WELL, the great measure of the Independent Treasury is now the law of the land-never, we feel firmly assured, to be repealed. This event will stamp the year eighteen hundred and forty as one of the leading epochs of our history, as it will cast upon the Administration to which is peculiarly to be ascribed its authorship, a historical lustre which will never cease to mark it in bright relief upon the annals of the Republic.

It has been already generally remarked upon by the Democratic press, that the coincidence of time was a happy one which enabled the President to affix his signature to it on the national anniversary whose sanctity is derived from that first imperishable Declaration of Independence, of which the present is well entitled to be regarded as a worthy sequel and consummation. It is indeed no extravagant figure of fancy which has suggested the designation frequently applied to this great measure, as a second 'Declaration of Independence,'—nor is it in any spirit of political fanaticism, or partisan pride, that we thus refer to it. It is not as a mere victory of our own side of a long and fierce struggle of opinion, and discomfiture of the formidable antagonist powers with which the struggle has been waged-this is not the light in which we would now regard this important event-this is not the feeling which prompts us to make it the subject of these remarks. The establishment of the Independent Treasury is far more than a triumph of an Administration—it is a triumph of a great truth. It is far more than an occasion of exultation to a party-the day is not distant when it will be recognized without a dissentient voice as a just subject for rejoicing to the whole people. Far be it then from us to look upon it now in any point of view less expansive than the national character of the epoch itself. It is not in a spirit of partisanship, but of patriotism, that a great event of this nature is to be regarded.

Alexander Hamilton was a great and good man, as he was one of the most pure and zealous of patriots; but so fatal has been the influ

ence of the poison which his hand unconsciously infused into our political system, at its very source, that at the same time that his country raises the statue which she cannot refuse to his noble memory, well might she exclaim with grief and bitterness, would that he had never been born!' A storm of foreign invasion may devastate a nation's fields and homes -but when it has passed away, the untiring bounty of Nature will clothe the former again in their wonted beauty and abundance; and the recuperative energies which temporary disaster but stimulates, will speedily reconstruct the latter, and again surround their hearths with all the happy affections which brightened and blessed them before. A tyrant may indulge an all but omnipotent malignity in sweeping away half a generation with sword, fire, and famine-but when the term of years allotted to his guilty career, by a higher omnipotence than his own, shall have been attained, the ranks of population that he has thinned are speedily refilled, and the sufferings of the fathers are soon forgotten in the revived prosperity and happiness of the children. But not so with a bad principle once deeply planted at the root of a nation's system of government, though it may be by the hand of an honest while deluded patriotism.

It cannot in candor be denied, that the results of our great experiment of democratic self-government have fallen very far short of its early expectation and promise-far short, too, of what we devoutly believe it capable of effecting. Though it has been for upward of half a century in operation, and more than two generations of men have grown up under the full influence of its action, who can pretend that it has done any thing like what we all insist that it is capable of doing—who can say that it has yet so completely and triumphantly demonstrated itself as to command, as it ought to command, the full approbation and conviction of all the rest of mankind? How much is there not that meets the eye in every direction, which affords to the foreigner arriving on our shores too plausible a ground for disparaging comparison, with the practical effects of other institutions upon national character and happiness. Of course we shall not be understood as casting any doubt upon the vast superiority which on the whole, with whatever drawback and disadvantage may exist, the American citizen is entitled to claim, both for the institutions of his country over those of less favored lands, and for their general effects. We do mean, however, that their success has been but very imperfect-that the drawbacks to their beneficial operation of which we must confess the existence have been far from slight-and that if democracy were never destined to work out better fruits than it has yet produced among us, we should indeed scarcely deem it worth the stern and unceasing struggle, to which the votary who would be its champion must devote himself.

The two prominent evils to which we would here allude, are, that

absorbing passion for the acquisition of wealth, which has come to be regarded as our leading national characteristic, and that excess of party spirit which we see indulged with so much violence and bitterness. Now, without going so far as to trace the origin of both of these evils solely to the vicious system of paper-money credit which, in its close alliance with the political power, has exercised an omnipotent sway over the country, and deeply influenced the developement of our national destiny and character, yet is it very certain that they have not only received from this fatal source a great aggravation in their degree, but that they owe to it much of the pernicious character and spirit which they have exhibited.

The common comparison of the currency of a country to the circulating life-blood of the human frame is no mere hyperbolical figure of speech. A close analogy may be traced between the two in several points of view, and in none is it more true than in the fatal influence of a diseased state of the circulation upon the general health of the system. A bad currency is a worse evil than a bad government, as a permanently bad state of the blood than any mere external or local injury. Far better a bad government in other respects with a good currency, than a good government with a bad currency. And as the influence of a diseased circulation extends itself throughout every part of the physical system, through a ramification of channels infinite in number and minuteness, so does a vitiated currency diffuse its baneful effects throughout the whole infinite complexity of society-acting distinctly, and in a vast variety of modes of evil, moral and physical, upon every individual unit of its millions. The comparison is after all but a feeble one, and can afford but a slight and dim glimpse of the important truth which it is designed to illustrate-namely, of the intimate connexion between the currency, and the character and happiness, as well as the wealth, of nations. The diseased blood can but impair or destroy the physical life; the diseased currency saps with its subtle poison not less fatally the moral health than the material prosperity of a people. Its reform is not more a problem of Political Economy, than a question of Morals—and a question, according to our apprehension of it, second in magnitude and interest to no other.

By universal assent it is an established truth, that no practice is more vitally poisonous to the character of its wretched victim, than that of gambling. Base in its stimulating motive-which is pure and simple avarice-it is most fatally debasing in its effects. Though a depraved habit of opinion among a large portion of society recognizes it as not dishonorable, it is yet essentially dishonest in its nature. No man of truly noble spirit, of pure and healthy moral sense, ever yet for the first time received the gains of the gambling board without a blush, without an unconscious protest of his better nature against the act.

The true principle of right, as that of law, is, that consideration, a

fair equivalent, is essential to the honesty and validity of contract, to the equity of the reception or payment of money. As in the case of duelling the guilt of murder derives no mitigation from the stupidity of an equal self-exposure, so in that of gambling the dishonesty of receiving from another money not fairly earned, by an equivalent of service rendered, is in no respect atoned by the folly of having voluntarily placed one's self in a position in which an equal chance might, on the contrary, have imposed the necessity of a corresponding gratuitous payment to the opposite party. It is the custom of all gambling societies to affect a peculiar degree of delicate and sensitive honor in all that relates to this subject; and for no offence will the chivalrous murder of the duel be more remorselessly resorted to, than for the slightest imputation tending to cast a shade of doubt upon its purity. The very custom, however, proves only the conscious moral rottenness of the system, which cannot bear the most distant approach of the touch of the truth. No man can become an habitual gambler without becoming thoroughly demoralized at heart, and ripe for the commission of any act of dishonesty from which he is not withheld by the only restraint that remains to him, the fear of detection and punishment. Sordid and selfish, the bosom of the confirmed gamester becomes the fit home of all that is bad and base, nor can any good principle, any noble sentiment, or any pure affection, long continue to linger in so debased an abode.

All this is truth—nay, it is truism. And yet we daily hear the remark made, of the gambling character which has gradually infused itself into the whole system of commerce and business of the country, without a reflection upon its obvious consequence-upon the fearful national demoralization which must result from that character, in degree exactly proportionate to the cause.

A certain degree of hazard is of course inseparable from all commerce. Apart from the dangers of the elements and unavoidable accident, it is scarcely possible for any human sagacity to foresee all the contingencies which may affect the success of a complicated commercial operation, growing out of the close mutual dependence of a mercantile community, as well as out of the uncertainty of markets, the mutations of public taste and fashion, and the rivalry of competitors. But this degree of hazard is not greater, when commerce is conducted on sound principles, than is beneficial in affording a healthful stimulus to intelligence, enterprise and caution-nor greater than is necessarily incident to all human affairs. The sagacious merchant of the good olden time--content with moderate, sure, and progressive profits, well acquainted with his particular line of business, and less ambitious of great wealth than jealous of the unquestioned purity of his commercial integrity-pursued a career as honorable as it was useful, and might on the whole calculate with all but absolute certainty on the reward which would accumulate upon his hands, long before closing an easy and