective functions. Whenever the government of a state has occasion to address an individual, or an assembly of individuals, its language is clear and imperative; and such is also the tone of the federal government in its intercourse with individuals, but no sooner has it anything to do with a state, than it begins to parley, to explain its motives, and to justify its conduct, to argue, to advise, and in short, anything but to command. If doubts are raised as to the limits of the constitutional powers of each government, the provincial government prefers its claims with boldness, and takes prompt and energetic steps to support it. In the meanwhile the government of the Union reasons, it appeals to the interests, to the good sense, to the glory of the nation; it temporizes, it negotiates, and does not consent to act until it is reduced to the last extremity. At first sight it might readily be imagined that it is the provincial government which is armed with the authority of the nation, and that congress represents a single state.
The federal government is, therefore, notwithstanding the precautions of those who founded it, naturally so weak, that it more peculiarly requires the free consent of the governed to enable it to subsist. It is easy to perceive that its object is to enable the states to realize with facility their determination of remaining united; and, as long as this preliminary consideration exists, its authority is great, temperate, and effective. The constitution fits the government to control individuals, and easily to surmount such obstacles as they may be inclined to offer, but it was by no means established with a view to the possible separation of one or more of the states from the Union.
If the sovereignty of the Union were to engage in a struggle with that of the states at the present day, its defeat may be confidently predicted; and it is not probable that such a struggle would be seriously undertaken. As often as steady resistance is offered to the federal government, it will be found to yield. Experience has hitherto shown that whenever a state has demanded anything with perseverance and resolution, it has invariably succeeded; and that if a separate government has distinctly refused to act, it was left to do as it thought fit.{258}
But even if the government of the Union had any strength inherent in itself, the physical situation of the country would render the exercise of that strength very difficult.{259} The United States cover an immense territory; they are separated from each other by great distances; and the population is disseminated over the surface of a country which is still half a wilderness. If the Union were to undertake to enforce the allegiance of the confederate states by military means, it would be in a position very analogous to that of England at the time of the war of independence.
However strong a government may be, it cannot easily escape from the consequences of a principle which it has once admitted as the foundation of its constitution. The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the states; and, in uniting together, they have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the states chose to withdraw its name from the compact, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so; and the federal government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right. In order to enable the federal government easily to conquer the resistance which may be offered to it by any one of its subjects, it would be necessary that one or more of them should be especially interested in the existence of the Union, as has frequently been the case in the history of confederations.
If it be supposed that among the states which are united by the federal tie, there are some which exclusively enjoy the principal advantages of union, or whose prosperity depends on the duration of that union, it is unquestionable that they will always be ready to support the central government in enforcing the obedience of the others. But the government would then be exerting a force not derived from itself, but from a principle contrary to its nature. States form confederations in order to derive equal advantages from their union; and in the case just alluded to, the federal government would derive its power from the unequal distribution of those benefits among the states.
If one of the confederated states have acquired a preponderance sufficiently great to enable it to take exclusive possession of the central authority, it will consider the other states as subject provinces, and will cause its own supremacy to be respected under the borrowed name of the sovereignty of the Union. Great things may then be done in the name of the federal government, but in reality that government will have ceased to exist.{260} In both these cases, the power which acts in the name of the confederation becomes stronger, the more it abandons the natural state and the acknowledged principles of confederations.
In America the existing Union is advantageous to all the states, but it is not indispensable to any one of them. Several of them might break the federal tie without compromising the welfare of the others, although their own prosperity would be lessened. As the existence and the happiness of none of the states are wholly dependent on the present constitution, they would none of them be disposed to make great personal sacrifices to maintain it. On the other hand, there is no state which seems, hitherto, to have its ambition much interested in the maintenance of the existing Union. They certainly do not all exercise the same influence in the federal councils, but no one of them can hope to domineer over the rest, or to treat them as its inferiors or as its subjects.
It appears to me unquestionable, that if any portion of the Union seriously desired to separate itself from the other states, they would not be able, nor indeed would they attempt, to prevent it; and that the present Union will only last as long as the states which compose it choose to continue members of the confederation. If this point be admitted, the question becomes less difficult; and our object is not to inquire whether the states of the existing Union are capable of separating, but whether they will choose to remain united.
{The remarks respecting the inability of the federal government to retain within the Union any state that may choose "to withdraw its name from the contract," ought not to pass through an American edition of this work, without the expression of a dissent by the editor from the opinion of the author. The laws of the United States must remain in force in a revolted state, until repealed by congress; the customs and postages must be collected; the courts of the United States must sit, and must decide the causes submitted to them; as has been very happily explained by the author, the courts act upon individuals. If their judgments are resisted, the executive arm must interpose, and if the state authorities aid in the resistance, the military power of the whole Union must be invoked to overcome it. So long as the laws affecting the citizens of such a state remain, and so long as there remain any officers of a general government to enforce them, these results must follow not only theoretically but actually. The author probably formed the opinions which are the subject of these remarks, at the commencement of the controversy with South Carolina respecting the tariff. And when they were written and published, he had not learned the result of that controversy, in which the supremacy of the Union and its laws was triumphant. There was doubtless great reluctance in adopting the necessary measures to collect the customs, and to bring every legal question that could possibly arise out of the controversy, before the judiciary of the United States, but they were finally adopted, and were not the less successful for being the result of deliberation and of necessity. Out of that controversy have arisen some advantages of a permanent character, produced by the legislation which it required. There were defects in the laws regulating the manner of bringing from the state courts into those of the United States, a cause involving the constitutionality of acts of congress or of the states, through which the federal authority might be evaded. Those defects were remedied by the legislation referred to; and it is now more emphatically and universally true, than when the author wrote, that the acts of the general government operate through the judiciary, upon individual citizens, and not upon the states.—American Editor.}
Among the various reasons which tend to render the existing Union useful to the Americans, two principal causes are peculiarly evident to the observer. Although the Americans are, as it were, alone upon their continent, their commerce makes them the neighbors of all the nations with which they trade. Notwithstanding their apparent isolation, the Americans require a certain degree of strength, which they cannot retain otherwise than by remaining united to each other. If the states were to split, they would not only diminish the strength which they are now able to display toward foreign nations, but they would soon create foreign powers upon their own territory. A system of inland custom-houses would then be established; the valleys would be divided by imaginary boundary lines; the courses of the rivers would be confined by territorial distinctions and a multitude of hindrances would prevent the Americans from exploring the whole of that vast continent which Providence has allotted to them for a dominion. At present they have no invasion to fear, and consequently no standing armies to maintain, no taxes to levy. If the Union were dissolved, all these burdensome measures might ere long be required. The Americans are then very powerfully interested in the maintenance of their Union. On the other hand, it is almost impossible to discover any sort of material interest which might at present tempt a portion of the Union to separate from the other states.
When we cast our eyes upon the map of the United States, we perceive the chain of the Allegany mountains, running from the northeast to the southwest, and crossing nearly one thousand miles of country; and we are led to imagine that the design of Providence was to raise, between the valley of the Mississippi and the coasts of the Atlantic ocean, one of those natural barriers which break the mutual intercourse of men, and form the necessary limits of different states. But the average height of the Alleganies does not exceed 2,500 feet; their greatest elevation is not above 4,000 feet; their rounded summits, and the spacious valleys which they conceal within their passes, are of easy access from several sides. Beside which, the principal rivers that fall into the Atlantic ocean, the Hudson, the Susquehannah, and the Potomac, take their rise beyond the Alleganies, in an open district, which borders upon the valley of the Mississippi. These streams quit this tract of country,{261} make their way through the barrier which would seem to turn them westward, and as they wind through the mountains, they open an easy and natural passage to man.
No natural barrier exists in the regions which are now inhabited by the Anglo-Americans; the Alleganies are so far from serving as a boundary to separate nations, that they do not even serve as a frontier to the states. New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, comprise them within their borders and extend as much to the west as to the east of the line.
The territory now occupied by the twenty-four states of the Union, and the three great districts which have not yet acquired the rank of states, although they already contain inhabitants, covers a surface of 1,002,600 square miles,{262} which is about equal to five times the extent of France. Within these limits the qualities of the soil, the temperature, and the produce of the country, are extremely various. The vast extent of territory occupied by the Anglo-American republics has given rise to doubts as to the maintenance of the Union. Here a distinction must be made; contrary interests sometimes arise in the different provinces of a vast empire, which often terminate in open dissensions; and the extent of the country is then most prejudicial to the power of the state. But if the inhabitants of these vast regions are not divided by contrary interests, the extent of the territory may be favorable to their prosperity; for the unity of the government promotes the interchange of the different productions of the soil, and increases their value by facilitating their consumption.
It is indeed easy to discover different interests in the different parts of the Union, but I am unacquainted with any which are hostile to each other. The southern states are almost exclusively agricultural; the northern states are more peculiarly commercial and manufacturing; the states of the west are at the same time agricultural and manufacturing. In the south the crops consist of tobacco, of rice, of cotton, and of sugar; in the north and the west, of wheat and maize; these are different sources of wealth; but union is the means by which these sources are opened to all, and rendered equally advantageous to the several districts.
The north, which ships the produce of the Anglo-Americans to all parts of the world, and brings back the produce of the globe to the Union, is evidently interested in maintaining the confederation in its present condition, in order that the number of American producers and consumers may remain as large as possible. The north is the most natural agent of communication between the south and the west of the Union on the one hand, and the rest of the world upon the other; the north is therefore interested in the union and prosperity of the south and the west, in order that they may continue to furnish raw materials for its manufactures, and cargoes for its shipping.
The south and the west, on their side, are still more directly interested in the preservation of the Union, and the prosperity of the north. The produce of the south is for the most part exported beyond seas; the south and the west consequently stand in need of the commercial resources of the north. They are likewise interested in the maintenance of a powerful fleet by the Union, to protect them efficaciously. The south and the west have no vessels, but they cannot refuse a willing subsidy to defray the expenses of the navy; for if the fleets of Europe were to blockade the ports of the south and the delta of the Mississippi, what would become of the rice of the Carolinas, the tobacco of Virginia, and the sugar and cotton which grow in the valley of the Mississippi? Every portion of the federal budget does therefore contribute to the maintenance of material interests which are common to all the confederate states.
Independently of this commercial utility, the south and the west of the Union derive great political advantages from their connexion with the north. The south contains an enormous slave population; a population which is already alarming, and still more formidable for the future. The states of the west lie in the remoter part of a single valley; and all the rivers which intersect their territory rise in the Rocky mountains or in the Alleganies, and fall into the Mississippi, which bears them onward to the gulf of Mexico. The western states are consequently entirely cut off, by their position, from the traditions of Europe and the civilisation of the Old World. The inhabitants of the south, then, are induced to support the Union in order to avail themselves of its protection against the blacks; and the inhabitants of the west, in order not to be excluded from a free communication with the rest of the globe, and shut up in the wilds of central America. The north cannot but desire the maintenance of the Union, in order to remain, as it now is, the connecting link between that vast body and the other parts of the world.
The temporal interests of all the several parts of the Union are, then, intimately connected; and the same assertion holds true respecting those opinions and sentiments which may be termed the immaterial interests of men.
The inhabitants of the United States talk a great deal of their attachment to their country; but I confess that I do not rely upon that calculating patriotism which is founded upon interest, and which a change in the interest at stake may obliterate. Nor do I attach much importance to the language of the Americans, when they manifest in their daily conversation, the intention of maintaining the federal system adopted by their forefathers. A government retains its sway over a great number of citizens, far less by the voluntary and rational consent of the multitude, than by that instinctive and, to a certain extent, involuntary agreement, which results from similarity of feelings and resemblances of opinion. I will never admit that men constitute a social body, simply because they obey the same head and the same laws. Society can only exist when a great number of men consider a great number of things in the same point of view; when they hold the same opinions upon many subjects, and when the same occurrences suggest the same thoughts and impressions to their minds.
The observer who examines the present condition of the United States upon this principle, will readily discover, that although the citizens are divided into twenty-four distinct sovereignties, they nevertheless constitute a single people; and he may perhaps be led to think that the state of the Anglo-American Union is more truly a state of society, than that of certain nations of Europe which live under the same legislation and the same prince.
Although the Anglo-Americans have several religious sects, they all regard religion in the same manner. They are not always agreed upon the measures which are most conducive to good government, and they vary upon some of the forms of government which it is expedient to adopt; but they are unanimous upon the general principles which ought to rule human society. From Maine to the Floridas, and from Missouri to the Atlantic ocean, the people is held to be the legitimate source of all power. The same notions are entertained respecting liberty and equality, the liberty of the press, the right of association, the jury, and the responsibility of the agents of government.
If we turn from their political and religious opinions to the moral and philosophical principles which regulate the daily actions of life, and govern their conduct, we shall still find the same uniformity. The Anglo-Americans{263} acknowledge the absolute moral authority of the reason of the community, as they acknowledge the political authority of the mass of citizens; and they hold that public opinion is the surest arbiter of what is lawful or forbidden, true or false. The majority of them believe that a man will be led to do what is just and good by following his own interests, rightly understood. They hold that every man is born in possession of the right of self-government, and that no one has the right of constraining his fellow-creatures to be happy. They have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man; they are of opinion that the effects of the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; and they admit that what appears to them to be good to-day may be superseded by something better to-morrow. I do not give all these opinions as true, but I quote them as characteristic of the Americans.
The Anglo-Americans are not only united together by those common opinions, but they are separated from all other nations by a common feeling of pride. For the last fifty years, no pains have been spared to convince the inhabitants of the United States that they constitute the only religious, enlightened, and free people. They perceive that, for the present, their own democratic institutions succeed, while those of other countries fail; hence they conceive an overweening opinion of their superiority, and they are not very remote from believing themselves to belong to a distinct race of mankind.
The dangers which threaten the American Union do not originate in the diversity of interests or opinions; but in the various characters and passions of the Americans. The men who inhabit the vast territory of the United States are almost all the issue of a common stock; but the effects of the climate, and more especially of slavery, have gradually introduced very striking differences between the British settler of the southern states, and the British settler of the north. In Europe it is generally believed that slavery has rendered the interests of one part of the Union contrary to those of another part; but I by no means remarked this to be the case; slavery has not created interests in the south contrary to those of the north, but it has modified the character and changed the habits of the natives of the south.
I have already explained the influence which slavery has exerted upon the commercial ability of the Americans in the south; and this same influence equally extends to their manners. The slave is a servant who never remonstrates, and who submits to everything without complaint. He may sometimes assassinate, but he never withstands, his master. In the south there are no families so poor as not to have slaves. The citizen of the southern states of the Union is invested with a sort of domestic dictatorship from his earliest years; the first notion he acquires in life is, that he is born to command, and the first habit he contracts is that of being obeyed without resistance. His education tends, then, to give him the character of a supercilious and a hasty man; irascible, violent, and ardent in his desires, impatient of obstacles, but easily discouraged if he cannot succeed upon his first attempt.
The American of the northern states is surrounded by no slaves in his childhood; he is even unattended by free servants; and is usually obliged to provide for his own wants. No sooner does he enter the world than the idea of necessity assails him on every side; he soon learns to know exactly the natural limits of his authority; he never expects to subdue those who withstand him, by force; and he knows that the surest means of obtaining the support of his fellow-creatures, is to win their favor. He therefore becomes patient, reflecting, tolerant, slow to act, and persevering in his designs.
In the southern states the more immediate wants of life are always supplied; the inhabitants of those parts are not busied in the material cares of life, which are always provided for by others; and their imagination is diverted to more captivating and less definite objects. The American of the south is fond of grandeur, luxury, and renown, of gaiety, of pleasure, and above all, of idleness; nothing obliges him to exert himself in order to subsist; and as he has no necessary occupations, he gives way to indolence, and does not even attempt what would be useful.
But the equality of fortunes, and the absence of slavery in the north, plunge the inhabitants in those same cares of daily life which are disdained by the white population of the south. They are taught from infancy to combat want, and to place comfort above all the pleasures of the intellect or the heart. The imagination is extinguished by the trivial details of life; and the ideas become less numerous and less general, but far more practical and more precise. As prosperity is the sole aim of exertion, it is excellently well attained; nature and mankind are turned to the best pecuniary advantage; and society is dexterously made to contribute to the welfare of each of its members, while individual egotism is the source of general happiness.
The citizen of the north has not only experience, but knowledge: nevertheless, he sets but little value upon the pleasures of knowledge; he esteems it as the means of obtaining a certain end, and he is only anxious to seize its more lucrative applications. The citizen of the south is more given to act upon impulse; he is more clever, more frank, more generous, more intellectual, and more brilliant. The former, with a greater degree of activity, of common sense, of information, and of general aptitude, has the characteristic good and evil qualities of the middle classes. The latter has the tastes, the prejudices, the weaknesses, and the magnanimity of all aristocracies.
If two men are united in society, who have the same interests, and to a certain extent the same opinions, but different characters, different acquirements, and a different style of civilisation, it is probable that these men will not agree. The same remark is applicable to a society of nations.
Slavery then does not attack the American Union directly in its interests, but indirectly in its manners.
The states which gave their assent to the federal contract in 1790 were thirteen in number; the Union now consists of twenty-four members. The population which amounted to nearly four millions in 1790, had more than tripled in the space of forty years; and in 1830 it amounted to nearly thirteen millions.{264} Changes of such magnitude cannot take place without some danger.
A society of nations, as well as a society of individuals, derive its principal chances of duration from the wisdom of its members, their individual weakness, and their limited number. The Americans who quit the coasts of the Atlantic ocean to plunge into the western wilderness, are adventurers impatient of restraint, greedy of wealth, and frequently men expelled from the states in which they were born. When they arrive in the deserts, they are unknown to each other; and they have neither traditions, family feeling, nor the force of example to check their excesses. The empire of the laws is feeble among them; that of morality is still more powerless. The settlers who are constantly peopling the valley of the Mississippi are, then, in every respect inferior to the Americans who inhabit the older parts of the Union. Nevertheless, they already exercise a great influence in its councils; and they arrive at the government of the commonwealth before they have learned to govern themselves.{265}
The greater the individual weakness of each of the contracting parties, the greater are the chances of the duration of the contract; for their safety is then dependant upon their union. When, in 1790, the most populous of the American republics did not contain 500,000 inhabitants,{266} each of them felt its own insignificance as an independent people, and this feeling rendered compliance with the federal authority more easy. But when one of the confederate states reckons, like the State of New York, two millions of inhabitants, and covers an extent of territory equal in surface to a quarter of France,{267} it feels its own strength; and although it may continue to support the Union as advantageous to its prosperity, it no longer regards that body as necessary to its existence; and, as it continues to belong to the federal compact, it soon aims at preponderance in the federal assemblies. The probable unanimity of the states is diminished as their number increases. At present the interests of the different parts of the Union are not at variance; but who is able to foresee the multifarious changes of the future, in a country in which towns are founded from day to day, and states almost from year to year?
Since the first settlement of the British colonies, the number of inhabitants has about doubled every twenty-two years. I perceive no causes which are likely to check this progressive increase of the Anglo-American population for the next hundred years; and before that space of time has elapsed, I believe that the territories and dependencies of the United States will be covered by more than a hundred millions of inhabitants, and divided into forty states.{268} I admit that these hundred millions of men have no hostile interests; I suppose, on the contrary, that they are all equally interested in the maintenance of the Union; but I am still of opinion, that where there are a hundred millions of men, and forty distinct nations unequally strong, the continuance of the federal government can only be a fortunate accident.
Whatever faith I may have in the perfectibility of man until human nature is altered, and men wholly transformed, I shall refuse to believe in the duration of a government which is called upon to hold together forty different peoples, disseminated over a territory equal to one-half of Europe in extent; to avoid all rivalry, ambition, and struggles, between them; and to direct their independent activity to the accomplishment of the same designs.
But the greatest peril to which the Union is exposed by its increase, arises from the continual changes which take place in the position of its internal strength. The distance from Lake Superior to the gulf of Mexico extends from the 47th to the 30th degree of latitude, a distance of more than twelve hundred miles, as the bird flies. The frontier of the United States winds along the whole of this immense line; sometimes falling within its limits, but more frequently extending far beyond it, into the waste. It has been calculated that the whites advance a mean distance of seventeen miles along the whole of this vast boundary.{269} Obstacles, such as an unproductive district, a lake, or an Indian nation unexpectedly encountered, are sometimes met with. The advancing column then halts for a while; its two extremities fall back upon themselves, and as soon as they are reunited they proceed onward. This gradual and continuous progress of the European race toward the Rocky mountains, has the solemnity of a providential event; it is like a deluge of men rising unabatedly, and daily driven onward by the hand of God.
Within this first line of conquering settlers, towns are built, and vast states founded. In 1790 there were only a few thousand pioneers sprinkled along the valleys of the Mississippi; and at the present day these valleys contain as many inhabitants as were to be found in the whole Union in 1790. Their population amounts to nearly four millions.{270} The city of Washington was founded in 1800, in the very centre of the Union; but such are the changes which have taken place, that it now stands at one of the extremities; and the delegates of the most remote western states are already obliged to perform a journey as long as that from Vienna to Paris.{271}
All the states are borne onward at the same time in the path of fortune, but of course they do not all increase and prosper in the same proportion. In the north of the Union detached branches of the Allegany chain, extending as far as the Atlantic ocean, form spacious roads and ports, which are constantly accessible to vessels of the greatest burden. But from the Potomac to the mouth of the Mississippi, the coast is sandy and flat. In this part of the Union the mouths of almost all the rivers are obstructed; and the few harbors which exist among these lagunes, afford much shallower water to vessels, and much fewer commercial advantages than those of the north.
This first natural cause of inferiority is united to another cause proceeding from the laws. We have already seen that slavery, which is abolished in the north, still exists in the south; and I have pointed out its fatal consequences upon the prosperity of the planter himself.
The north is therefore superior to the south both in commerce{272} and manufacture; the natural consequence of which is the more rapid increase of population and of wealth within its borders. The states situated upon the shores of the Atlantic ocean are already half-peopled. Most of the land is held by an owner; and these districts cannot therefore receive so many emigrants as the western states, where a boundless field is still open to their exertions. The valley of the Mississippi is far more fertile than the coast of the Atlantic ocean. This reason, added to all the others, contributes to drive the Europeans westward—a fact which may be rigorously demonstrated by figures. It is found that the sum total of the population of all the United States has about tripled in the course of forty years. But in the recent states adjacent to the Mississippi, the population has increased thirty-one fold within the same space of time.{273}
The relative position of the central federal power is continually displaced. Forty years ago the majority of the citizens of the Union was established upon the coast of the Atlantic, in the environs of the spot upon which Washington now stands; but the great body of the people is now advancing inland and to the north, so that in twenty years the majority will unquestionably be on the western side of the Alleganies. If the Union goes on to subsist, the basin of the Mississippi is evidently marked out, by its fertility and its extent, as the future centre of the federal government. In thirty or forty years, that tract of country will have assumed the rank which naturally belongs to it. It is easy to calculate that its population, compared to that of the coast of the Atlantic, will be, in round numbers, as 40 to 11. In a few years the states which founded the Union will lose the direction of its policy, and the population of the valleys of the Mississippi will preponderate in the federal assemblies.
This constant gravitation of the federal power and influence toward the northwest, is shown every ten years, when a general census of the population is made, and the number of delegates which each state sends to congress is settled afresh.{274} In 1790 Virginia had nineteen representatives in congress. This number continued to increase until the year 1813, when it reached to twenty-three: from that time it began to decrease, and in 1833, Virginia elected only twenty-one representatives.{275} During the same period the state of New York advanced in the contrary direction; in 1790, it had ten representatives in congress; in 1813, twenty-seven; in 1823, thirty-four; and in 1833, forty. The state of Ohio had only one representative in 1803, and in 1833, it had already nineteen.
It is difficult to imagine a durable union of a people which is rich and strong, with one which is poor and weak, and if it were proved that the strength and wealth of the one are not the causes of the weakness and poverty of the other. But union is still move difficult to maintain at a time at which one party is losing strength, and the other is gaining it. This rapid and disproportionate increase of certain states threatens the independence of the others. New York might, perhaps, succeed with its two millions of inhabitants and its forty representatives, in dictating to the other states in congress. But even if the more powerful states make no attempt to bear down the lesser ones, the danger still exists; for there is almost as much in the possibility of the act as in the act itself. The weak generally mistrusts the justice and the reason of the strong. The states which increase less rapidily than the others, look upon those which are more favored by fortune, with envy and suspicion. Hence arise the deep-seated uneasiness and ill-defined agitation which are observable in the south, and which form so striking a contrast to the confidence and prosperity which are common to other parts of the Union. I am inclined to think that the hostile measures taken by the southern provinces upon a recent occasion, are attributable to no other cause. The inhabitants of the southern states are, of all the Americans, those who are most interested in the maintenance of the Union; they would assuredly suffer most from being left to themselves; and yet they are the only citizens who threaten to break the tie of confederation. But it is easy to perceive that the south, which has given four presidents, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, to the Union; which perceives that it is losing its federal influence, and that the number of its representatives in congress is diminishing from year to year while those of the northern and western states are increasing; the south, which is peopled with ardent and irascible beings, is becoming more and more irritated and alarmed. The citizens reflect upon their present position and remember their past influence, with the melancholy uneasiness of men who suspect oppression: if they discover a law of the Union which is not unequivocally favorable to their interests, they protest against it as an abuse of force; and if their ardent remonstrances are not listened to, they threaten to quit an association which loads them with burdens while it deprives them of their due profits. "The tariff," said the inhabitants of Carolina in 1832, "enriches the north, and ruins the south; for if this were not the case, to what can we attribute the continually increasing power and wealth of the north, with its inclement skies and arid soil; while the south, which may be styled the garden of America, is rapidly declining."{276} If the changes which I have described were gradual, so that each generation at least might have time to disappear with the order of things under which it had lived, the danger would be less: but the progress of society in America is precipitate, and almost revolutionary. The same citizen may have lived to see his state take the lead in the Union, and afterward become powerless in the federal assemblies; and an Anglo-American republic has been known to grow as rapidly as a man, passing from birth and infancy to maturity in the course of thirty years. It must not be imagined, however, that the states which lose their preponderance, also lose their population or their riches; no stop is put to their prosperity, and they even go on to increase more rapidly than any kingdom in Europe.{277} But they believe themselves to be impoverished because their wealth does not augment as rapidly as that of their neighbors; and they think that their power is lost, because they suddenly come into collision with a power greater than their own.{278} Thus they are more hurt in their feelings and their passions, than in their interests. But this is amply sufficient to endanger the maintenance of the Union. If kings and peoples had only had their true interests in view, ever since the beginning of the world, the name of war would scarcely be known among mankind.
Thus the prosperity of the United States is the source of the most serious dangers that threaten them, since it tends to create in some of the confederate states that over-excitement which accompanies a rapid increase of fortune; and to awaken in others those feelings of envy, mistrust, and regret, which usually attend upon the loss of it. The Americans contemplate this extraordinary and hasty progress with exultation; but they would be wiser to consider it with sorrow and alarm. The Americans of the United States must inevitably become one of the greatest nations in the world; their offset will cover almost the whole of North America; the continent which they inhabit is their dominion, and it cannot escape them. What urges them to take possession of it so soon? Riches, power, and renown, cannot fail to be theirs at some future time; but they rush upon their fortune as if but a moment remained for them to make it their own.
I think I have demonstrated, that the existence of the present confederation depends entirely on the continued assent of all the confederates; and, starting from this principle, I have inquired into the causes which may induce any of the states to separate from the others. The Union may, however, perish in two different ways: one of the confederate states may choose to retire from the compact, and so forcibly sever the federal tie; and it is to this supposition that most of the remarks which I have made apply: or the authority of the federal government may be progressively intrenched on by the simultaneous tendency of the united republics to resume their independence. The central power, successively stripped of all its prerogatives, and reduced to impotence by tacit consent, would become incompetent to fulfil its purpose; and the second Union would perish, like the first, by a sort of senile inaptitude. The gradual weakening of the federal tie, which may finally lead to the dissolution of the Union, is a distinct circumstance, that may produce a variety of minor consequences before it operates so violent a change. The confederation might still subsist, although its government were reduced to such a degree of inanition as to paralyze the nation, to cause internal anarchy, and to check the general prosperity of the country.
After having investigated the causes which may induce the Anglo-Americans to disunite, it is important to inquire whether, if the Union continues to subsist, their government will extend or contract its sphere of action, and whether it will become more energetic or more weak.
The Americans are evidently disposed to look upon their future condition with alarm. They perceive that in most of the nations of the world, the exercise of the rights of sovereignty tends to fall under the control of a few individuals, and they are dismayed by the idea that such will also be the case in their own country. Even the statesmen feel, or affect to feel, these fears; for, in America, centralization is by no means popular, and there is no surer means of courting the majority, than by inveighing against the encroachments of the central power. The Americans do not perceive that the countries in which this alarming tendency to centralization exists, are inhabited by a single people; while the fact of the Union being composed of different confederate communities, is sufficient to baffle all the inferences which might be drawn from analogous circumstances. I confess that I am inclined to consider the fears of a great number of Americans as purely imaginary; and far from participating in their dread of the consolidation of power in the hands of the Union, I think that the federal government is visibly losing strength.
To prove this assertion I shall not have recourse to any remote occurrences, but to circumstances which I have myself observed, and which belong to our own time.
An attentive examination of what is going on in the United States, will easily convince us that two opposite tendencies exist in that country, like two distinct currents flowing in contrary directions in the same channel. The Union has now existed for forty-five years, and in the course of that time a vast number of provincial prejudices, which were at first hostile to its power, have died away. The patriotic feeling which attached each of the Americans to his own native state is become less exclusive; and the different parts of the Union have become more intimately connected the better they have become acquainted with each other. The post,{279} that great instrument of intellectual intercourse, now reaches into the backwoods; and steamboats have established daily means of communication between the different points of the coast. An inland navigation of unexampled rapidity conveys commodities up and down the rivers of the country.{280} And to these facilities of nature and art may be added those restless cravings, that busymindedness, and love of self, which are constantly urging the American into active life, and bringing him into contact with his fellow-citizens. He crosses the country in every direction; he visits all the various populations of the land; and there is not a province in France, in which the natives are so well known to each other as the thirteen millions of men who cover the territory of the United States.
But while the Americans intermingle, they grow in resemblance of each other; the differences resulting from their climate, their origin, and their institutions diminish; and they all draw nearer and nearer to the common type. Every year, thousands of men leave the north to settle in different parts of the Union; they bring with them their faith, their opinions, and their manners; and as they are more enlightened than the men among whom they are about to dwell, they soon rise to the head of affairs and they adapt society to their own advantage. This continual emigration of the north to the south is peculiarly favorable to the fusion of all the different provincial characters into one national character. The civilisation of the north appears to be the common standard, to which the whole nation will one day be assimilated.
The commercial ties which unite the confederate states are strengthened by the increasing manufactures of the Americans; and the union which began to exist in their opinions, gradually forms a part of their habits: the course of time has swept away the bugbear thoughts which haunted the imaginations of the citizens in 1789. The federal power is not become oppressive; it has not destroyed the independence of the states; it has not subjected the confederates to monarchical institutions; and the Union has not rendered the lesser states dependant upon the larger ones; but the confederation has continued to increase in population, in wealth, and in power. I am therefore convinced that the natural obstacles to the continuance of the American Union are not so powerful at the present time as they were in 1789; and that the enemies of the Union are not so numerous.
Nevertheless, a careful examination of the history of the United States for the last forty-five years, will readily convince us that the federal power is declining; nor is it difficult to explain the causes of this phenomenon. When the constitution of 1789 was promulgated, the nation was a prey to anarchy; the Union, which succeeded this confusion, excited much dread and much animosity; but it was warmly supported because it satisfied an imperious want. Thus, although it was more attacked than it is now, the federal power soon reached the maximum of its authority, as is usually the case with a government which triumphs after having braced its strength by the struggle. At that time the interpretation of the constitution seemed to extend rather than to repress, the federal sovereignty; and the Union offered, in several respects, the appearance of a single and undivided people, directed in its foreign and internal policy by a single government. But to attain this point the people had risen, to a certain extent, above itself.
The constitution had not destroyed the distinct sovereignty of the states; and all communities, of whatever nature they may be, are impelled by a secret propensity to assert their independence. This propensity is still more decided in a country like America, in which every village forms a sort of republic accustomed to conduct its own affairs. It therefore cost the states an effort to submit to the federal supremacy; and all efforts, however successful they may be, necessarily subside with the causes in which they originated.
As the federal government consolidated its authority, America resumed its rank among the nations, peace returned to its frontiers, and public credit was restored; confusion was succeeded by a fixed state of things which was favorable to the full and free exercise of industrious enterprise. It was this very prosperity which made the Americans forget the cause to which it was attributable; and when once the danger was passed, the energy and the patriotism which had enabled them to brave it, disappeared from among them. No sooner were they delivered from the cares which oppressed them, than they easily returned to their ordinary habits, and gave themselves up without resistance to their natural inclinations. When a powerful government no longer appeared to be necessary, they once more began to think it irksome. The Union encouraged a general prosperity, and the states were not inclined to abandon the Union; but they desired to render the action of the power which represented that body as light as possible. The general principle of union was adopted, but in every minor detail there was an actual tendency to independence. The principle of confederation was every day more easily admitted and more rarely applied; so that the federal government brought about its own decline, while it was creating order and peace.
As soon as this tendency of public opinion began to be manifested externally, the leaders of parties, who live by the passions of the people, began to work it to their own advantage. The position of the federal government then became exceedingly critical. Its enemies were in possession of the popular favor; and they obtained the right of conducting its policy by pledging themselves to lessen its influence. From that time forward, the government of the Union has invariably been obliged to recede, as often as it has attempted to enter the lists with the government of the states. And whenever an interpretation of the terms of the federal constitution has been called for, that interpretation has most frequently been opposed to the Union, and favorable to the states.
The constitution invested the federal government with the right of providing for the interests of the nation; and it has been held that no other authority was so fit to superintend the "internal improvements" which affected the prosperity of the whole Union; such, for instance, as the cutting of canals. But the states were alarmed at a power, distinct from their own, which could thus dispose of a portion of their territory, and they were afraid that the central government would, by this means, acquire a formidable extent of patronage within their own confines, and exercise a degree of influence which they intended to reserve exclusively to their own agents. The democratic party, which has constantly been opposed to the increase of the federal authority, then accused the congress of usurpation, and the chief magistrate of ambition. The central government was intimidated by the opposition; and it soon acknowledged its error, promising exactly to confine its influence, for the future, within the circle which was prescribed to it.
The constitution confers upon the Union the right of treating with foreign nations. The Indian tribes, which border upon the frontiers of the United States, have usually been regarded in this light. As long as these savages consented to retire before the civilized settlers, the federal right was not contested; but as soon as an Indian tribe attempted to fix its dwelling upon a given spot, the adjacent states claimed possession of the lands and the rights of sovereignty over the natives. The central government soon recognized both these claims; and after it had concluded treaties with the Indians as independent nations, it gave them up as subjects to the legislative tyranny of the states.{281}
Some of the states which had been founded upon the coast of the Atlantic, extended indefinitely to the west, into wild regions, where no European had ever penetrated. The states whose confines were irrevocably fixed, looked with a jealous eye upon the unbounded regions which the future would enable their neighbors to explore. The latter then agreed, with a view to conciliate the others, and to facilitate the act of union, to lay down their own boundaries, and to abandon all the territory which lay beyond those limits to the confederation at large.{282} Thenceforward the federal government became the owner of all the uncultivated lands which lie beyond the borders of the thirteen states first confederated. It was invested with the right of parcelling and selling them, and the sums derived from this source were exclusively reserved to the public treasury of the Union, in order to furnish supplies for purchasing tracts of country from the Indians, for opening roads to the remote settlements, and for accelerating the increase of civilisation as much as possible. New states have, however, been formed in the course of time, in the midst of those wilds which were formerly ceded by the inhabitants of the shores of the Atlantic. Congress has gone on to sell, for the profit of the nation at large, the uncultivated lands which those new states contained. But the latter at length asserted that, as they were now fully constituted, they ought to enjoy the exclusive right of converting the produce of these sales to their own use. As their remonstrances became more and more threatening, congress thought fit to deprive the Union of a portion of the privileges which it had hitherto enjoyed; and at the end of 1832 it passed a law by which the greatest part of the revenue derived from the sale of lands was made over to the new western republics, although the lands themselves were not ceded to them.{283}
{The remark of the author, that "whenever an interpretation of the terms of the federal constitution has been called for, that interpretation has most frequently been opposed to the Union, and favorable to the states" requires considerable qualification. The instances which the author cites, are those oflegislativeinterpretations, not those made by the judiciary. It may be questioned whether any of those cited by him are fair instances ofinterpretation. Although the then president and many of his friends doubted or denied the power of congress over many of the subjects mentioned by the author, yet the omission to exercise the power thus questioned, did not proceed wholly from doubts of the constitutional authority. It must be remembered that all these questions affected local interests of the states or districts represented in congress, and the author has elsewhere shown the tendency of the local feeling to overcome all regard for the abstract interest of the Union. Hence many members have voted on these questions without reference to the constitutional question, and indeed without entertaining any doubt of their power. These instances may afford proof that the federal power is declining, as the author contends, but they do not prove any actual interpretation of the constitution. And so numerous and various are the circumstances to influence the decision of a legislative body like the congress of the United States, that the people do not regard them as sound and authoritative expositions of the true sense of the constitution, except perhaps in those very few cases, where there has been a constant and uninterrupted practice from the organization of the government. The judiciary is looked to as the only authentic expounder of the constitution, and until a law of congress has passed that ordeal, its constitutionality is open to question: of which our history furnishes many examples ... There are errors in some of the instances given by our author, which would materially mislead, if not corrected. That in relation to the Indians proceeds upon the assumption that the United States claimed some rights over Indians or the territory occupied by them, inconsistent with the claims of the states. But this is a mistake. As to their lands, the United States never pretended to any right in them, except such as was granted by the cessions of the states. The principle universally acknowledged in the courts of the United States and of the several states, is, that by the treaty with Great Britain in which the independence of the colonies was acknowledged, the states became severally and individually independent, and as such succeeded to the rights of the crown of England to and over the lands within the boundaries of the respective states. The right of the crown in these lands was the absolute ownership, subject only to the rights of occupancy by the Indians so long as they remained a tribe. This right devolved to each state by the treaty which established their independence, and the United States have never questioned it. See 6th Cranch, 87; 8th Wheaton, 502, 884; 17th Johnson's Reports, 231. On the other hand, the right of holding treaties with the Indians has universally been conceded to the United States. The right of a state to the lands occupied by the Indians, within the boundaries of such state, does not in the least conflict with the right of holding treaties on national subjects by the United States with those Indians. With respect to Indians residing in any territorywithoutthe boundaries of any state, or on lands ceded to the United States, the case is different; the United States are in such cases the proprietors of the soil, subject to the Indian right of occupancy, and when that right is extinguished the proprietorship becomes absolute. It will be seen, then, that in relation to the Indians and their lands, no question could arise respecting the interpretation of the constitution. The observation that "as soon as an Indian tribe attempted to fix its dwelling upon a given spot, the adjacent states claimed possession of the lands, and the rights of sovereignty over the natives"—is a strange compound of error and of truth. As above remarked, the Indian right of occupancy has ever been recognized by the states, with the exception of the case referred to by the author, in which Georgia claimed the right to possess certain lands occupied by the Cherokees. This was anomalous, and grew out of treaties and cessions, the details of which are too numerous and complicated for the limits of a note. But in no other cases have the states ever claimed the possession of lands occupied by Indians, without having previously extinguished their right by purchase.
As to the rights of sovereignty over the natives, the principle admitted in the United States is that all persons within the territorial limits of a state are and of necessity must be, subject to the jurisdiction of its laws. While the Indian tribes were numerous, distinct, and separate from the whites, and possessed a government of their own, the state authorities, from considerations of policy, abstained from the exercise of criminal jurisdiction for offences committed by the Indians among themselves, although for offences against the whites they were subjected to the operation of the state laws. But as these tribes diminished in numbers, as those who remained among them became enervated by bad habits, and ceased to exercise any effectual government, humanity demanded that the power of the states should be interposed to protect the miserable remnants from the violence and outrage of each other. The first recorded instance of interposition in such a case was in 1821, when an Indian of the Seneca tribe in the state of New York was tried and convicted of murder on a squaw of the tribe. The courts declared their competency to take cognizance of such offences, and the legislature confirmed the declaration by a law.—Another instance of what the author calls interpretation of the constitution against the general government, is given by him in the proposed act of 1832, which passed both houses of congress, but was vetoed by the president, by which, as he says, "the greatest part of the revenue derived from the sale of lands, was made over to the new western republics." But this act was not founded on any doubt of the title of the United States to the lands in question, or of its constitutional power over them, and cannot be cited as any evidence of the interpretation of the constitution. An error of fact in this statement ought to be corrected. The bill to which the author refers, is doubtless that usually called Mr. Clay's land bill. Instead of making over the greatest part of the revenue to the new states, it appropriated twelve and a half per cent. to them, in addition to five per cent. which had been originally granted for the purpose of making roads. See Niles's Register, vol. 42, p. 355.—American Editor.}