manner," says he, "in which the governments of those States where
slavery exists are to regulate it is for their own consideration,
under their responsibility to their constituents, to the general
laws of propriety, humanity, and justice, and to God. Associations
formed elsewhere, springing from a feeling of humanity, or any other
cause, have nothing whatever to do with it. They have never received
any encouragement from me, and they never will."

  They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its
stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the
Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but
they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that
pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage
toward its fountain-head.

  No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They
are rare in the history of the world. There are orators,
politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has
not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the
much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake,
and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may
inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of
free trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation.
They have no genius or talent for comparatively humble questions of
taxation and finance, commerce and manufactures and agriculture. If we
were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our
guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual
complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among
the nations. For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no
right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is
the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail
himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?

  The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to-
for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I,
and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well-
is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction
and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my
person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an
absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a
democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.
Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the
individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know
it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to
take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of
man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the
State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent
power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and
treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at
least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the
individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it
inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from
it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the
duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of
fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would
prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which
also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.

                                  THE END
.