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would be adopted, the assent of the requisite number of States (nine) would not have been given to the proposed Constitution; and that consequently, to these amendments, in anticipation and expectancy, we owe the Constitution itself. To give to this fact its just prominence; to show the necessity of the restrictions upon the Federal Government and the safeguards for popular rights provided by these amendments; and to illustrate the claims to lasting gratitude and honor of those who devised and carried out this method of removing objections to the Constitution, and of composing the otherwise irreconcileable dissensions of the times, were the chief motives by which he had been governed in the selection of his subject.

Mr. Butler adverted to the circumstances attending the promulgation of the Constitution, to the opposition it encountered, and to the doubts and apprehensions in regard to the compatibility of the proposed Federal Government with the rights of the states and the liberties of the people, which led to that opposition. One of its principal causes was the omission of a Declaration or Bill of Rights, which omission was regarded by large masses of the people in several of the States, as a fatal objection to the instrument. In December, 1789, five States-Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia and Connecticut, ratified the Constitution. The Convention of Massachusetts met on the 9th of January, 1788. A considerable majority of the members was opposed to ratification; but the rejection of the instrument was prevented by a compromise suggested by General Heath, and proposed and advocated by John Hancock and Samuel Adams. This compromise consisted in the unconditional ratification of the Constitution accompanied by certain amendments which were recommended to the consideration of Congress and the other States. The example of Massachusetts was followed by South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia and New York, all of which States, though they ratified unconditionally proposed amendments, those of the three last numerous and carefully framed, for the purpose of supplying a Bill of Rights. In the meantime, Maryland had ratified unconditionally; and in this state of things the new Constitution was put in force in reference to the eleven States thus ratifying it. Of these eleven States five had ratified in expectation that amendments would be made; and Mr. Butler showed by the proceedings of their respective Conventions, that it was only by this means that majority was induced to assent to the ratification.

The proceedings of the first Congress were then referred to for the purpose of showing that the subject of the amendments proposed by the States was presented by Washington in his Inaugural speech to the two Houses of Congress; that Mr. Madison who introduced the amendments proposed by that Congress, (twelve in number) compiled them from the various amendments recommended by the States; and that Congress by a preamble prefixed to the amendments expressly placed them upon the ground that a number of the States, at the time of adopting the Constitution, had expressed a desire" that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be adopted, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers."

Of the twelve amendments proposed by Congress, ten were ratified by the requisite number of States; and in these ten the most important general provisions recommended by the four States above mentioned, were included. In the meantime, North Carolina and Rhode Island had assented to the Constitution, but with the recommendation of amendments similar to those of Virginia and New York, which were, in like manner, to a great extent, substantially disposed of by the amendments finally adopted.

Upon the second point (the scope and application of the amendment), Mr. Butler said that no little want of accurate knowledge and much of positive error have extensively prevailed. As they are couched in very comprehensive terms and not expressly limited to the Federal Government, many readers not conversant with their history and design have supposed them to be restrictive not only upon the Federal, but also upon the State Governments. This opinion has often been maintained by lawyers, and sometimes adopted by Courts of Justice; and though exploded by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1833, it yet continues to exist among persons whose attention has not been particularly directed to the subject, but their history makes it perfectly clear that they were only intended to operate on the Federal Government and is officers-a point as to which, probably, no diversity of opinion would ever have existed, had the amendments always been published with the preamble prefixed to them by Congress.

On motion of Mr. Wetmore, the thanks of the Society were presented to Mr. Butler, for his able, instructive, and eloquent address, and a copy was requested for the archives of the Society.

The additions and donations to the Library during the last month were announced, and the Society then adjourned.

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OUR present Number affords us an opportunity of addressing to the Democratic Party, whose destinies at this moment hang trembling in a fearful balance, a brief though earnest Word in Season. Identified with no partial division of our collective and universal Democracy, whether from the influence of sectional or other interests removed, equally from participation, and from disposition to participate, in any of the internal quarrels by which the harmony of our counsels has been of late so unhappily distracted—and animated solely by an engrossing zeal in the maintenance of the wisely benign principles and policy of our Party-we may certainly, if any one, be allowed to claim a position entitling us to the candid and friendly attention of all of its temporarily disordered sections. At the time at which the present page passes through the press, the action of the Convention is yet wrapped in the uncertainty of the future. By the time By the time when it will fall under the eye of the reader, its deliberations will have been held-its action adopted and proclaimed-doubt will have become certainty -contingency, fact. No design nor desire, therefore, to influence, by a feather's weight, any quivering equilibrium, can be now imputed even by the most suspicious jealousy of partizanship.

Whatever may be the decision of this great Family Council of the Democratic Party-whether in the approaching

contest, the same leader shall be selected as the bearer of its banner who so worthily bore it in the last, or whether it shall be judged safest to place the sacred standard in another hand, must make no difference in the ardor with which, from all our various directions, we must rally and concentrate to its defence and its triumph. This duty-this sacrifice, if for any it must be called a sacrifice-we owe to each other, to ourselves, to our great common cause. common cause. Apart even from oth er considerations, some perhaps of still loftier, others of a lower character, this is sacredly due from us, one and all, as an obligation of patriotic loyalty, of political and even of personal honor. We all go into this Convention-the various interests, agitating whether the deeps or the surface of the Party, have been of late addressing to it all their possible means of influence, to affect the decision it is to make—and we are now bound loyally, frankly, cordially to abide by it. The antagonist rivalries of the past must all now merge into a friendly emulation of zeal and activity. We must all unite in forgetting the illtimed mutual criminations into which we may have been led by the ardor of . pursuit of a favorite object, or which we may have felt extorted by the course. or the suspected designs of others. And especially is it now the duty of those who have done most in this way to disorganize and weaken our collect

ive party strength, to do most to atone for their error and repair its mischief. Previously to the introduction of this new element of discord into our midst, the Texas question, the general concurrence of at least nine-tenths of the Democracy on Mr. Van Buren was settled and recognized. Since that event, it is not to be denied that the question of the propriety of his nomination is presented in an aspect materially modified, by the demonstrations of public sentiment which it has called forth in those portions of the Union most eager for the Annexation. These are all certainly entitled to a respectful, and indeed anxious, consideration, by the Convention, whatever may be the preferences brought by a majority into the deliberations of that body. It is possible, very possible, that he may not be nominated -that many of his own best personal friends within its numbers, not loving Cæsar less but Rome more, may be the first to cast a reluctant and sorrowful vote against his name. If the Convention should come to the conclusion, on a broad survey of the whole ground, that the influence of this new question is really and truly such as to destroy or endanger the hope of his election-that any other candidate, worthily fulfilling the condition of being a true and trusty Democrat, can bring more favorable auspices into the contest with the common foe—be it so. Though we have never before assumed the right to speak for Mr. Van Buren, yet on this occasion and this point we do not hesitate to assert, that he will himself, in that event, be found foremost among the first, and truest among the true, in support of the decision of the Convention. And keen and bitter as may perhaps be the disappointment of his own State and of the great bulk of his supporters in every other, we feel amply assured that they will well prove the fairness of their present appeals to the loyal fidelity of others, by the magnanimous ardor with which they will then perform the duty which altered circumstances will have made their own.

If, on the other hand, the now suspended decision shall still determine in favor of Mr. Van Buren's re-nomination, notwithstanding all the prudential objections honestly urged against it on this ground, again we say-again let us all say—be it so. And on this presumption, according as it does with

the existing probability, we beg the South-and in the South those in particular who are most disposed to the disaffection we deprecate-to listen to a few frank and earnest words from a not unproved friend.

CLAY OF VAN BUREN-which do you prefer? This is the question. Granting that from among the various aspirants for the Democratic nomination you might have found individuals who on one or two points of theoretical doctrine went further than Mr. Van Buren in the assertion of extreme opinion-granting that a still more ultra free-trader might have been found, or a candidate willing to seize upon immediate possession of Texas, war or no war, treaty-faith or no treaty-faithyet the issue is no longer an internal one, within our own party lines, between the more and the less completely satisfactory leader of our collective array. It has been now removed far beyond and above that narrow ground of sectional or personal preferences. We are now abroad in the open field of the battle whose signal has already sounded. Your choice of alternatives is between this side and that—between a manly and loyal support of the representative of the principles summed up in the known creed and character of the Democratic Party, and a base and traitorous desertion of them all by espousing the cause of their avowed enemy; espousing his cause, we say, for in the present state of the contest neutrality is hostility—he who is not for us is against us us is against us—and every vote negatively withheld from the one, is at least half a vote positively cast for the other.

It is absurd to dream of a third candidate, as tending to bring the election into the House of Representatives. Such a course would only secure the success of the single Whig candidate. Independently of its influence on the large number of wavering votes, a large proportion of which it would decide in favor of the ticket truly running for an election by the popular voice, it would in every State paralyze the zeal, even if it would not jeopard the votes, of vast numbers of the friends of the other candidates than the particular one adopted as the party candidate for that State. Of all possible courses this would be the weakest and the worst.

And now (we suppose ourselves addressing the most malcontent malcontent south of Mason and Dixon's line)look for a moment full in the face the consequences of deserting the main body of the Democracy of the rest of the Union, in this hour of the most perilous crisis that it has known within our day and generation.

Need we enumerate all the fatal practical measures, and yet more fatal principles of policy, which the success of the Whigs would establish in the Federal Government, beyond the reach of any efforts we could even hope to make, for many a miserable year, for their overthrow? A national bank-a permanent and protective tariff-assumption of the State debts, through the distribution of the land revenue, if in no more direct and open mode—and, in a word, the general application, to all occasions that may arise, of that latitudinarian construction of the constitution, which characterizes the party of which Mr. Clay is the head and personification-all these we pass by for the present with this mere brief allusion; and will venture to suggest another point of view in which the consequences of the success of the Whigs at the coming electionthrough your fault, positively or negatively-are well worthy of your serious reflection.

The Democracy of the North will look upon such a course on your part with an indignant resentment which, be assured, it will not be wise to provoke. It will feel itself wronged, insulted, and betrayed, in a manner which at least its present generation is little likely to forgive. It will impute your desertion, on the very field of its greatest, if not its last battle, to narrow and selfish motives of personal preference for your own sectional favorites, combined with an injurious spirit of jealousy and dislike against itself, which will awaken a feeling on its part, of which, believe the prophetic assurance, you will long have reason to regret the existence. Heretofore it has been the Democracy of the North in whom you have found your natural allies against the perpetual attacks upon your rights and interests still stimulated by the unresting genius of Federalism. They have been placed in that relation to you, by that instinctive jealousy of power which has inclined them to your

own cardinal principle of political doctrine, the great conservative idea of State-Rights. On the common ground of this doctrine, they have been able to stand fraternally by your side, in many a contest in which they alone upheld and saved you. They have been true to this doctrine, and to you, on many an occasion when their public men_could maintain that position only at a degree of difficulty and danger which you have little known and less appreciated. They have had to struggle against strong tides of popular tendencies at homenot wholly free, too, from some natural sympathies of their own, adverse to the course which a magnanimous political duty has led them to pursue. If you now, if the South, shall prove false, alike to them, and to all the common principles professed by them and you, by causing, by permitting, the installation of Clay and Clayism into the possession of the federal government-doing so, too, under circumstances wearing, at least, the strong seeming of a selfish sectional factiousness, under the thin pretext of this newly sprung Texas question-how much longer do you imagine that Northern Democrats will maintain so ungrateful, so faithless a union? Why, there will be a burst of indignation from the North for which you are little prepared. They will abjure you and your capricious, if not treacherous alliance, and leave you to sustain yourselves by yourselves, against all the forms of foreign attack which will then be a thousand-fold multiplied and embittered. No son of yours need then indulge a vain aspiration for that high honor for which the votes of Northern Democracy are threefold more necessary than those of Southern Chivalry. The great free North and the great free West will then take the matter of Presidentmaking into their own steadier and trustier hands. Your position and your influence in the political councils of the Union you will speedily find to be vastly changed; and the prophetic reasons throng upon our minds, lowering and portentous, which will teach you long to rue the day when your own fickle faithlessness will have converted your best friends into perhaps your worst enemies.

You have already had a slight foretaste of the first fruits of this irresistible tendency to which we allude, in the recent fate of the Tariff Bill in the

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