be by a ship-canal in preference to any inferior mode of commumication. This is an enterprise too vast and bold to be undertaken by private capital unencouraged by national auspices and assistance. Yet of the comparative facility and cheapness with which either a railroad or steamboat communication, or a combination of the two, could be effected, even by private enterprise, there can be very little doubt. And enormously profitable as such a work would manifestly prove to its undertakers, who can suppose that it can remain much longer unexecuted? It is clearly the interest of either of the local governments to prefer such a mode of communication to that by a ship-canal; for while the one would merely afford a rapid and undisturbed transit to the commerce of the world, the other would arrest a large portion of it at the Isthmus, establishing great depots on both its shores, which must necessarily soon present a scene of commercial activity and prosperity unparalleled in the history of the world. We may therefore daily expect to hear of its being undertaken by private enterprise: in which case the grander cosmopolitan project of a ship communication would be superseded and indefinitely postponed, and special privileges secured to some minor private interests, for doubtless at least half a century, hostile to the common interest of the world at large.

The duty is peculiarly incumbent on the United States to take the initiative in this work. Our position as the first of the American republics, and the principal national interest and power in the Western Hemisphere--our own experience of the results of the development and stimulus of national resources by the creation of similar facilities of commercial intercourse-our unexampled career of enterprise, industry, and prosperity, with the national character, identified in the opinions of the world with our name, for enlightened commercial energy and spirit, and for that pacific and liberal public policy which should never regard with indifference any means of promoting the prosperity and ameliorating the condition of large masses of the human race-all seem to point peculiarly to the United States, as equally entitled to the glory of such an undertaking, and responsible to the world for its accomplishment.

Upon the question of the constitutional competency of the Federal Government to take the course to which these remarks point, there cannot be a divided opinion. Jealous as we avow ourselves of every extension of the federal action, even for the most useful purposes, wherever State authority may be competent and adequate, -preferring even almost any ultraism of the State-Rights principle to that of its antagonist doctrine of centralization-yet, within the proper limits of the federal action, none are more desirous to give it the full energy worthy of the collective will of a great and enlightened Democracy. In every foreign relation we are emphatically one people, acting through a government of no less ample powers and energies, while administered through representative machinery, than that of any of the monarchies of the old world. And this is purely a question of foreign relations, involving the

collective interest of the whole people; so that, notwithstanding the abuse which has of late years been made of the argument for federal power, derived from its authority to "regulate commerce," we might safely invoke it to justify even the liberal appropriation of money to aid in the construction of the work now in contemplation, if such aid were necessary. Such is, however, not the case. All that it would be necessary for our Government to do, would be to lay the foundations for the execution of the enterprise, by proper treaty stipulations with the powers interested. The business should be placed in the hands of a more cautiously selected special agency, (chosen without reference to any other considerations than personal fitness, and acquaintance with the subject,) through which treaties should be negotiated with the Governments of Central America and New Granada, as well as a thorough exploration and survey instituted of the different routes proposed. On these should be founded an united treaty with the principal commercial nations of Europe-England, France, Holland, and Russia; to engage the cooperation of all, and the united atronage by all of the association of private capitalists which, under such auspices and guarantees, could without difficulty be formed for the execution of the work, whatever might be the estimate of expense that should be fixed upon, after a complete and accurate survey of the ground. There is no need of further delay, for further information. We are already in possession of a sufficient basis of facts to justify such an initiatory proceeding as is proposed; and we trust that the next Congress will not adjourn without providing a liberal appropriation for the expense of such a special agency and surveying party. It would be enthusiastically sustained by the public opinion which the slightest discussion of the subject cannot fail to awaken; and would reflect unfading honor on the administration under whose auspices so grand and glorious an undertaking should be commenced.

A MESSAGE.

There cometh o'er the stormy sea,
A gentle message unto me,

A soft, melodious voice;
Its hallowed music doth control
The sway of sorrow, and my soul
To hear it doth rejoice.

Yet with a joy that might not seem,
To many, other than a gleam

Of starlight through the gloom;

So sober is it, and it bears
Upon its face the trace of tears,
Like Hope beside a tomb.

And yet I know no purer joy,
No deeper draught of extasy

To me hath yet been given;
It chaseth haggard care away,
Turneth dark midnight into day,
And beareth thought to heaven.

From whence is that soft whisper borne,
That cometh like the breath of morn

Over the eastern wave?

There is an isle across the sea,
From thence it cometh unto me,
A whisper from the grave.

A solemn whisper from the tomb,
Where, blighted in her early bloom,
A lovely flower is laid;
So beautiful, so young, to die-
E'en resignation heaves a sigh,
And tears may not be stayed.

In the still watches of the night,
When thought is busy, o'er the blight

Of early hopes I mourn;
Her spirit heareth every moan,
And that consolatory tone

On the night breeze is borne.

And when I seek the silent shade,
Of darksome wood, or gentle glade
Far from the haunts of men,
And mingle in communings high
With beauty, power, and majesty,
That voice is with me then.

Oh then I feel that presence nigh,
And thrilled with holy sympathy,
I clasp her to my heart;
The stream of time flows back amain,
And life, and love, are ours again-
And Death's dark shades depart.

That gentle music now is near-
Its softest whisperings I hear,
"Oh wipe away thy tears,
Thy resting place is not below,
Man's pilgrimage of joy or woe
Sees not an hundred years."

THE GREAT NATION OF FUTURITY.

The American people having derived their origin from many other nations, and the Declaration of National Independence being entirely based on the great principle of human equality, these facts demonstrate at once our disconnected position as regards any other nation; that we have, in reality, but little connection with the past history of any of them, and still less with all antiquity, its glories, or its crimes. On the contrary, our national birth was the beginning of a new history, the formation and progress of an untried political system, which separates us from the past and connects us with the future only; and so far as regards the entire development of the natural rights of man, in moral, political, and national life, we may confidently assume that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity.

It is so destined, because the principle upon which a nation is organized fixes its destiny, and that of equality is perfect, is universal. It presides in all the operations of the physical world, and it is also the conscious law of the soul-the self-evident dictate of morality, which accurately defines the duty of man to man, and consequently man's rights as man. Besides, the truthful annals of any nation furnish abundant evidence, that its happiness, its greatness, its duration, were always proportionate to the democratic equality in its system of government.

How many nations have had their decline and fall, because the equal rights of the minority were trampled on by the despotism of the majority; or the interests of the many sacrificed to the aristocracy of the few; or the rights and interests of all given up to the monarchy of one? These three kinds of government have figured so frequently and so largely in the ages that have passed away, that their history, through all time to come, can only furnish a resemblance. Like causes produce like effects, and the true philosopher of history will easily discern the principle of equality, or of privilege, working out its inevitable result. The first is regenerative, because it is natural and right; the latter is destructive to society, because it is unnatural and wrong.

What friend of human liberty, civilization, and refinement, can cast his view over the past history of the monarchies and aristocracies of antiquity, and not deplore that they ever existed? What philanthropist can contemplate the oppressions, the cruelties, and injustice inflicted by them on the masses of mankind, and not turn with moral horror from the retrospect?

America is destined for better deeds. It is our unparalleled glory that we have no reminiscences of battle fields, but in defence of humanity, of the oppressed of all nations, of the rights of conscience, the rights of personal enfranchisement. Our annals describe no scenes of horrid carnage, where men were led on by hundreds of thousands to slay one another, dupes and victims to emperors, kings, nobles, demons in the human form called heroes. We have had patriots to defend our homes, our liberties, but no aspirants to crowns or thrones; nor have the American people ever suffered themselves to be led on by wicked ambition to depopulate the land, to spread desolation far and wide, that a human being might be placed on a seat of supremacy.

We have no interest in the scenes of antiquity, only as lessons of avoidance of nearly all their examples. The expansive future is our arena, and for our history. We are entering on its untrodden space, with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects in our hearts, and with a clear conscience unsullied by the past. We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with us, and no earthly power can. We point to the everlasting truth on the first page of our national declaration, and we proclaim to the millions of other lands, that "the gates of hell"-the powers of aristocracy and monarchy -" shall not prevail against it."

The far-reaching, the boundless future will be the era of American greatness. In its magnificent domain of space and time, the nation of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles; to establish on earth the noblest temple ever dedicated to the. worship of the Most High-the Sacred and the True. Its floor shall be a hemisphere-its roof the firmament of the star-studded heavens, and its congregation an Union of many Republics, comprising hundreds of happy millions, calling, owning no man master, but governed by God's natural and moral law of equality, the law of brotherhood-of "peace and good will amongst men."

But although the mighty constituent truth upon which our social and political system is founded will assuredly work out the glorious destiny herein shadowed forth, yet there are many untoward circumstances to retard our progress, to procrastinate the entire fruition of the greatest good to the human race. There is a tendency to imitativeness, prevailing amongst our professional and literary men, subversive of originality of thought, and wholly unfavorable to progress. Being in early life devoted to the study of the laws, institutions, and antiquities of other nations, they are far behind the mind and movement of the age in which they live: so much so, that the spirit of improvement, as well as of enfranchisement, exists