the nation can carry out its will, while in England, though our President is hereditary and irremovable, the action of the people upon Government is almost dangerously direct and swift, becoming often effective, as was seen in the Conspiracy Bill, within a very few days. This is, as seems to us, the one grand defect of the American system; one, too, absolutely irremediable, except by an amendment to the Constitution which the President himself can veto, and which is nearly sure to be vetoed. It was the defect also of our own Government under the Commonwealth, that government by "Parliament and a Person," which Mr. Carlyle so much admires. The Person and Parliament came, after many efforts at compromise, into collision, and the Constitution went down. In America it is probable that the Parliament may win, but not till a revolution has once more become imminent. So strongly is this felt that the last vote on the Civil Rights Bill was given amid profound emotion, and the most absurd plans for the employment of physical force are discussed in provincial newspapers. It is this possibility of any necessity arising for an appeal to force on behalf of a clear majority which our Constitution prevents. obey them. Even New York City, the unanimous; and the conflict must, so far as stronghold of democratic feeling, turned appears, last till March, 1869. Of course against Mr. Johnson, and were he to be re- it cannot last so long, for either one side elected to-morrow it is probable he would will yield or one resort to force; but connot obtain a fifth of the popular vote. And stitutionally, there is no provision whichyet under circumstances in which a British could bring it to an end. There is, in fact, Ministry would be instantly driven from under the American system, no effective power, the free people of America are pow-representative machinery through which erless. Substantive power belongs up to March, 1869, not to them or to their representatives, but to a self-willed individual chosen by accident, who is not amenable to Congress, who if affected by opinion at all is affected by that of the half Southern Border States, who thinks yielding discreditable, who is legally master of the army, the navy, and the civil service, who is by position master of the Legislatures of the South, and who cannot be removed. The public feeling has no more power of resolving itself into action than in Prussia. Congress can, no doubt, pass the Civil Rights Bill over the President's head, but that is only a declaration. The President must carry it out, and he either will not do it, or will do it ineffectually, while he takes measures to prevent further legislation from being of any effect. Congress cannot forbid him to withdraw the army or compel him to fill up vacancies in the Freedmen's Bureau, or keep him from filling the bureau with Southerners, or in fact from doing anything which Queen and Cabinet together can do in England. If he likes to defy them he can, and they have only two constitutional remedies-to stop the supplies or impeach the President. The former expedient is nearly impossible, as it would dissolve the army and shake public credit; and the latter can only be attempted after the President has done some decidedly illegal act. It is true that the words of the Constitution, Art. II. sec. 2, are excessively wide, Congress being empowered to elect a President, "in case of his removal from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office;" but there can be little doubt that "inability" was only intended to cover such contingencies as lunacy, paralysis, protracted illness, blindness, or the like, and not mere deficiency in capacity or willingness. Should the President, indeed, assemble the Southern members by themselves, or do any act of that kind, then indeed he might be impeached for treason; but he is a man with great legality of thought, and has the extraordinary reverence of all Americans for the letter of the Constitution. The people can do nothing, could do nothing if Congress were The merits of the actual questions between the President and his Congress are of less importance than the fact of collision; but, on the whole, Congress has the best of it. It is always easy to suggest reasons for not doing things, and the President may be right upon points; but the drift of his action is to annul the decision given on the battle-field, to restore the. South to its old supremacy, and to abandon the negro. The country is right in not wishing those things, and Congress in resisting the President's drift expresses a reasonable national resolve. Of course, it often expresses it in a foolish way. Nothing can be in worse taste than speeches like Mr. Wade's, or resolutions like Mr. Stevens'; but the general line of Congress is sound, and that of Mr. Johnson unsound, and it is upon general considerations that nations are sure to act. Lord Palmerston often said very foolish things about foreign policy, but his general line was to protect English interests, to succeed in a struggle if the struggle began, and so the English people understood it; and when in the Crimean war they wanted a man who would win, they elected Lord Palmerston to rule them. From The Saturday Review, April 21. CANADA. record, as if it were something new, the existence of a rational loyalty, and the absence of Yankee proclivities, among the English, French, and even the Irish Inhabitants of Upper and Lower Canada. war. That at one time a considerable party in Canada, though always a minority, was inclined to coquet with the notion of annexation to the United States is as true as that the idea was abandoned as a folly very many years ago; and there are ample reasons to satisfy any intelligent colonist that what was folly then would be madness now. What more than anything else tended to Americanize the Canadians was a suspicion that England had grown indifferent to her colonies, and that a growing and graspMANY circumstances have conspired to ing Power on their immediate frontier render the present a critical period for Cana- would be safer as an associate than as an da and her sister provinces in North Amer- ill-natured neighbour or a possible enemy. ica, and, without attaching too much impor- As suspicion begets suspicion, a correspond. tance to temporary manifestations, it is at ing doubt arose on this side whether the any rate safe to say that every recent indi- colonists were prepared to take their share cation has been favourable to the hopes of in the common burdens of the Empire, in those who anticipate a splendid future for the contingency of an American our American England. The termina- Both suspicions were thoroughly unfounded. tion of the Reciprocity Treaty, and the There may be theoretical politicians in this abortive threats of the American Fenians, country who regard ultimate independence supported as they were by what may be as the goal to which all colonies must tend, called the open connivance of the Wash- but there never has been, and probably ington Government, were conceived in a never will be, an English Government that spirit of spiteful ill-will to British North would be disposed to be slack in the deAmerica; but both the one and the other fence of Canada, whether attacked by Feare not unlikely to foster a sense of self-re- nians marauders or by the whole strength liance on the part of the colonists, combin- of the United States. Those statesmen ed with close co-operation and confidence who have urged most strongly the impossibetween them and this country, which has bility of protecting Canada without the long been the only thing wanting to insure hearty co-operation of her whole populathe progress and prosperity of our Ameri- tion have acknowledged the duty of doing can dependencies. The preparations re- all that Great Britain could do should the cently made to meet the threatened attack emergency arise; and in such an event it by SWEENY and his followers were not needs no prophetic power to foretel that, needed to prove how entirely the old an- if there were any advocates of a less nexation feeling has disappeared from Can- erous policy, they would be swept away by ada. They have helped, however, to make the impulse of national feeling. If it is generally known in this country a true that the colonists may safely trust Enfact which has long been familiar to all per- gland, it is not less true that we may as sesons who have been acquainted with the curely rely upon their patriotism. The sudcourse of political opinion in the colony. den muster of 10,000 volunteers on the Unfortunately, a knowledge of what is done frontier may not seem a very great matter and said and thought by our fellow-subjects to those who forget how sparsely Canada is across the Atlantic is very difficult to gain, peopled; but the promptitude and zeal The Times and Mr. REUTER, who chronicle with which the call to arms was answered the most insignificant movements in the is more significant than the mere strength of least interesting countries of the world, have the force. How England would act if Fescarcely ever a word of information from nian threats became realities the colonists the finest colonies that England possesses. may learn, not only from Mr. GLADSTONE'S For a moment the imaginary Fenian inva- emphatic language, but from the prompt sion has lifted the veil, and telegrams and though quiet preparation already made to letters from Special Correspondents duly counteract possible dangers from this or any FOURTH SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. I. 31 more gen other source. That there are threatening dangers which neglect might magnify it is impossible to doubt, in the face of such a resolution as has been brought forward in the American Congress, in favour of aggression upon the Newfoundland fisheries. It is not, indeed, to be supposed that the Washington Cabinet would openly countenance the policy of forcibly demanding the privileges which they have lost by the abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty. Still the subject of the fisheries was always a sore one, and the opportunities now afforded to individuals of embroiling their country in a war are unexampled. The alleged scheme of the Fenians to manufacture a national quarrel by trespassing on the fishing grounds is much more feasible than their absurd project of occupying Canada; and the presence in those waters of two powerful fleets under the Union Jack and Stars and Stripes, though it may prevent actual collisions, is little calculated to improve the feeling of the two countries. All this is very well understood in Canada, and the effect of it has been to make the colonists draw closer than ever to the Mother-country. Nothing now could induce more than a handful of Canadians to favour annexation to the United States; and it would be strange if it were otherwise. At present they pay such moderate taxes as they themselves think fit; they take up arms readily enough, no doubt, but only at their own will and pleasure; they regulate their own tariffs and obey their own laws. If their allegiance were transferred from England to the United States, they would have their taxation quadrupled at least; they would be subject to unlimited future imposts; their tariff would be settled in the interest of New England manufacturers; and their people would be liable, in the event of war, to a conscription decreed by a Legislature in which they would have but an infinitesimal voice. So long as Canada feels able to keep free from her powerful neighbour, she will strain nerve to escape, the comparative slavery of annexation to the United States. To the Canadians, who knew how difficult and almost impracticable a task they had found it to work the legislative union between their own discordant provinces, and, still more, to the maritime colonies, who feared that their little local nationality would be wholly lost and annihilated by union with the Canadas, the small practical hindrances to the project were much more conspicuous than to ourselves, and time was needed to bring them all round to a larger and more statesmanlike view. Events are rapidly hastening this consummation. The abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty must teach the colonies to look to each other and to the sea, rather than to the American frontier, as the natural outlet for their trade; and a desire for mutual free trade will do more than anything else to promote the scheme of Federal union. Already Newfoundland has declared in favour of union. New Brunswick is supposed to be on the eve of rescinding her former adverse vote, and it would then be almost impossible for Nova Scotia to escape cause. The conversion to the common minority in Canada who have opposed the project seem to have done so almost exclusively from the fear that it might tend rather to premature independence than to a more intimate and cordial union with Great Britain. The apprehension is, we believe, wholly misplaced, though the feeling that prompts it is not one that we can complain of. More co-operation and closer communication with the Mother-country than the mere existence of a Constitutional Governor implies is much desired on the part of many Canadian politicians; and they will probably in the end see, as we do here, that when once the whole of British North America acts it through a single agency, may be possible to establish relations with the Home Government which are quite impracticable so long as four or five provinces wholly independent of each other have to be separately consulted. It is a remarkable and very satisfactory fact, however, that both those who support and those who oppose the scheme of Federation do so because they believe that While the clouds on the horizon have thus they are pursuing the policy most calculated tended to increase the mutual trust of this to strengthen their connection with the Mocountry and Canada, they have not been ther-country. That the Unionists exercise without effect in bringing the smaller mari- the sounder judgment few persons in Entime provinces into closer approximation. gland will doubt, and if external pressure When the scheme of Confederation was shall tend to consummate the scheme, we first propounded, the broad advantages of the policy were so manifest to us that it was difficult to understand the hesitation which a multitude of local causes tended to create. may have much yet for which to thank the impotent malice of the Fenians and the short-sighted commercial spitefulness of American politicians. From the Spectator. GOLDEN LEAVES.* has taken materials which lay ready to his "By Nature's self in white arrayed, THERE is just now a large and increasing demand for "selections," and there seems little danger of any scarcity of supply. From Beauties of Shakespeare to Sentences from Pious Authors, nothing escapes this ruthless clipping, this intellectual dictation. It were a curious and not uninteresting inquiry to trace the mental condition which finds these extracts so sufficient for its We in our ignorance always imagined naappetite. Is it real want of leisure which indu-ture intended wild flowers for the special ces men hungering for something higher, gratification of vulgar eyes. And we fail to possibly truer, than the routine of their or appreciate the sense or beauty of the verses which follow:dinary occupation, to suck in morsels of thought as the country-born exile of Bethnal Green might delight in the torn petals of a flower? Or is it the mental indolence which gladly accepts a pleasure for which it has been at no pains to dig? Or is the solution a more humiliating one, as we strongly suspect it is, and that these "selections" serve as a thin cloak covering much unblushing ignorance? Since it has become the fashion to claim a sort of impertinent familiarity with the name and works of every intellectual giant, and a good many intellectual pigmies too, the thousands to whom the perusal of even one work heavier in matter than a three-volume novel would be an inexpressible bore, get from these "selections" the kind of literary intimacy and pleasure which "Philistines" derive from leaving pieces of pasteboard at the homes of greater names than their own, secure in the comfortable reflection that "they "Smit with those charms that must decay, The flowers that did in Eden bloom; So, again, the Rev. Ralph Hoyt has a poem "Love,' "The best of all I still have left, My faith, my Bible, and my God." are sure to be out." Of the hundreds who profess a knowledge of Whately, how many outside the purely literary class have got beyond the "Select Sentences." Of the thousands who talk of Goethe's convictions, how many know more of them than are revealed in the conversations? Yet while Mr. Hows, we think, might have paused befighting what we believe to be a real evil, fore inserting the production of one who we are not blind to the distinctive merits had learned so little of the first elements of of the different beauties thus carefully from harmony, as not to recognize that there is a time to time arranged, nor do we forget discord in his thought for which no mere that a well fed man may enjoy the morsels versification can atone. Whittier is well we object to see take the place of more sub-represented. "The Brother of Mercy" is stantial fare. In the selection before us Mr. Hows has done his work carefully and zealously. It is not his fault that his Golden Leaves are but tipped with light from the early dawn, that the day has not yet risen upon America which shall give birth to a Shakespeare, a Milton, or a Tennyson. He so good, we regret the impossibility of giving it entire, and we will not spoil it by mutilation. His "Maud Muller," too, is full of simple music and pathos peculiarly its own. A few verses from Emerson are most happily selected, especially the last: : "Oh! when I am safe in my sylvan home, for the most part in one generation, and crowded into one small volume, is really somewhat oppressive; like a badly ar ranged orchestra, the bass is apt to drown the finer notes. But apart from these considerations, the book before us would sug gest a few moments of painful thought. What is it we miss? What is it that, with two or three exceptions, is painfully want ing? We think it is the genius born of pain and patience. Richter tells us, "God does with poets as we with singing birds, when we shut them in a darkened cage till they sing the tunes we teach them." It is from the reed "which grows never more again as a reed by the reeds of the river," that we get mus ic so "blinding sweet." We do not depreciate the civilization which gives so much physical comfort to so large a number, but it is Milton, broken in fortune and blind, who sings: 'So much the rather Thou, celestial light, Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers irradiate." It is Shakespeare, "goring his Own thoughts," as he makes himself "a motley Hugo in exile who makes his prose yet to the view," who writes for all time. It is more poetic than his verse. America has probably a grand future before her; she is already passing through the inevitable Red Sea to the promised land. The elements of a great poem are not wanting to her, but till she realizes that intellectual conflict is better than self-satis faction, that joy is higher than comfort, and one fresh thought worth ten bales of cotton, she will have no Beethoven to stir our spirits' inner depths with chords of more than earthly music, no Correggio to paint "Ecce Homo," no Milton to write another Comus. an From The Spectator 14 April. THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. Lowell's "Parable" is, we think, most unwisely omitted from this selection; the few words of intense satire made living by his special genius would have given a fairer photograph of the poet's mind. But Mr. Hows has smothered some of these men, THERE are few poems of the present day who have really touched their harps with and certainly no religious poems, that have no uncertain sound, beneath a host of minor acquired so vast a popularity and so pernames, whose effusions we could have manent an influence as those of Keble's spared. America is not the land wherein Christian Year, and now that the poet him"mute inglorious Miltons" are likely to self has left us, it seems a fit moment to inrest in a self-imposed obscurity, but a hun-quire what the nature of that influence has dred and eight poets living in one country, been. We have been severely condemned |