1783.-Our relations to the Southern Republics have undergone little change during the last year. No reunion has taken place between the three States, which composed the government of Colombia— New Grenada, Venezuela, and Equator. Representatives from the three States are about to assemble at Bogota, to confer on the subject of their mutual interests, particularly that of their reunion.Some of the most important claims of our countrymen upon the government of Brazil, have been satisfactorily adjusted.-The difficulties respecting the Falkland islands are not yet settled.-No diplomatic intercourse has been established with Peru or Bolivia.-The receipts into the treasury of the United States during the last year exceed thirty millions of dollars. The revenue derived from customs amounts to twenty-eight millions. The expenditures for all objects within the year, including more than two and a half millions of dollars on account of the public debt, amount to twenty-five millions. The debt of the United States, funded and unfunded, now amounts to four millions seven hundred and sixty thousand eighty-two dollars and eight cents. The entire debt will probably be extinguished during the year 1834. The president goes at large into the reasons which induced him to withdraw the public deposites from the bank of the United States. The secretary of the treasury, Mr. Taney, in his annual report, also goes over the same ground at much greater length. The president proceeds to the extreme of hostility, and says, "In my own sphere of duty, I should feel myself called on by the facts disclosed, to order a scire facias against the bank, with a view to put an end to the chartered rights it has so palpably violated, were it not that the charter itself will expire as soon as a decision could be obtained from the court of last resort."-There is no part of the message more objectionable than that which is devoted to the Indians. He remarks that "they have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement, which are essential to any favorable change in their condition." It is proper to say in opposition to these assertions, that the Cherokees, and large portions of some other tribes, are in a state of more advanced civilization than the white communities by whom they are surrounded. It is not the pressure of civilization which is destroying the Indians, but the pressure of outlawry and crime. The first printing in the Cherokee character was executed in February, 1828, and at the present time nine thousand Cherokees, or more than one half of the nation, can read their language with more or less fluency. A female society for the suppression of vice and for benevolent purposes, have procured a library of more than three hundred volumes. There are not more than two or three families of the entire Stock

bridge tribe of Indians which do not attend public worship on the Sabbath. The Post Office department is in a condition of considerable embarrassment. It is reported that the expenditures will exceed the receipts by nearly a quarter of a million of dollars.-We are glad to see the recommendation of the president, that some penal and precautionary measures be adopted by Congress in relation to the use of steam power. The number of dreadful disasters which have recently happened from this source, owing without doubt to the criminal carelessness of many of the persons concerned, call loudly for prompt and effective legislation.

The honorable Henry Clay of Kentucky has recently made the tour of the Middle and most of the Northern States. He was every where received in a manner which must have been most grateful to his feelings. Very much to his honor he uniformly declined public dinners, and travelling on the Sabbath, thus giving the sanction of his high example to abstinence from two customs pernicious in their moral influence. He publicly stated that he had determined to regard the Sabbath, out of respect to the feelings of the people of the north, and also in accordance with his own sentiments. We exceedingly regret that, on several occasions, he attended the theatre. It would have been a most honorable addition to his claims upon our regard, if he had declined the invitations which were officiously protruded upon him to be present in those schools of immorality, and hot-beds of vice. The time is fast coming when no respectable man or woman will venture within the walls set apart to this licentious amusement. Attendance upon the theatre is at war with good taste, as well as with morality. He who frequents them must guard his ears against the ribaldry of the lowest order in society, and his pockets against the depredations of the most expert in the thieving craft.

An important license-law has lately been passed by the legislature of Vermont. It is altogether in advance of any legislation which we have observed in respect to the system. It constitutes the justices of the peace, selectmen, constables, and grandjurors of the respective towns, a board of civil authority to recommend persons to keep inns or houses of public entertainment, or to be retailers of ardent spirits, within their respective towns for one year. From this board there is no appeal, so the different towns have the whole control of the matter. All money paid for licenses, goes to the support of the poor. It puts an end to tippling on tick, as it is called. No trust or credit is to be given to any persons who wish to buy spirits. One section is for the encouragement of temperance taverns. Licences for them are to be granted free of any charge, except that of twenty

five cents to the town treasurer, for the labor of writing them. Other licences may be taxed as high as fifty dollars. We trust that these salutary provisions will lead the way to the entire abolition of the whole system.

Two very important State conventions on the subject of temperance have been recently held, one in Utica, New York, and the other in Middletown, Conn. Of the New York convention, general Jacob Morris, a venerable revolutionary patriot, was president. The number of members was about two hundred and fifty. A series of resolutions was adopted-the most important of which was one declaring the traffic in ardent spirits to be an immorality. Upon this resolution there were fourteen votes in the negative. No individual, however, dissented from the position that the traffic is immoral, but it was thought to be inexpedient by a few persons to declare it to be so. At the Connecticut convention, attended by one hundred and thirty delegates, the same resolution was passed unanimously. All things in this country are manifestly tending to one result-the classing of the use of ardent spirits, and the traffic in them, as a violation of the moral law, a crime equally injurious to man and displeasing to God.

It is becoming a serious inquiry whether it is proper to make a political question of temperance, or to regard the adherence to temperance principles as an indispensable requisite in a candidate for a civil office. Perhaps it is not judicious to make use of the words temperance party, or similar phraseology. Ground ought to be taken which will cover that. Moral principle should be demanded in all candidates for political office, and if a man has moral principle, he will be a friend to temperance. Here let there be a rallying point. The sooner every man deposits his vote with the understanding that he is thereby promoting the moral interests of the community, the better. We utterly repudiate any other doctrine. The position that a man, because he has supported the Jackson, or National Republican party, is thereby and forever bound to support every man who is nominated for office by either of those parties, or by any other, cannot be maintained. It is entirely subversive of morality as a part of a political creed. Has a candidate for office a good moral character, is by far the most important question which can be asked concerning him. There are certain indications that politics, as such, or separate from morals, are losing their potency over the public mind in this country. Moral principle, led on and nurtured very much by the temperance reformation, will be a great antagonist force, to that political Machiavellism, which has long usurped a most disastrous sway over the minds of good as well as bad men.

On the 5th of November, the ship Jupiter sailed from Hampton

Roads, Virginia, for Liberia, with 50 colored emigrants. Among the passengers were the Rev. Messrs. Pinney, Cloud, Laird, Spalding, and Wright, missionaries; Mrs. Laird, Mrs. Spalding, Mrs. Wright, Miss Farringdon, Mr. John Temple, assistant missionaries; Mr. A. D. Williams, vice agent, and Mr. J. J. Roberts, high sheriff of the colony, and Dr. Todsen, physician. Mr. Pinney is appointed temporary governor of the colony. Another ship has since sailed with 60 emigrants from the same place. An expedition is about to depart from Savannah, Georgia, with 97 free colored persons, of whom 35 are adults, all members of a temperance society. There are 30 or 40 others who have the subject under serious consideration. Mr. J. G. Birney, of Alabama, in an essay published in a newspaper of that State, has the following remark, "that all which is wanting to disburden the States of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, of slavery, in a reasonable time, is the means to defray the cost of a comfortable conveyance to a safe and pleasant home, of all slaves who may be offered by their owners for removal." The Hon. Wm. Gaston, a venerable statesman of North Carolina, in an address delivered before a literary society at Chapel Hill, has the following strong language. "On you will devolve the duty which has been too long neglected, but which cannot with impunity be neglected much longer, of providing for the mitigation; and is it too much to hope for in North Carolina? for the ultimate extirpation of the worst evil that afflicts the southern part of our confederacy? Disguise the truth as we may, and throw the blame where we will, it is slavery which more than any other cause, keeps us back in the career of improvement. It stifles industry and represses enterprize; it is fatal to economy and prudence; it discourages skill; impairs our strength as a community, and poisons morals at the fountain head. I felt that I could not discharge my duty without referring to the subject, as one which ought to engage the prudence, moderation, and firmness of those, who, sooner or later, must act decisively upon it."

In the State of Kentucky, considerable interest has been recently felt in the subject of popular education. A meeting of the friends of the cause was held in Lexington, in November, which was numerously attended, and which was the means of eliciting a great variety of important facts. In one of the six most enlightened counties of the State, sixty-three families were found, containing three hundred and eighteen souls, among whom was found but one individual in each family that could read an English sentence, and three fourths of those were unable to read with any fluency. In another place fifteen families, comprising eighty-seven persons, were found, not one of whom could read a single word. Several of the families consisted of

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eight, nine, or ten members, apparently in comfortable circumstances, who possessed no Bibles, and refused to accept of any when gratuitously offered. It was surely with great appropriateness that the question of the importance of the immediate establishment of a school for educating teachers, was amply discussed by the convention.Great difficulties have been recently experienced between the General Government, and the Executive of Alabama, in respect to the intrusion of white men upon the lands of the Creek Indians. By a treaty with that tribe, the president of the United States is required to remove all persons who shall attempt to settle upon those lands. It seems that this duty was so long neglected, that fifteen or twenty thousand individuals were quietly seated on their usurped and stolen rights. It hence became nearly impossible to remove them. Several spirited letters passed between the secretary of war, and governor Gayle. A considerable body of the troops of the United States have been ordered to appear on the disputed territory. In the mean time, the whole subject is to pass under the review of the congress. All difficulty would probably have been avoided, had the national government not succumbed to the will of Georgia in a similar case. principles of the Cherokee and Creek controversies, as far as we understand them, are in all essential points, similar. The following circumstance we record with great pleasure. At a circuit court for September term, 1833, in St. Clair county, Alabama, judge Adair presiding, came up for trial a Cherokee Indian, indicted for the murder of an Indian in the Cherokee territory in Alabama. The counsel for the nation filed a plea to the jurisdiction of Alabama, as repugnant to the treaties, &c. of the United States. Judge Adair remarked that he was sworn to support the constitution and treaties of the United States, and that he should be strictly governed by them. In an elaborate opinion, he declared the laws of Alabama over the Cherokees null and void, and repugnant to the treaties and laws of the United States. In this connection it may be remarked that governor Carroll, of Tennessee, in a message to the legislature of that State, maintained substantially the same doctrines as judge Adair. The legislature of Tennessee, however, after a close debate, passed, by a small majority, a law extending the jurisdiction of Tennessee over that portion of the Cherokee country, which is alleged to lie within the State. The principal arguments of the committee which reported the law were the customs of other States, and the desperate circumstances of the Cherokees-arguments totally destitute of foundation.

It is an interesting fact, that the new attorney general of the United States, Benjamin Franklin Butler, of Albany, is by the con