execute the supreme law. "Whosoever will not do the law, . . let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death or to banishment, or to confiscation,

to imprisonment."

... or

The extent of the National, as well as of the State powers, is determined by the National Constitution. They include all the foreign relations, and international rights and duties of the country. Also the internal and external revenue, the interstate commerce, currency, and coinage of money. All the physical force and material resources of the Nation. Besides these, they include the post-office, and many other miscellaneous powers, which policy required should be managed uniformly throughout the United States, and not be left to the diversified regulation of the local authorities.

By the power of adding new states and altering the Constitution, when deemed expedient by three-fourths of the states, the people of the United States may bestow on their Government any portion of their remaining power, even to changing their form of government, and dispensing with the state organizations altogether. This consequence was foreseen and discussed in the Convention, and its foundation left undisturbed.

The Constitution has not only given these great powers to their Government, but it has, as we have seen, placed the states under large and formidable express restrictions. All state rights and powers must be carved out of what the people of the United States have left, after having delegated the pow ers of the Constitution, and applied the restrictions to the states. They have given no right to anybody, to come in competition with their own supreme law, or any power lawfully exercised under it.

For the execution of this Constitution, it has given the Government all necessary legislative, executive, and judicial authority, and an ample discretion in the selection of means. Every act of the Government, done in pursuance of this Constitution, and under its authority, is the supreme law of the land.

In consequence of this supremacy, every act of a state, its

officers, or people, repugnant thereto, is simply contumacious and void. In every such case, the only question for examination is, whether the act of. the United States is constitutional. If it is, the act of no inferior power can stand against it. So the claim of any state right, in competition with the Government of the United States, must be brought to the test of the Constitution of the Union. If it fails there, it fails utterly. It is of no consequence where else it may exist or not exist. If the Constitution of the United States repudiates it, it can be sustained nowhere.

ARTICLE IV.-VASSAR FEMALE COLLEGE.

The Proceedings of the Trustees of Vassar Female College, at their First Meeting, February 26th, 1862.

It is something more than a year since we received a copy of "The Proceedings of the Trustees of Vassar Female College, at their first meeting, February 26th, 1861." Through the ordinary channels of news, we had already learned of the munificent endowment by which Matthew Vassar, a venerable citizen of Poughkeepsie, proposed to establish a college, in the town of his residence, for the education of women. The pamphlet before us contains a transcript of the college charter, a list of the trustees, and an account of the doings of the trustees at their organization. Among the gentlemen who have been selected as the members of the body corporate of this incipient university, and on whom will rest the grave responsibility of its rightful growth into maturity of form and power, we recognize several names well known to the public:Hon. Ira Harris, Hon. John Thompson, Hon. George W. Sterling, Hon. James Harper, Rev. Drs. Magoon, Babcock, Anderson, Lathrop, and Hague, Benson J. Lossing, and S. F. B. Morse: Of the meeting, of which we have here the record, the most important features were the address of the founder; the formal presentation by him of funds to the amount of four hundred and eight thousand dollars, and finally the election of Milo P. Jewett, LL. D., as president of the college.

Whatever may be the issue of this effort to found a large and amply endowed college for women, the effort alone is laudable; it arrests wide and instant attention; it commands the benedictions and the prayers of all who have learned to wish well to noble purposes and to pray for their achievement. It is possible that Vassar Female College may fail to meet the hopes of its founder and the high expectations of the public; but at such a cost to have attempted the establishment of a

woman's college, is a grand and an auspicions act, and deserves commemoration among the foremost beneficences of these times. Be the result of this endeavor what it may, we hail its inception. If, in the world's inexperience, it is needful that another splendid failure should precede the discovery of the true path to success-let the failure come! It cannot be too splendid, or come too soon. As forming the indispensable scaffolding of ultimate triumph, defeat itself is victory and glory. Let it not be understood, however, that we predict failure, or expect failure, to Mr. Vassar's great project. On the contrary, we cherish for it, and to a very full extent, faith, hope, and love,-all three. Yet we cannot forget that Mr. Vassar has ventured upon a sea not yet fully explored, and where some navigators before him have already gone down.

The fair old Dutch city of Poughkeepsie, on the left bank of the Hudson, midway between New York and Albany, rests on a beautiful slope of land, which, rising gradually from the river side, attains a level eminence of two hundred feet above the surface of the water. Passing back across this lovely table-land to the distance of about two miles, you reach the broad Morgan farm, surging here and there with the gentle swell of hillocks, flecked by the shadows of many a forest tree, seamed with the shining coils of the Casparkill creek, and affording you, as your face turns again to the river from which you have come, a view of the Catskill range, away on obliquely to the right, and of the Fishkill Mountains on the left, together with the upper columns of the Highlands. To the land which lies along the northern border of this farm, attaches a unique interest; for here we tread what the lovers of the hippodrome would doubtless affirm to be "sacred soil." A generation back, this spot had a national reputation; it was the Yankee Derby; and hither converged, at the favorite seasons, the swiftest legs and the blackest legs which the country could then produce. It may be desirable to add that its glory—such as it was-is departed. Immediately to the south of this ancient and illustrious Dutchess race course, therefore, lies the noble farm of two hundred acres, which is now becoming the local habitation of Vassar Female College. On the 4th of

June, 1861, ground was broken for the foundation of the college edifice; during the succeeding summer and autumn, the walls rose to the hight of one story; and by the middle of November of the present year, all will be under cover. The building is to be in the Norman style; the material is brick, with stone trimmings, three stories high, with a mansard roof. Perhaps an idea of the appearance of the building cannot be better conveyed than by referring the reader to any familiar engraving of the Tuileries, in imitation of which this structure was planned. The length of the front, including the wings, is five hundred feet; the wings are each fifty-six feet wide and one hundred and sixty-five feet deep; the centre is one hundred and seventy-one feet deep. Under one roof will be contained a chapel, a library, an art gallery, lecture and recitation rooms, the president's house, two double-houses for four professors, apartments for lady teachers, matrons, and the steward's family, and finally, accommodations for three hundred ladies, each one of whom is to have a separate sleeping room. The edifice will be nearly fire-proof, will be heated by steam, lighted with gas, ventilated in the most perfect manner, and supplied throughout with an abundance of pure soft water. It stands three hundred feet from the road. The avenue by which it is approached is to be guarded at the entrance by an exquisitely shaped lodge, and to wind through grounds wrought to high beauty by the landscape gardener. A little way upon the left of the college runs the Casparkill creek, which here flows in a straight full current, and by artificial means has been made to expand into a beautiful little lake, surrounded by grassy banks, and shaded by a thick circlet of chestnut and willow trees. Here will be erected an appropriate bathing-house; and the lake will furnish healthful exercise for the members of the college, by skating in the winter, and in the summer by rowing. It may be added, that buildings and grounds will consume a portion of the endowment somewhat exceeding two hundred thousand dollars.

Here, then, is that part of Vassar Female College, which it is easiest to describe, and easiest to procure. Here is its endowment, nearly half a million of dollars; here are its