American System, and of those who before and since he stood forth as the champion of this great cause, have labored in support of it with more or less efficiency, if we supposed that the only object of it is to naturalize among us the production of the material comforts of life, and that the only questions connected with it, are whether the General Government have or have not a right to lay out roads and canals, and to impose duties for the protection of domestic industry. The scope and aim of this system are far more large and noble. Its leading principle is the developement of all the resources of the country, political, intellectual and moral, as well as economical. The means by which it proposes to accomplish its object, is the concurrent action of every member of the body politic, in all the various capacities in which he is called upon to exercise influence,-whether through the medium of the General, State, or Municipal Governments,-of voluntary associations for whatever end, or finally within the limited circle of his own personal concerns. A new world of boundless extent and unrivalled natural advantages, capable of maintaining a population of hundreds of millions, spreads its broad bosom before us. This is our inheritance, and with it the noble birth-right of liberty. That single attribute of our nature, by which we claim some distant resemblance to the Divinity, and rise above the control of every earthly power, except the inborn moral law of our own hearts, is here unrepressed by the vicious political institutions that have trammelled and fettered it in every other part of the world. With these unparalleled natural advantages, with these munificent gifts of Providence at our disposal, shall we be content to gaze forever in stupid admiration on the products of skill and science that are brought to us from other countries far less favorably situated? Shall we even, like the ignorant natives of our continent, allow foreigners to impose upon us, as they too often do,-their glittering and worthless trinkets for the real jewels of art and science? The ultimate objects to which our efforts should be directed are, after all, the developement and freedom of the mind. Are the thoughts, the opinions, the feelings that are generated in the impure atmosphere of Europe, fit to be the guides of life in this young, rising, and generous republic? Shall we drink in forever as our daily nutriment, the selfish, sordid, poisonous doctrines that have corrupted the whole literature of the old world, and are wafted to us in ship-loads

by every wind that blows from that quarter? Shall we practically confess, that we can do nothing more than produce the rude material, the physical, unimproved man, and that we must leave it to the superior capacities of enemies and rivals to put on the stamp and fashion,-to breathe in the spirit that gives understanding? Shall we, in short, with the name of national existence, be forever, in substance,-in all that relates to the higher departments of our nature,—the Colonies of Europe? If not, by what means can we accomplish our emancipation? Is it by eternally contending among ourselves about minute points of difference concerning the respective limits of the authorities of the General and State Governments, when the common objects for which both are to be exerted are substantially the same? Is it not rather by the vigorous, untiring, concurrent exertions of individuals, corporations, constituted bodies politic within their respective appropriate spheres? In the vast vineyard in which we labor, there is ample and honorable employment for all. There are numerous objects, which can only be effected by the direct agency of the Federal Government, and for the accomplishment of these the Federal Government has been clothed with all the necessary powers. But is there no room left for the activity of the States? We know what they can do by seeing what they have done. Is the CLINTON CANAL a less magnificent, by which we mean a less really useful achievement, than the Cumberland road? Instead of wasting their time, their labor, their talents, their best and highest feelings in the truly unprofitable attempt to prevent each other from concurring in the accomplishment of the common objects of all, let the respective friends of State Rights and of the Federal Constitution rather aid, encourage, and stimulate each other to do as much as possible, and the great work of Internal Improvement will then go on steadily, rapidly, harmoniously, to its final consummation in the complete intellectual, moral, economical, and political independence of the country.

These two important measures, or rather schemes of policy, -the foundation of our relations with the Spanish American States, and the establishment of the American System,-in both which, as we have seen, Mr. Clay took the lead,-must affect essentially and permanently the condition of this continent, and will recommend his name to the respect and gratitude of posterity. In other affairs of equal or even still supe

rior temporary interest,-particularly in that of the admission of a portion of the territory of Missouri into the Union as a State, his influence was equally conspicuous. Mr. Prentice has a very interesting chapter on this subject, of which we would gladly give an abstract; but the length to which this article has already extended, makes it necessary that we should hasten to a close; and we must content ourselves with referring the reader for information on this and several other curious topics to the work itself.

Having stood before the country for at least ten years as the acknowledged leader in the House of Representatives, and having served with success in other stations of the highest trust, it was not unnatural, that when Mr. Monroe retired from the Presidency, Mr. Clay should have been among the persons proposed as his successor. He was, however, still somewhat young to appear as a candidate for that office, and encountered of course the competition of other statesmen more advanced in age. The acknowledged talents and various accomplishments of Mr. Adams, his long and faithful labors in the diplomatic service, terminated and crowned as they had been by his brilliant and successful negotiations at Ghent, which extorted at the time the reluctant admiration not only of hostile statesmen abroad, but of his bitterest and most rancorous personal enemies at home; his able administration for eight years of the Department of State, signalized by the establishment of our relations with Spanish America, in regard to which he had acted in the Executive branch of the Government the same part which Mr. Clay had performed in Congress, by the settlement of the Southern boundary and the acquisition of Florida ;— his known generosity of spirit and inflexible uprightness of purpose; gave him an almost irresistible claim to the suffrages of the people, which, in the minds of all good men, was strengthened by a grateful recollection of the revolutionary services of his venerated father. On the other hand, the glare of military success, which always exercises so powerful an influence on the uninformed and unreflecting part of the community, had invested the name of General Jackson with a good deal of popular favor. Of the qualifications which recommended Mr. Crawford as a candidate for this transcendent dignity, we are not particularly informed. After a very short career, in which he had exhibited no pre-eminence of talent, either as a Senator or a diplomatist, he had been placed in the

Treasury Department by Mr. Monroe, where he had done nothing more than to go through,-not always in the most accurate manner, with the habitual and easy routine of the place. His personal pretensions were of course insignificant ; but his political principles were understood to be of a radical cast, and this circumstance probably recommended him to certain managers as a person under whose auspices they might attempt, with some prospect of success, to wield the machinery of the old democratic party. Another Southern statesman of distinguished talent and elevated character, but much younger than even Mr. Clay, was exhibited for a moment as a candidate, but was almost immediately withdrawn by his friends. In this conflict of opposing claims, each sustained by strong sectional interests,-it was of course impossible that a choice should be made by the people. The question, which of the four principal candidates should be brought before the House of Representatives, was naturally determined in part by accident; and it so happened that Mr. Clay,-whose personal pretensions were second only to those of Mr. Adams,—was not among the number. His great influence in the House of Representatives rendered him in a manner the arbiter between the three more successful competitors. The choice was, however, a very easy one. There could be no hesitation about the comparative qualifications of General Jackson and Mr. Adams for the Presidency of the United States; and had the case been different with respect to Mr. Crawford, (which it would not have been, in the mind of any competent judge,) the state of his health was such, as to put him entirely out of the question. The doctrine since contended for by some, that the House were bound to elect the individual who had the highest number of votes, is too absurd to require refutation. Mr. Clay decided, as every other person of common sense and common integrity would have done, under the same circumstances. His character and position in the country designated him as the only candidate for the Department of State, which was offered him by Mr. Adams, as it would have been by any President, and which he accepted. By force of management, a large proportion of the adherents of the three disappointed candidates were induced to unite in opposition to the new administration, which, at the next following election, -not much to the credit of the people of the United States VOL. XXXIII.-NO. 73.

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on the score of good sense,-they succeeded in overthrowing. Posterity will read the history of these transactions with the same sentiments with which we now read that of the ostracism of Aristides, or the disgrace of the Duke of Marlborough. In the course of the controversy that arose on this subject, the opposition presses,-with the usual recklessness of party animosity,-made no scruple of charging Mr. Clay with corruption. It was obvious to all, who were not completely blinded by passion and prejudice, that any other course than that which he took, would have afforded unequivocal evidence of corruption of the basest kind. The charge was of course not believed for a moment by any impartial man, and the complete and most satisfactory refutation of it which Mr. Clay condescended to furnish in several publications, was, for all such persons, entirely superfluous.

It is not our purpose, however, to enlarge on topics connected with the personal disputes of the day; and as the details of the administration by Mr. Clay of the Department of State are familiarly known to our readers, we shall here close this rapid survey of his political life. Whether it will be his fortune to end it in uninterrupted retirement, or to appear again upon the political theatre in a still higher character than any which he has yet sustained, is a question of small importance to himself, although, in our opinion, of much to the country. In the ordinary peaceful progress of events, which we may venture to hope will not be disturbed for many years to come, a President of the United States has but little opportunity of extending the reputation by which he has raised himself to that dignity. Mr. Clay has already recommended his name to the future historian as a leading actor in the most important political revolutions of the age,-as the founder of a new era in the economical policy of his own country. The honor of the Presidency,-eminent as it undoubtedly is,can add nothing to such distinction. His name is one, of which the absence from our list of Presidents would be remarked in after times much more than its presence there; as the philosophic Roman historian observes of the statues of Brutus and Cassius, which one of the profligate emperors was afraid to produce in some procession, where he paraded those of most of the heroes and patriots of the Republic, that they were only the more conspicuous from not being seen. Eo magis refulgebant, quod non videbantur.