INTRODUCTION.

THE publication of a foreign work implies a high estimate of its value in the Editor. Its merits belong exclusively to the Author; to the Editor belongs merely the credit of sending forth a well-timed publication, and of having formed, not only a high, but a correct estimate of its value. As he is not blinded by any parental partialities, he is, if he err in judgment, fairly chargeable with the blame due to his mistake. On me, therefore, rest the blame of want of judgment, if any Senator shall deign to peruse these pages, and not lay them down with nearly the same feeling as that with which a mariner folds up his chart-of being better able to steer the vessel of the State in safety, amid the rocks and whirlpools which always disturb the current of Liberty.

There is no arrogance in a mere Editor thus expressing himself, unless it is arrogance to be sensible of the merits of another; unless it is pride to be willing to learn wisdom from those who, as our descendants, we are, perhaps, too

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much accustomed to think in some sense our inferiors. And yet, I err in saying inferiors; for it is the fashion of the day to consider the Americans as outstripping us in the race of liberty, and every Leveller rounds his paragraph by an appeal to the United States of America, of which he knows little more than that they have no King nor Church Establishment.

I object not to this appeal; it is the error of the day to be guided by theory, and not by history; but I do object to the attempt to fortify theory by an apparent appeal to fact, when the one is, as much as the other, the creature of the imagination. The United' States of America have enjoyed since the establishment of the federal government, as much liberty as is compatible with the existence of society, and wherever liberty dispenses in full measure her inestimable blessings, there the energies of man are put forth with power; much that is lovely and excellent is exhibited; the desert blossoms, and the wilderness teems with a stirring and industrious population.

But whilst it would be as unfair, as foreign to my feelings, to deny that the freedom of the

Constitution has been favourable to the rapid developement of the resources of the country; it admits not of doubt that her prosperity is mainly attributable to a happy concurrence of political and natural causes. The real question is not, as to the tendency of liberty to awaken the energies of a people, a truth well understood here by experience, but whether the liberty of the United States be based on a foundation which is likely to perpetuate its blessings to her children's children? And is her Constitution so superior to our own as to make it a fit model for us to imitate; and is it prudent and expedient for us to lop off, as unsightly excrescences, all those parts of our institutions which she has not adopted?

Whatever difficulty may attend the discussion of these inquiries, arises not from any doubt as to the value of most of our ancient institutions; but we have not in the United States of America, a society formed without their intervention, or carried on without their beneficial influence. There is so much that is common to both nations, that when the institutions themselves are wanting, their effects are still partially found. The chords which have been strung here, vibrate as far as

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the English language is spoken. I will assume, for example, that the establishment and constitution of our National Church has a tendency to support sobriety in the exhibition of religious truth. This character is imprinted in the works which proceed from her ministers; and these books, if they attain any celebrity here, are usually reprinted and circulated widely in every part of the wide-spread Union. I remember one Presbyterian minister stating, that he had been the means of introducing seventy-five copies of Scott's Commentary on the Bible into different families. A very large proportion of the theological works in use among the various denominations of Christians proceed from the pens of ministers of the Church of England. Thus, the same books which are operating advantageously on English society are equally efficacious on the other side of the Atlantic. The whole system of American Jurisprudence rests on the same foundation as our own of Common Law; but the engrafting new institutions thereon does not necessarily imply that they could have given birth to it, and fostered it to its present state of perfection; whilst it is obvious, that it would have a very beneficial effect on those Institutions themselves.