ral government, for the present controversy is, not as to the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn; these are partly federal and partly national. Nor is it relevant to consider upon whom these powers operate. In this last view, the government, for limited purposes, is entirely national." In 1832, Mr. Calhoun admitted that, considering the sources of the government, the powers are partly federal and partly national; and that, for limited purposes, the government is entirely national. Mr. Walker has simply copied this passage, almost verbatim, into his tract. Is Mr. Walker, in consequence, a political heretic who has deserted the principles of this State? Perhaps Mr. Rhett will be pleased to answer the question. We beg that he will do so. It must not, however, be omitted, that, in the same paragraph which we have before cited, are these words: "The true question is, who are the parties to the compact? Who created and who can alter and destroy it? Is it the States or the people? This question has been already answered. The States, as States, ratified the compact. The people of the United States, collectively, had no agency in its formation." Mr. Calhoun, in his disquisition, uses the word States to mean governments; and, if such is its sense in the above citation, it is unquestionably untrue that the governments or Legislatures formed the compact. On the other hand, it is true that the several peoples ratified the compact, surrendered some of their rights of sovereignty, and created a 'government for limited purposes entirely national." The truth is, that the ambiguous meaning of the word States, has led to much confusion of reasoning, and is the foundation of the whole theory of Mr. Calhoun. None will deny the fact, that the present Constitution was the act of the several peoples of each State, acting as sovereign communities, and that the Legislatures had no power to surrender any of its sovereign rights, nor to cede the extraordinary powers contained in the Constitution. From this incapacity of the Legislatures sprang the necessity of a ratification by Conventions. The people in Conventions, by adopting the Constitution, authorized the several Legislatures, for instance, to elect Senators; reserving to themselves the right to elect Representatives. If this is not true, then the Legislatures reserved to themselves the power to elect Senators, and granted power to the people to elect Representatives. But this idea is a mere absurdity, for the Legislatures have no ability to grant powers to the people, who are the owners of all power. But, absurd as this idea is, it is yet gravely stated that this "is a confederacy, because the extent of the powers of the government depends not upon the people of the United States collectively, but upon the State Legislatures, or on the people of the separate States, acting in these State Conventions.' It is not true that the government exercises any power in any extent, by leave of or that the extent of any power depends upon--the State Legislatures; it depends solely, and altogether, upon the peoples of each State. Not even the head of the federal party, Mr. Hamilton, much less a member of the democratic party, would venture to attribute, to a Legislature, any original power not derived from the people. If that is not the meaning of the words "upon the State Legislatures"-and these are mere surplusage-then let them be stricken out. But, in striking them out, you throw confusion into, and make nonsense of, the whole document. For it is a fundamental maxim of Mr. Calhoun, that "ours is a system of governments," and that the General Government is the agent of governments. Then, of course, it derives its powers from the governments, not the peoples of the States. A more naked attribution of sovereignty to the Legislature, in contradistinction to the people, has never been propounded. But we return from this digression, to, the main point, and affirm it to be true that, in stating that this government is partly federal and partly national, we repcated the authoritative scntiments of the people of South-Carolina. We apprehend, therefore, that the tract of Mr. Walker is not justly chargeable with politically keretical sentiments, either on the subject of consolidation, or that of the general welfare. It does not, it is true, servilely copy the opinions propounded by Mr. Calhoun in his disquisition. It takes leave to differ from them; and this the author might do without violating any duty to the State. Those who believe in the infallibility of Mr. Calhoun, will, doubtless, censure a protestant against such "base abandonment of reason." Yet it would be well for them to remember that they are themselves, and have been, for a quarter of a century, protestants, too, against the infallibility of the government of the United States. Is that an offence in the private, which is commendable in the officer? But, censured or not censured, ostracised or not ostracised, we will assert, for ourself, the freedom of thought and of speech; and do, and will, deny the infallibility of any man, however illustrious by office and genius. Finally, in criticising the writings of our great statesman, John C. Calhoun—“ Clarum et venerable nomen gentilus et multum nestræ prodorat urbi"-we act in perfect accordance with his expressed wishes. In a letter, 4th November, 1849, he says: "I wish my errors to be pointed out. I have set down only what I believed to be true, without yielding one inch to the popular opinions and prejudices of the day." Our purpose has been to gratify that wish in the amplest, and, at the same time, the most respectful manner. J. M. W. ART. VI.--NECESSITY OF THE CLASSICS. Grundriss der Griechischen Litteratur; mit einem vergleichenden Ueberblick der Römischen. Von G. BERNHARDY. Zweite Bearbeitung. Erster Theil: Innere Geschichte der Griechischen Litteratur. Halle, bei Eduard Anton. 1852. (Outlines of Grecian Literature.) HOWEVER slight the analogy may be between ancient and modern colonization, it is, notwithstanding, interesting to * Preface, p. 7. observe even the faint semblances of prototypes, which lie scattered throughout the range of history, and to recognize a foreshadowing of our own genesis in the foundation of states long extinct. Sybaris had been destroyed in one of those internecine wars which disfigure the annals of Lower Italy, and the beneficent genius of Athens prompted united Hellas to found a common colony on the ruins of the fairest city of Magna Græcia. Apollo was selected as the leader, and Thurii arose, celebrated on account of its origin and constitution.* We, too, are a common colony of united Europe; every nation has sent its contingent, and our origin and constitution are, like those of Thurii, unique. But who is the leader of our grand colony? Is it the Grecian Apollo or the Roman Mercury? A few more generations, and we shall be as little a colony of Europe as England is a colony of Hengist and Horsa. The old colonists are dead, the old elements have become effete or have passed over into new forms, and, in this chaos, culture and lucre may well seem to the vulgar apprehension to be striving for the mastery. From all sides we hear outcries against the utilitarianism of our century and of our country. Plautus, the poet, is grinding at the mill. Pegasus is impounded, and Castaly choked up. Such declamations are useless. The greatest geniuses move but in and with their time, and "like the waves which, forced away by the passage of a ship, rush together immediately behind it, so doth error, when masterspirits have crowded it out and made room for themselves, close with natural rapidity in the rear." All that is not founded on the necessities of the age, is evanescent, and all attempts to revive a dead science can end, at best, in a momentary galvanization. Were it our purpose to repeat the story of the revival of learning, to fall into raptures over Plato the divine and Ovid the holy,† the judicious reader * We avoid current quotations from the classics. See K. F. Hermanu, Griech. Staatsalterthümer, § 80, 22—(Political Antiquities of Greece). The dodecade of the puλal of Thurii is, according to Neibuhr-(Lectures on Ancient History, II. 137, Eng. trans.)-a multiple of the lon c tetrad and the Doric triad. + Coleridge, note to the Garden of Boccaccio. would do well to pause on the threshold. It might become a sanguine humanist like Poliphilus* to prove at length that, of all nations, the Greeks have dreamed the most beautiful life-dream, or a philosopher like Hegel to wish himself a Cecropiad of Athens' palmy days. We have a far different task from that of dreaming and wishing. We must watch the chaos not as idle spectators, but as sentient participants. There never has been an age so profoundly introspective as our own-none so zealous in giving itself an account of its own impulses. It is to this century that we owe the thousand and one essays on the "Genius of Christianity," "The Spirit of our Present Age," "Our Condition and Prospects." In this consciousness of our state, many have seen the symptoms of our unhealthiness. It has been fashionable for some years to speak of the unconsciousness of genius, to speak of self-analysis as the sure sign of sickliness and weakness, and every school-boy holds forth on the text furnished by Mr. Carlyle's "characteristics." The greatest poet of the two preceding generations inculcated this maxim with the utmost ardour; repeated it in every form. Not even the dullest reader ever arose from the perusal of Goethe without at least this one idea, that the great characteristic of genius is unconscious spontaneity.† "On the whole," says Carlyle, who has adopted this principle and applied it in his peculiar manner, "genius is ever a secret to itself. Of this old truth we have, daily, new evidence. * In his Hypnerotomachia. See Wachler, Handbuch der Geschichte der Litteratur, b. III., s. 11; Comp. Goethe. Werke, b III., s. 191. + To hedge in the assertion of the text with such limitations as readily suggest themselves, would be equivalent to cancelling it, and we must, therefore, reserve the point." We subjoin a brace of quotations from Xenia: And again "Ja, das ist das rechte Gleis, Dass man nicht weiss Was man denkt, Wenn man denkt, Alles ist als wie geschenkt." "Wie hast du's denn so weit gebracht? |