rope, or when at a later period, barbarous Europe poured back her holy ruffians on Asia; we need but look at the dates of modern history.-the history of civilized, balanced Europe. We here behold the ambition of Charles V. involving the continent of Europe in war, for the first half of the sixteenth century, and the fiendlike malignity of Catherine de' Medici and her kindred distracting it the other half. We see the haughty and cheerless bigotry of Philip, persevering in a conflict of extermination for one whole age in the Netherlands, and darkening the English channel with his armada; while France prolongs her civil dissensions, because Henry IV. was the twenty-second cousin of Henry III. We enter the seventeenth century, and again find the hereditary pride and bigotry of the House of Austria wasting Germany and the neighboring powers with the Thirty Years' war; and before the peace of Westphalia is concluded, England is plunged into the fiery trial of her militant liberties. Contemporaneously, the civil wars are revived in France, and the kingdom is blighted by the passions of Mazarin. The civil wars are healed, and the atrocious career of Louis XIV. begins; a half century of bloodshed and woe, that stands in revolting contrast with the paltry pretences of his wars. At length the peace of Ryswic is made in 1697, and bleeding Europe throws off the harness and lies down like an exhausted giant to repose. In three years, the testament of a doating Spanish king gives the signal for the Succession war; till a cup of tea spilt on Mrs. Masham's apron, restores peace to the afflicted kingdoms. Meantime the madman of the North had broken loose upon the world, and was running his frantic round. Peace at length is restored, and with one or two short wars, it remains unbroken, till, in 1740, the will of Charles VI. occasions another testamentary contest; and in the gallant words of the stern but relenting moralist, The queen, the beauty, sets the world in arms.

Eight years are this time sufficient to exhaust the

combatants, and the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle is concluded, but, in 1755, the old French war is kindled in our own wilderness, and through the united operation of the monopolizing spirit of England, the party intrigues of France, and the ambition of Frederic, spread throughout Europe. The wars of the last generation I need not name, nor dwell on that signal retribution, by which the political ambition of the cabinets at length conjured up the military ambition of the astonishing individual, who seems, in our day, to have risen out of the ranks of the people, to chastise the privileged orders with that iron scourge, with which they had so long afflicted mankind; to gather with his strong Plebeian hands the fragrance of those palmy honors, which they had reared for three centuries in the bloody gardens of their royalty. It may well be doubted, whether, under a government like ours, one of all these contests would have taken place. Those that arose from disputed titles, and bequests of thrones, could not of course have existed; and making every allowance for the effect of popular delusion, it seems to me not possible, that a representative government would have embarked in any of the wars of ambition and aggrandizement, which fill up the catalogue.

Who then are these families and individuals-these royal lanista-by whom the nations are kept in training for a long gladiatorial combat? Are they better, wiser than we? Look at them in life; what are they? "Kings are fond," says Mr. Burke, no scoffer at thrones, "kings are fond of low company.' What are they when gone? Expende Hannibalem. Enter the great cathedrals of Europe, and contemplate the sepulchres of the men, who claimed to be the lords of each successive generation. Question your own feelings, as you behold where the Plantagenets and Tudors, the Stuarts and those of Brunswick, lie mournfully huddled up in the chapels of Westminster Abbey; and com

* Speech on Economical Reform.

pare those feelings with the homage you pay to Heaven's aristocracy,-the untitled learning, genius, and wit that moulder by their side. Count over the sixtysix emperors and princes of the Austrian house, that lie gathered in the dreary pomp of monumental marble, in the vaults of the Capuchins at Vienna; and weigh the worth of their dust against the calamities of their Peasants' war, their Thirty Years' war, their Succession war, their wars to enforce the Pragmatic Sanction, and of all the other uncouth pretences for destroying mankind, with which they have plagued the world.

But the cessation of wars, to which we look forward as the result of the gradual diffusion of republican government, is but the commencement of the social improvements, which cannot but flow from the same benignant source. It has been justly said that he was a great benefactor of mankind, who could make two blades of grass grow, where one grew before. But our fathers, our fathers were the benefactors of mankind, who brought into action such a vast increase of physical, political, and moral energy; who have made not two citizens to live only, but hundreds, yea, unnumbered thousands to live, and to prosper in regions, which but for their achievements would have remained for ages unsettled, and to enjoy those rights of men, which but for their institutions would have continued to be arrogated, as the exclusive inheritance of a few. I appeal to the fact. I ask any sober judge of political probability to tell me, whether more has not been done to extend the domain of civilization, in fifty years, since the declaration of independence, than would have been done in five centuries of continued colonial subjection. It is not even a matter of probability; the king in council had adopted it, as a maxim of his American policy, that no settlements in this country should be made beyond the Alleghanies;-that the design of Providence in spreading out the fertile valley of the Mississippi, should not be fulfilled.

I know that it is said, in palliation of the restrictive influence of European governments, that they are as good as their subjects can bear. I know it is said, that it would be useless and pernicious to call on the half savage and brutified peasantry of many countries, to take a share in the administration of affairs, by electing or being elected to office. I know they are unfit for it; it is the very curse of the system. What is it that unfits them? What is it that makes slavish labor, and slavish ignorance, and slavish stupidity, their necessary heritage? Are they not made of the same Caucasian clay? Have they not five senses, the same faculties, the same passions? And is it any thing but an aggravation of the vice of arbitrary governments, that they first deprive men of their rights, and then unfit them to exercise those rights; profanely construing the effect into a justification of the evil?

The influence of our institutions on foreign nations is-next to their effect on our own condition-the most interesting question we can contemplate. With our example of popular government before their eyes, the nations of the earth will not eventually be satisfied with any other. With the French revolution as a beacon to guide them, they will learn, we may hope, not to embark too rashly on the mounting waves of reform. The cause, however, of popular government is rapidly gaining in the world. In England, education is carrying it wide and deep into society. On the continent, written constitutions of governments, nominally representative,-though as yet, it must be owned, nominally so alone,-are adopted in eight or ten, late absolute monarchies; and it is not without good grounds that we may trust, that the indifference with which the Christian powers contemplate the sacrifice of Greece, and their crusade against the constitutions of Spain, Piedmont and Naples, will satisfy the mass of thinking men in Europe, that it is time to put an end to these cruel delusions, and take their own govern. ment into their own hands.

But the great triumphs of constitutional freedom, to which our independence has furnished the example, have been witnessed in the southern portion of our hemisphere. Sunk to the last point of colonial degradation, they have risen at once into the organization of free republics. Their struggle has been arduous; and eighteen years of chequered fortune have not yet brought it to a close. But we must not infer, from their prolonged agitation, that their independence is uncertain; that they have prematurely put on the toga virilis of Freedom. They have not begun too soon; they have more to do. Our war of independence was shorter;-happily we were contending with a government, that could not, like that of Spain, pursue an interminable and hopeless contest, in defiance of the people's will. Our transition to a mature and well adjusted constitution was more prompt than that of our sister republics; for the foundations had long been settled, the preparation long made. And when we consider that it is our example, which has aroused the spirit of Independence from California to Cape Horn; that the experiment of liberty, if it had failed with us, most surely would not have been attempted by them; that even now our counsels and acts will operate as powerful precedents in this great family of republics, we learn the importance of the post which Providence has assigned us in the world. A wise and harmonious administration of the public affairs,-a faithful, liberal and patriotic exercise of the private duties of the citizen, while they secure our happiness at home, will diffuse a healthful influence through the channels of national communication, and serve the cause of liberty beyond the Equator and the Andes. When we show an united, conciliatory, and imposing front to their rising states, we show them, better than sounding eulogies can do, the true aspect of an independent republic. We give them a living example, that the fireside policy of a people is like that of the in