nal control, to do what mischief they pleased to each other, and to the rest of the good people of the United States. pp. 444, 445.

These are, unquestionably, as it seems to us, the only principles by which a republican government can be maintained. The power of legislation is vested exclusively in the representatives of the people. The President has simply the subordi nate office of executing the laws which the people by their representatives for that purpose duly elected may make. To assume himself to be an equal power in the government, to enter into a factious controversy with the legislature respecting the proper laws to be passed, or to interfere with their independent action by corrupting or intimidating influences, are flagrant violations of his duties and of their privilege. The President of this republic is a chief magistrate simply, and not a despot. There are few greater or more prevalent mistakes than the idea that presidential candidates should be selected from our most brilliant men. If the incumbent of that office will confine himself to his legitimate sphere, great talents are no more necessary to him than to a sovereign of the British Empire. Indeed, an honest man of sound sense, and firm resolution to do his simple duty plainly and well, makes a far safer chief magistrate than a talented, ambitious party chief, who will be tempted to use his high position for the aggrandizement of himself, his party, or even of the presidential office. A most interesting and instructive chapter might be written illustrative of this truth drawn from the history of executive usurpations in the progress of our Government. A bold, strong, self-willed man in the presidential chair, may be guilty of the most frequent and dangerous encroachments upon the liberties of the people, and yet by the very heroism of his crimes command their admiration and support. Happily there is some reason, also, to believe that a weak, low minded braggart, in similar attempts, will excite only ridicule and disgust. The crow could not carry off the sheep in imitation of the eagle, and the frog, which assumed to be an ox, only burst himself in the effort.

The subject of impeachment we should have been pleased to see more fully treated by Judge Farrar. Though he has given it considerable space, yet, as it may become a subject of much

importance, all the light that can be obtained regarding it from principle or precedent is desirable. It seems likely that in the earlier periods of our Government, impeachment was looked upon as a more simple and easily applied remedy for maladministration than we now regard it. Mr. Madison, in the first Congress, declared, that "for the wanton removal of meritorious officers, the President would be impeached and removed from his high trust." Yet the proceeding has been sparingly resorted to in the history of the Government, and at the present day it must be viewed, at least in its application to the presidential office, as a proceeding almost revolutionary in its character, dangerous as a precedent, and only to be employed in the very last emergency.

Eighty years have passed since the Constitution was framed, and in that period wonderful changes, social, material and intellectual, have passed over our country. Greater changes still are impending. The nation is fast becoming consolidated into a powerful Empire. Are all these changes favorable to the permanence of our republican system? and how shall the elements of danger which they suggest be best averted? Does the machinery of our system and of its free institutions continue to work with its original smoothness and precision; and if not, what repairs are requisite to save it from ultimate ruin? These are questions of the utmost interest and importance, and their solution, as it seems to us, must be sought for not so much in broader constructions of constitutional powers in the government, as in the careful study and constant improvement of those popular institutions upon which the whole fabric of Government rests; in promoting education and patriotism among the people-in devising and applying laws by which suffrage shall be made to rest upon intelligence, and the tenure of office upon qualification; by which the rancor and strength of partics shall be subverted through securing the representation of minorities-preventing political proscription, and diminishing patronage; by which elections shall be so regulated that frauds shall be impossible, and violence and corruption prevented.

What political students most need to employ their attention, skill, and contrivance upon for the next generation, is the science

of practical democracy. The great theoretic principles of universal justice and universal liberty are fully understood, and it is to be hoped, firmly and forever established. Let all the features of practical effort and legislation by which popular institutions can best be guarded from decay or contamination, be studied and tended with equal vigilance and care; let our republican system be so developed and improved that it shall be complete and perfect in all its details as a system of true principles rightly applied, and the Constitution, the great national heart, nourished and preserved by the pure strong blood of a healthy, popular life, will readily adapt itself to all the varying phases of the national existence, and our liberties will be enduring.

ARTICLE VII.-EX-PRESIDENT VAN BUREN ON POLITICAL PARTIES IN THE UNITED STATES.

Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States. By the late EX-PRESIDENT MARTIN VAN BUREN. Edited by his Sons. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1867.

WITHIN a comparatively recent period, we have been put in possession of a great variety of documents which cast much new light upon the rise and early history of our national government. Of the persons who were concerned in this most interesting and eventful era, we now know, on many points, more than they could know of one another; and we have the same advantage in respect to the transactions in which they bore a part. Mr. Sparks rendered an invaluable service by his various collections of letters and other documents, and by the impartial biographies of Washington, Franklin, Gouverneur Morris, and of other leading public men. Mr. Charles Francis Adams has given to the public the voluminous writings of his grandfather, which he has accompanied by a copious memoir, founded on a careful study of revolutionary and post-revolutionary history, and constituting a full record of the times as well as of the life of John Adams. The works of Hamilton have likewise appeared under the less able and judicious supervision of his son. Congress has published a full collection of the writings of Jefferson, and a warm admirer, Mr. Henry S. Randall, has issued, in three large volumes, an elaborate memoir of the great democratic leader. Madison has found an appreciative biographer in Mr. William C. Rives, of Virginia, whose second volume has appeared since the close of the civil war. The administrations of Washington and Adams have been illustrated, in two stout volumes, by the correspondence of Oliver Wolcott, Jr. We have mentioned some of the most important of the publications which bear closely on the early

period of our national annals, and especially upon the origin and character of the two great parties which first contended for supremacy in the public councils. The book of Mr. Van Buren presents no new facts upon this subject. It is a smoothly written description, from the anti-federalist point of view, of the principles of the party that controlled our government for the first twelve years, and of the doctrines and aims of their adversaries. Men still differ widely in their estimate of the character of Jefferson. In the opinion of Mr. Randall and Mr. Van Buren, he was not only a most sagacious philosopher, but a statesman of lofty and disinterested motives of action. We think that the verdict of historical students will turn out to be quite dissonant from this opinion. A curious instance of Jefferson's want of accuracy, and of the deduction which, from this cause at least, we are required to make from the value of his testimony, is furnished by Mr. Van Buren himself. In a letter addressed to him, under date of June 29, 1824, Jefferson affirms that, in the famous Mazzei letter, he did not refer to Washington, and he argues at length to show that there was no room for supposing such a reference. Now the text of the Mazzei letter, as published at the time, is printed on the last page of Mr. Van Buren's book. In this letter, Jefferson, speaking of "the Anglican, Monarchical, and Aristocratical party," whose avowed object is to bring in "the substance as they have already done the forms of the British government," observes: "against us are the Executive, the judiciary, two out of three branches of the legislature," &c., &c. When writing to Mr. Van Buren in 1824, he had forgotten that he had introduced this unlucky word "executive." A plainer example of condemnation out of one's own mouth could hardly be produced. We wish we could believe Jefferson's explanation that by "forms of the British government," he meant ceremonies of etiquette. It may be the truth, but we do not feel assured that it is. Another example of Jefferson's inaccuracy is found in a comparison of a passage in his letter to Mr. Van Buren (p. 433) with a passage in the "Anas." In the former place he says-and if we do not mistake, he has made the same assertion more than once-"My last parting with General Washington was at the inauguration of Mr. Adams, in March,