for internal improvements as Adams and Webster themselves; the interests of the majority being clearly on that side.

To an impartial observer it appears that Congress has no constitutional right to devote the public funds to internal improvements, at its own unrestricted will and pleasure: that the permitted usurpation of the power for so long a time indicates that some degree of such power in the hands of the general government is desirable and necessary that such power should be granted through an amendment of the constitution, by the methods therein provided: that, in the mean time, it is perilous that the instrument should be strained for the support of any function, however desirable its exercise may be.

In case of the proposed addition being made to the constitution, arrangements will, of course, be entered into for determining the principles by which general are to be distinguished from local objects, or whether such distinction can, on any principle, be fixed; for testing the utility of proposed objects; for checking extravagant expenditure, jobbing, and corrupt patronage: in short, the powers of Congress will be specified, here, as in other matters, by express permission and prohibition. These details, difficult or unmanageable amidst the questionable exercise of a great power, will, doubtless, be arranged so as to work with precision, when the will of the majority is brought to bear directly upon them.

It is time that this great question should be settled. Congress goes on making appropriations for a road here, a canal there, a harbour or a lighthouse somewhere else. All these may or may not be necessary. Meantime, those who have law on their side, exclaim against extravagance, jobbing, and encroachment on popular rights. Those who

have expediency on their side plead necessity, the popular will, and the increasing surplus revenue.

If the constitution provides means by which law, expediency, and the prevention of abuse, can be reconciled to the satisfaction of all, surely the sooner it is done the better. Thus the matter appears to a passing stranger.

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CHAPTER III.

MANUFACTURES.

The crude treasures, perpetually exposed before our eyes, contain within them other and more valuable principles. All these, likewise, in their numberless combinations, which ages of labour and research can never exhaust, may be destined to furnish, in perpetual succession, new sources of our wealth and of our happiness."

BABBAGE.

THE whole American people suffered, during the revolutionary war, from the want of the comforts and some of the necessaries of life, now so called. Their commerce with the world abroad being almost wholly intercepted, they had nothing wherewith to console themselves but the stocks which might be left in their warehouses, and the produce of their soil. It is amazing, at this day, to hear of the wants of the commonest articles of clothing and domestic use, undergone in those days by some of the first families in the republic.

The experience of these troubles suggested to many persons the expediency of establishing manufactures in the United States: but there was an almost universal prejudice against this mode of employment. It is amusing now to read Hamilton's celebrated Report on Manufactures, presented in 1790, and to see how elaborately the popular

objections to manufactures are answered. The persuasion of the nation was that America was designed to be an agricultural country; that agriculture was wholly productive, and manufactures not productive at all; and that agriculture was the more honourable occupation. The two former prejudices have been put to flight by happy experience. The last still lingers. It is not five years since the President's message declared that "the wealth and strength of a country are its population; and the best part of that population are the cultivators of the soil."

Such prepossessions may be left to die out. They arise mainly from a very good notion, not very clearly defined;-that the more intercourse men have with Nature, the better for the men. This is true; but Nature is present in all places where the hands of men work, if the workmen can but see her. If Nature is supposed present only where there is a blue sky overhead, and grass and trees around, this shows only the narrowness of mind of him who thus supposes. Her forces are at work wherever there is mechanism; and man only directs them to his particular purpose. In America, it may be said that her beauty is present wherever her forces are at work; for men have there set up their mechanism in some of the choicest spots in the land. There is a good and an evil aspect belonging to all things. If tourists are exasperated at fine scenery being deformed by the erection of mills, (which in many instances are more of an ornament than a deformity,) let others be awake to the advantage that it is to the workpeople to have their dwellings and their occupation fixed in spots where the hills are heaped together, and the waters leap and whirl among rocks, rather than in dull suburbs where they and their employments may not annoy the eye of the lover of the

picturesque. It always gave me pleasure to see the artisans at work about such places as Glen's Falls, the Falls of the Genessee, and on the banks of some of the whirling streams in the New England valleys. I felt that they caught, or might catch, as beautiful glimpses of Nature's face as the western settler. If the internal circumstances were favourable, there was little in the outward to choose between. If they had the open mind's eye to see beauty, and the soul to feel wonder, it mattered little whether it was the forest or the waterfall (even though it were called the "waterprivilege") that they had to look upon; whether it was by the agency of vegetation or of steam that they had to work. It is deplorable enough, in this view, to be a poor artisan in the heart of our English Manchester: but to be a thriving one in the most beautiful outskirts of Sheffield is, perhaps, as favourable a lot for the lover of nature as to be a labourer on any soil: and the privileges of the American artisans are like this.

Her

As to the old objection to American manufactures, that America was designed to be an agricultural country, it seems to me, as I said before, that America was meant to be everything. group of republics is merged in one, in the eyes of the world; and, for some purposes, in reality: but this involves no obligation to make them all alike in their produce and occupations; but rather the contrary. Here, as everywhere else, let the laws of nature be followed, and the procedure will be wise. Nature has nothing to do with artificial boundaries and arbitrary inclosures. There are many soils and many climates included within the boundary line of the United States; many countries; and one rule cannot be laid down for all. If there be any one or more of these where the requisites for manufactures are present, and those