escence in the violation of those laws, after the decision of the supreme court of the United States, declaring the ground assumed by Georgia to be unconstitutional, was setting up his individual will in opposition to the constitutional tribunals of the country. His declaration, that he would construe the constitution for himself, was an example of insubordination, that too many were ready to follow.

His intimation, that "the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes," tended to excite the poor against the rich, to create a contempt of legal restraint, and to stimulate the mass, through their cupidity, to the commission of excesses inconsistent with the good order of society; while the new test that he adduced of the constitutionality of his course, i. e. its approval by a majority of the people in the general election, was substituting a new and entirely different government in the place of that which had been framed by the convention of 1787.

That government was regulated by a written constitution, which was to be the supreme law of the land.

When any question arose as to the meaning of the constitution, the supreme court of the United States was constituted as the tribunal to decide finally upon its true meaning. When any alteration was required, either to extend or abridge the powers of the government, a mode was prescribed to effect that alteration: but nowhere is it to be found,

that the people in their primary or their legislative assemblies are to give a construction to that constitution, still less that an inference is to be drawn as to its true meaning from their votes at a general election.

They may alter the constitution, and they may elect representatives to administer it, but the courts, and not they, are to construe it; and until it is altered in the prescribed mode, all rights secured under it, whether to states, Indian tribes, or individuals, are sacred, or, if invaded, it can only be by the power of the majority, violating principle in the pride of strength. The obvious results of these new doctrines was to abolish the representative character of the government. According to these, a contested election was to decide, without appeal, all disputed constitutional questions, and the will of the people as expressed at the elections, was thus substituted in the place of a representative government under a written constitution.

In conformity with this view, great deference was manifested for the will of the people, and jealousies were studiously fomented among the labouring classes against all who had acquired, either by industry or talent, the means of independence.

Numbers alone were considered entitled to respect, and the appeals to principle, law and the constitution, became less frequent, and were less regarded as the election drew nigh.

In the zeal to swell the majo

rity by numbers, a more dangerous influence was invoked into the contest; and the national prejudices of the naturalized citizens were appealed to, in order to insure their undivided support to the administration.

It must not be supposed, that this discreditable effort to obtain the majority was confined to one party. The opposition also brought their cause into disrepute by their endeavours to enlist that class of voters, through their foreign prejudices, in their ranks.

The friends of the administration, however, were more successful in securing this support, and the party clamour against the aristocracy of wealth, found a ready response among those who, in their own countries, had always regarded, and with too much reason, the powers of the government as inseparably connected with the oppression and suffering, which had driven them from their native shores; and who looked upon what are called the higher orders of society as the hereditary and natural oppressors of the labouring classes. In their minds, the wealthy and the educated were associated with their ideas of an hereditary nobility, living upon the industry of the rest of the community, having no sympathy with the productive classes, and regarding society and government as objects of interest only so far as they furnish the means of gratification to the pampered appetites of an idle and luxurious aristocracy.

Wholly unlike as such a no

bility are to the wealthy mer chants and mechanics of the United States, (men who have gained their wealth by their own industry,) still the ignorant and deluded emigrants, who were admitted to the elective franchise, were not qualified to make the distinction, and eagerly enlisted themselves on the side of the administration, because it was "a contest between the poor and the rich," and in their own countries they had found too little of kindness from the rich to regard them with favour here.

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By this class of voters, and they were both numerous and active, the merits of the administration were not taken into consideration. They were qualified by education, nor by circumstances, to form a competent judgment upon the measures of the president, nor upon the principles upon which they were defended; and although laws passed at an early period, in a different state of the country, had conferred upon them the right of suffrage, the exercise of that right by a numerous class, under the influence of foreign feelings and prejudices, so far contributed to prevent the periodical elections from being a true expression of the opinions of the American people. It was in effect a departure from the theory of the government of the United States. That government is founded upon the maxim, that an enlightened people is competent to govern itself, and that political power is nowhere so safely vested, as in the mass of the community.

To prevent an abuse of this power, a system of general education extending to the family of the poorest labourer, was established, almost coeval with the government.

As the labouring classes acquired political power, intelligence and knowledge were imparted to them, in order to enable them to exercise it with discretion. However competent, therefore, the productive classes thus prepared may be to exercise the right of suffrage, no such competency was to be found in the emigrants, whom various causes, but all growing out of their wretchedness and political degradation at home, had thrown in such multitudes upon our shores since the general pacification of Europe.

It seemed as if those very classes which had previously supplied her armies and navies, now swelled the tide of emigration, and that America was thus used as a receptacle for a population both useless and dangerous in their native countries.

To such an extent had migration from Europe increased, that during the year 1832 38,183 alien passengers arrived in the seaports of the United States, and many thousands, of which no account could be taken, came over the frontiers from Canada and New-Brunswick.

Of these not a few were paupers, and there is too good reason to know, that many emigrants of this character were furnished with funds to pay their passage to this country by the public authorities, with the sole view of

relieving the community from the expense of their maintenance.

In some instances the bad faith of the municipal authorities in the European cities, went so far as to induce them to disgorge their prisons and penitentiaries upon our shores.

It could not, therefore, be expected that an influence of this description, introduced into our elections, could be exercised other than injuriously. So far as it produced any effect, it was necessarily adverse to the sober sense of the American people, and consequently prevented, to that extent, the elections from being the expression of the opinion of the country. Even among the native population, the contest did not turn entirely upon the policy of the administration.

The great military services of General Jackson had gained for him general popularity, and many who did not altogether approve of his measures, attributed his errors to mistaken views. His honesty of purpose was questioned by comparatively few, and all admired the boldness and firmness with which he pursued those measures, that had been adopted and avowed as the policy of his administration.

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He was styled, too, the sentative of the democratic party, and the people were constantly assured, that his sole object was to deprive the federal government only of those powers which it had usurped, and to bring it within the limits prescribed by the constitution.

The majority in the electoral colleges was not, however, a fair test of the measure of approbation bestowed upon his administration. Many of the states were carried by small majorities, and although the electoral votes were more than three to one in his favour; the majority of the popular vote was barely ten per cent. over that cast for his opponents; and even that should be somewhat reduced, on account of the vote of South Carolina, where the electors were chosen by the legislature.

It was thus obvious, that the majority in the electoral colleges was not a fair representative of the support given by the people to the policy of the administration; and when an allowance is made for the votes of those, who were influenced by a grateful sense of the military services of the president, and of those who were governed by sectional views, it may be doubted whether there was any decision as to the merits of his policy, by a majority of the electors; and whether the question of his re-election was not in fact decided upon considerations altogether foreign to those which, by the theory of the government, are supposed to exercise a controlling influence over the popu lar vote.

In many states the anti-masonic excitement was used to prevent a direct decision by the electors, of the question in issue between the administration and its opponents.

Local and personal partialities, too, had their influence in

distracting the public mind, and the conduct of many of the leading men opposed to the course of the president was not such as to convince the people, that they themselves were so fully impressed with the importance of the crisis as they had professed.

An unwillingness to postpone individual advancement and private views to the good of the cause, was too often evinced in their councils, and the people were naturally led to imitate their leaders. They, too, considered that the elective franchise was not a trust to be exercised for the benefit of the community; but a personal right, or power to be exerted to gratify private feeling.

Their votes, therefore, were not so much the decision of the country upon the constitutionality or propriety of his course, as the expression of popular feeling in favour of the president.

The large majority received by General Jackson in the electoral colleges, however, was by him construed into an unqualified approval by his countrymen of all his measures.

Upon all points, where his course had been questioned by his opponents, his re-election was urged as the final decision of the people, from which there was no appeal.

His policy in relation to the Cherokee Indians, sanctioning and aiding Georgia in violating the treaties of the federal government, it was said, had been approved of by the people, and the obligations of treaties,