But juvenile lawlessness is not the only proof of defective early education which exists among us. What a sad want of knowledge and of conscience in regard to moral principle is manifested even by many who are communicants in christian churches! Whose conscience reproaches him for making what is called a good bargain? that is, taking more for a thing than it is worth, or buying a piece of property at half its known value? On whose word can you rely to keep a contract, when breaking it will bring more money? A man who uniformly keeps his word, is a prodigy and a wonder. Again; how much knowledge of the true principles of free government is manifested by a goodly number of our voters? What sort of argument is it that has the greatest influence in procuring their suffrages? What intelligent freemen they must be, who bawl for liberty with their throats, and with ther hands tear down their neighbor's house for holding and publishing opinions which offend them! Men whose feelings are raised to the highest point of indignation, that any one should be restrained in his liberty to sell ruin and destroy the bodies and souls of his fellow-citizens; but who at the same time will shoot a man for publishing a newspaper which asserts that negroes should not be slaves! And as to a knowledge of international law and the true principles of foreign policy, the recent proceedings in regard to Canada and Texas, afford pregnant illustrations. I cheerfully admit and rejoice in, the good sense of the great mass of the people; but all these things exist, and they are mortifying in the extreme; and must be remedied! 3. We are prone to self-estimation, self-applause, and an all prevalent egoism. German philosophy makes a distinction between egotism and egoism, the latter indicating that one esteems himself of great importance and makes himself the centre of his own efforts. It is one of the greatest curses of despotism, that it robs the great mass of the people of self-respect, and one of the greatest blessings of free institutions, that they make each individual feel that he is an important member of the community, and lay upon him the responsibilities of a man. But self-respect, unregulated and unchecked, may degenerate into habits of self-applause and selfidolization; and that this has been the case to some extent in our country, no impartial observer can doubt. Hence the disgusting airs and intolerable assumptions of the ignorant and noisy though successful aspirants, for wealth or popular favor. Hence also the great intolerance, the want of reverence, the coarseness of thought and language, which have infected to some extent even our religion, and produced addresses to the Deity which would be disrespectful even to a fellow creature. On this topic let us hear the testimony of a very intelligent foreigner, who has written a sensible book respecting us and our institutions. "The ruling power in the United States (says M. De Tocqueville) must not be jested with; the smallest reproach irritates its sensibility; the slightest joke, which has any foundation in truth, renders it indignant; everything must be made the subject of encomium, from the very structure of their language to their more solid virtues. No writer, whatever be his eminence, can escape from this tribute of adulation to his fellow citizens. The majority lives in the perpetual practice of self-applause, and it is only from strangers or from actual experience, that the Americans have any chance of learning some truths. If no great writers have as yet appeared in America, the reason is clear. Literary genius cannot exist without freedom of opinion, and freedom of opinion does not exist in America.”* If there is some exaggeration in the above, there is also much of plain, honest truth. To the same principle of egoism and self-worship are to be attributed the interminable, irrelevant, loose harangues, (so different from the plain, short, straight forward talks in the British Parliament,) which consume the time of our Congress. These harangues are made, not for the sake of convincing any one, not for the purpose of elucidating the subject under debate, for the haranguer knows very well that nobody listens to him, and by the hour together he makes no allusion to the subject before the house, but he wishes only to hear himself talk, and does not even pretend to be speaking to his colleague representatives, but says he is addressing his constituents a thousand miles off; and this imaginary audience is the only one he ever fancies to be listening to him. An amusing instance of this verbal flux recently occurred in the U. S. Senate. The Senate were ready to pass a certain measure by unanimous vote, but one honorable member was dying to deliver himself of a speech in favor of the measure—and in compassion to him the Senate adjourned and spent the whole of the next day in waiting for the end of his speech in favor of • Democracy in America, Vol. II. p. 162. the measure, which they had all declared the day before they were ready to adopt without further debate! 4. We are characterized by great violence and illiberality of party spirit, both ecclesiastical and political. Here public sentiment (as it is called), is the great arbiter and sovereign, and public measures are carried, not by the authority of an elevated few, but by the combined energies of a great mass. Hence every party strives to gain as many adherents as possible, whatever may be their moral worth; and these adherents must all be committed and identified with the party, that numbers may give them weight, and unbroken union enable them to control public sentiment. This is the great object of party, to control public sentiment; and the public sentiment of the party, is too often put in the place of God. This leads to a rigorous and uncompromising party discipline-a discipline which tolerates no individuality of character or opinion, and has no patience with the scruples of a too tender conscience or of a too tardy and hesitating reason. Many men are urged to courses which both their judgment and feelings disapprove, because they have not courage to breast the torrent of the public sentiment of the party. If one should so far resist as to refuse himself to take an active part in that which he regards as wrong; this sacrifice at least he is expected to make to the spirit of party, to content himself with a silent non-cooperation, and avoid all public expression of disapprobation. This would be to weaken the influence of the party-to detract so much from its power to control public sentiment; and this must not by any means be permitted. Thus party spirit prevails over conscience, and the enlightened dare not resist the illiberal. Men acknowledge in general that it is their duty to bear an open testimony against all sin; but in regard to the sins of their own party, they act as though a private testimony or even no testimony were sufficient. On what principle of christian morality is such conduct to be justified? Whence does a man derive his authority to conceal or palliate the sins of his associates and declaim openly against those of his opponents only? "But our party is engaged in a good cause-its principles and its aims are right-and therefore its influence ought not to be broken." Admit that its principles and its aims are rightdo its vices therefore become virtues, or does the end sanctify the means? Does not any one see that such a position is a constant snare to one's conscience, a continued and powerful temptation to wrong doing? Equally disastrous, in a moral point of view, is such a position in regard to one's opponents. A man from conscientious conviction resists the course of a party. He therefore stands in its way and breaks its power of controlling public sentiment. The party are willing to persuade him by argument, if they can, to fall into their ranks, or at least to stand out of their way and offer no obstacle to their progress. But if argument fails to persuade, still he is in their way, and must be put out of their way-and if his influence is exerted against them, that influence must be destroyed. Something must be found against him; and if nothing can be found, something must be made. The process usually is to trace some resemblance between something which he has thought or done, and something which has been thought or done by some odious party-to insist upon it that he belongs to that party-and then take the worst acts of the worst men of the party, and hold them up with their features all distorted as a fair representation of his character. A man opposes the establishment of an abolition newspaper in a certain town, because he thinks it will do harm instead of good. A mob with different motives and widely differing means also opposes its establishment, and straightway the man is set down as an encourager of mobs, and is told that he is just as bad as the worst of the mob, for he and they think and feel just alike. Another declares his conviction that to hold and treat men as merchandize is a sin against God, and a violation of all the laws of humanity; and in certain circles he is immediately decried as a fanatic, an incendiary, an abolitionist. A man comes in possession of slave property which he does not immediately abandon-and it is not enough to call him a slaveholder he is a thief, a man-stealer, a murderer, a cannibal; and it is all proven against him by a new and most exquisite system of logic. Even if one be a bad man, it is grossly immoral to accuse him of things of which he is not guilty, in order to help forward the impression produced by his real guilt. We have no right to call the duellist a thief as well as a murderer, in order to increase the odium against him. We are in every way as strongly bound to strict, conscientious truth in our treatment of a bad man as of a good one. Lying never promotes truth, and the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. There is great injustice in classing a man with a party which he disclaims, because some of his opinions accord with a tenet or two of the party. It is also equally unjust to hold a good man responsible for the evil use which bad men may make of his right actions and opinions. Our Saviour set himself against the formal hypocrisy of the Pharisees. So did the Sadducees and the Herodians. Did our Saviour therefore belong to the Sadducean or Herodian party? or did he lend his influence to build up those licentious sects? In Jewish writings we find this very course of argument pursued to prove that Jesus was an impostor and a bad man; and the argument is worth as much in reference to him, as it is in reference to many others in regard to whom it is now used. It is by no means certain that a cause is right because bad men oppose it, or that good men who oppose it also, are lending their influence to help the bad. the time of the reformation many bad men opposed popery, and from very bad motives too; and it was often objected to the Reformers that they were in league with all the lawless and the infidels of the time. Were the Reformers therefore in the wrong? and ought they to have abandoned their cause till all bad men had ceased to hate the papal tyranny? At A state of public feeling which tolerates such excesses cannot be healthful; and when such methods are called to the aid of religious enterprises, it shows a sad departure from the precepts and the example of the New Testament. In a nation where such is the character of the godly, what must the ungodly be! It has been said by the philosophic traveller quoted above, that there is less freedom of opinion in America than in any of the European despotisms. His words are these: "I am not acquainted with any country in which there is so little true independence of mind, and so little freedom of discussion, as in America. The authority of a king is purely physical; it controls the actions of the subject without subduing his private will; but the majority in America is invested with a power that is physical and moral at the same time; it acts upon the will as well as upon the actions of men." "In America the majority draws a formidable circle round the exercise of thought. Within its limits an author is at liberty to write what he pleases-but wo to him that dares to pass them! Not that he is threatened with an auto de fe,' but he is exposed to annoyances of every sort. His political career is |