stitution, however, forbids such truckling to Congress. A President is the focal point of the popular will, while every Congressman is only a single ray. The President, therefore, acts under a responsibility of which no Congressman feels more than the two hundred and thirtieth part, and no Senator more than the sixtieth part. The Constitution, moreover, commands the President to sign no bill unless he shall approve of it. He must swear that he will act thus. A promised violation, therefore, of the Constitution, under such awful circumstances, is paraded by Whig editors, as an enticement to vote for Taylor. They surely mistake the virtue and intelligence of the people, they mistake Henry Clay, who, when smarting under repeated vetoes of a bank, denounced the veto power. He intended its abrogation by an amendment of the Constitution, not by a violation; but intend what he might, the people will never place unchecked their interests at the log-rolling mercies of Congress.

Another tenet of "the Taylor platform" promises, “that where Constitutional questions have been settled by the various departments of Government, and acquiesced in by the people, the President's objections ought not to be interposed thereto." Precedents have ever been the apology of usurpation, and to guard against them our Constitution provides a mode for its own amendment; nor can it be altered otherwise, though the departments may wink, or the people sleep. A President, like Jefferson and Jackson, will veto back the State to its constitutional channel, how much soever unskillful pilots may have drifted it into forbidden shoals, or party madness wounded it, "with twenty mortal murders on its crown." Courts of law are subjected to precedent, because their errors can be corrected by new legislation, which is preferable to a vacil

lating judiciary; but if the constitutional errors of Congress and the judiciary are to be final, error becomes incurable, and the Constitution subvertible at the pleasure of its guardians.

But we need not pursue farther, the crudities of the Taylor platform-" that the will of the people, as expressed through Congress, ought to be respected, and carried out by the Executive, on the tariff, currency, and improvements of highways, rivers, lakes and harbors:"-as though Gen. Taylor had yet to learn, that some of these objects involved constitutional questions to which the will of the people and their representatives must be subordinated; as they have been often, by vetoes triumphantly sustained by the people, while the advocates of a latitudinous construction of the Constitution have been repudiated. Our superiority over Canada consists in the self-reliance of our States; while Canada, like an infant, seeks to accomplish nothing great, without the assistance of her mother England. Fortunate for New-York was the constitutional scruples of the General Government against the construction of the Erie Canal. It called forth in our State, resources of which she had not been aware, and inspired the like in other States. The result is canals and rail-roads which the General Government could not have accomplished with all its revenues; and would not have accomplished in centuries, if it could. Suppose the General Government had yielded to the solicitations of Morse, and controlled his electric telegraph, would it at this moment have been reticulated. over the Union, as we now see it? Had we always believed with our ancestors, that the construction of churches, and the maintenance of a Christian ministry were within. the competency of Government alone, would our country be dotted by churches? Indeed, nothing prevents the

improvement of all our rivers, lakes, and harbors, but the persistence of partisans in a reliance on Congress, whose means are inadequate to the object. We have seen that all the resources of England could not even feed the poor of Ireland; nor all the resources of France, the laborers of Paris. We may say of strict constructionists, what has been said of the framers of our National Constitution, that their invention was wiser than the inventors. We can turn to no result of a strict construction from which good has not resulted. It is invigorating our manufacturers, by a withdrawal from them of protective duties, and compelling them to possess, like honest farmers and mechanics, a capital, to reduce their heretofore wasteful salaries, and to be industrious, frugal, and prudent; by which means they more than counterbalance what they lose by a reduced tariff; whilst the consequent cheapness of their fabrics increases the consumption, thus benefiting both consumer and producer.

Latitudinous constitutional constructions, and a belief that the people know less what is best for them than a few who are "godlike," and a notion that little fishes are made to be food for big ones, constitute the leprous distilments which have ever made Whig rule disastrous, without the Whigs knowing why; while doctrines essentially opposite, (assumed perhaps accidentally at first,) have ever made Democratic rule prosperous. These opposite results are inherent in the nature of the two parties. We need not expect "figs from thistles" in politics, any more than in husbandry. Is any man still in doubt, then, as to his duty at the approaching election? And let him look at the two parties as they stand, irrespective of all the foregoing. The Democrats present for the decision of the people, not "a man on a white horse," (leaving in doubt whether they

rely for success most on the horse, or most on the man,) but they present Texas, acquired despite the intrigues of England and France. They present Oregon preserved almost entire from the grasp of Great Britain, aided, as as she was, by the advocacy of Whig statesmen and editors. They present California and New Mexico, with an area more than eleven times the size of our Empire State; and acquired with so much honor, that to have been a subordinate, but successful hired instrument in its acquisition, is sufficient, (the Whigs being the judges,) to insure his election to the Presidency; and to cover their sin of giving aid and comfort to the enemy during its acquisition. Moreover, every man who votes for Cass will know for what he is voting, as well as for whom. Is not the presentation honest, of a man with known principles? Is it not respectful to to the people? Is it not the way to advance the people in political knowledge and accuracy of judgment? Is it not ennobling the people, by casting on them the responsibility of the acts of the Government ?—and is it not wise? for in the multitude of counsellors is wisdom, says God; and finally, is it not deserving the encouragement of success even for its own sake? We say nothing of Cass, warrior as he is if the people want a warrior; statesman as he is, if the people prefer a statesman; lest we thereby so exalt a man as to make him, at some future day, say to the people, as another candidate says substantially, in a recently published letter, that, as he was told "the people could not sustain themselves except by the use of his name, he reluctantly lent it to them for that purpose." Away with such vanity! Who cares for a President, or the son of a President; or both combined, as we find them on one ticket? Surely we are in the midst of a political mania, in which Presidential veneration is pitted against military

enthusiasm; and both are pitted against the dignity and understanding of our people: but the paroxysm will pass away with the chill of next November;* and our politicians will awake as from a dose of exhilarating gas, and find, that instead of having made fools of the people, they have made fools of only themselves.

* The elections were in November.