he is a man of ability, uprightness, information, discreet valor, and religion, worthy to become a British lawgiver? These are but a few lessons which electors might learn. More we need not add. This would be a wide and important department in a literature of freedom.

So much directly bearing on electors; one word on those whom they may elect. The question admits, to say the least, of discussion, whether it is not advisable, in our British Islands, to find a larger body of men from which representatives can be obtained. Here we desire to speak with somewhat of caution and hesitancy. Yet it does seem a reasonable idea, that a larger class of British subjects might, beneficially to the commonwealth, have opened up to them a path into the House of Commons. The aristocratic and moneyed classes alone can enter there. Is it certain that there is not thus excluded an important and available portion of the intellect of the country? The shrewd, energetic, earnest citizen, of the lower order in the middle class, accustomed to think much and work hard, enters not. The bulk of the intellect of the powerful fourth estate must rule without the doors of the Senate House. That a powerfully-minded member of the working class, who knows the feelings and wants of his brethren, should ever be admitted, seems to be regarded as an extravagant idea; yet, can it be doubted that such might prove an abler senator than the gambler for fame with an abundance of money, or the brisk scion of the nobility, who can drive tandem and is a capital shot? We scout the idea of paying our legislators in gold; we fear they occasionally make us pay for the honor of employing them in even rarer coin. A few evils might arise from making it possible for membership to become a trade; would there arise a greater number than from continuing to make it a fashionable amusement? We do not regard with any measure of

doubt the fact, that governing bodies, of which the members have been or are paid, have proved themselves not one whit less patriotic, and we are inclined to add able, than those where the practice has never been introduced.

The question of the functions to which the governing body in a free nation is competent, is one which interests us very deeply. The notions which float in the public mind on this subject are, we think, vague, and not unfrequently erroneous. There is a tendency, fatal in its consequences, and decried by earnest men, to confound true freedom with laissez faire; as if liberty meant no rule at all, or as if it even implied any curtailing of the executive; instead of government, effective and indefinitely extended, by the best, with consent of all. National freedom, too, is apt to be confounded with individual liberty, and thus to lose its power. A people may be nationally impotent from fear to meddle with personal rights. The idea is too common, that in a free state the government ought to exercise little or no control over private affairs, and that the state is free, in proportion as this is the case. It is forgotten that the essence of tyranny consists, not in the fact that men obey, but that they do so without knowing and comprehending the reason of their action; and that the life of freedom consists, not in any exemption from obeying, but in obedience after due exercise of that will which God has implanted in men and nations, after assurance obtained that submission or active compliance are promotive of the general welfare, and assent asked and accorded.

Now, it will of course be seen that we here advocate no particular measures; but we do say that we now oppose a misconception of the very essence of liberty, one which dooms it to be utterly ineffective for any great national end, The one characteristic of real freedom is, that a nation acts with consent

and intelligence; you can not decide whether a nation is free or enslaved by knowing what its government does, you must know how it does it. The man is as free who commands himself to be bound, with express directions that no attention be paid to any subsequent shrieks or implorings, that he may undergo an excruciating operation, as he who sweeps the moorland on his own steed, or gazes over the face of a flashing sea from the deck of his own bounding yacht. We shall illustrate these remarks by a modern instance. Every one is aware of the prevalency of what has been named bureaucracy on the Continent; that government, through its officials, exercises a superintendence over most private business, settling, it may be, the order in which streets are to be built, the manner in which houses are to be constructed, the establishment of every sort of mercantile company, and so on. This circumstance produces a great deal of intermeddling on the part of government functionaries, little annoyances necessarily arise, and many arguments are urged against the system; we greatly mistake if it is not frequently looked upon as an integral portion of Continental despotism, and quite out of accordance with our British freedom. We neither defend nor impugn the system; but we allege that it has no necessary connection either with despotism or liberty. If a nation, acting through men by itself deputed, men who represent the national will, come to the conclusion that the beauty of its cities would be enhanced by their streets being built according to plans approved by a body of artistically qualified men, it continues a perfectly free state, though no one of its citizens can, at his own whim or caprice, inflict an architectural nuisance upon his fellow-townsmen. If it is discovered by a nation that the malconstruction of private dwellings frequently occasions fire and gives rise to extensive damage, or that the stu

pidity or carelessness of individuals results in the confusion of titles and the multiplication of quarrels and lawsuits, it may most freely appoint bodies of judicious men, architects and lawyers, to inspect plans and titles. And so on. The nation is ever free when itself wills the restraints which on itself it imposes. We do not say it is necessary that it impose such; by no means; but that every such measure is, in strictest accordance with real freedom, open for consideration. We do, however, go the length of saying, and that with all emphasis and earnestness, that, until freedom takes this positive, and as it were aggressive attitude; until it learns to extend its executive in various directions, and to bring the sifted intellect and the concentrated will of the nation to look upon with scrutinizing glance, and to order with energy and exactness, the various modes and departments of national life, it will never fully unfold its powers. As yet, it has not been fairly pitted against despotism. It has been individual effort in free nations which has been matched against national effort in despotic states. We trust it will one day prove possible, with the perfect preservation of individual freedom, of which more pres ently, to pitt national effort in free nations against national effort in despotisms, and to demonstrate that the analogy be tween the nation and the individual here too holds good: that, as the free poet sings more sweetly and more thrillingly than he whose song is heard through a grating; and as three free warriors will hurl back a host of enslaved invaders; so a nation, which freely collects its reason, and gathers its will, and girds up its loins, and exerts itself in all manner of regulating and compelling action, will in peace tower in calm wisdom, a Pallas among the nations, and in war ride over their necks, as the proud vessel, with all sails set and every spar in order, but with a living will on board, rides over the poor slaves of

moon and tempest, the wandering billows. It were certainly competent to the British nation, it were consistent with its freedom, nay, it were positively the awakening to vigor and action of its freedom, to have all great public concerns transacted by men better qualified to transact them than private individuals can be hoped to be, by men who, of the whole nation, are best fitted to transact them. Until this commences on a grand scale, the capacities of a free nation, as distinguished from those of free individuals, will not be unfolded. It appears to us, that it is the general obliviousness to this great aspect of freedom, and the kindred phenomenon of testiness to all touching of so-called private rights, which have given edge and occasion to such denunciations, on the part of Mr. Carlyle, as we have quoted.

In treating of the central government in a free country, the subject which engages our attention is national freedom. In turning to the second of those categories under which a discussion of the whole matter seemed to us to admit of being ranged, we are met by the distinct yet related topic of individual freedom. Association for philanthropic or reforming purposes is a necessary phenomenon in a free country; and of all the questions which present themselves to him who reflects upon the nature and working of freedom, it might be alleged that no one is of more importance, and perhaps difficulty, than that which bears upon the connections and relations of this form of force, for it is none other than a form of force, with that central power which, strictly, represents the thinking and acting power of a free nation. We believe it to be a prevalent idea, that voluntary association ought to do very much, if not all, in a free country; it is to individual enterprise, to the thought and energy of the private subject, attracting and combining into an available force the intellects and