imported, on the other, because the price of the foreign article would be less than that of the homegrown; and the difference would be a bonus upon over-working. Hence destruction of life in the latter case would be at once the effect and the cause of its increase in the former. What a detestable circle of crime and cruelty! Is it possible that a system, thus opposed to the best feelings of our nature, and destructive of those principles on which the wealth and welfare of nations depend, can much longer continue ?

Nothing can be imagined more perfect than the political mechanism of this republican confederation; whether you look at the complexity of its structure or the simplicity of its action. Each body moves in its own orbit, with periodical changes adapted to its magnitude and condition; and all revolve together round their common centre, without confusion or collision. The federal form seems to secure the best check to the personal and social infirmities of man. In his individual capacity, he is amenable to the State; in his collective, to the general government. An analogous development is given to his good qualities; and the same virtues which, when separately exercised, might have created discord and bloodshed, produce, in conjunction, peace and harmony. Such is the aspect presented by a distant and general view. Upon a closer inspection, however, you discover a principle that menaces the system with de

struction or dissolution: you see the unequal division of light and liberty between the North and the South; and approaching separation casts her gloomy shadow before your eyes. You turn from the prospect with the bitterest feelings of regret and disappointment.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Speeches in Congress.-Claims on the French.-Visit to President. Alexandria.- Discontent among the Merchants.Mount Vernon.-Judge Washington's Slaves.-Establishment of Slave-dealer.-Slaves half starved.-Virginia.-Depopulation. New kind of Entail.-Stage Adventure.-Warrenton. -Election Speeches.

MR. LEIGH'S speech was not published while I remained at Washington. If it appeared at all, it must have been a long time after it was delivered. It is not the custom for the reporters to take down the speeches in Congress at length, as with the French and ourselves. The inhabitants of Manchester or of Rouen may read the next day the whole of what has been said in the House of Commons or the Chamber of Deputies; but the good citizens of Washington itself may wait for weeks, and even months, before they know, unless they were present, what has been uttered within the walls of the Capitol. The honorable members frequently prepare their

own speeches for the press; and a long time sometimes elapses between the delivery and the publication. It happens occasionally that the latter takes place without the former, as in the recent case of Mr. Adams, the ex-president, who was prevented from speaking, as he had intended, in the House of Representatives, on the deposit question; the debate having been brought, by a manœuvre, to a speedy conclusion, in order, as it was said, to influence the New York elections, by passing resolutions approving of the measures of government. The very circumstance of having had no hearers would probably procure more readers for Mr. Adams. The speech, when published, contained sentiments that would appear to an European reader very singular in the mouth of an ex-president against a successful competitor for "the throne."

"Strip Andrew Jackson and Roger B. Tancy of the little brief authority which invests them with the privilege of slandering their fellow-citizens with impunity, and neither of them would DARE to charge any of those men I have named, (the United States' bank directors,) neither (either) before their places, or anywhere in the presence of credible, impartial witnesses, with dishonesty or corruption—either in general terms or by any one specification. Neither of them would dare to go to the city of Philadelphia, and there, in any possible manner, avow a charge against any one of those men which could make up

an issue for a test of character by a verdict of their peers."

The president, like his brother potentates in Europe, seems to be less popular at the seat of government than elsewhere. The citizens of Washington, having no vote, except for the corporation, complain that the removal, by which the present president's accession to power was marked, of functionaries from the public service, has rendered the tenure of office so precarious, that a spirit of prudent economy has succeeded to the former expenditure; and a proportionate diminution in the demand for many things previously supplied by the tradesmen has taken place :—while fewer houses have been built, and other checks have been given to commerce, in addition to the distress which the shock to credit, occasioned by the sudden change in the disposal of the public revenue, has effected. They think it hard to be disfranchised and impoverished too;-to lose the compensation which their political insignificance received from the circulation of the government money:-to have neither their birthright nor their mess of pottage.

The president appears to understand the limits of the legislative power as fully as he observes those of the executive; and to be as much "at home" abroad, as his enemies say he is "abroad" at home. He is no less conversant with the French charter than he