law that come before them; and after all, they ordinarily rely on the charge of the judge. Here, then, are twelve men, taken from their families and their business, and brought together to attend the examination of witnesses, to hear arguments, to be tried often with ingenuity and sophistry, to be wearied with discussion, and after all to do what in most cases would be better done, more intelligently and accurately, and more directly done, without them." Lawsuits are protracted, the evil passions of litigation are confirmed, expenses accumulated, till patience and property are both exhausted; and all through the very imperfection, the clumsiness, if we may speak so, of this boasted provision for trial by jury. What purpose then does it serve? A very important purpose without doubt, and one that is sufficient to vindicate all the trouble it gives us. It serves, as far as anything can, to prevent the possibility of corruption. An independent jury stands between the citizen and the possible oppression of the government. Whoever is brought to the bar of his country on the charge of having violated its laws, instead of being in the power of his superiors, who might have their reasons for wishing to crush him, may commit himself to the impartial and disinterested justice of a jury of his fellow citizens and equals.

Free institutions, we repeat, are predicated upon the very supposition that there is danger. They are barriers, and they are not impregnable barriers; they can offer resistance only to a certain extent. They are battlements, and their security and defence must depend very much on those who man them. In short, everything depends on fidelity to the great trust.

This fidelity we now urge by one further and final consideration.

We may appear to some to have disparaged the worth of civil and religious freedom. We would not be thought, however, to undervalue it. We certainly go along, quite as far as our reflection will justify, with the common estimate of it. To enjoy the greatest freedom is certainly one of the greatest of blessings. To be 'lords of ourselves, though not of lands,' to be free, though poor, though depressed, though destitute of almost everything else, seems nearly a compensation for the want of everything besides. To do, and say, and write almost what we please, to go where we will, to breathe the free air, and tread the free earth, with no bitter exaction or lowering frown of a tyrant to curse the soil or to darken the sky; to

have no self-constituted or titled masters or nobles, before whom to bow; to be compelled, in other words, to pay no homage but to well earned distinction, to stand amidst those whom God and nature have made no better and no worse than ourselves, free and equal,-this seems to us a manifest and great good, a signal and blessed fortune, a lot salutary and favorable to all our highest powers, our best sentiments, and the most excellent virtues. But after all we suspect that our pride, our resistance to just rule, to the just control of wisdom and moderation, may enter into our appreciation of this blessing. We would take a more strict and sober account of it. We conceive, indeed, and this is the consideration we were about to bring forward, that liberty in fact is in its very nature a blessing that implies the most dangerous of trusts; that it imperatively calls upon us to be thoughtful and serious and wise; that its very greatness should fill us with caution and self-distrust; that its very glory, like that of reason and a moral nature, may be turned only to more exceeding shame and ruin.

We would not awaken unreasonable distrust of this gift, but seriousness and fidelity in the use of it. We feel, indeed, if the remark will not bring our modesty into question, that we touch a great theme, and one of wide relations; and we would say nothing rashly. Free action of mind and of communities, manifesting itself through the press and popular elections, free action of every man's wit and wisdom and invention for the individual and the common weal, is the great feature of the age. We look with unspeakable solicitude to the event. We feel as if this poor world, stricken, for ages stricken with its own follies and crimes, were taking its great chance; and we would, therefore, that men in this country, and in every country, might think and speak and act soberly, as conscious of the weighty trust and the coming issue.

Let us say, then, with all due consideration, that freedom is in its very nature, a comparative, a conditional, and we must add, an unstable good. It is comparative. It is better than despotism, but it is only better; it is not an absolute and certain benefit to any people. It is conditional. It is not so distinctly and independently a blessing as the gifts of nature or the faculties of mind. It is only a permission, under the fewest possible restrictions compatible with the general good, to use the gifts of nature and the faculties of our minds, according to our own pleasure. The benefit, therefore, does not

exist, till our own wisdom and virtue give it being. It is anarchy and misrule, without these. Liberty is not so much an advantage, as it is an opportunity. It does not so far naturally or necessarily benefit any being, as his own reason, or the bounties of life; and yet these are far from possessing any absolute power to bless him. And, we must say, also, that it is an unstable good. Liberty is not a fixture. It is not an establishment. It is not a government. That is but the form of liberty; the spirit, the essence is in the minds of the people. The forms of a republican government may be made as oppressive as a despotism. Liberty abides in nothing, and has security in nothing, but the spirit of the people. We greatly mistake, it is apprehended, and yet we are afraid that as a nation we do thus mistake, when we suppose that there is anything in the structure of our government, that can save us from following in that gloomy train of examples that has darkened all the paths of history. It is not the government that can sustain the people; but it is the people that must sustain the government. It is not the Constitution that will preserve our character; but it is our character that must preserve the Constitution. It is not the political creed of the country that can uphold its faith and faithfulness; but the faith, the faithfulness of the people it is, that must uphold the creed.

Again we say, let us not be misunderstood. Freedom, in every form, of every kind, is a transcendent privilege. Freedom of mind is a glorious gift. It is a blessing beyond all price, and beyond all power of language to express. We are ready to say that no man can surpass us, and that no man can instruct us, in the unutterable sense of its value. It is a good which nothing can transcend but the use of it. That dominion in the mind, that holy retreat from violence, oppression, and wrong; that place in the soul where freedom is, with its wide and boundless range of uncontrolled thoughts, with no power to govern in it but truth and right, with no presence to be worshipped but the presence of the Divinity,-it is the chosen dwelling-place of our most precious thoughts. But then, it is a holy place,' and to be entered with trembling. It is like the flaming Mount of old, glorious indeed, but sending out awful voices to warn the rash intruder. It is dangerous, because it is glorious. Freedom of mind, like every exalted trust, like lofty intellect, immense wealth, and vast dominion, should inspire a solicitude, care, and fidelity, proportionate to the mag

nitude of the trust. And so it is with the freedom of a people. Our sympathies are with it; they are with it far abroad in every land where its air is breathed, and its soil is moistened with the dews of heaven. We go along, in our enthusiasm, with those who have labored and suffered in its holy cause. Our hearts are with them, when they put on buckler and sword as its last defence. Our hearts are with them, when in the 'red field' they seal their devotion to it, in sacrifices of blood. But God forbid that what is so dearly bought, should be negligently kept. Let it be no matter of idle boast or vain parade. Let it not be celebrated with a merely childish and boisterous exultation. Those who have fought, should ponder. We cannot go along with panegyric and shout and holiday felicitations, without any consideration or sobriety. It does not become the dignity and manliness of free citizens, to look with idle admiration upon their institutions, as children do upon the show and glitter of a military parade, never considering the anarchy and distress to which it may easily be turned. These are childish things,' which it becomes a wise people to put away.' A free people must reflect, must understand their privileges, and must solemnly and virtuously resolve to preserve them, or in that fearful poise between good and evil where liberty places them, they will inevitably fall into evil, disorder, and destruction.

We have, endeavoured in the observations which we have laid before our readers, to speak as to wise men.' And now do we beseech all men to be faithful to that great trust, which, as we have endeavoured to show, is implied in the possession of civil and religious liberty. It is a holy bequest from the faith and fortitude of elder times, sanctified by the prayers and tears and blood of our fathers. Millions in past ages have sighed for a draught from that fountain which is freely opened to us. Let not its waters be poisoned; let them not be wasted.

We would lay solemn charge upon the conscience of every voter at our elections. Let him remember that he is performing the first duty of a freeman, and that God and his country demand an honest and an unprejudiced suffrage. Let him remember that if he is governed by selfish interest and passion, if he gives up his individual judgment and conscience to a party, if he listens to the bribery of any personal fear or hope, he is forsworn and perjured at the very altar of Liberty. He

has sold his very birthright, and he ought to be the slave in form, that he makes himself in reality, and some other man, of nobler and freer soul, albeit compelled to bow before the throne of a despot, deserves his privilege.

We appeal to the ministers of justice in our courts, to jurors and witnesses and advocates. Morality, as applicable to judicial transactions, is a subject that ought to be much more considered than it has been. Equal justice, we know, often arises from opposing considerations, from the conflict of men's thoughts. Let this conflict, then, be carried on, but let it be done honestly and fairly. There is no new code of morals for a man, because he is prosecuting or pleading a cause, or giving testimony before a public tribunal. No; the same law of God extends to all places, and it is only, if possible, more strict there than elsewhere. Wrong is worse there, because it puts on the form of right, and is done with deliberation. Anger and revenge have not the apology of haste; nor deceptive representations, of inadvertence; and falsehood, there, is perjury, and the perversion of justice is a breach of trust.

We would address ourselves, if our words could reach them, to men who are high in office. The inquiry often presses itself on our minds, and with unfeigned solicitude, whether the distinguished men in this country are looking with a sober sense of their duty and a deep feeling of their responsibility, to the great experiment, to which they are contributing so much to bring to a happy or a fatal issue. There may be those among them to whom all talk about their duties would pass for nothing better than cant. May God deliver this country from many such! If there ever were men to whom duty should be a serious word, who should tremble at their responsibility to God and men, they are the leading statesmen, orators, and teachers, whether religious or political, of this nation. If we could address them, we would say, No men ever enjoyed such an opportunity as is given to you, for accomplishing the best hopes of patriotism and philanthropy. Solon, Aristides, Demosthenes, the Fabii, Cato, and Cicero, had no such materials to work with as you have in the intelligence and virtue of this free people. To all human view, the last great experiment of republican freedom that is likely to be tried for ages, is passing under your guidance. The eyes of the world are upon you. Ages that have passed in the noble strife for liberty, ages of patriot tears and blood, call upon you, and unborn