effects become weaker with remoteness in the past. It is the elements native to the character, the ineradicable principles and tendencies, that are of abiding concern. And these, with the party of whom we speak, appear to us thoroughly wrong and pernicious. As we have said, the mass of them are doubtless sincere; but they receive doctrines from designing leaders, of which they recognise neither the nature nor the end. They are led on they know not well to what; but discerning men in the Republic cannot fail to see that they are, in different ways, according to different sections of the community, practically working to relax the whole spirit of law among us, to disorganize and change the original framework and proportions of our government, and, under the deceptive name of advancement, insensibly descending in a rapid progression to evil. There is scarcely any dangerously radical opinion, any specious, delusive theory, on social, political, or moral points, which does not, in some part of the country, find its peculiar aliment and growth among the elements of that party. They are not content with sober improvement; they desire a freedom larger than the Constitution. They have a feeling, that the very fact that an institution has long existed, makes it insufficient for the growth of the age—for the wonderful demands of the latter-day developments. In a word, change with them is progress ; and whenever the maddened voice of faction, or the mercenary designs of party leaders demand a triumph over established institutions and rightful authority, they rush blindly but exultingly forward, and call it "reform." It is thus, that in some sections of the Union they have sought to make the judiciary, which of all elements in a government should be left free from external influences, subject to periodical revolution by the people, and have shown themselves ready to set aside the most solemn state covenants on a bare change of majorities. It is thus, that in other sections they have exhibited a marked hostility to useful corporations, even to the crying down of institutions of learning as aristocratic monopolies. It is thus that everywhere, and at all times, they have been disposed to make the stability of legislation dependent on the dominancy of a party, and to consider the idea of law as having no majesty, no authority, no divine force inherent in itself—as not a great Idea enthroned among men, coeval with Eternal Justice, which feeling alone can keep it from being trampled under foot of the multitude—but as derived from, and existing by, the uncertain sanctions of the popular will. And in all this they are not merely loosening the foundations of order and good government: they are paving the way—first, indeed, to anarchy, but next to despotism. For while in the false idea of "liberty" and "progress" they would deny the existence or renounce the exercise of those large and beneficent constitutional powers provided by the sages of the Revolution, they permit their acknowledged exponents to usurp the most extended and unlawful authority, and would give to the Chief Executive apower most liable to be abused, and greater than is possessed by the crowned head of any constitutional monarchy in Christendom.
To resist earnestly and unweariedly these destructive measures and principles, and, in so doing, to support freely and openly the principles and measures of the Whig party, is one great object of this Review. Yet in this we claim that degree of independence which every right-minded man in the Republic should vindicate—liberty to judge for ourselves as great interests change and new events arise.
The need of such a journal has long been deeply and widely felt. The Whig newspaper press is conducted with a degree of ability and address never perhaps excelled in any country; but its expositions and appeals are necessarily brief, and but by few either remembered or preserved beyond the occasion which calls them forth. The Review will be a means of presenting more grave and extended discussions of measures and events, and of better preserving them to after times. But aside from the important field of national politics, there is yet another, vaster and more varied, demanding* as constant and stern a conflict for the truth and the right, and making far larger requisitions on the intellect and attainments of whoever would earnestly work for the well-being of his country. We speak of the great field of literature, philosophy, and morals. It is not to be doubted, indeed, that these, from the nature of things, are so closely blended with all other elements that go to compose a state, as to make whatever influences affect these vitally, affect also, for evil or for good, the entire political fabric. We have the voice of history
