NOTWITHSTANDING all that is averred by | those who express an extreme veneration for antiquity, we are constrained by many evidences to believe that society has made advances―very great advances, if not in the practice, yet in the theory of morals and civilization during many ages past, from the dawn of Christianity even to the present moment. What system of government, for example, was ever known more perfect in its theory than our own? What system of morals more complete than that of a Christian, republican philosopher of the present day, believing as he does that the "innate freedom of the human breast" is the first argument for political liberty,* as it is equally the first argument for religious dependence?

Toward a perfect practice, the first requisite is a perfect theory; without a divinely perfect theory of morals, there can be no perfect practice of morals; without a perfect theory of laws and constitutions, governments are necessarily imperfect in their practice; and we do firmly believe that if the minds of the majority were thoroughly imbued with those principles which gave origin to our system of government, the errors of our policy and practice would be comparatively few and trifling. The duty of the conservative politician is therefore evident.

"An innate spirit of freedom first told me that the measures which the administration have

for some time been, and now are most violently pursuing, are opposed to every principle of natural justice."-Letters of Washington, Sparks, vol. 2, p. 397.

VOL. III. NO. V. NEW SERIES.

Having established in his mind the perfect theory of the government, as it stands in the written laws and their great commentaries-in the Constitution, and the writings of those who founded it—he is to put that theory in practice to the extent of his power, not only in the simple acts of authority, where the path of duty is plain, but in that freer and more responsible field of party conduct; wherein, far more than in the exercise of a legitimate authority, the knowledge, the power, and the virtue of the statesman make themselves conspicuous. To be a man of principle, and at the same time an active politician, is so rare a union of qualities, that the ambition of attaining it is perhaps the most generous ambition that can call any man into public life.

It is, therefore, not without a sentiment of the deepest regret that we hear many of our friends appealing to the worse passions of the party, and of those that have come newly into power, to urge them into a line of conduct that must inevitably weaken their hold upon the affections of the people, and debase them in the estimation of the best men; urging upon them, and promising for them, a proscriptive and partisan employment of their new authority. The authority of a great master in politics is quoted for their instruction; the example of the Jackson administration is held up to them as a model, for its good is urged with an air of threatening, as if success; and the appeal to their gratitude to say, "Do as we desire, or you will suffer by your friends."

29