in most people, I adore the angel, and would give anything to make it predominate."* Again, in another letter to the same, "There are two opposite elements in my nature, but how have they become united? I know not. I am the most impressionable of men in my every day actions, the most easily drawn to the right or to the left, and, at the same time, the most obstinate in my aims. There is some inflexible principle which governs my versatile and excitable nature."+ He felt habitually the coercion of conscience-of a sense of duty and of right. At one time he expresses his painful sense of the sadness of man's condition in the present state, in terms which remind one of some of the powerful passages on the same subject in Pascal's Thoughts. At another, he declares himself dissatisfied with everything, and, most of all, with himself. § To J. S. Mill, Esq., he writes: "I have lived long enough to know that there is no one thing in the whole world capable of fixing and satisfying me. I have obtained a success which I had no right to hope at the beginning of my career, yet my happiness is not perfect. Often, in imagination, I fancy myself at the summit of human greatness; when there, I am not so dazzled but that the conviction forces itself irrepressibly upon me, that the same painful sensations which I suffer from here, would follow me to that sublime altitude." | We will quote but a single passage more to the same general effect. "I know not if the circumstances in which I have latterly been placed, or the increased seriousness that one acquires with age, my solitary life, or some other cause of which I am not conscious, has affected my mind and set it working; but the truth is, I have never felt so much the want of an eternal foundation, the solid basis on which life ought to rest." T With such profound convictions of his need of something to satisfy his cravings, and some "eternal foundation" on which to repose his soul, with the largeness of view which he attained by his observations on the state of religion in the United States and in England, and by which he came to think more of Christianity than of the Church in whose pale he had *Letters, p. 304. f Ibid., P. 340. Ibid., p. 66. Ibid., p. 393. happened to grow up; it was almost a matter of course that as life advanced and he felt the pressure of ill-health, De Tocqueville should feel more and more the shadows of the invisible world upon his spirit. He became increasingly serious, thoughtful, and tender in his feelings; and more than ever patient, kind, and gentle towards all. One cannot but regret that we are not told with what particular exercises of Christian faith and hope he appropriated the provisions of eternal mercy in the Gospel. But we attribute this to the want of a competent reporter, and to his own imperfect understandingwhich was, in the circumstances, almost a matter of necessity-of the riches of the Christian salvation by the cross. are glad that De Beaumont was able to say so much as that— "excellent as he was, he was always endeavoring to become better; and he certainly drew nearer every day to the moral perfection which seemed to him the only aim worthy of man. The great problem of the destiny of man impressed him with daily-increasing awe and reverence; more and more piety and gratitude for the Divine blessings, entered every day into his actions and feelings."* We accept this testimony, and hope and believe that it was true in a profounder sense even than was intended by the writer. We It has been to us a pleasing task to dwell on the character and the memory of a true and noble man. As a writer, he has done service to mankind. As a statesman, he deserved well of his country. As a man, he adorned domestic and social life, and was an example of generous virtues. As a Christian believer, he clung firmly to Christianity in an unbelieving period, and rested his hopes in death on its everlasting promiThough he died in the vigor of his manhood, in the midst of plans of future labor, in the ripeness of his experience and his powers, and with the resources accumulated by years of study at his command, few men have served their generation better. He has won our hearts, and we have written of him lovingly. We part from him with regret. The name of ALEXIS CHARLES HENRI CLEREL DE TOCQUEVILLE is one that men will not willingly let die. ses. *Memoir, p. 103. ARTICLE III.-STATE RIGHTS. The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, as drawn by Thomas Jefferson. The Virginia Resolutions of 1799, as drawn by James Madi son. Works of John C. Calhoun. 6 vols. Debates in Congress. 2d Session 37th Cong. 1862. President's Message on Treason, Rebellion, &c., July 17, 1862. If it were necessary, in order to settle any questions in regard to the relative rights and duties of the General and State Governments, as at present organized, to inquire into the condition and powers of the Colonies under the royal Charters, the inquiry would not result in any magnificent visions of power and authority, to be recognized as the originals or antecedents of the local governments now existing. Small as they were, however, it was no part of the object of the Revolution to enlarge them. All the complaints against the mother country were based on the alleged arbitrary and despotic infringement of rights, as they were, and not on any unreasonable denial of claims to additional ones. The war was originally made for the defense of existing rights, and not for the acquisition of others. But this defense could not have been made by the local governments, acting separately, each for itself alone, either under the powers of their colonial charters, or any others they might have been inclined to assume. The Union was a necessity. The Continental Congress of 1774 said they were "appointed the guardians of the rights and liberties" of the Colonies, and they were authorized, as expressed in the commissions of some of them, to "adopt such measures as may have the most likely tendency to extricate the Colonies from their present difficulties, to secure and perpetuate their rights, liberties, and privileges, and to restore peace." They early claimed and exercised those national powers, which the Colonies never had, or claimed a right to have. On the twelfth day of their actual session for business, they "Resolved unanimously, That from and after the first day of December next (1774) there be no importation into British America from Great Britain or Ireland of any goods, wares, or merchandise whatever, or from any other place, of any such goods, wares, or merchandise as shall have been exported from Great Britain or Ireland, and that no such goods, wares, or merchandise imported after the said first day of December next, be used or purchased." Within three weeks afterwards they firmly agreed, "for ourselves and the inhabitants of the several Colonies, whom we represent," that "we will neither import, nor purchase any slave imported, after the first day of December next, after which time we will wholly discontinue the slave trade." This act was passed and signed by every delegate from Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, as well as by all the others then represented. Georgia was not represented in that Congress. In 1775 the Continental Congress prohibited the furnishing any supply of money, "provisions, or necessaries of any kind, to or for the use of the British army or navy ;" and answered the request of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia, and South Carolina, for explicit advice respecting the taking up and exercising the powers of civil government." They took measures for supplying gunpowder "for the use of the continent;" assumed the direction and support of the "Continental army," appointed a "commander-in-chief," and other officers for "all the forces now raised, or to be raised, by the United Colonies," and adopted a code of "Rules and Regulations of the Continental Army." In a public "DECLARATION" setting forth the causes and necessity of their taking up arms," they announce, "Our cause is just. Our union is perfect." They authorized the destruction of Boston, and all the property in it. Early in May of the next year, (1776,) they recommended to all the Colonies "to adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the Representatives of the People, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular and America in general," and by way of preamble thereto they say, "that it is necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the (British) Crown should be totally suppressed," and that it is "absolutely irreconcilable to reason and good conscience for the people of these Colonies now to take the oaths and affirmations necessary for the support thereof." By these acts, and many others of the same sort, done in the name and by the authority of the people, the Union not only assumed a corporate existence, as a body politic, but it actually exercised all the functions of distinct nationality; and recognized the same distinction between national and local powers, that have ever been recognized by this people in all stages of their history since the first immigration of our fathers. They were in progress for two years before the Declaration of Independence, and while the separate Colonies were administering their local governments "in His Majesty's name," and in official correspondence with his governors. The line of demarcation between the general and the particular, was, to be sure, ill-defined and indistinct, and if it had been otherwise it could have afforded no assistance in our present inquiry. That must be sought from other sources altogether. The fact of the unity and duality alone is important.. Up to this time the object of the Union, and the nationality of its character, had been considered to be only temporary in their nature-to manage the controversy with the mother country. The hope had not ceased to be cherished, and the expectation even had not been entirely abandoned, that a returning sense of justice in the government of Great Britain would open the way for such a reconciliation as would dispense with the Union and the separate nationality altogether. But the Declaration of Independence announced to the world that this hope and expectation had been extinquished, and the "separate and equal station among the powers of the earth," assumed by the United Colonies, "in the name and by authority of the good people thereof," became permanent and irrevocable. It established the unity of the nation, by declaring them "one people," and the nationality of the Union, by assuming an equality of right "among the powers of the earth," |