binations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force, to put in the place of the delegated will of the Nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested by common councils, and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp, for themselves, the reins of government; destroying, afterwards, the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Towards the preservation of your Government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you speedily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember

that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing Constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigour as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

222

D.

THE FRENCH AND AMERICAN TARIFFS

COMPARED.

"COMING, now, to the second point to which I have desired to invite your attention that of the nicety of classification required for giving to each and every branch of manufacture the precise protection that it needs-we find the only case of the kind in the Morrill tariff to be that of cottons, and that even there the discriminations are absolutely as nothing when compared to those of the one to which you point as likely to produce a revolution in the commercial system of the world. Linens are by us disposed of in two short lines, and both of these are ad valorem. Woollen yarns have three lines where you have no less than thirty-six; and the only counting of threads that is required by us is that of four qualities of cotton, with a variety of duties as easy of calculation as is the counting of your fingers. Our whole tariff is, indeed, simplicity itself when compared with the classification of your own, in which there are no less than one hundred and forty kinds of cotton yarn, each with its separate rate of duty! Flax and hemp yarns, single unbleached, single bleached or dyed, and twisted unbleached, twisted bleached or dyed, are put into twenty-four classes, and under as many different rates of duty. Linens have twenty-four descriptions deter

mined by the number of threads, ranging from eight to twenty-four threads to five square millimetres-these varieties being run through the several conditions of unbleached, bleached, printed, and figured, with the duties varied in every case; the lowest at 30 francs and the highest at 535 francs per 100 kilogrammes (220 pounds avoirdupois). Jute yarns and tissues stand in the tables in equally numerous descriptions and varied duties; and in cottons the classification is carried to the extent of providing different rates for fifteen qualities of single unbleached yarns, fifteen of bleached, fifteen of dyed, fortyfive kinds or qualities of twisted in two strands, two kinds of yarn of three threads, and forty-five kinds of warped yarns, with the duties varied, according to fineness, as has been already said, no less than 140 times-beginning with ten centimes and rising to no less than three francs per kilogramme, or about one-quarter of a dollar per pound. Of the cotton tissues I have given in the table only the coarsest, the medium, and the finest qualities. In the schedule there are eight qualities, the description of one of which will serve as a specimen of the whole. It reads thus: Cotton tissues weighing 11 kilogrammes, or more than 100 square metres of thirty-five threads or less to the five square millimetres, 50 centimes per kilogramme.' Had any such discrimination been attempted here, we should have been assured that the object of the framers of our tariff had been the utter annihilation of international intercourse, and there would have been a howl among our British free-traders such as could have found no parallel in the history of the world since the establishment of the first custom-house."-Letter to Chevalier, by H. C. Carey, Philadelphia, 28th Oct., 1860.

224

E.

THE WASHINGTON TREATY AND THE SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTH-EAST BOUNDARY.

THERE is one charge brought by Mr. Spence against the United States, which, though not exactly falling within the range of our discussion, we may incidentally be allowed to notice. It refers to the settlement of the north-east boundary, under the treaty of Washington, in 1841, concluded by Lord Ashburton.

Soon after England had recognized American independence, in 1781, she executed a treaty with the United States, wherein that boundary was described as taking the line of highlands dividing the waters flowing into the St. Lawrence from those flowing into the Atlantic. Upon this basis, many ineffectual efforts were made to determine the highlands referred to, England claiming one line, the United States another. The dispute was then referred to the king of Holland, who decided against both claims, declaring a strict compliance with the requirements of the treaty impossible, as no such highlands could be found, and recommending a compromise. To this England consented, but the United States objected. By the year 1841, the growing occupation of the lands on the frontier rendered an immediate settlement imperative; and Sir

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