powers from the consent of the governed, as yet, receives only a constructive, and not a practical or veritable, allowance in the freest Governments of the earth. It is obvious that representative democracy, as we have it, is not capable, even among ourselves, of a rigid realization. How much less so in southern Europe, the East Indies, and Africa! Republican America has not yet discovered or employed the method by which every one of the governed may have an actual voice in his own government; because, by our system, the suffrage in general elections also confers the power upon each voter of governing others as well as himself; and for this, a safe amount of qualification is required, and the exclusion of the incompetent rendered expedient and neces

sary.

Such a system always fails where the masses are ignorant and degraded, as in Mexico and France; witness in the latter, seven millions of votes for the new Empire, and a half million of soldiers to enforce the people's will upon themselves!

The puzzle is, that the broad principle is true, but the conforming fact quite impracticable in the circumstances where it is required; and the mischief is, that the constant failures in endeavored realization cheat the revolutionists of their hope, and shake the faith of just men in the great truth which they worship.

If I leave these points stand as an unresolved riddle, the facts of history are just as perplexing. The truths involved serve only for criticism. The principles which should serve for construction are to be discovered. Allow me to say now,

that the communities of men, as they are in the earth, are capable of both liberty and order. My complaint is made only against the received science of civil society, and not a tithe of the objections are yet named.

"PHYSICIAN HEAL THYSELF."

THE essential nature of all races and classes of men is so far alike, and the resulting harmony of their interests so complete, that no difference of conditions among them are favorable for any party, except such as relate them in helpful correspondence to each other. All hostilities are mutually destructive.

The laws of chemistry are laws of dead matter, and their work is death. An acid destroys an alkali, and is itself destroyed. Neither of the elements properly survives the conflict. The changes of mere matter are transformations; but in the domain of life, all reciprocal action is for growth and development; its aim is perfection, and the law is harmony. Everywhere in living nature the individuals of a kind are at peace with each other; and as the rank and endowments rise in dignity and excellence, social relations grow, with equal pace, more numerous, intimate, and beneficent. But the principle of liberty enters the system of existence along with vitality, grows with its growth and strengthens with its strength, and disorder and strife become possible in correspondent augmentation. Still, the scheme of life is unity, and its policy is peace; and the law of harmony must be obeyed, or it will be vindicated by its natural penalties-not that vengeance is the end, for the sovereign purpose is not more defeated by rebellion itself than by the punishments which correct it. Hell is a continued insurrection, and annihilation would be utter failure and its completest acknowledgment. Suffering is the corrective of evil, and the discipline of the wrong-doer, that, in the end, good may prevail; or, as St. Paul has it, that God may be all in all, when all things shall be subdued unto Him.

To the working of this grand scheme it is obviously essential that service and sacrifice be rendered by the higher to the lower; that the elder shall serve the younger, the angels minister to the heirs of salvation, and the Divine atone for all. The great law of our life, the righteousness which is of God by faith, in the apostle's apprehension, is that the disciple "may know the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to his death," and "fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ."

This doctrine of human redemption has been rendered vague and mystical by theological speculations; but it is based in nature and necessity, and must be understood before we can have the rule of duty, or guide of policy, for the aims of social benevolence. The idea is, that it is the office of the wise to instruct the ignorant, and of the strong to help the weak; for the fact is, that they can be enlightened and strengthened in no other way. It is this moral necessity that dedicates the good to the service of the evil; that sends the disciples out as sheep among wolves; that compels the surrender of life to the toils of study, to the sacrifices of the battle-field, and at the martyr's stake, and gives us all the forms of heroism which we worship among

men.

This being the economy, the policy, of the social system, what are its requirements, and the conditions of its success, in any enterprise of civil or political amendment of the condition of one class of men by the agency of another? If it be the system of domestic slavery, such as exists among us, which is to be remedied, it is clear that to be capable of the work, we must not cnly feel the wrong and design the relief, but we must know the means and possess or provide the conditions which shall avail in practice for the purpose. How does the case lie before us? We are politically free

as individuals, and independent as a nation.—The slaves are denied every civil and political right of human beings by our laws; they are chattels to their masters, and only sagacious animals to themselves. Are we qualified for their elevation, and are our institutions capable of receiving them into the freedom which we contemplate for them?

Legal emancipation might be effected in several ways. By legislation of the constitutional majorities, enforced by the peaceful powers of Government-by force of arms, employed by the free people of the nation in the compulsion of the masters-by successful servile insurrection-by colonization, and, by other means, or several of these combined. The relation of master and slave could be dissolved by either of these methods; and, if the right of freedom were perfect, and the aim could certainly be well secured, the precedents which the world respects would warrant any of them, and they would be both allowable and obligatory upon the parties who possess the power. But it is felt that there is something in several of these possible plans which forbids their adoption. No sound heart or clear head would consent to civil war, much less to servile insurrection, to effect the object. The reasoning which justifies our own national revolution does not satisfy the conditions of this case. The abstract right is the same, in both white and black men, for, their ultimate destiny is the same, and the highest interests of each demand equally favorable institutions and order. Why, then, do we pause, both in thought and action?

I think the true reason is, that we are not fit, and that our civil and social economy are not adjusted to the necessities of the enterprise.

Our own liberties stand upon the principle that all men are created equal, and our institutions in theory recognize the right of self-government in every human being. We

provide for the impracticable exceptions, however, by our laws which exclude infancy and womanhood from participation in the administration of the Government; and we run the risk of incompetency among adult white men, in the confidence that there is safety in the majority. For, after all, it is only a legal fiction that every man is his own governor, and assents to the laws which he must obey.

Our American republicanism is, therefore, much narrower than the sweep of its theoretical maxims, and our institutions in no tolerable measure cover the ground of their basis; and, it is this very point of incompetency for the functions of government which breaks the correspondence. Still we hold by the principle none the less that we refuse its proper force in our forms and facts.

Now, the principle is true. No man can own another man as property, and no man can own anything that belongs to that other man; they are his benefits, and deprivation of the least is an injury and a wrong. But, general propositions need to be carefully examined and fully understood, or they lead to confusion. We say every man has naturally the right of self-government; and our system in fact goes much further -it empowers every man to govern his neighbor also. In a particular exigency, a single vote may decide the policy of a whole State. Competency for political liberty in our representative system of legislation is, therefore, a matter in which everybody else is concerned, as well as the man who claims the right; and it is not unreasonable to make it a condition of enfranchisement and citizenship. But on the other sidethe disfranchised man and woman may plead their natural right of self-government, infringed by the denial. Such rights as these in such conditions, may and do conflict. Where is the mischief that begets this confusion, and dislocates the logic of first principles?