serve) is one of the dilemmas of a bad cause. For, is it not inconsistent to approve of purchasing cheap, and still declaim against our doing it? But let us examine the result which it involves; for we perfectly agree with the principle.

Now, will it be cheaper for Great Britain to buy here, where she sells nothing, or at South America, Egypt, and the East Indies, where they are willing to take British articles in exchange for every article which she would take from us, without that reciprocity? Noand we could multiply facts to prove the miserable fallary of this belief; did we not conceive we could afford you no information. They likewise tell us, they give us an equivalent! And what (we would ask) is the wretched price they pay us to lie tranquil under a weight to which we are opposed, not less upon principle than policy? It is a duty upon cotton, snuff, tobacco and sugar. Now, this would be eminently praiseworthy, were it not irresistibly ridiculous! To give us a duty upon our great staple! To ensure to us, that no foreign cotton shall enter our ports! They might as well impose a tax upon rice from Great Britain, as to prohibit what no one ever dreamt of bringing, and with which we supply three-fourths of the world. As for the duty on snuff, the benefit. (were it here worth mentioning) is altogether possessed by the North. It will be seen, that the duty upon sugar, was, by the Tariff of 1816 at 21 per lb. and that cent is the wonderful equivalent, (for the mock duties on the other articles is really laughable,) which they bestow in return for a tax of millions!

There is another assertion which has been repeated with additions in pamphlets, speeches and essays, which (for the most part) form a mere tissue of misrepresentation and error. We allude to that, which, appealing to our national prejudices and feelings, tells us that England "supplies us with every thing and will take none of our productions; and that we should make our

selves independent in case of a war!" The two first assertions are so shamelessly groundless, that we shall pass them over in silence. That we should be prepared for war we are not at all disposed to deny; but we unequivocally assert, that they incapacitate us in that respect, by depriving us of commerce and consequently of active seamen. They declaim to us of independence, and under the imposing title of the American System," attempt to win us to submission to their designs; cloaked under the specious pretext of opposing "British cupidity!" But, if they mean by independence, a separation from the world-if to be independent is to be insulated and alone-cut off from civil intercourse, and disdaining reciprocal services, let them preach their doctrine to the wild Indian, beyond the Rocky Mountains-to the Savage, on the sea-shore-the Negro of the Gold-Coast-but not to the enlightened American.

We have merely set down our arguments as they occurred to us, without arranging them in any particu lar order. We believe the truth of the views we. have advanced, and have no doubt of the correctness of our several positions. We now come to our second division-the constitutionality of the bill,-and here we shall be unusually succinct. We do not believe this bill to be in conformity with the spirit of the Constitution, when it authorizes Congress to lay and colleet duties," and to regulate commerce. Can this bill be for the promotion of commerce, when it paralyzes its efforts, and fetters and tramples upon those who pursue it? Can it be for revenue when it excludes the only inlet of revenue? Can any one be so blinded as not to see, that its results are diametrically opposite to those which it professes? Can the advocates of this system deny, that the right of taxing imposts was for one specific end, and that end revenue? They do not deny it. But aware that their object, if openly avowed, would elicit merited indignation, they shield it under the co

ver of the law, under a technicality of phrase, which, while it religiously adheres in mere form to the letter, is grossly violative of the very spirit of our Constitution

This phrase, uttered by a modern politician with some considerable gusto and gratification, at a public barbacue, where such pleasant abstractions are most usually accompanied with a practical illustration of their points and premises, appears, by one class of our contemporaries, to have been deemed quite as oracular, and certainly, to the full as mystical, as those delivered by the Delphic Goddess. The phrase is nice and narrow, and has all the sweetness of the apothegm; unhappily, the import which it bears is not so very obvious. The whole class of disputes concerning the "right to fight"--the right of conquest"--the te nure of power" et id genus omne, is one upon which moralists and speculative men have wasted much time and toil-in longum trahentes controversias”---and there is none of the class, upon which they have speculated more extensively and to more uncertain issue, than upon that at present before us. And if we err not egregiously, the cause of the protracted discussion is stamped upon the face of it. It is obscurely stated, and the question is indistinctly put, and what might be briefly and finally settled, has, by this original obscurity, occasioned unbounded perplexity, and mixed with much learned and metaphysical research, has given risc to a rigmarole of unintelligible jargon, which bafilles every brain, save that of the writer. The farther we advance in the field of disputation, the greater opportunity will we have of observing, that half the disputes of men are occasioned by their attention to words rather than to things-that they argue without me

thod---without a definite and unerring end and aim-.. and without agreeing in their use and appropriation of terms and technicals. This is the chief-we may say, the only difficulty in the present instance. The term right" appears to be the source of the ambiguity, and its solution the sine qua non of our discussion.

The legal student considers the phrase in a professional sense, and labors in vain to settle its practical import with all the ponderous letters of the law. The divine recurs to the primitive fathers, and consults the authority of the divine doctors." The politician, armed with Grotius, Puffendorf, and the host of civilians, toils in difficulties of his own making, and with all the paraphernalia of speculative lore, buries in mystery a question that can be made as evident as the mid-day sun. "Ifa perplexed reasoner, (says Drummoud) puzzle himself and his audience, he never fails to attribute it to the abstruse nature of all speculative subjects." If a pert rhetorician gets entangled in the maze of his own conceits, he is ever ready to accuse himself of having too much of the very logic which he wants. The impartial examiner recurs to his own reflections---enlarges his view, and, though he may not come to a decisive solution, at least clears the way of obstructions, with which it was previously clogged by misconception and prejudice.

"Right," (used as a term connected with society) must undoubtedly be derived from some compact expressed or implied; and there is no difliculty in conceiving an agreement between the CONQUERED and the CONQUEROR-the former of submission, the latter of command—after the completion of the conquest. But we know of no law of society--we are acquainted with no principle of civilians-we recollect no sanction, human or divine-which authorizes the commencement of subjugation, or permits us. (if we may use the term) to half-subdue" a nation; which would be necessary bcfore we acquired the "right to rule" or that which gives

the right, viz:—entire dominion. At this stage, many have left the question; but this solution is much too summary to be correct. Though speculative moralists deny a right, and though. by their rules, we cannot shew one; yet when we contemplate the conqueror, our humane ideas are not shocked-our love of justice is not invaded-the world does not perceive his want of right. But, on the contrary, his path is strewn with flowers-his brows are encircled with laurel-his march is attended with the acclamations of admiring crowds. and the homage of the wise and the applause of posterity are the rewards of his daring. Here REASON and FEELING are manifestly at variance-the one attests his merit-the other his guilt. One, consequently, must be in error. If we were the arbiters between these opponents, the election would be quickly made in favor of the latter, as original and always the same; against the former, which is frequently obscured by sophistry, clouded by artifice, and shackled by the demon, either of gain, or (so called) glory!

Whence arises the immeasurable difference between the morality of the heathen poets and philosophers? The former we find pure and undefiled by sophistry-the latter tainted with prejudice-infected with love of gain-deserting the imperishable to kalon, for the miserable, transient policy of the to prepon. The cause is obvious? In poetry, the offspring of feeling-virtue without dross-flows warm and undefiled from the fountain of the heart. In philosophy, men strive "non sibi res, sed sese rebus aptare." It is its futile boast to dive into the boundless arcana of nature, and in its dubious search it adopts opinion upon mere speculation, without reference to facts. Frail reason, then, so obnoxious to error-so seldom the test of truth a bubble's gleam amid the boundless main," is not the criterion we adopt. We refer to ourselves "nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dixit,"-and where we find opinion almost universal in her favor, we