II. THE PRESENT CONDITION OF GREECE. By George Sumner, Esq. Page 195 204 Reminiscences of the Last Sixty-Five Years, commencing with the Battle of Lexington. Also, Sketches of his own Life and Times. By E. S. Thomas. Formerly Editor of the Charleston (S. C.) City Gazette, and lately of the Cincinnati Daily Evening Post. In 2 vols. Hartford: Printed by Case, Tiffany, and Barnham, for the Author, 1840. IV. JEREMY BENTHAM. Theory of Legislation, By Jeremy Bentham. Boston: Weeks, Jor- V. WHO GOVERNS, THEN?-A Tale of the Court of Louis XV. From the 226 251 271 THIS NUMBER CONTAINS SIX SHEETS, OR NINETY-SIX PAGES. Is it within the range of imaginable possibilities that General Harrison should succeed in the approaching contest? We cannot conceive it so to be. The struggle is indeed severe and close, and we confess ourselves equally surprised and mortified that such should be the case. But to suppose the overthrow of the Administration which has maintained itself so nobly and gloriously throughout the past Presidential term, and the erection upon its ruins of an Administration of which the present candidate of the Whig party should be the head, seems to us indeed a combination of ideas so ridiculousan outrage upon all right and reason so monstrous-a reductio ad absurdum so complete-that we could not believe in it though every State in the Union should exhibit the most unfavorable indications in the preliminary local elections. And if-we suppose the case as a mere abstract hypothesis-if the infliction of such an Administration upon our country should be in reserve for us, as one of those mysterious dispensations of Providence to which we must perforce submit, however little we may be able to understand them, it will not be till we shall have heard with our own ears and seen with our own eyes the ceremony of the inauguration of General Harrison, that we shall fully believe and realize that a majority of the people of the United States can have been brought to do this foolish thing. Let us take as calm and clear a view of the whole question as may be in our power. It may be well to bring together, into a brief and comprehensive summary, the principal issues involved in the coming Presidential election, and the claims of the two competing candidates to that popular confidence which the friends of both respectively invoke. The great controversy which now so violently agitates the whole country from centre to circumference, presents at the outset a twofold aspect, as a question of men and of measures—of parties and of prin ciples. These two distinct points of view are indeed very apt to be blended and confounded together; nor is it possible entirely to separate them; to a certain extent they necessarily influence and modify each other, nor should either be lost sight of, in fixing an undivided attention upon the other. Though there cannot be any comparison in the relative importance of the two, the consideration of men being but secondary to that of measures, yet is it very certain that the disregard of the former, which some persons are apt to suppose the height of political wisdom and purity, is the surest mode of going wrong in respect to the latter. In forming his decision on which of the two sides to cast the weight of his influence and vote, the intelligent patriot, whose sole desire is the common weal of the common country of both, is bound to look, not alone to the immediate practical measures urged and opposed by the respective parties, but also to the general characters of the parties themselves—the tone of political morals pervading their organization, as manifested by their conduct-and the spirit and manner in which each prosecutes the contest they are waging for the possession of power. This is a comparison which, in reference to the present state of our politics and our parties, we can proudly and fearlessly challenge; nor could we ask anything better than to stake upon it the issue of the whole controversy. But equally strong upon either of these grounds as is the cause we maintain, we shall endeavour to combine a rapid general view of the outlines of both. There has never been a period, within the history of our politics, which has exhibited the two contending parties in a contrast more advantageous to the Democratic side, in every point of view, than the present. The unfavorable tendency of the long possession of power, upon the political morals of a party, has been abundantly counteracted by severe chastenings of adversity; by the powerful opposition with which we have had to wage an unceasing struggle; and by the necessity which the circumstances of the times have imposed upon us, as the only means of safety, of retempering our democracy in a recurrence to the simple purity of its original principles-of recombining a new party organization, animated by a new spirit, and fresh with the new vigor and ardor of a generous youth, in the place of an old one, exhausted by the natural progress of decay, and finally exploded by the great political and commercial convulsion which burst within the first few months of Mr. Van Buren's Presidential term. The Democratic party is at this moment, we are perfectly satisfied, in as pure and healthy a state-as if, instead of having been in office for three Presidential terms, it were just fresh from the salutary influence always produced upon it by a purgatorial period of minority and opposition. In our reorganization on the basis of the President's noble Message of the Extra Session, all that large body which is so apt to overgrow the surface of our party-the mere politicians-the salaried patriots who have become enervated by long repose on the luxurious couches of official rank and power-the old managers who have from time immemorial enjoyed and abused a monopoly of the honors and advantages of directing the movement of a dominant party-and that considerable class of men whose democratic spirit never survives the days of their youth and poverty; who always begin to grow timid and distrustful of the noble principles of their original faith, in exact proportion as their wealth begins to wax, and their years begin to wane; fearful of all bold and unfamiliar truth, and frighted out of their propriety by every bugbear phantom, of the dangers and horrors, of popular licentiousness, which it is the perpetual vocation of the antidemocratic party to conjure up-all these, like the old feathers of the bird, or the old skin of the serpent, were cast off, from that ascendency in the party which long usage and the memory of their better days had given them, by the shock of the trying times of which we speak. A large proportion of them passed over easily and smoothly, by a natural process of transition, to the ranks of our opponents. Of this we make no complaint. Many have returned to us after a period of wavering, of honest doubt, and are willingly welcomed back-but not to their old places. They find there a new order of things. They find a new spirit animating their old party-a new tone pervading it -a spirit of a more pure and enthusiastic democracy, a tone of bold and manly freedom of thought and speech, dealing only with large and liberal principles, comparatively indifferent to mere petty partisan interests, and holding in contempt the old system of " according to the regular usages of the party." They find everywhere at the head of its movement a new set, of young men, sincere, ardent, and disinterested in their desire to promote the progress of democratic reform; who appeal only to those great principles which cannot fail to find a response in the popular heart, and who would be as prompt to oppose and denounce the Administration if it should prove false to those principles, as they are now earnest in support of it and them. Never, we repeat, has our party been in a more pure and healthy state-never more worthy of its noble old name-than at the present moment. The manner in which the present Presidential contest is conducted on our side finely illustrates the truth of this remark. All, with us, is open and transparent to "the public eye." We have no reservations-no deceptions. On every one of the leading topics of the times, we make the most clear and unequivocal declarations of our opinions and intentions. Whether from friend or foe, our candidate returns a frank and explicit answer to every interrogatory addressed to him. And all our public discussions are marked by a fine tone of manliness and truthfulness. Strong, grave, and earnest argument-candid appeals to that intelligence of the people for which our respect is as sincere as it is profound-these are the weapons with which alone we do our battle. We make no attempt to excite any other popular |