duration which maketh pyramids pillars of snow, and all that's past a moment." Whether in the opening paragraph of the Religio Medici we are moved by the pathos of the author when he assumes "the honorable style of a Christian," and laments over himself and the Jews, or we pause among urns and mummies to learn the vanity of earth and interrogate heaven, we are led by the wand of an enchanter over whom death has no power.

The extracts we have given are but a taste of the banquet that awaits the reader. Ticknor & Fields have given us a book well adapted to general circulation, and yet a good substitute for the London edition, which may be consulted by the curious scholar. Our American publishers have, in the creamtinted paper, clear type, and perfect accuracy of this volume, conferred a great favor on the reading public. All will be profited by consulting these beautiful pages. Let them study the example and writings of Sir Thomas Browne. Those who tread the dusty thoroughfares of life here see the practicability and pleasure of occasional excursions into the green fields of poetic thought and fancy; those who pant after immortality are encouraged to aspire to heaven; and those who seek the rewards of an honorable ambition are taught to build up the structures of immortal mind, the only monuments that defy the march of time.

ART. IX. THE WAR FOR THE UNION.

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OUR civil war, now become the settled business of the nation, at first took the world greatly by surprise. Our quadrennial elections for President had always been followed by such ready and perfect acquiescence, that men generally were astounded when close on the heels of that of 1860 followed a gigantic insurrection. And yet, to the thoughtful observer of national affairs, there had long been causes at work in our body politic of which such an insurrection was but the natural outgrowth and development. These causes date back to the period prior

to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, but more immediately and especially to that embraced by the administration of Washington. For it was during his administration that the Constitution-becoming then the law of the land-received its first practical exposition and enforcement. The government which it brought into being was at first merely a paper one. Of itself-per se-it had no force or effect. But it was to take form and force from the manner in which it was expounded and administered.

There can be little doubt that the founders of the present American Government intended it to be a strong one. They were weary of the vexations and the perplexities that beset them at almost every step, in the form of State Rights, under the old Articles of Confederation, and when they set up the Federal Government, they meant to endow it with the authority and the power of the whole American people. Therefore it was they declared that WE THE PEOPLE, not we the states," do ordain and establish it "for ourselves and our posterity." But the machinery of the government had scarcely been set in motion before the germs of two parties unfortunately appeared. The one, headed by Alexander Hamilton, held that the new government was really a government, established by the whole people, for the people, and endowed with all the functions and powers necessary for sovereignty and rule. The other, led by that matchless leader Thomas Jefferson, claimed that the several states were still sovereign in a great degree, and that the federal government, having been derived from the states, was powerless as against the states, except within certain limits. expressly defined in the constitution itself. In a word, the one pleaded for a strong government; strong at home, as well as abroad, prepared for all emergencies; while the other argued that the central government would be dangerous to local liberties, unless surrounded by manifold checks and balances. Hamilton was undoubtedly a statesman of great parts, was certainly unsurpassed by any statesman of his day, but as a party politician he was no match for the bold, resolute, scheming, and worldly-wise Virginian. While the one contended ably for a strong republic, the other was already popularizing doctrines that tended to a wild democracy. Adopting as his war-cry the popular maxim of that age, "the world is governed too much,"

Mr. Jefferson evidently forgot that there might come a time when the chief trouble of his country would be-being governed too little. His advocacy of the decentralization of the government, and the localization of power, was necessarily popular, because such a government would give importance to localities and individuals that would otherwise remain obscure and unknown. His platform, therefore, soon enlisted the sympathies and the active energies of all such, and though frowned upon by Washington, Madison, and other great worthies of that day, its ascendancy was only a question of time. The result was, that Hamilton soon came to be denounced as an aristocrat and monarchist, while Jefferson was hailed as the philosopher and democrat, the model statesman, the people's friend. Whatever else may be said of Mr. Jefferson, the logic of his doctrine of decentralization was soon unmistakable, as in time counties came to question the authority of states, and townships that of counties, until at length it happened all authority was deemed irksome, and all constraint called despotism.

This pestilent heresy of "State Rights,"

Sole source of all our woes,

thus fostered and insisted upon, soon begat that jealousy of the national government, early christened the "Spirit of Disunion," whose natural fruit was the Hartford Convention, and whose logical development, Nullification. Both of these insurrec

tionary movements ignominiously failed, not so much because of any force which the national government brought to bear against them, as because of the want of a common bond of union to link together disaffected communities. John C. Calhoun, who, disappointed in his hopes of the American Presidency, next turned Nullifier to establish a separate empire, was slow to perceive this fatal defect in his schemes. But no sooner was this wily conspirator brought to realize it, than he stopped the insurgent movement and bade his associates "bide their time." It is a great mistake to suppose that the spirit of disunion expired in 1832 with the fires of nullification, that then, unhappily mostly of their own accord, went quietly out. The high crime committed against the nation was not punished. The wicked criminals, all of them, went unwhipt of justice, FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XVI.-20

and the foul conspiracy itself was not even broken up; it was only adjourned sine die, to meet again at the call of its accomplished chieftain. Andrew Jackson, that man of strong sense as well as strong passions, (for it is Plutarch who observes that "great parts are often attended by great vices, as well as great virtues,") early divined this. Knowing, necessarily, more of Calhoun's plans than any other man of that day, he felt, in his inmost soul, that he had only scotched the snake, not killed it. To the day of his death, it was his lament, that he had not hung Calhoun and his chief associates; but the Jeffersonian spirit of the times would not permit such an act of federal tyranny! In correspondence, since published, he declares that the tariff question was then "only a pretext;" that the real "object" of the conspirators was an "independent government;" and then adds, with a prescience beyond his times, "the next pretext will be African Slavery."

Mr. Calhoun, casting about for a platform on which his malcontents, however disagreeing on other points, might there stand unitedly, was not slow to perceive this ebony one ready made to his hands. What mattered it, that slavery was then everywhere regarded as an evil, and its speedy extinction generally desired? There was the bond of union to suit his purpose, and, with the rice field and the cotton gin as his auxilaries, a decade or two would suffice to revolutionize the theology and the politics of his times. So, with an industry and a genius worthy of a better cause, he set himself seriously to work, and, unhappily for his countrymen, succeeded but too well in his nefarious designs. It was not given to him, however, to see the ripe fruit of his baleful doctrines. It may have been thought that it would be too sweet a satisfaction to the traitor's soul. But year by year, indoctrinated from platform and pulpit, the southern communities became more and more fused together, until in 1860 the time and the opportunity had come for the outburst of the great rebellion whose iron hoofs now desolate the land. We repeat, slavery only unites the parts; the real cause of the rebellion lies deeper. Slavery is only the common platform, the bond of union, the vital cord, which must itself be completely severed before the parts by it united can return to their old condition of peace and loyalty. But it is, after all, only a condition of the rebellion; a necessary con

dition, we grant; a condition which we would be blind not to see and allow for. But our real struggle, as a nation, to the calm eye of history, rises higher than the question of slavery, and is rather an armed resolve of the national government to assert for itself, at last, authority and power. The rebellion under the form of secession, is simply Jeffersonianism pushed to its logical results; the war for the Union, waged under the form of coercion, is merely the healthy return of the government to the sounder doctrines of Washington, and Hamilton. They fight for anarchy; we fight for government. They fight for lawlessness; we fight for law. The battle in Charleston harbor came not a moment too soon. It was high time to test the question, whether the American government dared to return a domestic blow. During those last maddening days of the reign of Buchanan, when the nation like a strong man bewildered was yet struggling in the Valley of Humiliation, we barely escaped "as by fire" from becoming a by-word and a hissing among the nations. The conflict had already been put off too long. Too many insults had been received unresented, too many indignities already endured. The great case of the nation versus the states had been adjourned from time to time, so often, that the defendants had already come to the conclusion that the plaintiff did not mean to prosecute at all. But at last the plaintiff, mysterious as it seemed, was goaded to think better of his cause. With much painstaking, he found a proper attorney in a certain honest lawyer from Illinois, and then at length, it happened, the case was ordered for trial, at the bar of History, before the great Judge of nations as well as men.

The first blow. had scarcely been struck before the states divided off and took sides. The northern states, mostly loyal to the federal idea, and, where they were not wholly so, without a "common bond" to unite them in insurrection, declared for the Union. The southern states, on the contrary, knit together by the common bond of slavery, declared unitedly for disunion. And thus it happened that the war became speedily a war of sections. The war, thus once fairly inaugurated, resolved itself into a mere question of forces. Chief among these were four, to wit: quantity and quality of population, wealth, and commerce. On the one side were arrayed