In this rough-and-ready way, the common wine is made. Without selection, all grapes, ripe, unripe, and rotten, sweet and sour, are mashed up together, hurriedly and imperfectly pressed, and the wine is sent to market, to sell for what it will bring. Having thus seen it made, let us see it disposed of.

Of all the monuments to Bacchus, in Rome, the one near the pyramid of Caius Cestius, and still nearer the Protestant burying-ground, is by far the most noticeable. Jealous of the lofty manner in which it lifts its head above the surrounding fields and walls of the city, the church has seen fit to crown its head with a cross, which it seems inclined to shake off. This small mountain of a monument is conical in shape, and is composed entirely of broken crockery; hence its name, Testaccio. In its crockery sides, they have found a certain coolness and evenness of temperature exactly suited to the storage of wine, and to maturing it; hence, all around the mountain are deep vaults, filled with red and white wines, working themselves up for a fit state to enter into the joy and the gullets of the Roman minenti.

If the reader of this sketch is at all of a philosophical frame of mind, and should ever visit Rome, it is the writer's advice that, in the first place, having learned Italian enough, and in the second place, having his purse fairly filled—silver will do—he should, during the month of October, on a holyday, go out to Monte Testaccio alone, or at least in company with some one who knows enough to let him he alone when he wants to be with somebody else, and then and there fraternizing for a few hours with the Roman plebs, let him at his ease see what he shall see. Then shall he sit him down at the door of the Antica Osteria di Cappanone, at the rough wood table, on a rougher wooden bench; talk right and left, with tailors, shoemakers, artists, soldiers, and God knows what, drinking the cool, amber-colored wine of Monte Rotonda, gleaming brightly in the sunlight that dashes through his glass, and so cheerfully winning the good-will of them all—and of some of the young women who are with them—that he shall find himself at some future time either the sheath for a Roman knife, or the recipient of a great deal of affection, and the purchaser of indefinite bottiglie of vino nostrale.

In his ardent pursuit of natural art, Caper believed it his duty to hunt up the picturesque wherever it could be found, and it was while pursuing this duty, in company with Rocjean, that he found himself at Monte Testaccio, one October day, and there made his debut. After a luncheon of raw ham, bread, cheese, sausage, and a bottiglia of wine, they ascended the mountain, and sitting down at the foot of the cross, they quietly smoked and communed with nature unreservedly.

Crumbling old walls of Rome that lay below them; wild, uncultivated Campagna; purple range of mountains, snow-tipped; thousand-legged, ruined aqueducts; distant sea, but faintly revealed through the vail of haze-bounded horizon; yellow Tiber, flowing along crumbling banks; dome of St. Peter's, rising above the hill that shuts the Vatican from sight; pyramid of Caius Cestius; Protestant burying-ground, with the wind sighing through the trees a lullaby over the graves of Shelley and Keats; distant view of Rome, slumbering artistically, and not manufacturingly, in the sunlight of that morning—ye taught one man of the two wild hopes for Rome of the future.

At the foot of the mountain, and adjoining the Protestant burying-ground, there is a powder-magazine. Here a French soldier, acting as sentry, paced his weary round. It was not long before a couple of Roman women passed him. They saluted him; he saluted them. They passed behind the magazine. The sentry, with the courtesy which distinguishes Frenchmen, evidently desired to make his compliments and pay his addresses to the dames. How could this be done? Before long, two of his compatriots, evidently out for a holiday, passed him. He beckoned to one of them, who at once took his gun and turned sentry, while the relieved guard flew to display to the dames his national courtesy. Before Caper had time to smoke a second cigar, the soldier returned to duty, and the one who had relieved him sprung to pay his addresses. During the two hours that Caper and Rocjean studied the scenery, guard was relieved four times.

'Ah!' said Rocjean, 'we are a gallant nation. Let us therefore descend and mingle with what the high-minded John Bulls call 'the lower orders.''

Down they went, and at the first table they came to, they found their shoemaker, the Signore Eugenio Calzolajo, artist in leather, seated with three Roman women. They all resembled each other like three pins. The eldest one held a baby, the caro bambino, in her arms; she was probably twenty years old. The next one was not over eighteen; while the youngest had evidently not passed her sixteenth year.

The artist in leather saluted Caper and Rocjean with the title of Illustrissimi, (they both paid their bills punctually,) and, as he saw that the other tables were full, he at once made room for them, introducing them to his wife and her two sisters. Caper, who saw that the party had just arrived, and had not as yet had time to order any thing from the waiters, told them that the day being his birthday, it was customary among the North-American Indians always to celebrate it with a feast of roast dogs and bottled porter; but, as neither of these articles were to be found at Monte Testaccio, he should command what they had; and arresting a waiter, he ordered such a supply of food and wine, that the eyes of the three Roman girls opened wide as owls'. Their tongues were all unloosened at once, as if by magic, and Caper had the satisfaction of seeing that for what a bottle of Hotel Champaigne costs in the United States, he had provided joy unadulterated, and happy memories for many days, for several descendants of the Caesars.

While the wine circulated freely, the eldest, of the unmarried girls, named Eliza, began joking Caper about his being a heretic and 'a little devil,' and asked him to take off his hat, to see if he had horns. Caper told her he was as yet unmarried, ... and that among the Indians, bachelors were never allowed to take their hats off before maidens. 'But,' said he, 'what makes you think I am a heretic? Wasn't I at Saint Peter's yesterday, and at the confessionals?'

'Yes, you were at them like an old German gentleman I once knew,' said Eliza. 'Some of his friends saw him one morning at the German confessional-box, and knowing that he was a heretic, asked him what he was doing there? 'Diavolo!' said he, 'can't a man have a comfortable mouthful of German, without changing religions?''

'For my part,' said Rita, the youngest sister, 'I only go to confessional, because I have to, and I only confess what I want to.'

'Bravo!' exclaimed Rocjean, 'I must paint your portrait.'

'Benissimo! and who will paint mine?' asked Eliza.

'I will,' said Caper, 'but on condition that you let me keep a copy of it.'....

Arrangements completed, Rocjean ordered more wine; and then the artist in leather ordered more; then Caper's turn came. After this, the party—which had been gradually growing jolly and jollier, would have danced, had they not all had a holy horror of the prison of San Angelo. The married sister, Dominica, was a full-blooded Trasteverina, in her gala dress, and had one of those beautiful-shaped heads that Caper could only compare to a quail's; her jet-black hair, smoothed close to her head, was gathered in a large roll that fell low on her neck behind, and held by a silver spadina or pin, that, if occasion demanded, would make a serviceable stiletto; her full face was brown, while the red blood shone through her cheeks, and her lips were full and ripe. Her eyes of deep gray, shaded with long black lashes, sparkled with light when she was aroused. Her sisters resembled her strikingly, except Rita, the youngest, whose face was of that singularly delicate hue of white, the color of the magnolia-flower, as one of our American writers has it; or like the white of a boiled egg next to the yolk, as Caper expressed it. Be this as it may, there was something very attractive in this pallor, since it was accompanied by an embonpoint indicating any thing but romantic meagerness of constitution.

Dominica had, without exaggeration, the value of a dozen or two pairs of patent-leather boots hung on her neck, arms, fingers, ears, and bosom, in the shape of furious-sized pieces of gold jewelry; and it was solid gold. The Roman women, from the earliest days—from the time when Etruscan artists made those ponderous chains and bracelets down to this present date—have had the most unbridled love for jewelry. Do we not know[D] that—

Sabina's garters were worth,... $200,000 Faustina's finger-ring,... 200,000 Domitia'a ring,... 300,000 Caeesonia's bracelet,... 400,000 Poppaea's earrings,... 600,000 Calpurina's (Caesar's wife) earrings, 'above suspicion,'... 1,200,000 Sabina's diadem,... 1,200,000

And after this, is it at all astonishing that the desire remains for it, even if the substance has been plundered and carried off by those forestieri, the Huns, Vandals, Goths, Visigoths, Norsemen, and other heretics who have visited Rome?

While they were all busily drinking and talking, Caper had noticed that the wine was beginning to have its effects on the large crowd who had assembled at the Osterias and Trattorias around the foot of the Bacchic mountain. Laughing and talking, shouting and singing, began to be in the ascendant, and gravity was voted indecent.

'Ha!' said Rocjean, 'for one hour of the good old classic days!'

'What!' answered Caper, 'with those seventy thousand old Jews you were preaching about the other day?'

'Never!—with the Bacchante. But here our friends are off: let us help them into the carriage.'

As the sun went down, the minenti began to crowd toward Rome. More than one spadina flashed in the hands of the slightly-tight maidens who were on foot. Those of the men who had carriages, foreseeing the inflammable spirit aroused, packed the women in by themselves, gave them lighted torches, and cut them adrift, to float down the Corso; they following in separate carriages.

* * * * *

'Ah! really, and pray, Mrs. Jobson, don't you think that it's—ah! a beautiful sight; they tell me—ah! it's the peasants returning from visiting the shrine of the—ah! Madonna—ah?'

'And I think it is most charming, Mister Lushington; and I remember me now that Lady Fanny Errol, poor thing, said it would be a charming sight. And the poor creatures seem much happier than our own lower orders; they do, to be sure.'

* * * * *

'O Lord!' groaned Caper, as he overheard the above dialogue, 'allow me to retire.'

CAPER 'STARTS' A MENAGERIE.

As an animal-painter, Mr. Caper was continually hunting up materials for sketches. He made excursions into the Campagna, to see the long-horned gray oxen and the hideous buffaloes; watching the latter along the yellow Tiber, when, in the spring-time, they coquetted in the mud and water. He sketched goats and sheep, tended by the picturesquely-dressed shepherds and guarded by the fierce dogs that continually encircled them. In four words, he studied animal-ated nature.

On his first arrival in Rome, he had purchased one of those sprightly little vetturo dogs, all wool and tail, that the traveler remarks mounted on top of the traveling carriages that enter and leave Rome. With a firm foothold, they stand on the very top of all the baggage that may be piled on the roof of the coach; and there, standing guard and barking fiercely, seem to thoroughly enjoy the confusion attendant on starting the horses or unloading the baggage. They are seen around the carriage-stands where public hacks are hired, and as soon as one moves off, up jumps the vetturo dog alongside the driver, and never leaves the vehicle until it stops; then, if he sees another hack returning to the city, he will jump into that, and be carried back triumphant. This sounds like fiction; but its truth will be confirmed by any one who has ever noticed the peculiarities of this breed of dogs, which love to ride.

Caper kept this dog in his studio, and had already made several very life-like studies of him. One morning, leaving his lodgings earlier than usual, he met on the stairway of his house a countryman driving a goat up-stairs to be milked; the Romans thus having good evidence that when they buy goat's milk, they don't purchase water from the fountains. As Caper was going out of the door that led into the street, he saw among the flock of goats assembled there, a patriarchal old Billy, whose beard struck him with delight. He was looking at him in silent veneration, when the goats'-milk man came down-stairs, driving the ewe before him. He asked the man if he would sell the patriarch; but found that he would not. He promised, however, to lend him to Caper until the next day, for a good round sum, to be paid when the goat was delivered at the studio, which the man said would be in the course of an hour.

Our artist then went down to the Greco, where he breakfasted; and there met Rocjean, who proposed to him to go that morning to the Piazza Navona, as it was market-day, and they would have a fine chance to take notes of the country-people, their costumes, etc. They first went around to Caper's studio, where they had only to wait a short time before the milk-man came, driving the old Billy-goat up-stairs before him. Caper made him fast with a cord to a heavy table, the top of which was a vast receptacle of sketch-books, oil-colors, books, and all kinds of odds and ends.

Rocjean and he then strolled down to the Piazza Navona, where, while walking around, Caper suddenly stumbled over the smallest and most comical specimen of a donkey he had ever seen. The man who owned him, and who had brought in a load of vegetables on the donkey's back, offered to sell him very cheap. The temptation was great, and our animal artist bought him at once for five scudi, alias dollars; but with the understanding that the countryman would deliver him at his studio at once. In twenty minutes' time, the donkey was climbing up a long flight of stairs to Caper's studio, as seriously as if he were crossing the pons asinorum. Once in his studio, Caper soon made arrangements to have the donkey kept in a stable near by, when he was not sketching him. This matter finished, Rocjean helped Caper pen him up in a corner of the studio, where he could begin sketching him as soon as he had finished portraying the billy-goat. The patriarch had made several attempts to rush at the vetturo-dog; but the string held him fast to the table. Rocjean mentioned to Caper that he ought to feed his menagerie, and the porter being called and sent out for some food for the goat and donkey, soon returned with a full supply.

Both artists now set to work in earnest; Caper with paints and brushes, and Rocjean with crayons and sketch-book, determined to take the patriarch's portrait while he was in a peaceful frame of body and spirit.

With an intermission for luncheon, they worked until nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, when Rocjean proposed taking a walk out to the Villa Borghese, and as they returned, on their way to dinner, they could stop in at the studio, and see that the donkey and goat were driven out to the stable, where they could be kept until wanted again. Accordingly, both artists walked out to the villa, and had only taken a short turn toward the Casino, when they met a New-York friend of theirs, alone in a carriage, taking a ride. He ordered the driver to stop, and begged them both to get in with him, and after passing through the villa and around the Pincio, to come and take dinner with him sociably in his rooms in the Via Frattina. They accepted; and at ten o'clock that night, while going home in a very happy frame of mind, it suddenly occurred to Caper that his menagerie ought to have been attended to. Rocjean consoled him with the reflection that, having the key in his pocket, they could not possibly get out; so the former thought no more about it.

Early in the morning, having met as usual at the Greco, and breakfasted together, Caper and Rocjean walked round to the former's studio. Before they entered the door of the building, they noticed a small assembly of old women surrounding the porter, and as Caper entered the passage-way, they poured a broadside into him.

'Accidente, Signore, nobody around here has been able to sleep a wink all night long. Santa Maria! such yells have come from your studio, such groans, such horrible noises, as if all the devils had broken loose. We are going to the police; we are going to the gendarmeria; we are going to—'

'Go there—and be hanged!' shouted Caper, breaking through the crowd, and running up-stairs two steps at a time, he nearly walked into the lap of a tall female model, named Giacinta, dressed in Ciociara costume, who was calmly seated on the stair-case, glaring at another female model, named Nina, who stood leaning against the door of his studio.

'Signor Giacomo, good morning!' said Giacinta, 'didn't you tell me to be here at nine o'clock?'

'To be sure I did,' replied he.

'Then,' continued she, 'what is that person there taking the bread out of my mouth for? Cospetto!'

'Iddio giusto!' cried Nina, 'hear her; she calls me, ME, a person! I who have a watch and chain, and wear a hooped petticoat! I take the bread out of her mouth. I a person! I'm a lady, per Bacco!'

'Tace!' said Rocjean to Nina, 'or the Signore Giacomo will send you flying. What do you want, Nina?'

'I only wanted to see if the Signore intended to paint the Lady Godeeva, that he told me about the other day.'

'Wait till I open the studio-door, and get out of this noise. Those old women down below, and you young ones up here, are howling like a lot of hyenas. Here, come in!' ... As Caper said this, he unlocked the studio-door and threw it open; the two models were close at his elbows, while Rocjean drew to one side to let them pass in.

In the next minute, Caper, the two models, a he-goat, a dirty little donkey, and a yelping dog, were rolling head over heels down-stairs, one confused mass of petticoats and animals.

Rocjean roared with laughter; he could do nothing but hold his sides, fearful of having an apopletic fit or bursting a blood-vessel.

The small donkey slid down-stairs on his back, slowly, gradually, meekly; his long ears rubbing the way before him. But the billy-goat was on his feet in an instant, and was charging, next thing, full force into the knot of old women at the foot of the stairs, who, believing that their last hour had come, and that it was old Nick in person, yelled out,' 'Tis he; the devil! the devil!' and fled before the horns to come.

Giacinta was the first one on her legs, and after picking up the caro Giacomo, alias Caper, and finding he was not hurt, she then good-naturedly helped Nina to arrange her tumbled garments.

Rocjean rushed to open the studio-windows, to air the room, for it had not the odors of the Spice Islands in it. Caper hastened to pick up paints, brushes, books, easel; but they were too many for him, and at last, giving it up in despair, he sat down on a chair.

'Well!' said he, 'there has been a HARD fight here! The dog must have tackled the billy-goat; the goat must have upset this table, broken his string, and pitched into that dirty little donkey; and the donkey must have put his heels through that canvas; and all three must have broken loose and upset us ... I say, Rocjean, send out for some wine; I am dry, and these girls are, I know.'

Peace was soon made. Nina was promised that she should sit for Lady Godiva, as soon as the donkey was caught; for she was to be represented seated on him instead of a horse. Giacinta posed for a contadina at a fountain. Rocjean passed round the wine, and helped put the studio in order; and Caper, brush in hand, painted away, determining that under any circumstances, he never would open another menagerie, until he was able to pay a keeper to look after the animals.

* * * * *

FAIRIES.

Our fathers, when the race was young, And therefore some say better, With fresh simplicity, believed In Dryad, Faun, and Satyr. The Zephyrs breathed throughout the air, And when the scene was fitting, The Naiads combed their golden hair, Beside the waters sitting.

And we ourselves in childhood loved A faith so sweet as this is; We felt the touch of rose-leaf palms, And almost felt their kisses: We tracked them through the shadowy grass, Or when the evening glistened, We lay in wait to see them pass, And to their singing listened.

The hawthorn stretches wide its arms, And all the woods are fragrant, But Fancy walks in high-heeled shoes, And is no more a vagrant. No Satyrs from the greenwood peer, No more we see at gloaming, The Naiads sit, their golden hair Beside the waters combing.

Alas! our early faith is cold, And all things are so real! Now, grown too wise, we shut our eyes, And laugh at the ideal. The charmed dusk still settles down Upon the happy prairies; But twilight's chiefest charm is flown, For where are now the fairies?

* * * * *

JOHN BRIGHT.

The late misunderstanding between this country and Great Britain, relative to Mason and Slidell, elicited a free expression of opinion from the statesmen of the mother country, as to the contest now proceeding in this country; and while we regretted to witness so many proofs of the prejudice and jealousy which seem to hold possession of the minds of our transatlantic cousins, we were gratified by the heroic and brilliant defense of our cause by one so eminent in intellectual and moral qualities as JOHN BRIGHT. The boldness and vigor of his efforts to dispel the hostility of his compatriots toward America, and the masterly ability with which he disarmed the weapons of our opponents, elicited the respect of our people and have made his name one of veneration among them. His position in our favor, amid the many discouragements which beset him, justifies an attempt to lay before our readers an account of his career and character, which, we doubt not, they will be interested to hear.

John Bright, Member of Parliament for the great city of Birmingham, is the son of respectable Quaker parents, and was born at Greenbank, near Rochdale, in the year 1811. His family being largely interested in the cotton manufacture, he was bred to a participation in this employment, and is now the senior member of an extensive and enterprising firm, in company with his brothers. It is hardly to be expected that one whose early youth had been devoted to the restricted sphere of a counting-room, would be remarkable for an extensive knowledge of men and events, liberal opinions, freshness of intellect, and vigorous brilliancy of declamation; and yet Mr. Bright has always manifested superiority in these qualities. Known, while occupied exclusively in the details of his proper avocation, for skill, promptness, and enterprise, he has also been distinguished, since his sphere of usefulness has been extended to the national councils, for the scope and accuracy of his general information, the comprehensiveness of his mind, the richness of his imagination, and the effective energy of his eloquence. He early manifested an interest in politics, which was intensified by the agitation of questions nearly affecting his own business interests. The celebrated Anti-Corn-Law League, which was instituted in the time of Lord Melbourne's ministry, by some eminent Whigs, for the purpose of opposing the tariff erected by the corn-laws, excited his enthusiastic cooeperation, and afforded him an early opportunity of entering political life. The enlightened ideas of the Reformers had already effected a glorious renovation in the machinery of the government; and the regeneration of the commercial system was next to be accomplished, by a successful resistance to the selfish restrictions imposed upon trade by the landed proprietors. In such a cause, John Bright embarked in his twenty-seventh year; and his subsequent career has been a consistent adherence to the same views which marked his entrance into public notice. He espoused with ardor the principles avowed by the League, and leaving the management of his private interests in the hands of the junior members of the firm, began to discuss them publicly, with great force and effect. The League soon perceived the valuable acquisition they had made in the young Quaker, and not only encouraged him to exertion but gave him opportunities to appear before many important assemblages. On the list of orators whom the League commissioned to go into the agricultural districts to advocate their cause, Mr. Bright's name soon became prominent. By the irresistible cogency and energetic expression which characterized his speech before many thousands in Drury Lane Theatre, his reputation became national, and printed copies being distributed throughout England, a desire to hear him on the important question of the day became every where manifest. He went about among the farmers and gentry, instilling with ability the principles of free trade, developing arguments with telling effect, and rapidly organizing branches of the League throughout the kingdom. The distrust of the lower classes, which was awakened in some degree against the nobles and nabobs who sustained the League, did not operate against him, who, as a man directly from the people, educated in the stern school of labor, and as the daily witness of and sympathizer with the suffering of the poor, at once elicited their confidence in his honesty and their respect for his intellectual power. Political advantage, which might be sought by life-long politicians and hereditary nobles, could, they well knew, offer no inducement to nor corrupt the ingenuous principles of one who showed so little respect to party distinction, and who was entirely independent of great connections.

The statesmen with whom he acted, in favor of free trade, were unwilling to be without so valuable an ally on the floor of the House of Commons; and, in April, 1843, he was placed in nomination by his numerous friends at Durham, for the seat to which that city was entitled.

On the first trial, he was defeated; but a new election for the same city becoming necessary in the following July, he was returned, by a gratifying majority, to represent a place noted for its conservative proclivities. He continued the member for Durham until 1847.

His first efforts, after entering Parliament, were directed to the repeal of the Corn-Laws, in which beneficent measure he cooeperated with such men as Charles P. Villiers, brother of Lord Clarendon, Lord Morpeth, now Earl of Carlisle, Lord John Russell, and his friend, Mr. Richard Cobden. Sir Robert Peel, who was at that time Prime Minister, had always adhered to the protective doctrines of Pitt and Wellington; and it was mainly due to the clear and cogent reasoning of Bright and his associates, that the illustrious statesman at the head of the Treasury finally yielded, with a magnanimity never surpassed in the annals of ministerial history, to the enlightened policy of free trade in respect to corn. The distress which had for years resulted from the stringent enactments of Lord Liverpool's government to the lower class, was, by this patriotic sacrifice of the first minister, done away with; and not least among those who contributed to the accomplishment of so auspicious a result, we must reckon the subject of this sketch. The Tory party, headed by such chiefs as Wellington and Lyndhurst, in the Lords, and Stanley and Disraeli, in the Commons, made a stern and pertinacious resistance to the repeal; and no one was more feared by the intellectual giants of that party than was Bright. His severe wit, his plain, blunt manner of exposing the defects of his opponents, and his impulsive and overwhelming declamation, were hardly exceeded by the fluent exuberance of Stanley and the keen sarcasm of the Hebrew novelist, Disraeli.

While he generally acted with the party of which Lord Russell and Lord Landsdowne were the chiefs, he did not place himself supinely under the dictation of the caucus-room. Professing to be bound by the precepts of no faction, acting frequently with the conservatives, although oftener with the liberals, independent of ministerial control, and disdaining to attain power by the sacrifice of any principle, he was excluded from a participation in the government, when those with whom he in general sympathized succeeded to the administration in 1846. He early adopted ultra-liberal views, and has always been known as the advocate of universal suffrage, the separation of Church and State, and the diminution of the influence of hereditary nobles; and although he could not but be aware that many of his doctrines were repugnant to those of his auditors, and a majority of his countrymen, he has not hesitated to uphold and express them with great perseverance and ingenuousness.

Had he lived in the days of Russell and Sidney, he had perhaps shared their fate, and paid the penalty of unpopular politics on the scaffold. That bold spirit which he has ever manifested, exciting his great talents in the advocacy of repugnant theories, would not have feared the restraints which a ruder age encouraged despotic kings to put upon freedom of political action. Luckily, he has been living in an age which respects independent thought and proscribes the conscience of no man. While he is certainly premature in his theories of equality, the tendency of popular feeling is toward him rather than from him. Tory policy to-day was Whig policy a century ago. Walpole would have sustained the younger Pitt, and Derby and Lyndhurst will hardly dispute the benefits of the reform of 1832.

Mr. Bright was returned to Parliament for Manchester, in 1847, and again in 1852. This great town, which is the market for Rochdale, and consequently in which he was well known, sent him to the Commons by a handsome majority of eleven hundred. In the early session of 1857, Mr. Cobden introduced a motion condemning the war into which the administration had entered with China, on which the government was defeated. Mr. Bright, though absent on account of ill-health, used his influence in favor of the motion, by reason of which, on the appeal of Lord Palmerston to the country, during the summer of that year, he was defeated in his constituency by over five thousand votes; his successful opponent, though agreeing with him in general, being a supporter of the Chinese war.

In 1859, he was reinstated in Parliament, by the electors of Birmingham, of whose manufacturing interests he had always shown himself a consistent and ardent friend. For this constituency he is now member. He has been twice married; first, to the daughter of Jonathan Priestley, Esq., of Newcastle-on-Tyne, who died in 1841; and secondly, to his present wife, the eldest daughter of W. Leatham, Esq., of Wakefield, York.

His career of nineteen years in the House of Commons has been a series of successful efforts, not only contributing to his lasting fame as an orator and legislator, but achieving many important modifications in the commercial system and in public sentiment. He has been the life of the radical party, leading them on in their crusades against existing abuses with fearless audacity, encouraging them to renewed contests, animating them by the hopefulness and enthusiasm of his own soul, and by his lucid logic attracting new converts to his views with every year. The Radicals who, when he entered Parliament, were a mere handful, are already assuming, under the vigorous lead of Bright, Cobden, and Villiers, the proportions of a systematic and powerful element in the lower house. Caring little for the impotent sneers of an aristocracy in its dotage, and mindful only to advance systems of popular improvement and alleviation, he has become a nucleus around which has gathered the extreme wing of the liberal party. The last century beheld the profligate Wilkes and the shallow Burdett at the head of the ultraists; our own time is more fortunate in superseding vicious and unprincipled radical leaders by men more virtuous and ingenuous. The great manufacturing towns and districts, composed mainly of the lower orders of society, and devoted to the interests of commerce, as opposed to the narrow demands of the agricultural interest, have, owing in a great degree to Mr. Bright's exertions, become pillars of his party. Lord Palmerston, than whom a more sagacious politician does not or has not existed, testified his knowledge of the influence of the Bright party, by offering Mr. Cobden a seat in the Cabinet, and afterward by sending him as special agent of England to negotiate a commercial treaty with France.

John Bright has always shown himself a staunch friend to the prosperity of the United States. Whenever an opportunity offered in which to propose this country as an example worthy of the imitation of his own countrymen, he has never failed to urge the superiority of our system. His political ideas, approaching to republicanism, and abhorring the dominance of hereditary aristocrats, and a political Church, have found their theories realized in the admirable machinery of our own government. Untainted with that jealous prejudice which appears to animate many of his fellow-citizens, he can discern, and is ready to acknowledge, the superior efficacy of the principles which underlie our Constitution. No one has, of late, been more earnest in denunciation of the irritating policy of Great Britain toward America, than Mr. Bright.

His personal appearance is that of a hearty, good-natured, and yet determined Englishman, and both his form and face betoken the John Bull as much as any member of the House. His morals are of a high order, his honesty proverbial, his courage undoubted, his social character amiable, and calculated to make him welcome to every circle. It is said, that although opposed in the extreme to the political doctrines of Lord Derby, his personal relations with that aristocratic nobleman are not only friendly, but intimate; and that, after abusing one another lustily at Westminster, they retire together arm in arm, chatting and laughing as familiarly as if there never had been the least difference of opinion between them. Like Fox, in this particular, he never allows his partisan views to interfere with his social relations; and although he is a fierce and bitter antagonist on the benches of Parliament, no one is a more constant or a more zealous friend in private life. His efforts have always been enlisted in behalf of the education of the masses; conceiving that this is the foundation of a thoroughly popular political system, such as he is desirous to introduce into the British Constitution. Bred among a timid and peaceful sect, his opposition to wars has been determined and earnest; and he was one of those who, in 1854, sent a deputation to the Emperor Nicholas to urge an abandonment of his war policy, and the maintenance of peace, as the duty of a Christian race. He is, however, rather fitted to be a reformer and agitator than a statesman. He has all that enthusiasm, all that energy, all that courage, all that stubborn perseverance in the pursuit of his purpose, which distinguish the characters of those men who have conducted the great revolutions of society to a successful issue. Perhaps he would be found deficient in judging how far to proceed in innovation; but this, though an important, is not an essential element in the composition of the mere reformer. It is for him to lead on the people to great and startling changes, to overturn tyrannies, to break down old forms, to inculcate novel precepts, to regenerate public sentiment. These rather require an impetuous spirit, a bold heart, an active and restless mind, than calmness, judgment, and deliberation. It is when a new polity is to be erected, when revolution has passed away, and the crisis reached and left, when a constitution is to be framed, and new principles are to be brought to their test, that the steady process of a sound judgment is called into requisition. Then it is that the reformer yields to the statesman; that impulse retires before reason; that passion and confusion become subordinated to the elements of order and the authority of intellect. Many have been both the reformers producing and the statesmen correcting, revolutions; minds which, with the fire of enthusiasm, and the hot impulse of indignation at wrongs done, have united a judicious discrimination, a cool faculty of reflection, and the power of separating the benefits from the evils of revolution.

It is certain that Mr. Bright would be a fearless and zealous reformer; it is doubtful whether he would not give place to others in the after-work. Well qualified to lead an enthusiastic faction to a crusade against precedent and authority, he has thus far failed to show himself capable of conducting an administration. Among the statesmen of modern times, honesty and enthusiasm are not qualities which control the policy of the state. Compare the crafty demeanor, the dubious expressions, the cautious statements of Earl Russell, with the plain, rude, blunt harangues of Mr. Bright, and we perceive the qualities which have elevated the former, and those which have kept the latter in the background. Lord Russell thinks what is for his interest to think; Mr. Bright thinks what that homely monitor, his conscience, urges on him. Lord Russell might adopt all the consequences of universal suffrage, and the principles of free trade, if he could still sit at the council-board, and dictate dispatches with a double meaning to foreign governments; but he fears to go beyond, though he nearly approaches, the line which separates the popular from the unpopular reformer. Expediency, on the contrary, forms no part of Mr. Bright's creed; and, not being a scion of a noble and illustrious house, nor having attained a position in the state which might have made him a conservative, he has no hesitation in announcing his opinions in favor of universal suffrage and free trade, in opposition of a dominant aristocracy, and in defiance of a religious establishment, and dares with provoking coolness the retaliation of the great and powerful of the land.

Mr. Bright's oratory is of a fresh, vigorous, and versatile character, and never fails to draw a multitude to the House when it is announced that he is to speak. Unlike the hesitating and timid delivery of Russell, the rapid jargon of Palmerston, the rich and graceful intonation of Gladstone, or the splendid sarcasm of Disraeli, his eloquence is bold, masculine, and ringing, and gives a better idea of intellectual and physical strength than any other speaker in the House. Although blunt, and careless of the feelings of others, there is a certain elegance in every sentence, which softens the rude sentiment into a vigorous anathema. Accurate in fact, naturally easy in delivery, bitter in irony, and ingenuous in argument, few are ready to meet him on the floor of the Commons. He is a fair specimen of what we hear called 'the fine old English gentleman,' without the ignorance, the bigotry, the awkwardness, and the peevishness, which go to make up the characters of a large proportion of the country baronets and gentry; that is, he is hearty, cordial, and merry, entering with enthusiasm into whatever he proposes to do, and determined to leave no stone unturned to accomplish it. If he should live to see the day when his countrymen shall adopt the views of which he is the foremost champion, no honor of the state will be denied him, and his name will rank with those of William of Orange, and Lord Grey, as the regenerators of the British Constitution; and if he does not, he can not but be respected, as Milton and Sidney are, by future generations, for his honesty, his patriotism under difficulty, and his fearless spirit.

* * * * *

THE ANTE-NORSE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA.

(CONCLUDED.)

THE CHINESE IN MEXICO IN THE FIFTH CENTURY.

The reader who would ascertain by the map whether it was likely that at an early period intercourse could have taken place between Eastern Asia and Western America, will have no difficulty in deciding on the geographical possibility of such transit. At Behring's Straits only forty miles of water intervene between the two continents, while routes by the Aleutian Islands, or through the Sea of Ochotsk, present no great difficulties, even to a timid navigator. And the Chinese and Japanese of earlier ages were by no means timid in their voyages. It is only within two centuries that their governments, alarmed by the growing power of the Western world, and desirous of keeping their subjects at home, prohibited the construction of strictly sea-worthy and sea-faring vessels. Even within the memory of man, Japanese junks have been driven to the California coasts.

Impressed by the probability of such intercommunication, Johann Friedrich Neumann, a learned German Orientalist, while residing in China, during the years 1829-30, for the purpose of collecting Chinese works, after investigating the subject, published its results in a work, subsequently translated by me, under his supervision. Among the first results of his inquiries, was the fact that 'during the course of many centuries, the Chinese acquired a surprisingly accurate knowledge of the north-east coast of Asia, extending, as their records in astronomy and natural history prove, to the sixty-fifth degree of latitude, and even to the Arctic Ocean.' From the Chinese Book of Mountains and Seas, it appears that the Esquimaux and their country were well known to the Chinese, and that in the sixth century, natives of the North and of the islands bordering on America, came with Japanese embassies to China. When it is borne in mind that the early Chinese geographers and astronomers determined on the situations of these northern regions, with an accuracy which has been of late years surprisingly verified by eminent European men of science, and when we learn that the Year Books or annals of China continually repeat these observations, and that their accounts of the natives of the islands within a few miles of the American shore are as undoubtedly correct as they are minute, we certainly have good reason for assuming that their description of the main land and its inhabitants is well worthy, if not of implicit belief, at least of an investigation by the savans of the Western World. Be it borne in mind, also, that during the first eight centuries of our own Christian era, a spirit of discovery in foreign lands was actively at work all over the East. In the words of Neumann:

'In the first century of our reckoning, the pride and vanity induced by the Chinese social system was partly broken by the progress of Buddhism over all Eastern Asia. He who believed in the divine mission of the son of the King of Kaphilapura, must recognize every man as his brother and equal by birth; yes, must strive (for the old Buddhism has this in common with the Christian religion) to extend the joyful mission of salvation to all the nations on the earth, and to attain this end must suffer, like the type of the God Incarnate, all earthly pain and persecution. So we find that a number of Buddhist monks and preachers have at distant times wandered to all known and unknown parts of the world, either to obtain information with regard to their distant co-religionists, or to preach the doctrine of the Holy Trinity to unbelievers. The official accounts which these missionaries have rendered of their travels, and of which we possess several entire, considered as sources of information with regard to different lands and nations, belong to the most instructive and important part of Chinese literature. From these sources we have derived, in a great degree, that information which we possess regarding North-eastern Asia and the Western coasts of America during centuries which have been hitherto vailed in the deepest obscurity.'

The earliest account, given of extended travels on the North-American continent describes a journey from Tahan or Aloska to a distance, and into a region which indicates the north-west coast of Mexico and the vicinity of San Blas. The following is a literal translation made from the original Chinese report, by Neumann:

'THE KINGDOM OF FUSANG, OR MEXICO.

'During the reign of the dynasty Tsi, in the first year of the year-naming[E] 'Everlasting Origin,' (Anno Domini 499,) came a Buddhist priest from this kingdom, who bore the cloister name of Roci-schin, that is, Universal Compassion, (Allgemeins Mitleiden: according to King-tscheu it signifies 'an old name,[F]') to the present district of Hukuang, and those surrounding it, who narrated that 'Fusang is about twenty thousand Chinese miles in an easterly direction from Tahan, and east of the middle kingdom. Many Fusang-trees grow there, whose leaves resemble the Dryanda Cordifolia;[G] the sprouts, on the contrary, resemble those of the bamboo-tree,[H] and are eaten by the inhabitants of the land. The fruit is like a pear in form, but is red. From the bark they prepare a sort of linen, which they use for clothing, and also a sort of ornamented stuff.[I] The houses are built of wooden beams; fortified and walled places a unknown.

'THEIR WRITING AND CIVIL REGULATIONS.

'They have written characters in this land, and prepare paper from the bark of the Fusang. The people have no weapons, and make no wars, but in the arrangements of the kingdom they have a northern and a southern prison. Trifling offenders were lodged in the southern, but those confined for greater offenses in the northern; so that those who were about to receive grace could be placed in the southern prison, and those to the contrary in the northern. Those men and women who were imprisoned for life were allowed to marry. The boys resulting from these marriages were, at the age of eight years, sold for slaves; the girls not until their ninth year. If a man of any note was found guilty of crimes, an assembly was held: it must be in an excavated place, (Grabe.) There they strewed ashes over him, and bade him farewell, as if he were dying. If the offender were one of a lower class, he alone was punished; but when of rank, the degradation was extended to his children and grandchildren. With those of the highest rank it attained to the seventh generation.

'THE KINGDOM AND THE NOBLES.

'The name of the king is pronounced Ichi. The nobles of the first class are termed Tuilu; of the second, Little Tuilu; and of the third, Na-to-scha. When the prince goes forth he is accompanied by horns and trumpets. The color of his clothes changes with the different years. In the first two of the ten-year cyclus they are blue; in the two next, red; in the two following, yellow; in the two next, red; and in the last two, black.

'MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

'The horns of the oxen are so large that they contain ten bushels, (Schaeffel.) They use them to hold all manner of things. Horses, oxen and stags, are harnessed to their wagons. Stags are used here as cattle are used in the Middle Kingdom, and from the milk of the hind they make butter. The red pears of the Fusang tree keep good throughout the year. Moreover, they have apples and reeds; from the latter they prepare mats. No iron is found in this land; but copper, gold, and silver are not prized, and do not serve as a medium of exchange in the market.

'Marriage is determined upon in the following manner. The suitor builds himself a hut before the door of the house where the one longed for dwells, and waters and cleans the ground every morning and evening. When a year has passed by, if the maiden is not inclined to marry him, he departs; should she he willing, it is completed. When the parents die, they fast seven days. For the death of the paternal or maternal grandfather they lament five days; at the death of elder or younger sisters or brothers, uncles or aunts, three days. They then sit from morning to evening before an image of the ghost, absorbed in prayer, but wear no mourning clothes. When the king dies, the son who succeeds him does not busy himself for three years with state affairs.

'In earlier times these people lived not according to the laws of Buddha. But it happened that in the second year-naming 'Great Light,' of song, (A.D. 458,) five beggar monks, from the kingdom Kipin, went to this land, extended over it the religion of Buddha, and with it his holy writings and images. They instructed the people in the principles of monastic life, and so changed their manners.'

Such is the account of Mexico, as given by the old Buddhist monk Hoei-schin. What is there authentically known of ancient America and its inhabitants which confirms his account?

In the Fusang tree we have, according to the opinion of Neumann, the Agave Americana or Great American Aloe, called by the Indians Maguey, which is remarkably abundant in the plains of 'New-Spain,' and which supplies so many of the wants of its inhabitants even at the present day. An intoxicating drink, paper, thread, ropes, pins, and needles, (from the thorns,) and clothing, are all furnished by it, so that a traveler, observing the ease with which these are obtained, declares that in Mexico the Maguey plant must first be exterminated ere the sloth and idleness which now so generally afflict them, can be checked. Such a curious plant, supplying to such an extent, and so exclusively, so many of the needs of life, would naturally be the first object noted by an explorer.

Very remarkable is the observation that 'in this land no iron is found, and that copper, gold, and silver, are not prized;' from which we may infer that they were known, and probably abundant, and that they 'do not serve as a medium of exchange in the market.' It is needless to point out the fact that this was the case not only in ancient Mexico, but also in Peru, and that these were probably the only countries on the face of the earth where 'the precious metals' were held in such indifference. Be it observed that the monk Hoei-schin says nothing of the abundance of gold and silver; he simply remarks as a curious fact, that they were not used as a circulating medium.

In commenting on this record, Neumann judiciously reminds the reader that the information given by Hoei-schin and other Buddhist travelers, goes back into a period long anterior to the most remote periods alluded to in the wavering legends of the Aztecs, resting upon uncertain interpretations of hieroglyphics. One thing we know, that in America as in Europe, one wave of emigration and conquest swept after another, each destroying in a great measure all traces of its predecessor. Thus in Peru, the Inca race ruled over the lower caste, and would in time have probably extinguished it. But the Incas themselves were preceded by another and more gifted race, since it is evident that these unknown predecessors were far more gifted than themselves as architects. 'Who this race were,' says Prescott, (Conquest of Peru, chap. i. pp. 12, 13, ed. 1847,) 'and whence they came, may afford a tempting theme for inquiry to the speculative antiquarian. But it is a land of darkness that lies far beyond the domain of history.'

But as the American waves of conquest flowed South, it is no extravagant hypothesis to assume that the race of men whom the monk encountered in Mexico may possibly have had something in common with what was afterward found further south, in the land of the Incas. One thing is certain; that there is a singularly Peruvian air in all that this short narrative tells us of the land 'Fusang.' Fortified places, he says, were unknown; and Prescott speaks of the system of fortifications established through the empire as though it had originated—as it most undoubtedly did—with the Incas. Most extraordinary, however, is the remark of the monk, that the houses are built with wooden beams. As houses the world over are constructed in this manner, the remark might seem almost superfluous. It is worth observing that the Peruvians built their houses with wooden beams, and as Prescott tells us, 'knew no better way of holding the beams together than tying them with thongs of maguey.' Now be it observed, that the monk makes a direct transition from speaking of the textile fiber and fabric of the maguey to the wooden beams of the houses—a coincidence which has at least a color of proof. It may be remarked, by the way, that this construction of houses 'tied up,' was admirably adapted to a land of earthquakes, as in Mexico, and that Prescott himself testifies that a number of them 'still survive, while the more modern constructions of the conquerors are buried in ruins.'

Most strikingly Peruvian is the monk's account of 'the Kingdom and the Nobles.' The name Ichi, is strikingly suggestive of the natural Chinese pronunciation of the word Inca. The stress laid on the three grades of nobles, suggests the Peruvian Inca castes of lower grade, as well as the Mexican; while the stately going forth of the king, 'accompanied by horns and trumpets,' vividly recalls Prescott's account of the journeyings of the Peruvian potentate. The change of the color of his garments according to the astronomical cycle, is, however, more thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of the institutions of the Children of the Sun than any thing which we have met in the whole of this strange and obsolete record. 'The ritual of the Incas,' says Prescott, 'involved a routine of observances as complex and elaborate as ever distinguished that of any nation, whether pagan or Christian. Each month had its appropriate festival, or rather festivals. The four principal had reference to the Sun, and commemorated the great periods of his annual progress, the solstices and equinoxes. Garments of a peculiar wool, and feathers of a peculiar color, were reserved to the Incas. I can not identify the blue, red, yellow, and black, but it is worthy of remark that the rainbow was his special attribute or scutcheon, and that the mere fact that his whole life was passed in accordance with the requisitions of astronomical festivals, and that different colors were reserved to him and identified with him, establishes a strange analogy with the narrative of Hoei-schin.

'Of this subject of the cycles and change of colors corresponding to astronomical mutations, it is worth noting that Montesinos[J] expressly asserts that the Peruvians threw their years into cycles of ten; a curious fact which has escaped the notice of Neumann, who conjectures that 'it may have been a subdivision of the Aztec period, or have even been used as an independent period, as was indeed the case by the Chinese, who term their notations 'stems.' It is worthy of remark,' he adds, 'that among the Mongols and Mantchous these 'stems' are named after colors which perhaps have some relation to the several colors of the royal clothing in the cycles of 'Fusang.' These Tartaric tribes term the first two years of the ten-year cyclus, 'green and greenish,' the two next, 'red and reddish,' and soon, yellow and yellowish, white and whitish, and finally, black and blackish.'

I am perfectly aware that Peru is not Mexico; but I beg the reader to keep in mind my former observation, that Mexico might have been at one time peopled by a race who had Peruvian customs, which in after-years were borne by them far to the South. The ancient mythology and ethnography of Mexico presents, however, a mass of curious identities with that of Asia. Both Mexico and Peru had the tradition of a deluge, from which seven prisoners escaped; in the hieroglyphs of the former country, these seven are represented as issuing from an egg.

It is remarkable that a Peruvian tradition declares the first missionaries of civilization who visited them to have been white and bearded. 'This may remind us,' says Prescott, 'of the tradition existing among the Aztecs, in respect to Quetzalcoatl, the good deity, who, with a similar garb and aspect, came up the great plateau from the East, on a like benevolent mission to the natives.' In like manner the Aesir, children of Light, or of the Sun, came from the East to Scandinavia, and taught the lore of the Gods.

The Peruvian embalming of the royal dead takes us back to Egypt; the burning of the wives of the deceased Incas, reveals India; the singularly patriarchal character of the whole Peruvian policy is like that of China in the olden time; while the system of espionage, of tranquillity, of physical well-being, and the iron-like immovability in which the whole social frame was cast, brings before the reader Japan, as it even now exists. In fact, there is something strangely Japanese in the entire cultus of Peru, as described by all writers.

It is remarkable that the Supreme Being of the Peruvians was worshiped under the names of Pachacomac, 'he who sustains, or gives life to the universe,' and of Viracocha, 'Foam of the Sea,' a name strikingly recalling that of Venus Aphrodite, the female second principle in all ancient mythologies. Not less curious was the institution of the Vestal Virgins of the Sun, who were buried alive if detected in an intrigue, and whose duty it was to keep burning the sacred fire obtained at the festival of Raymi.

'Vigilemque sacraverat ignem Excubias divum aeternas.'

This fire was obtained as by the ancient Romans, on a precisely similar occasion, by means of a concave mirror of polished metal. The Incas, in order to preserve purity of race, married their own sisters, as did the kings of Persia and other Oriental nations, urged by a like feeling of pride. Among the Peruvians, Mama, signified 'mother,' while Papa, was applied to the chief priest. 'With both, the term seems to embrace in its most comprehensive sense, the paternal relation, in which it is more familiarly employed by most of the nations of Europe.'

It should be borne in mind, that as in the case of the Green Corn festival, many striking analogies can be established between the Indian tribes of North-America and the Peruvians. Gallatin has shown the affinity of languages between all the American nations; at the remote age when the monk visited Mexico, it is possible that the first race which subsequently spread southward occupied the entire north.

Let the reader also remember that while the proofs of the existence or residence of Orientals in America are extremely vague and uncertain, and supported only by coincidences, (singular and inexplicable as the latter may be,) the antecedent probability of their having come hither, is far stronger than that of the Norse discovery of this country, or even that of Columbus himself. When we see an aggressive nation, with a religious propaganda, boasting a commerce and gifted with astronomers and geographers of no mean ability, (and the accuracy of the old Chinese men of science has been frequently verified,) advancing century after century in a certain direction, chronicling correctly every step made, and accurately describing the geography and ethnography of a certain region, we have no good ground to deny the last advance which their authentic history claims to have made, however indisposed we may be to admit it. One thing, at least, will probably be cheerfully conceded by the impartial reader; that the subject well deserves further investigation, and that it is to be hoped that it will obtain it from those students who are at present so earnestly occupied in exploring the mysteries of Oriental literature.

* * * * *

STATE RIGHTS.

The theory of State Rights, as expounded by its advocates in its application to the several States of the American Union, is subversive of all government, and calculated to destroy our political organization. Its tendency is to weaken the central government by minute division of the power necessary for its maintainance. Without power to make its authority respected, no government can live. The doctrine of State Sovereignty detracts from this authority by lessening the power which upholds it. Thirty-four-States, each claiming exclusive authority to act independently on any given subject, have only one thirty-fourth part of the strength that they would have, were they all acting under and controlled by one central head. That central head in our Union is the Federal Government, formed by and growing out of the Constitution, and it must exist for the protection of each of its thirty-four members, as well as for itself, the connecting power. Its acts must not be disputed by any one of the States or by any number of them acting in concert. If one or more States may defy the central authority or attempt to withdraw from its government, any other States may do likewise, to the ruin of the political fabric erected at so much cost, and in its place would spring up scores of weak and unprotected communities. But, says the State rights advocate, this central power will have too much authority, too much control over the States; will become despotic, and in time destroy the liberties of the people. How? By whom will those liberties be destroyed? This central power, styled the Federal Government, is formed by the people, is of the people, is for the people, and has only such power as the people gave it; and thus being of and from the people, it (or they) can not destroy its (or their) own liberties. Were our government hereditary instead of elective; were our institutions monarchical instead of republican; had we privileged classes perpetuated by primogeniture, there might be some danger of placing too much power in the hands of the Federal Government; but formed as our institutions are, framed as our Constitution is, educated as our people are, there can be no fear of having the central power or general Federal Government too strong, or its authority supreme. Without strength there can be no authority; without authority there can be no respect; without respect there can be no government; without government there can be no civilization. The doctrine of State rights as applied to the communities forming the American Union, elevates the State over the nation, demands that the Federal shall yield to the State laws, and completely ignores the supremacy of the united authority of the whole people. This theory carried out logically, would make counties equal to States; towns equal to counties; wards and districts equal to towns; neighborhoods equal to districts and wards; and to come down to the last application of the principle, every one man in a neighborhood equal to the whole, in fact, superior, if the State rights doctrine be true, that the State is supreme within its own limits. The application of this principle ends society by destroying the order based on authority, and placing the State above the Nation, and the individual above the State. Civilized societies are but the aggregation of persons coming or remaining together for mutual interest and protection. This mutual interest requires certain rules for the protection of the weak from the encroachments of the strong in the society, as well as from outside enemies. These rules take the form of laws. These laws must be administered; their administration requires power. This power is placed in the hands of certain members of this society, community, or State, as the case may be, for the good of the whole State, and each individual claiming protection from the State, or whose interest is promoted by being a member thereof, is under moral as well as legal obligations to submit to this authority thus exercised by the chosen executors of the public will. Rights that might pertain to one man on an island by himself, do not attach to man in civilized communities. There he must not go beyond the landmarks established by law, and he agrees to this arrangement by remaining in the State or community. The same principle is equally applicable to the States of the American Union. Before the adoption of the Federal Constitution, they were separate, distinct, and so far as any central head or supreme governing power was concerned, independent States, or, in fact, sovereignties. True, they had tried to get along under a sort of confederation agreement, a kind of temporary alliance for offensive and defensive ends, but which failed from its own inherent weakness, from the lack of that cohesiveness which nothing but centralization can give. Prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, these different States were like so many different individuals outside of any regular society; were merely so many isolated aggregations of non-nationalized individuals. Experience showed them their unfortunate condition; as separate States they had no strength to repel a common enemy, no credit, no money, no authority, commanded no respect. So it is with an individual outside of society. These States were then in the enjoyment—no, not in the enjoyment but merely in possession—of State rights to the fullest extent. They had the right to be poor; the right to be weak; the right to get in debt; the right to issue bills of credit, (was any one found who thought it right to take them?) the right to wage war with any of their neighbors; the right to do any and all acts pertaining to an independent sovereignty; but these rights were not all that the people of these States desired; and after trying the independent and the confederate State policy until experience had shown the utter fallacy of both, they met in convention and passed the present Constitution, and formed themselves into ONE NATION. This Constitution, compact, copartnership, confederation, combination, or whatever it may be called, was and is the written foundation (voluntarily made) on which the NATION is built and maintained.

The charter, instrument, or Constitution, defines, by common consent and mutual agreement of the parties voluntarily forming it, the powers, rights, and duties of the national government growing out of and based on this Constitution. Among the powers thus delegated to the National or Federal Government, and to be used by the legislative authority thereof, are the following:

'ARTICLE I.—SECTION 8.

'The Congress shall have power—

'1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.

'2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States.

'3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.

'4. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies, throughout the United States.

'5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.

'6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States.

'7. To establish post-offices and post-roads.

'8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

'9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court.

'10. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations.

'11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.

'12. To raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.

'13. To provide and maintain a navy.

'14. To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

'15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.

'16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia, according to the discipline proscribed by Congress.

'18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.'

The first two words in this section—'the Congress'—completely annul the separate integrity of States. The Congress of what, and for what? The Congress of the UNITED STATES, acting for the UNITED States, as a UNIT, a WHOLE, a UNION. The only allusion in this section to any thing like a right existing in any State after the adoption of the Constitution, is the right to officer the militia, and these officers are to 'train' the militia, under the direction of Congress, and not under State laws—a clause which of itself strikes a decisive blow at the theory of independent State rights. In no one of these specifications is there a single allusion to any 'State.' Every power enumerated is given to the 'United States,' to the 'Union' formed by virtue of the Constitution. Never was there a more perfect absorption of atoms into one mass, than in these specifications; but to make the principle still stronger, and as if to remove any doubt as to 'State rights,' the first clause of the Ninth Section of the same Article expressly prohibits any State from importing certain persons after a given date, which, when it arrived, (in 1808,) Congress passed a national law stopping the slave-trade—a trade that some of the States would have been glad to encourage, or at least, allow, if they had had authority to do so. This right was taken from them by the Constitution, in the year 1808; up to that time they had that right; but after that date the right no longer existed, and Congress passed the law referred to, in accordance with the power given them by this clause of the Constitution.

But this First Article of Section Nine is not all in that section that smothers State rights; for Article Five declares that vessels bound to or from one State need not enter, clear, or pay duties in another. Why this specification, if the States were to be supreme in their own limits? (and this doctrine of State rights is, in its essence, supremacy.) Independent states exact clearances and entrances, and demand duties from foreign vessels, but never from their own. State rights are ignored in this Article. But to prevent any possibility of any State ever exercising the rights of sovereignty now claimed by the advocates of this most pernicious doctrine, from which has grown the present gigantic rebellion, Section Ten, of the same Article, goes on to declare that—

'1. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts; or grant any title of nobility.

'2. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty on tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State or with a foreign power, or engage in war.'

Language can not be stronger; intentions were never more clearly expressed; thoughts were never more explicitly set forth in words. Nothing is left for doubt; all is concise, positive, and binding. Nothing is left to be guessed at; nothing left that could be construed to mean that States 'may' or 'may not.' 'SHALL' and 'SHALL NOT,' are the words used to define what the States are to do or not to do. The very slight 'right' given to the States to lay duties for executing their inspection laws, carries with it a proviso, or command, that the proceeds of such duties must be paid into the National Treasury, and the very laws that the States might pass for this purpose must be approved by 'THE CONGRESS.' What Congress? The Congress of the UNITED STATES—of the UNION. Every vestige of State sovereignty, of 'State rights,' is utterly annihilated in these clauses.

Independent, sovereign states may and do make treaties, alliances, grant letters of marque, or coin money; in fact, no 'State' or sovereignty can exist without these powers; and the fact that these powers are all taken from and denied to the States of the American Union, is conclusive proof that the framers of the Constitution did not intend to allow the States the sovereignty now claimed for them, and which the rebellious States are endeavoring to maintain. This heresy must be exorcised now and forever.

Is there any thing more in the Constitution (and bear in mind that no right is claimed for any State except in accordance with this instrument, which is still in full force except in those rebellious States where this disorganizing doctrine of 'State rights' has uncontrolled sway) making the Union supreme and the States subordinate? What says the following section?

'Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.'

A State, therefore, may so legislate, that is, it may have acts and records, but each other State SHALL give to the records and proceedings of all the rest 'full faith and credit.' Does not this enactment thoroughly negative all theories of the exclusive supremacy of State rights? Independent sovereign States do not, in the absence of treaties, give any faith or credit to the records or proceedings of other independent states. Our States are not only compelled to do this, by this section, but must do so in accordance with the manner prescribed by 'the Congress' of the UNITED STATES, of the UNION, and of the NATION. No other congress is mentioned.

'SECTION 2.

'The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.'

By this clause a native or naturalized citizen of Maine can conduct business, hold and convey real estate (the highest civil, social, and judicial tests of citizenship) in the State of Georgia. The citizen of Minnesota can do likewise in New-York, and so of each and in all the States. Independent states or supreme sovereignties do not allow these privileges to any but their own citizens. The United States do not, neither do other nations. Citizenship must precede the right to hold and convey real estate. All governments are naturally jealous of the alien. By this clause, no American citizen can be an alien in any State of the American Union. He is a citizen of the nation. No State can pass any law demanding more of a citizen not born, though residing within its limits, than from one born therein, or place him under any restrictions not common to the native or other citizen of such State. Not a vestige of 'State' exclusiveness is there in the clause. Every idea of State supremacy is blotted out by it. A heavier blow is, however, dealt at State rights in the following section:

'The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and, on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive, (when the Legislature can not be convened,) against domestic violence.'

The greatest of all rights that an independent state can or may have, is the right to adopt its own form of government; but this clause completely destroys such right on the part of any State of this Union to frame its own form of government. No State, for example, can have a monarchical government; since the United States are to guarantee a republican form: and no State can adopt an hereditary or theocratic government, because the UNITED STATES are bound to give each State a republican government. In like manner we might run through all the forms of government that have ever blessed or cursed our race, without finding one which can he adopted by any State of this Union, except the single form of 'republican,' named in the Constitution. But can a State bereft of the right to frame its own mode of government be said to be possessed of 'sovereign' 'State rights,' or could a more effectual provision against their development have been formed than this?

'This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby; any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

'The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several STATE LEGISLATURES, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the SEVERAL STATES, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution.'

This Constitution, these laws, these treaties, shall be the supreme law, no matter what 'State' constitutions and 'State' laws may declare. 'Shall!' is the word, and there can be no doubt as to its meaning. Again, members of the State Legislatures, and all officers of the several States 'shall' be bound to support the 'Constitution.' Where are the 'State rights' in these clauses? Every State and every State official is made subordinate to and an executive of the acts of the 'United States,' and the United States constitutes a 'nation'. That is the only word which meets our case. WE ARE A NATION, not 'a tenant-at-will sort of confederacy.'

The waters of the Bay of New-York and of the Hudson river flow entirely within the States of New-York and New-Jersey. One of the vested rights of an independent state, is that known as 'eminent domain,' or supreme ownership, implying control. Apply this doctrine of State rights in this case, or rather, allow it to be applied by the States named above, and they could prevent the navigation of these waters by any but their own citizens or those to whom they might grant that privilege. If this doctrine of State rights is sound, these two States would have the right to levy tolls or duties on every vessel that sails those waters, as the State of New-York exacts tolls on her canals. Such power thus exercised, would cripple commerce, inconvenience the public, and utterly destroy all comity between the States. This exacting tolls for navigation of waters is one of the most offensive systems left us by past generations. It is so odious that modern governments decline to submit to it in cases where there is no doubt as to 'State rights,' as in that of the 'Sound Dues' exacted by Denmark. If, however, the State is supreme within its limits, it has a perfect right to exact such tolls. But no State in this nation has any such right under the Constitution. Its existence would destroy the Union by placing each State under the laws and exactions of either one of the others. The troubles growing out of such exactions would beget dispute; these disputes would beget open strife, which would end in open rupture and the downfall of the NATIONAL UNION.

The 'UNITED STATES,' 'the Union,' 'the Nation,' are supreme. The States, as States, are subordinate; as 'parts,' they are inferior to the 'whole.' The 'State rights' doctrine is wrong, disorganizing, destructive of national life, and must be destroyed.

Again, one grand evidence of a nation's or a people's civilization, is found in the correspondence, written and printed, conducted by the citizens. Barbarians have and need no correspondence. Civilization needs it, and can not exist without it. A migratory people like ours have more correspondence than older and less migratory nations. A citizen emigrating from Vermont to Illinois must correspond with the friends of his old home. The old friend in Vermont must know how the absent one 'gets along in the world.' To conduct this correspondence, the postal or mail service was devised. Before its existence the communication between separated friends and business people was uncertain, irregular, and mere matter of chance, to be conveyed by stray travelers, or not interchanged at all. The necessities of civilization brought the postal or mail service into action. To conduct this service over a nation, requires the right of passage through the entire limits of the nation. This right, to be available, must have power to enforce its own requirements. It must be central, CONTROLLING, SUPREME. Without these, there would be no safety, no system, no uniformity, no regularity. To insure these to all the people of the States, the Constitution has wisely placed these powers in 'THE CONGRESS' of the Union, of the 'NATION.' In accordance with the powers thus vested in Congress, our present postal or mail service has been created. No State has a right to set up its own mail or postal system. No State has a right to interfere with the transportation of the national mails. 'The UNITED STATES MAIL,' is the term used. If any State had a right to establish a mail within its own limits, it would also have the right to prohibit or curtail the transportation of other States' mails through its limits. This right would destroy the entire system, and break up the interchange of correspondence so essential to our civilization. If the States had any such right, they could affix discriminating tariffs on the correspondence of other States passing through them. The State of New-York could, if this right existed, make the letters sent over its roads by the people of Massachusetts to the people of Ohio, pay just such tariffs for the 'right of passage' as it might choose. The absurdity and utter unreasonableness of this claimed right is so apparent as to need no argument against it.

The exercise of this pretended right by the Southern States has caused the present rebellion. But for this doctrine we should not be expending a million a day in supporting six hundred thousand men in camp, who ought to be producers for the support of life instead of missionaries of death. This war is the legitimate result of this heresy of 'State rights.' If this doctrine had never been put in practice, we should not now have slavery to curse us with its degrading, inhumanizing influences. Slavery exists in violation of the Constitution. Slavery was never established by that document. The States violated it in their attempts at legalizing it. All their laws declaring that the status of the child must be that of the mother, are but so many 'BILLS OF ATTAINDER,' working 'CORRUPTION OF BLOOD;' and every State, as well as Congress itself, was and is positively prohibited by the Constitution from passing any such bill or law; and should we ever succeed in having any but a pro-slavery, slave-catching Supreme Court, all these laws will be annulled by their own most positive unconstitutionally. True, there were slaves at the time the Constitution was adopted, but all then living are now dead; and but for this doctrine of 'State rights,' there never would have been any State law making the child of a slave mother also a slave; but for this doctrine no such bill of attainder would have been passed, or if passed, it never could have been enforced; and we should not to-day be listening to the cries of four millions of slaves, nor have the homes of thousands of honest citizens made desolate by the absence of loved ones. But for this terrible doctrine, 'the click of hammers closing rivets up,' would not now be giving 'dreadful note of preparation.' But for this heresy, subversive of all law, of all order, of all nationality, we should not to-day be at war for our existence. But for this doctrine, and the right claimed by some of the States to extend their 'bills of attainder,' working corruption of blood over the entire Union, we should not have our homes filled with grief and our streets covered with the funeral pageants of brave men killed in defense of the Union. We want no more evidence of the accursed nature of the doctrine of 'State rights.' We are a UNION—a NATION. We must have NATIONAL LAWS, NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, NATIONAL FREEDOM. We have had too much of State law, too much of State rights, too much of State slavery. The NATION MUST BE SUPREME. The States must be subordinate. As we uphold and perpetuate the National authority, so will be our existence as a people. As we detract from this, so will be our weakness and downfall.