PREFACE.

AUTHOR. Walk in!

JUDGE H. Good evening, sir. I am glad to find you, as usual, surrounded by home-comforts-books, manuscripts, and papers appear to be your evening companions.

AUTHOR. I am happy to welcome you, Judge H. Pray, be seated.

JUDGE H. Thank you, sir. What books were you so attentively examining when I entered?

AUTHOR. I was comparing three important documents the Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States. The Magna Charta secured Personal Liberty, the Declaration proclaimed it, and the Constitution guaranteed it; and yet, notwithstanding the experience and progress of more than six hundred years, they have been totally disregarded of late in our own country, which boasts so much of personal rights and personal liberty.

JUDGE H. That is true, sir. The Constitution is the chart by which every Administration ought to be guided; but I regret to say-both for the reputation and stability of our Government-it has, of late, been a "dead letter."

AUTHOR. Do you think, Judge, the people are aware to what extent their rights have been lately trampled upon, and their liberties disregarded?

JUDGE H. I have the utmost confidence in the judgment

and patriotism of the people. They are not blind, nor are they listless; yet, I think, they sometimes act without considering. They are carried away by their enthusiasm in the support of measures, the consequences of which they do not see until it is too late to redress the wrong committed. This, however, cannot exactly be said to be the fault of the people. They are deluded by leaders, without merit or claim, who have accidentally been wafted into position mere adventurers, who have nothing to lose, and who are as ignorant of the science of government as they are careless of preserving what little reputation they possess in a word, by men who have

"Skulls that cannot teach, and will not learn."

The people do not even yet know the crimes that have been committed in the name of Liberty.

AUTHOR. Liberty, in the better days of our Republic, was the birthright of the American citizen. What guarantee has he that he will be protected in this fireside right in the future, if we may judge the future by the past? When the Constitution is despoiled of the altar of Liberty, in what temple can Freedom worship?

JUDGE H. With us Liberty has no protective guarantees. Mr. Seward may again ring his "little bell," and secretly hurry the citizen from the family circle to the loathsome casemate by the strong arm of arbitrary power, and what redress has he? What becomes of the old English maxim, "Every man's house is his castle?"

AUTHOR. Did you ever mark the contrast in the sentiments uttered by William II. Seward, Secretary of State, and William Pitt, Prime Minister of England?

In conversation with Lord Lyons, Mr. Seward said, "My lord, I can touch a bell on my right hand, and order the arrest of a citizen of Ohio; I can touch a bell again, and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York; and no power on earth, except that of the President, can release them. Can the Queen of England do so much?”

The Earl of Chatham said:

"THE POOREST MAN IN HIS COTTAGE MAY BID DEFIANCE TO ALL THE POWER OF THE CROWN. IT MAY BE FRAIL; ITS ROOF MAY SHAKE; THE WIND MAY BLOW THROUGH IT; THE STORM MAY ENTER; THE RAIN MAY ENTER; BUT THE KING OF ENG

LAND CANNOT ENTER: ALL HIS POWER DARES NOT CROSS THE THRESHOLD OF THAT RUINED TENEMENT.

Here we have presented the difference between the liberties of the American citizen, and the rights of the English subject. JUDGE H.. Yes, it presents a melancholy picture.

"He that takes

Deep in his soft credulity the stamp
Designed by loud declaimers on the part
Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust,

Incurs derision for his easy faith

And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough:
For when was public virtue to be found
Where private was not? Can he love the whole
Who loves no part? He be a nation's friend
Who is in truth the friend of no man there?
Can he be strenuous in his country's cause
Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake
That country, if at all, must be beloved?"

It is to be hoped that the men in power, who have abused the confidence of the people, will soon be displaced.

AUTHOR. Your language in reference to "abusing the

confidence of the people," reminds me very forcibly of that uttered by Cicero, in his celebrated speech against Catiline, in which he says: "How far, then, Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? How long, too, will that frantic wickedness of thine baffle our efforts? To what extent will thy unbridled audacity insolently display itself?"

JUDGE H. Yes, and the same language might have been appropriately used in our own country during the late Administration.

AUTHOR. I think it would have been quite apropos, for there were then in our midst many Catilines. Then Liberty was the synonyme of Fort. Could but the walls of Fort La Fayette of Fort Warren-of Fort McHenry speak, what untold wrongs of vindictive persecution would the American people hear from those dark, damp, loathsome casemates! But a day of retribution will come, must come. Crimes and criminals never go unpunished. The wail of the motherthe grief of the wife or the cry of the daughter may be suppressed for the time, by the gleaming bayonets of an obedient soldiery; but retributive justice will follow him who robs the citizen of his liberty, even unto the very precincts of the cold and silent grave; conscience will smite him on earth, and he will exclaim:

"The thorns that I have reaped, are of the tree I planted.

They have torn me, and I bleed!"

JUDGE H. Some day the history of the political imprisonments during the late Administration will be written, and what a sad chapter to be read by posterity! It makes my heart sick to think that in this land of so-called liberty there has been so much oppression. We can no longer point to the Bastiles of France - the Towers and castles of Eng