same altar from similarity, not identity of creed: they support the same system of government, not because it fully accords with the political theory of either, but approaches more nearly than the counter systems which the others maintain; and they draw their swords in the same cause, influenced by general correspondence of motive, not by precisely coincident views of national honor and right.

A consideration of this inevitable and all pervading difference in the constitution of intellect would seem sufficient, in itself, to teach mankind the duty of the widest tolerance of opinion. Yet, strange anomaly difference of opinion has ever been regarded as an occasion for the most vehement persecution. For this, martyrs innumerable have been immolated at the stake, and the whole earth has been incarnadined with the blood of human victims. The history of past ages is a continued narrative of the perverse strife of bigotry against the exercise of reason; and the history of our own times, unhappily, contains abundant evidence that this bad warfare has not wholly ceased. If civilization, in its progress, has extinguished the faggot, and trampled to atoms the instruments of physical torture, by means of which mind sought to establish its terrible despotism over mind, there are still left, in the hands of intolerance, other weapons of coercion, by the free use of which she strives, though with efforts of comparative impotence, to retard the march of truth. Abuse is now substituted in place of force. Opprobrious terms and epithets of derision are the racks and pincers of the modern question. On the gravest subjects which affect the happiness of their kind, men enter into conflict, armed, not with arguments, but with invective. They address themselves not to reason and justice, but to passion and prejudice. They impugn the motives of their antagonists, instead of combatting their opinions; and exercise all the arts of a perverted logic to heap ridicule and contempt on their persons and characters, instead of temperately demonstrating, by the irrefragable methods of dialectic proof, the unsoundness of their positions, and the inherent badness of their cause.

This modified form in which the spirit of the dark ages still lingers among men displays itself nowhere so grossly as in the field of political discussion. The controversialists here-forgetful, it would seem, that politics are a branch of morals, which, having for their object the happiness of mankind, should not be pursued by means destructive of that end-assail each other with the rancor of mortal hostility, rather than the generous rivalry of champions alike zealous in the cause of truth. They contend as if their aim were to exterminate, not to convince; as if obloquy were a more powerful weapon than reason, and to defame an opponent a prouder achievement, than to refute the errors of his creed. In this respect, political controversy is behind the improved temper of the age. In religion, the angry scoffs and denunciations of polemical

warfare have given place to a more kindly and assuasive style of discussion, better suited to the genius of that faith which preaches "peace on earth, and good will toward men." In science, the splenetic strife of presumptuous dogmatists, eager to bend the immutable and harmonious laws of nature to the support of chimerical and contradictory theories, has been succeeded by the friendly emulation of calm and modest searchers after truth, content to climb their way to the loftiest pinnacles of knowledge by the slow, but only certain paths of observation, induction, and experiment. No longer do arrogant synods proclaim arbitrary standards of faith, to which men must conform their worship on pain of anathemas and persecution. No longer need the astronomer fear, while directing his tube to the stars, that the discoveries he may make will subject him to derision and reproach. No Galileo is now summoned before an inquisitorial tribunal to recant his sublime theory of the mechanism of the heavens; and no Bacon is maligned with the imputation of a league with the powers of darkness for the fruits he derives from a patient investigation of the mysteries of nature.

Happily for mankind, in religion and science, a wide and continually extending spirit of tolerance prevails. Their votaries seem at last to have discovered that the utmost liberty of inquiry furnishes the surest means for the ascertainment of truth, the only object worthy of pursuit; that all truth is single, and consistent with itself; and that it is its grand and peculiar characteristic ever to come forth from the alembic of discussion unchanged, and purified from the adulterations of error, with which passion and ignorance may have blended it.

Benign would be the effect on the condition of our race, if sentiments like these governed men in political investigations. There is nothing in the intrinsic nature of politics that renders the subject incapable of the calmest and most temperate disquisitions. We artfully mingle with it a thousand extraneous topics, in order to bewilder the understandings and excite the prejudices of those whom we address. But could questions of government be submitted to the mind in the naked dignity of abstract propositions, not immediately affecting selfish interests, men would reason upon them soberly, and be swayed in their opinions by the preponderance of truth. Politics are a branch of morals. All the duties of life are embraced under the three heads of religion, politics, and private ethics. The object of religion is the regulation of human conduct with reference to happiness in a future state of being. The object of politics is to regulate conduct with reference to happiness in communities. The object of private ethics is to regulate conduct with reference to individual happiness. Happiness, then, is the single aim of these three great and comprehensive branches of duty; and it may be questioned whether the obligations imposed

by either can be fully performed by him who neglects those which the others enjoin. If we believe in the divinity of that precept which teaches us to love our neighbour as our ourselves, in what mode can we more effectually show its authority over our minds, than by taking a firm and temperate part in political affairs? The right ordering of a State directly promotes the welfare of multitudes of human beings; and it is therefore not only the private interest, but the christian duty, of every individual of those multitudes, strenuously to exert his just influence in accomplishing so important a result. Each one should act as if governed by the beautiful sentiment of Terence, "homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto."

It would be a study not unworthy of the political moralist to inquire into the causes of that opposite spirit of contentious bitterness which so extensively prevails. If the sole legitimate end of politics is the happiness of men in their relations to each other as members of a community, they who call themselves politicians, not having this as their cardinal object, are not politicians, but demagogues; and, on the contrary, they only deserve the name, no matter what the anomalies and contradictions of their several creeds, who are truly governed by this high and generous purpose. That mind should differ from mind, in its estimate of the relative adequacy of opposite systems of politics to accomplish the same result, is a necessary consequence of the infinite variety which is displayed in the constitution of intellect. But that they should differ from each other in the end proposed, can only be accounted for, not by inherent diversity of understanding, but by depravity of heart. To which of these causes must be ascribed the wild intemperance and asperity which distinguish our political controversies? Can mere theoretic difference of opinion wholly account for the rancorous vehemence of contending partisans, if really moved by the same benevolence of ultimate aim? Is it in the nature of things, that a sincere and single desire to advance such a scheme of government as would most effectually secure the greatest amount of general happiness, can draw into action those violent passions which we constantly see exhibited around us? Can it prompt such angry declamation, instigate such gross criminations, and justify such strong appeals to the worst motives of the grovelling and base, as constitute a staple commodity of warfare in every contest of the antagonist parties of our country?

That we do not use language beyond the warrant of sober truth, every candid reader, however limited his observation in the field of political controversy, must admit. There are none so ignorant as not to know, that our party strifes are conducted with intemperance wholly unsuited to the conflicts of reason, and decided, in a great measure, not by the preponderance of honest opinion, but by the

influence of the worst motives, operating on the worst class of people. Let it not be supposed that we apply this phrase exclusively to any degree of society, as marked by the divisions of that aristocratic scale which is graduated according to the amount of men's wealth, and the nature of their occupations. By the worst class of people, in our sense of the expression, all those are included-whether sons of idleness or of toil, whether rolling in affluence or pinched with want, whether dressed in furred gowns or in tatters -who enter into the strife of party without paramount regard to the inherent dignity and true end of politics; without due reference to the interests of their country and of mankind; without singly and solely aiming to advance the greatest happiness of society; but actuated by private and unworthy motives; by personal preferences and dislikes; by lust of office, or the hope of achieving, directly or indirectly, some sinister object through the means of party predominance. These are, indeed, the lower orders, if we measure things by the sound standard of the moral scale. These are the dregs of society, often, it is true, cast to the surface by the agitation of the political elements, but infallibly doomed to sink to the bottom when the fierce ebullition of passion, ignorance, and selfishness shall subside.

It is from the undue influences of causes such as these, that elections come to be regarded by many as a mere game of mingled hazard and calculation, on the issue of which depends, as matters of absorbing importance, the division of party spoils, the distribution of chartered privileges, and the allotment, in various forms, of distinctions and pecuniary rewards. The antagonist principles of government, which should constitute the sole ground of controversy, are lost sight of in the eagerness of sordid motives, or only viewed as supplying an opportunity for inflammatory invective; and the struggle, which should be one of reason and opinion, with no aim less noble than the achievement of political truth, and the promotion thereby of the greatest good of the greatest number, sinks into a wretched brawl, in which passion, avarice, and profligacy, act the chief parts on the desecrated scene.

To remedy this evil wholly is perhaps not within the scope of practical reformation; since it results, in part, from that diversity and imperfection of reason, which is displayed, to some extent, on every subject that engages the mind of man. Mathematicians sometimes kindle into wrath in the discussion of a problem, and call on their hearers, in the angry terms of demagogues, to decide the relative merits of opposite modes of demonstration. If we may not look for invariable moderation in the investigation of abstract truth in the exact sciences, which depend for their proof on elementary propositions universally acknowledged, we need scarcely hope to see it always observed in disquisitions on politics, a

science, the very axioms and definitions of which are themselves subjects of dispute, while the objects proposed by it necessarily embrace incidental matters calculated to mingle prejudice with judgment. But though we may not accomplish a degree of reformation incompatible with human imperfection, much within that limit is in our power to achieve. Whence, let us inquire, chiefly arises the harsh and vindictive tone of our party disputations? Do we place ourselves in the opposition of mortal foes, and assail each other with unmeasured obloquy and reproach, because our theoretic views of the best means of promoting national welfare do not entirely coincide? Or is this rancor aggravated by causes not necessarily connected with politics; by elements foreign and adscititious, which improperly complicate the question of government, and removed from the tribunal of pure reason and patriotism, to one where cupidity, avarice, and all selfish passions take part in the decision? Is not the fierce and intolerant temper of our political controversy largely owing to the fact, that government, instead of being conducted exclusively for the protection of the equal rights, and promotion of the general happiness of the community, has been extended to embrace the control of a thousand objects, which might safely, and with far greater advantage, be left to the regulation of social morals, and to the unrestrained efforts of individual enterprise and competition. Are our elections, in truth, the means of deciding mere questions of government, or does not upon them depend, to a much greater extent than the cardinal principles of politics, the decision of numerous questions affecting private and peculiar interests, schemes of selfishness, rapacity, and fraud, and artful projects of men who, under illusory pretexts of seeking to advance the public good, aim only to make the many tributary to the few?

To this cause it seems to us, with a clearness that can scarcely be increased by illustration, that much of the asperity of party strife must be ascribed. The true end of government is the equal protection of its citizens in "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," leaving them to think, speak, and act, in whatever way their ideas of happiness may suggest, with no limit to unbounded freedom, save that which restrains them from mutual injury. But widely have we departed, in practice, from this principle of our political faith. We have fallen into the besetting sin of mankind of governing too much. We have undertaken to regulate, by political interference, the pursuits of industry and improvement; we have connected government with the speculations of trade; we have imposed burdens on the whole people in order to afford peculiar advantages to certain branches of traffic; and worse than all, we have endowed with exclusive privileges, and hedged and guarded round with all the cunning devices of the law, an order of chartered mo