gress, in both Houses, and has no reference to any right of instruction by the State Legislatures to their Senators; that was not the subject of the debate; nor is it intimated by whom or in what manner these standing instructions are to be given. The meaning of General Hamilton, I think, is obvious, and has no bearing on our question. The phrase, standing instruction, means that it is so clearly the interest of the larger States to increase their representation, that their delegates will always consider themselves to be bound, to be instructed by that interest, by their duty to their States, to vote for such increase. They will so stand instructed, at all times and without any particular direction from their States; they will always take it for granted, that it is their duty to increase the representation. The very phrase distinguishes it from the case of specific instructions made, from time to time, on particular measures as they shall arise for deliberation and decision in the national legislature. But General Hamilton, as quoted, proceeds to say-"The people have it in their power to instruct their representatives, and the State Legislatures which appoint their Senators may enjoin it (that is the increase of the representation) also upon them." I may here repeat that all this is true; but by no means reaches the point to which this right of instruction is now carried. The people may instruct, and the legislatures may enjoin, and both will always, doubtless, be attended to with a deep respect and a powerful influence; but if with all this respect and under this influence, the representative or the Senator cannot, in his honest and conscientious judgment, | submit himself to them, does he violate his official duty, and is he bound to relinquish his office? This is the question, and no affirmative answer to it, or any thing that implies it, can be found in any of the writings or speeches of the gentleman alluded to; nor, as I believe, in any of the writings or speeches of any of the distinguished men at that time. The doctrine-is of a later date; it is not coeval with the Constitution, nor with the men who formed it. Much reliance is placed, by the writer in the Enquirer, on the strict meaning of the word enjoin; it is thought to be peculiarly imperative. Conceding, for the argument, that this precise word was really used by the speaker, it is certain that in speaking, and even in writing, this word is not always used in the strict sense attributed to it. Cases of common parlance are familiar and of daily occurrence, in which it is used only to mean a strong, emphatic recommendation or advice or a forcible expression of a wish, and not an absolute right to command. If, however, we turn to the dictionary, Johnson tells us that to enjoin is "to direct-to order to prescribe; it is more authoritative than direct, and less imperious than command." Not one of his illustrations or examples employ it in the strong sense of power now contended for.

"To satisfy the good old man,

construed, do not seem to me to maintain the present
Virginia doctrine of instructions. Allow me to repeat
it, for it is that, and not something which may approach
it, which is our subject of difference and argument. It
is-whether a Senator of the United States is under any
moral or constitutional obligation-whether he is bound
as a faithful and true officer, or as a good citizen of the
Republic of the United States, to obey the instructions of
the Legislature of his State, when they require him to
do an act which in his deliberate judgment and conscien-
tious conviction, is contrary to his duty to his country,
to all the States, and to his own State; to the Consti-
tution, under and by which he holds his office and his
power, and to the oath he has taken to support that Con-
stitution? This is the question truly stated-can the
power or authority of a changing, irresponsible body,
which directs one thing this year (as we have repeat-
edly seen) and another the next, or, if it were not this
changeling-force him to violate his oath, or absolve
him from the responsibility, if he do so? If a Senator
of Virginia or Delaware were to receive instructions to
give a vote which he truly believed would be a violation
of the rights, and injurious to the interests, of every
other state of the confederacy, as secured to them by
the Constitution, although it might be of some local ad-
vantage to Virginia or Delaware, should that Senator,
acting as he does as a Senator, not for his particular
State only, but for the States also whose rights he vio-
lates, obey such instructions? Can there be a doubt of
the reply to this question? Will you say he should
obey or resign—that another may come who will obey?
I deny that his duty imposes any such alternative upon
him. On the contrary, it is particularly his duty not to
resign for such a reason or such an object. It would be
to abandon the duty he owes to the Constitution and the
other States, at the very moment when they need his
services in their defence; and not only to abandon
them, but to surrender his post and his power to one
who, in his estimation, is so far their enemy as to take
the post for the very purpose of violating them. It
would be to desert “the general welfare” which he has
sworn to defend and promote, in order to give his place
and power to one who will sacrifice the general welfare
to some local and particular interest or object. To de-
sert it in such circumstances, may produce the same
evils and consequences, as if he were to remain and
obey his instructions. His vote or his absence may
turn the question.

As the incidental arguments, not upon the direct question, attributed to Messrs. Jay and Hamilton, are now relied upon to support this doctrine of instructions, I will cheerfully refer to these great men, adding to them the name of Mr. Madison, and endeavor to show, from better evidence than reported debates, what were really their opinions upon this asserted power of the State Legislatures, and in what manner they thought Senators were amenable to their Legislatures for their acts and votes in the National Congress. I shall do this, not on the authority of reported speeches, but by adverting to what they have written and published, as the true spirit and doctrines of the Constitution. To be brief, I will give you the summing up of the argument in the "Federalist," in favor of the powThe extracts from the speeches in the New Yorkers of the Senate under the Constitution. I refer to Convention, even if accurately reported, and strictly the numbers 62 and 63, written by Mr. Madison; but,

I would bend under any heavy weight
That he'll enjoin me to."

Here the submission or obedience is altogether volun-
tary; with no right or power in the "good old man"
to require or compel it. Again,

"Monks and philosophers, and such as do continually enjoin

themselves."

resign his place? The tenure of the Constitution, as Mr. Madison understood it, is essentially changed by this doctrine. These changes of opinions and measures are, in the opinion of Mr. Madison, a great and danger

of some stable institution”—such as our Senate was intended to be-but such as it cannot be on this doctrine of instructions.

But this great man and enlightened statesman, jealous enough of the rights and liberties of the people, does not stop here in explaining the uses of the Senate. It is not the passions of Legislatures only that are to be guarded against by the conservative power of that body. He thinks that it "may be sometimes necessary as a defence to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions ;" he justly applauds the salutary interference in critical moments, of some respectable and temperate body of citizens, "to check the misguided

as it is understood, giving the opinions and views of the illustrious triumvirate. Their whole argument and exposition of the powers, duties, and responsibilities of the Senators, are utterly inconsistent with the control upon them now set up on the part of the State Legisla-ous evil in any government, and show "the necessity tures. It is not merely that this right of instruction is no where mentioned or alluded to, as one of the means by which the Senators are to be kept to their duty, but such a right cannot be reconciled with the benefits intended by the Constitution to be derived from the permanency of that body—from its independence and its elevation above, or protection from, the caprices and fluctuations of popular feeling, often improperly called popular opinion. Allow me particularly to turn your attention to a few passages from Mr. Madison's examination of the "Constitution of the Senate." His second reason for having a Senate, or second branch of the Legislative Assembly, is thus stated: "The necessity of a Senate is not less indicated by the propen-career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people sity of all single and numerous assemblies to yield to against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be regain their authority over the public mind." He conseduced by factious leaders into intemperate and perni-siders the Senate as "an anchor against popular fluctucious resolutions." If this is true of the House of Re-ations ;" and he certainly never imagined that the presentatives of the United States; if their intemperate capstan and cable were in the hands of the State Legisand pernicious resolutions are to be guarded against latures, to remove the anchor at their pleasure. He and controlled by the more sedate and permanent power truly says, that in all free governments, the cool and of the Senate, how much stronger is the reason when deliberate sense of the community ought and ultimately applied to the Legislatures of the States? Having their will prevail; but he did not believe that this cool and narrow views of national questions, and their local de- deliberate sense would be found, on the spur of the occa signs and interests as the first objects of their attention, sion, in a popular body liable to intemperate and sudden it seems to me to be a strange absurdity to put the Se- passions and impulses, and the seductions of factious nate as a guard and control over the House of Repre- leaders. It was to control and check such movements, sentatives, and then to have that Senate under the di- and not to be controlled by them, that the Senate was rection and control of the Legislatures of the States-constituted; and to check and suspend them until the or it may be, on a vital question, under the direction of deliberate and cool sense of the community can be ob the Legislature of the smallest State in the Union. Are tained; which, when fairly ascertained, will be recogthere no local impulses and passions to agitate these Le-nized and respected by the Senate as fully and certainly gislatures? no factious leaders to seduce them into in- as by the Legislatures of the States. The members of temperate and pernicious resolutions-and to induce these Legislatures have no means of knowing the public them to prefer some little, local advantage, to "the sentiments, which are not equally open to the Senators; general welfare." To give to the Senate the power, the nor are their inducements to conform to them more perwill, and the courage to oppose and control these sudden suasive or strong. Mr. Madison goes so far as to say, and violent passions in the more popular branch of our that as our governments are entirely representative, there national legislature, Mr. Madison says, "It ought more-is "a total exclusion of the people in their collective over to possess great firmness, and consequently ought to capacity, from any share in them." If then, the will of hold its authority by a tenure of considerable duration." the people, declared by themselves, should not move a But what can that firmness avail, how will it be shaken, Senator from his own conviction of his duty, when he of what possible use will it be, if the Senator is bound believes the act required of him is contrary to that duty, to follow the dictates of a changing body, subject, em- and such is the constitutional right and obligation of his phatically to sudden impulses and seductions, at a dis-office, shall he be driven to a violation of that duty or a tance from the scene of his deliberations, and deprived relinquishment of that right, by a second-hand, doubtof the sources of information which he possesses, and ful, equivocal, and, perhaps, false, expression of that acting in a different sphere of duty from that he moves will, by and through an intermediate body, no better in? Firmness in an agent who has no will of his own, informed of the cool and deliberate sense of the comno right to act but on the dictation of another, would munity than he is himself—no better disposed than he not only be superfluous, but a positive evil and disqua- is to satisfy the public sentiment, and not half so well lification. It would produce struggles and perhaps re-informed as he is of the tendency and consequences of fusal, where his duty was to submit. The more pliable the instrument in such a case, the better would it an- To meet the objections to the dangerous power of the swer the purposes it was designed for. To be firm, Senate, continued for so long a period as six years, and says Mr. Madison, the Senator must hold his authority to quiet the alarm that had been raised on that subject, by a tenure of considerable duration. But how can this Mr. Madison states what he supposed to be the check be, if he is to hold it from year to year as the Legisla-or protection provided by the Constitution against their ture of his State may change its opinion on the same usurpations, and which he thought amply sufficient. subject, and require him to follow these changes or to What is that check? Is it any right in the appointing

the measure in question?

Legislatures to direct his conduct and his votes, and to that I had no right to give the command which he has revoke his powers, directly or indirectly, if he refuse disobeyed. There cannot be a lawful command, and a his obedience? If for any cause, justifiable and honest|lawful disobedience on the same subject. If by the or not so, they wish to deprive him of his office, to annul the appointment made by a preceding legislature or by themselves, may they do so by giving him instructions at their pleasure, desiring nothing but to accomplish their own objects, and in a total disregard of his judgment, conscience, and duties, and then say to him, knowing that he would not and could not obey their mandate, resign your place, and put it at our disposal, that we may gratify some new favorite, or promote Will it be said that the obligation of a Senator to some design of our own. The next Legislature may obey the instructions of his Legislature, although not choose to drive out the new favorite and reinstate the found in the Constitution, results from the circumstance old one; and thus this Senate, instead of being an an- that he received his appointment and power from that chor to the State, a stable and permanent body to save body? It is impossible to sustain this ground. I recur us from sudden gales and storms, will in practice, be to the case of a common agent to whom a full and genefloating on the surface, fixed to nothing, and driven to ral power is given, irrevocable for six years; and, to and fro by every change of the wind. Instruction and make the case more apposite, in the execution of which resignation are not the means proposed by Mr. Madison power the rights and interests of other parties are deeply to protect us from the corruption or tyranny of the Se- | concerned, so that, in fact, the agent is the attorney of nate. He suggests no interference, in any way, on the those parties as well as of the one from whom he repart of the State Legislatures with their Senators, nor ceives his appointment. Will any one pretend that an any control over them, during their continuance in of-agent so constituted and thus becoming the attorney of fice; but finds all the safety he thought necessary, and all that the Constitution gives, in the "periodical change of its members." In addition to this, much reliance, no doubt, was placed, and ought to be so, on the expectation, that the State Legislatures would appoint to this high and responsible office, only men of known and tried character and patriotism, having themselves a deep stake in the liberties of their country, and bound by all the ties of integrity and honor to a faithful discharge of their trust.

terms of the power of attorney, which is the contract between the principal and his agent, certain matters are left to the judgment and discretion of the attorney, or are within the scope of his appointment, without any reservation of control on the part of the principal; then no such control exists, and this is most especially the case when the rights and interests of other parties are concerned in the execution of the power and trust.

all, with the right and power to bind all by his acts, is afterwards to be subject to the direction of any one of the parties in any proposed measure bearing on the general interest, merely because his immediate appointment came from that party? When he is appointed, his powers and his duties extend far beyond the source of his authority, and are, consequently, placed beyond that control. His responsibility is to all for whom he is the agent, and he is false to his trust if he surrenders himself to the dictates of any one, or sacrifices the geneIf the Constitution for that is our government, and ral to a particular interest. The President and Senate by that must this question be decided-intended to re-appoint the judges, but it does not result from this that serve this great controlling power to the State Legislatures, over the Legislature of the United States, for such it is as now claimed, we should have found some provision to this effect, some evidence of this intention, either expressed, or by a fair and clear implication, in the instrument itself. Nothing of the kind appears. We should have further found some form of proceeding to compel a refractory Senator to obey the lawful, authoritative mandate of his State Legislature. It is an anomaly in any government to give an authority to a man or body of men, without any power to enforce it, to carry it out into practice and action, to make it effectual. To give a right to command, and to furnish no means to compel obedience, no process to punish a disregard to the order, is indeed like Glendower's power to call spirits, but not to make them come. To say that I have a right to order another to do or not to do an act, but that it is left to his discretion to obey me or not, is a contradiction in terms. It is no right, or at least no more than one of those imperfect rights which create no obligation of respect. If I give to my agent a command which, by the terms and tenure of his agency, by the limitations of his authority, he is bound to obey, and he refuses to do so, I may revoke his power, or rather he had no power for the act in question; he is not my agent, and cannot bind me beyond his lawful authority, or in contradiction to my lawful command. On the other hand, that I am bound by his acts is a full and unquestionable proof that he has acted by and within his powers, and

judges are to be under the dictation and control of the executive. So of any other officer acting within the sphere of his authority. The President by his general power may remove him, for that or for any other cause, or for no cause, but while he holds the office, he exercises its powers at his own discretion, and is not bound to obey the appointing power. In a despotism the master holds the bridle and the lash over every slave he appoints to execute his will, but in a free representative government it is the law that is to be executed and obeyed, and the officer, in performing his prescribed duties, is independent of every power but that of the law. This is indispensable to the harmonious action of the whole system.

I do not know whether the advocates of this doctrine of instructions extend it to trials or impeachments before the Senate. If they do not, I would ask on what distinct principle do they exempt such cases from this legislative right of dictation? The claim is broad and general, covering all the powers, duties, and acts of a Senator. Who is authorized to make the exceptions? By what known rule are they to be made, or do they depend upon an arbitrary will? Is this will or power lodged in the State Legislatures? Then they make the exception or not, at their pleasure; they may forbear to interfere in one impeachment-and they may send in their dictation in another, according as, in their discretion, it may or may not be a case calling for their interference. Their power over their Senator, to compel him

PERDICARIS.

to obey or resign, is in their own hands, and they may issue their mandate to him to condemn or acquit the accused, or they may leave him to his own judgment Mr. Editor,-In introducing the following pieces to and conscience as they may deem it to be expedient. your notice, permit me to say a few words of the genSuch is the state of the case, if the right of discrimina-tleman whose lectures on the condition and prospects of tion, of making exceptions from the general power of his native Greece have occasioned them to be offered to control, is vested in the Legislatures themselves. Is you. Perdicaris is a native of Berea in Macedonia, a it then given to the other party, that is, to the Senator? place memorable not only for classic but for sacred asThen the power resolves itself into an empty name; or sociations. He left his country while a youth, about rather into just what I say it should be, a recommenda- the commencement of the Greek revolution; and after tion entitled to great deference and respect, but with no travelling for some time in Syria and Egypt, was brought obligation to obedience. If the Senator has an admitted off by an American vessel of war, from Smyrna, where discretion to obey or not to obey the instructions of his his situation as a Greek was extremely perilous. His Legislature, according to the nature of the case in which education having been completed in this country, he they are given, then the right of the Legislature to give engaged as a teacher of the Greek language, first at the them is not absolute in any case, but it is left to the Mount Pleasant Institution, Amherst, Massachusetts, judgment of the Senator to decide for himself whether and subsequently at Washington College, Hartford, the case be one in which he can and ought to follow Connecticut. Being now about to return to his native their instructions or not. There is no special exception country, he is perfecting his acquaintance with the of impeachments, and the right to exempt them from United States and their institutions, by travel; while this legislative control, if it exist at all, must depend at the same time he aims by lectures delivered in the upon the nature of the case, and, of consequence, what various cities, to excite an interest in the public mind in is the nature of a case which entitles it to this exemp-the prospects and condition of his own country. It ap tion must be decided by the Legislature or by their Se- pears to be his most earnest wish, to remove some false nator. We have seen the effect of either alternative. In ideas with respect to his native land, which have been truth, this power of control must be co-extensive with too generally prevalent, and which even the tone of Bythe powers and duties of the Senator, or it is nothing.ron's poetry-friend of Greece as he was—has tended To give you the strongest case against my argument, to confirm. In the accounts of Perdicaris, we discover I will suppose that the Constitution had said "The that his country is still worthy of her ancient fame, State Legislatures may instruct their Senators," and that she possesses, and has possessed for years, nuhad said no more; would this have created an imperious merous and eminent scholars, noble institutions of obligation on the Senator implicitly to obey the instruc-learning, a national poetry of no ordinary merit, an tions? Would disobedience forfeit his office directly, or active and intelligent population, and a general diffusion virtually by making it his duty to resign it? I think not. of enlightened public spirit, of which it is as gratifying It would have been no more than a constitutional, per- as it is unexpected, to be informed. haps a superfluous, recognition of the right of the State Legislatures to interfere so far and in this way, with the measures of the federal government, to give their opinions, their recommendation, their counsel, to their Senators; but the Senators would afterwards be at liberty, nay it would be their duty, to act and vote according to their own judgment and consciences, on the responsibility which they constitutionally owe to their constituents, which is found, as Mr. Madison says, in the periodical change of the members of the Senate. The Constitution knows no other check upon the Senators; no other responsibility to the State Legislature, while the Senator acts within and by the admitted powers of his office.

But I am wearying you to death. Let me conclude this interminable epistle by referring to an authority which no man living holds in higher reverence than you do. About a week or ten days before the death of that great and pure man, a true and fearless patriot, Chief: Justice Marshall, I called to see him. This question of instructions was then in high debate in your papers. I said to him that I thought the Virginia doctrine of instructions was inconsistent with all the principles of our government, and subversive of the stability of its foundations. He replied in these words-"It is so ; indeed the Virginia doctrines are incompatible not only with the government of the United States, but with any government." These were the last words I heard from the lips of John Marshall.

H.

Of the two following pieces, the one is a translation, executed with Mr. Perdicaris's assistance, from Christopoulos, who has been styled the Modern Anacreon. It has in the original, an amusing and touching simplicity, which I have not, I fear, succeeded in preserving. The second piece must speak for itself.

FROM THE ROMAIC OF CHRISTOPOULOS.

Orb of day, thus rising splendid,
Through the glowing realms of air!
Be thy course for once suspended,

For a message to my fair.
Two of thy bright rays be darted;

Let them, as the maid they greet,
Say, her lover, faithful-hearted,

Worships humbly at her feet.
He, of late so full of pleasure,

Tell her, now can scarce draw breath;
Living parted from his treasure,

He is like one sick to death.
Hour by hour, his pain enhancing,
Brings the final struggle near;
Death, with stealthy tread advancing,
Claims the spirit lingering here.
If he die, let her lament him;

Let her not forget the dead;
Let a message kind be sent him,

To the shores he now must tread.
If perchance where he is resting
In the cold and dreamless sleep,