violating the compact which binds the Union together-by destroying, at a blow, six hundred millions of what the law regards as property, and, at best, substituting the evils of poverty, vice, and wretchedness for those of servitude.

We e are, by no means, advocates for slavery. We view it as one of the most dreadful scourges which ever afflicted a nation,-dreadful alike to master and to slave. We would rejoice, in the fullness of our heart, to discover any feasible method by which to break the chains of the oppressor and let the oppressed go free. But the measures of the abolitionists do not seem to promise this result. Their appeals to the people of the North can do little more than rivet still stronger, the fetters of the slaves at the South, unless they are ready to break down at once the bulwark of our liberties,-the constitution,—and thereby bring us all under the yoke of some despot, in order that those who are now slaves may be called free. Such appeals as we often hear upon this subject are, in the present feverish state of the public mind, dangerous in no small degree. It is, in fact, a project in which the mass of the people are called upon to substitute the dictates of their own feelings, for the laws which exist. And, whether this is done to free a slave, to tear down a chapel, to burn down a convent, or to drive decent men from the polls,-whether it be to destroy the distinctions which exist in society, or to break down pretended monopolies,—to give questionable freedom to one class or rivet the chains of despotism upon another, it is alike to be dreaded and alike to be condemned.

We would not be misunderstood. We admit, and would be the last to give up, the right of the people to make known their wants, to discuss freely, and at all times, measures of policy and whatever else concerns them. They have a right to spread their complaints and their grievances before the public, and to proclaim abuses throughout the land, and they have a right, too, to a full and ample redress for all these. But they have already chosen their own mode of redress; they have fixed by their constitutions and their laws the terms of their mutual compact, by which they are to test their rights and to seek their remedies.

The causes of public disturbances upon which we have dwelt so long, are alarming, and ought to be corrected, because they tend to substitute for the laws of the land the heated action of unreflecting

masses.

We know that the doctrines we have advanced may not meet the sanction of sycophants and demagogues. But the history of many a nation would bear melancholy testimony to their truth. Our government has no guards about it but the moral integrity of the people, and when this shall be corrupted the citadel must yield. No man can shut his eyes to the danger that assails us in this quarter, and no man should hold his peace till the danger has passed away.

W.

MY DONKEY.

I AM half a quadruped myself-were I not I should have a fellowfeeling for poor Dapple, the emblem and the image of equanimity and patient endurance. Though sufferance is the badge of all his tribe, he has nothing to interrupt his pleasant reflections and imaginations. All his labors are to go to mill; for this I find him in board, lodging, and shoes. He has the range of a patch o two acres in summer, and in winter he stands next the hay-mow, by the side of the cosset lamb. He need not browse, or bite a thistle once a year, unless from choice, as men chew tobacco. He is an especial favorite with the boys of the region he permits them to ride him and trots off like a dromedary, when, by a sudden stop and elevation of his hinder legs, he throws them over his head, and waits patiently till they get upon his back again.

He is called Dapple from the immortal companion of Panza, but he is of a mouse color, and his skin is downy. He was a colt, a foal, by the side of his dam in a distant island, when I rescued him from a sort of sylvan state.

Sympathy is a great matter-it is as powerful as Falstaff's instinct, and as little understood. Instinct led him to the youthful prince, and sympathy directed me to the young ass-a sort of animal magnetism.

Father calls him Issachar; but the poor brute answers soonest to the name of Dapple-though, sooth to say, sometimes he answers not at all. It has been remarked, that all natural sounds have melody or good modulation in them, and that the roar of the lion, or the bellowing of the buffalo, is in the great natural concert as good a bass as the note of the swan or nightingale is a tenor and treble.

Dapple, however, is in this concert a very bassoon. It is sonorous, and he is a master of his instrument. It would astonish a stranger to hear so small a body emit so formidable a sound. It is unlike any thing else it cannot be mistaken for any other music. It would resemble the sound of a saw-mill were that sound increased a hundred fold. It is fainter, however, towards the close, and dies away like an echo.

His ears-paullo majora canamus-said the old schoolmaster, pointing to them and laying his hand upon one of mine-are appendages of skin and gristle, in which he may claim precedence over all other beasts. When he is sorrowful or angry, they fall like withering leaves towards the horizon; but when he is well pleased, they sprout up like two tall mullen-stalks. They are larger than the leaf of a burdock. Some Roman poet desired to be all nose, that he might enjoy a perfume; had he as great a taste for a melody, and had he been formed like Dapple-as perhaps he was- -he would not have wished himself all ears-nature would have left him little to wish for.

The ass has not yet risen to his proper estimation among mankind. Created as a servant and a friend, he is made a slave-he is cudgeled like a Russian peasant. His back is the receptacle of all stray blows, and his sides are sore with kicks. He is a standing conductor to draw off the angry passions of his master, who, if enraged by a superior, vents his spleen upon his dumb, helpless, humble, patient beast. The ass

spoke but once, and this was to rebuke his master for beating him; but there are many Balaams, whom nothing but a similar miracle can move to justice and mercy. Of all transformations, commend me to the change worked upon Bottom; how delightfully he talked when he was an ass! I could wish to be in his place, to be scratched by Mustard-seed and Peascod, to be loved by Titania, to call for a bottle of hay, or "munch your good dry oats."

Friend Dapple! I so long have seen
The cares and vanities of men
And life, since I begun it,
That I would strait this head resign,
For such another one as thine,
With such long ears upon it.

THE INDIAN SUMMER.

WHEN the summer breezes have died away,
And the autumn winds are drear,

And the forests have changed their green array,
For the hues of the dying year;

There comes a season, brief and bright,

When the zephyrs breathe with a gentler swell,
And the sunshine plays with a softer light,
Like the summer's last farewell.

The brilliant dies of the autumn woods
Have gladdened the forest bowers,
And decked their pathless solitudes,
Like a blooming waste of flowers:
In their hidden depths no sound is heard,
Save a low and murmuring wail,
As the rustling leaves are gently stirred,
By the breath of the dying gale.

The hazy clouds, in the mellow light,
Float with the breezes by,

Where the far off mountain's misty height

Seems mingling with the sky;

And the dancing streams rejoice again,

In the glow of the golden sun,

And the flocks are glad in the grassy plain,
Where the sparkling waters run.

"T is a season of deep and quiet thought,

And it brings a calm to the breast,

And the broken heart, and the mind o'erwrought,
May find in its stillness rest;

For the gentle voice of the dying year,
From forest, and sunny plain,

Is sweet, as it falls on the mourner's ear,
And his spirit forgets its pain.

Yet over all is a mantling gloom,
That saddens the gazer's heart;

For soon shall the autumn's varied bloom

From the forest trees depart :

The bright leaves whirl in the eddying air-
Their beautiful tints are fading fast,

And the mountain tops will soon be bare,
And the Indian Summer past.

D.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MATHEW CAREY.

LETTER XXVI.

IN the year 1821, I wrote three pamphlets on the protecting system -"An Address to the Farmers of the United States," "The Farmer's and Planter's Friend," and "A review of Mr. Cambreleng's examination of the Tariff," proposed that year in Congress-in all one hundred and seventy-one pages: besides sundry newspaper essays.

Mr. Cambreleng's examination was fraught with most extraordinary and palpable errors, of which I subjoin two or three.

This gentleman asserted, in the most unqualified manner, that "the Congress of 1790 equally protected every branch of industry." Nothing could be more foreign from the real state of the case.

As stated in Letter XXIV. commerce was protected to the fullest extent, in almost every conceivable manner. The tonnage duties on foreign vessels, engaged in the coasting trade, were absolutely prohibitory, and at once, wholly excluded them. With respect to all other branches of our trade, the tonnage duties on foreign vessels were eight times greater than on our vessels. And, finally, foreign vessels were virtually excluded from the China trade, as the duties on teas imported in them, were 150 per cent. more than on those imported in American vessels-averaging, in the former case, twenty-seven cents per pound, and, in the latter, only twelve. I pass over a variety of other items, the whole of which, united, display the fostering care bestowed on commerce by Congress. Whereas the duties on nine-tenths of all the manufactures imported, were only five per cent. and were calculated almost solely for revenue! What a shameful contrast and what a degree of delusion on the part of this advocate of free-trade, the deadly enemy of the protecting system, except as it regarded commerce!

In this Congress, the manufacturers were almost wholly unrepresented, and shared that neglect of their interests, which unrepresented bodies uniformly experience.

"If the citizens of the United States want to see a Democratic Tariff, let them look at that of 1790. The men who framed it knew what equal rights were, because they had fought bravely for them. In that tariff they will not find the poor paying a higher duty than the rich for the same article. EACH MAN WAS THEN TAXED ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY, AND LUXURIES PAID THE HIGHEST RATE of DUTY. [Examination, page 94.]

A slight examination of this grand "Democratic Tariff," will prove how recklessly partisans will hazard assertions, destitute of even the shadow of foundation. In the wildest range of controversial excitement, there never was a position more completely unwarranted by fact than the one under consideration. For example :

A yard of superfine broadcloth, which then cost about four dollars, paid a duty of 20 cents.

A yard of silk, costing two dollars, paid a duty of 10 cents.

Cheese, which cost 8 cents per lb. paid 4 cents duty, equal to 50 per cent. Thus 5 lbs. of cheese paid twice as much as a yard of silk!

Salt cost 15 cents per bushel, and paid 12 cents, equal to 80 per cent.

Bohea tea cost at that time 15 cents per pound, and paid 10 cents, equal to 66 per cent. Thus one pound of Bohea tea paid as much duty as a yard of silk!

VOL. VII.

61