and in the Palaces of Kings, winding his way amidst the ferocious and party colored Revolutions of France and the life-guard favorites and Camarillas of Spain. Then look at the map of United North America, as it was at the definite peace of 1783. Compare it with the map of that same Empire as it is now; limited by the Sabine and the Pacific Ocean, and say, the change, more than of any other man, living or dead, was the work of James Monroe. See him pass successively from the Hall of the Confederation Congress to the Legislative Assembly of his native Commonwealth; to their Convention which ratified the Constitution of the North American people; to the Senate of the Union; to the Chair of Diplomatic Intercourse with ultra Revolutionary France; back to the Executive honors of his native State; again to Embassies of transcendant magnitude, to France, to Spain, to Britain; restored once more to retirement and his country; elevated again to the highest trust of his State; transferred successively to the two preeminent Departments of Peace and War, in the National Government; and at the most momentous crisis burthened with the duties of both-and finally raised, first by the suffrages of a majority, and at last by the unanimous call of his countrymen to the Chief Magistracy of the Union. There behold him for a term of eight years, strengthening his country for defence by a system of combined fortifications, military and naval, sustaining her rights, her dignity and honor abroad; soothing her dissensions, and conciliating

her acerbities at home; controlling by a firm though peaceful policy the hostile spirit of the European Alliance against Republican Southern America; extorting by the mild compulsion of reason, the shores of the Pacific from the stipulated acknowledgment of Spain; and leading back the imperial autocrat of the North, to his lawful boundaries, from his hastily asserted dominion over the Southern Ocean. Thus strengthening and consolidating the federative edifice of his country's Union, till he was entitled to say, like Augustus Cæsar of his imperial city, that he had found her built of brick and left her constructed of marble.

In concluding this discourse, permit me, fellow-citizens, to revert to the sentiment with which it commenced; and if it be true that a superintending Providence adapts the talents and energies of men to the trials by which they are to be tested, it is fitting for us to be admonished that the trial may also be adapted to the talents destined to meet it. Our country by the bountiful dispensations of gracious Heaven, is, and for a series of years has been blessed with profound peace; but when the first father of our race had exhibited before him by the Archangel sent to announce his doom and to console him in his fall, the fortunes, and the misfortunes of his descendants, he saw that the deepest of their miseries would befal them, while favored with all the blessings of peace and in the bitterness of his anguish he exclaimed

66 Now I see

Peace to corrupt, no less than war to waste."

It is the very fervor of the noon-day sun, in the cloudless atmosphere of a summer sky, which breeds

"the sweeping whirlwind's sway,

That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey."

You have insured the gallant ship, which ploughs the waves, freighted with your wives and your children's fortunes, from the fury of the tempest above, and from the treachery of the wave beneath. Beware of the danger against which you can alone insure yourselves-the latent defect of the gallant ship herself. Pass but a few short days, and forty years will have elapsed since the voice of him, who addresses you, speaking to your fathers, from this hallowed spot, gave for you, in the face of Heaven, the solemn pledge, that if, in the course of your career upon earth, emergencies should arise, calling for the exercise of those energies and virtues which, in times of tranquility and peace, remain, by the will of Heaven dormant in the human bosom, you would prove yourselves not unworthy of the sires who had toiled and fought and bled, for the independence of their country. Nor has that pledge been unredeemed. You have maintained, through times of trial and danger, the inheritance of freedom, of union, of independence, bequeathed you by your forefathers. It remains for you only to transmit the same peerless legacy, unimpaired, to your children of the next succeeding age. To this end, let us join in humble supplication to the Founder of empires and the Creator of all worlds,

that he would continue to your posterity, the smiles which his favor has been bestowed upon you and since "it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps," that he would enlighten and lead the advancing generation in the way they should go. That in all the perils and all the mischances which may threaten or befall our United Republic, in after times, he would raise up from among your sons, deliverers to enlighten her Councils, to defend her freedom, and if need be to lead her armies to victory. And should the gloom of the year of Independence ever again overspread the sky, or the metropolis of your empire be once more destined to smart under the scourge of an invader's hand, that there never may be found wanting among the children of your country a warrior to bleed, a statesman to counsel, a chief to direct and govern, inspired with all the virtues, and endowed with all the faculties, which have been so signally displayed in the life of James Monroe.

MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION.

WHILE the possession of brilliant genius or talents, will not be claimed for James Monroe, even by his warmest admirers, it will not, on the other hand, be denied, that he carefully improved the varied and numerous advantages he enjoyed, during a protracted public career; and that, as the acquisitions of a long experience, he added, to his natural prudence and good sense, a tact, and a knowledge of men, which eminently fitted him for a successful politician. When, therefore, he proposed, in 1814, as Secretary of War, his Vet measure for the increase of the army, to which the 257 term of "conscription" was opprobriously, yet unjustly applied, he foresaw that it might seriously affect his popularity; and, inasmuch as his name had been proposed as the successor of Mr. Madison, he came to the deliberate determination, after consultation with his confidential friends, to which he would unquestionably have adhered, to decline standing as a candidate, in the event of the continuance of the war. The peace, however, relieved him from this position of embarrassment, and his friends at once began, openly and zealously, to advocate his selection as the candidate of the republican party.

Other candidates for the nomination were likewise