and they cannot see the reasonableness of persecuting and putting to death those who bear the same image. And it certainly does not tend to remove their impressions of the absurdity of these measures, when, as a consequence of them, they find their children bleeding and perishing, and their substance eaten up with taxation. The people, therefore, may confidently be set down as entertaining feelings favorable to pacific policy, commercial intercourse, and light taxation; and the principle of representation, when fully developed, will not fail to give vast expansion and influence to their wishes.

IV,--Another favorable circumstance of great importance, is, that the public mind is, in some degree, prepared for the establishment of a Congress of nations.—Every great political movement requires a preparation of public sentiment; and if such preparation be necessary in the establishment and changes of a single nation's internal administration, it must be equally necessary to effectuate the institution of a supervisory administration, destined to embrace all nations. Without the favor of public sentiment, it could not possibly be done. We do not say, there is a complete preparation in this respect; we know it is otherwise; but we do not hesitate to assert, that public opinion is setting in the right direction, and that there is an approximation to the standard, which we wish it to establish. Many circumstances have led to this approximation. Civilized nations are already familiar with the name and the general nature of a Congress, established for international purposes. For two hundred years they have witnessed the sessions of such assemblies; and although the subject is presented in a new form, it does not come arrayed in perfect novelty. They have seen the effects of these assemblies in their measures, and with some undoubted exceptions, have looked upon them as beneficial.

Furthermore, as far as Europe is concerned, there is a basis laid for a permanent Congress, not only in a favorable public sentiment, but especially in the condition of the European States, considered in relation to each other. The nations of Europe, closely united together by other circumstances than that of mere proximity, have the appearance of a single commonwealth. Differing greatly in extent and power, the smaller States naturally cling to the more powerful for protection; and these last are so situated, and so equally balanced against each other, that one cannot move greatly out of its accustomed orbit, without disturbing the equilibrium of a long established system. This peculiar and complicated state of things, which historians have imperfectly indicated by the phrase balance of power, extending over numerous watchful and rival millions, and checked and controlled in its operations in a multitude of ways, evidently requires, in order to be kept in action and its proper position, the constant practice of consultation, supervision, and advice. The history of the past all tends to warn against supineness and want of watchfulness. The unchastened ambition of princes often leads them into measures at variance with the dictates of reason, justice, and prudence. At one time, the equilibrium, so essential to the safety of all the States of whatever grade, is put at hazard by the arms and the policy of a Charles the Fifth; at another time by the ungovernable ambition of a Napoleon, who aims to unite principalities and kingdoms in his own person, and to plant the pillars of an universal monarchy. The necessity of constant circumspection and intercourse, for the purpose of maintaining the appropriate arrangements or adjusting them when out of order, necessarily gives frequent occasion for international assemblies, justly entitled to the character of Conferences or Congresses.

V-A fifth favorable circumstance is the marked change which has taken place in the sentiments of all classes on the subject of war.-Previous to the commencement of the present century, a decided expression, adverse to the continuance of war, and in favor of the prevalence of peace, could scarcely be made by any one, without his incurring the imputation of weakness and folly, unless perchance it was met by utter indifference. The right, and even the utility of war were scarcely considered open and debateable questions, since they were found to be so universally patronized by those in high places, no account of course being made of the lower and middle classes, on whom the curse fell with every possible variety of infliction. But the principle of representation has given to these classes the power of speech; and the power of speech has called into exercise the power of inquiry, reflection, and reason; and a voice, unheard before, has come up, as if from the vast depths, loud and terrible, that war shall be no more. It is not merely the suffering multitude, the millions who bear the toil, the burden, and the blood, that begin to speak out on this all important subject. We have now, in opposition to the practice of war, the opinions of men high in authority, placed in elevated stations, rich in this world's wealth, and rich too in the treasures of learning and prudence. They have heard the groans of their fellow-beings, and the heart of sympathy has been moved within them. The open and avowed advocates of peace, in the various classes of society, have increased an hundred-fold, and the increase of boldness, intellectual power, and consistent zeal has corresponded to the augmentation of numbers. And why should we not expect it to be thus, when any considerable body of men is brought to reflect on the subject? What source of misery, which is under the direction and control of man himself, can be compar

ed to this? When some terrible disease advances from country to country, when the seeds of the pestilence are scattered abroad by the Almighty, it becomes us to bow in submission and to hide ourselves in the dust before that Holy Being who knows our ill deserts, and whose secret ways are inscrutable to man. But in the devastations of war, it is not an Almighty Being, whose prerogatives we are not at liberty to question, but one of the feeble, erring creatures of his footstool, that seizes the burning thunderbolt, and scatters it through the world. And what renders the act the more astonishing, it is not the mere impulse of an unforeseen phrenzy, the ebullition of a momentary madness, but a matter of calculation, and cool reasoning, and carried on in the very face of heaven, and in defiance of the divine precept, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

But it is well ordered in Providence, that criminal principles and practices do not fail to expose themselves, and ultimately to work their own cure. The cries of widows and orphans had been heard from every quarter, mingling on every breeze, but they were too little regarded. The symptoms were at last observed of a great political commotion; the clouds came; the thunders muttered; the lightnings gleamed; there was a quaking and rocking of the earth, and then there suddenly opened the grand volcano of the French Revolution of 1790, to the wonder and bountiful edification of all the advocates of war. At that dreadful period there were certain experiments, which had a wonderful effect in enlightening the sentiments of some classes of people. It was found that the glittering sword of war could strike upward, as well as downward; among the high and the mighty, as well as among the poor and powerless peasants. The scythe fell upon the neck of princes; those, who had been clothed in purple and fine linen, were ar

rayed in beggar's rags and ate their crumbs in a dungeon; the innocent children died with the guilty fathers; delicate women, the delight of their friends and the ruling star of palaces, were smitten by the hand of the destroyer, and bowed their heads in blood. And then were beheld the hundred guillotines, the horrid invention of the fusillades, the drownings in the Loire, the dreadful devastations of La Vendee, the gathering of armies on the plains of Italy, the bridge of Lodi, and the battle of Marengo. These were the beginnings of terrors, the opening of the incipient seal, but the end was not yet.-For twenty successive years the apocalypse of the book of war opened itself from one end of Europe to the other, and on the ocean as well as on the land, in the thunders and fires which at once shook and enlightened and awed the world, of the Nile and Trafalgar, of Jena and Austerlitz, together with the dashing of throne against throne, and of nation against nation. At length the "white horse of death" was seen taking his way through the centre of Europe, and power was given to him to kill with the sword and with hunger; and he was followed by "the beasts of the earth," an army of five hundred thousand soldiers; and they were all offered up as victims on the frozen fields of Russia, and the Kremlin, and the ancient and mighty city of Moscow were burnt upon their funeral pyre. The earth shook to its centre; a howling and a lamentation went up to heaven; the living ate the dead and then fed upon their own flesh, and then went mad; the wolves and the vultures held their carnival, while Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted. Nevertheless the sickle of the destroyer was again thrust among the clusters; the winepress of war was trodden at Dresden and Leipsic and Waterloo, till the blood "came out of the wine-press, even to the horse-bridles."