willingness of the people to believe in its existence, or from the influence of designing men, diverting their attention from the quarter whence it approaches to a source from which it can never come. This is the old trick of those who would usurp the government of their country.

In the name

of democracy they speak, warning the people against the influence of wealth and the danger of aristocracy. History, ancient and modern, is full of such examples. Cesar became the master of the Roman people and the senate, under the pretence of supporting the democratic claims of the former against the aristocracy of the latter; Cromwell, in the character of protector of the liberties of the people, became the dictator of England; and Bolivar possessed himself of unlimited power, with the title of his country's liberator. There is, on the contrary, no single instance on record of an extensive and well-established republic being changed into an aristocracy. The tendency of all such governments in their decline is to monarchy; and the antagonist principle to liberty there, is, the spirit of faction-a spirit which assumes the character, and, in times of great excitement, imposes itself upon the people as the genuine spirit of freedom, and like the false Christs whose coming was foretold by the Savior, seeks to, and, were it possible, would, impose upon the true and most faithful disciples of liberty. It is in periods like this that it behooves the people to be most watchful of those to whom they have intrusted power. And although there is at times much difficulty in distinguishing the false from the true spirit, a calm and dispassionate investigation will detect the counterfeit, as well by the character of its operations as the results that are produced. The true spirit of liberty, although devoted, persevering, bold, and uncompromising in principle-that secured, is mild, and tolerant, and scrupulous as to the means it employs; while the spirit of party, assuming to be that of liberty, is harsh, vindictive, and intolerant, and totally reckless as to the character of the allies which it brings to the aid of its cause. When the genuine spirit of liberty animates the body of a people to a thorough examination of their affairs, it leads to the excision of every excrescence which may have fastened itself upon any of the departments of the government, and restores the system to its pristine health and beauty. But the reign of an intolerant spirit of party among a free people seldom fails to result in a dangerous accession to the executive power introduced and established amid unusual professions of devotion to de

mocracy.

The foregoing remarks relate almost exclusively to matters connected with our domestic concerns. It may be proper, however, that I should give some indications to my fellow-citizens of my proposed course of conduct in the management of our foreign relations. I assure them, therefore, that it is my intention to use every means in my power to preserve the friendly intercourse which now so happily subsists with every foreign nation; and that, although, of course, not well informed as to the state of any pending negotiations with any of them, I see in the personal characters of the sovereigns, as well as in the mutual interest of our own and of the governments with which our relations are most intimate, a pleasing guarantee that the harmony so important to the interests of their subjects, as well as our citizens, will not be interrupted by the advancement of any claim or pretension upon their part to which our honor would not permit us to yield. Long the defender of my country's rights in the field, I trust that my fellow-citizens will not see in my earnest desire to preserve peace with foreign powers any indication that their rights will ever be sacrificed,

or the honor of the nation tarnished, by any admission on the part of their chief magistrate unworthy of their former glory.

In our intercourse with our aboriginal neighbors, the same liberality and justice which marked the course prescribed to me, by two of my illustrious predecessors, when acting under their direction in the discharge of the duties of superintendent and commissioner, shall be strictly observed. I can conceive of no more sublime spectacle-none more likely to propitiate an impartial Creator-than a rigid adherence to the principles of justice on the part of a powerful nation in its transactions with a weaker and uncivilized people, whom circumstances have placed at its disposal. Before concluding, fellow-citizens, I must say something to you on the subject of the parties at this time existing in our country. To me it pears perfectly clear, that the interest of that country requires that the violence of the spirit, by which those parties are at this time governed, must be greatly mitigated, if not entirely extinguished, or consequences will ensue which are appalling to be thought of. If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of vigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within the bounds of law and duty, at that point their usefulness ends. Beyond that they become destructive of public virtue, the parents of a spirit antagonist to that of liberty, and, eventually, its inevitable conqueror.

ap

We have examples of republics, where the love of country and of liberty at one time were the dominant passions of the whole mass of citizens, and yet, with the continuance of the name and form of free government, not a vestige of these qualities remaining in the bosom of any one of its citizens. It was the beautiful remark of a distinguished English writer, that "in the Roman senate Octavius had a party, and Antony a party, but the commonwealth had none." Yet the senate continued to meet in the temple of liberty, to talk of the sacredness and beauty of the commonwealth, and gaze at the statues of the elder Brutus and of the Curtii and Decii. And the people assembled in the forum, not as in the days of Camillus and the Scipios, to cast their free votes for annual magistrates or pass upon the acts of the senate, but to receive from the hands of the leaders of the respective parties their share of the spoils, and to shout for one or the other, as those collected in Gaul, or Egypt, and the Lesser Asia, would furnish the larger dividend. The spirit of liberty had fled, and, avoiding the abodes of civilized man, had sought protection in the wilds of Scythia or Scandinavia and so, under the operation of the same causes and influences, it will fly from our capitol and our forums. A calamity so awful, not only to our country, but the world, must be deprecated by every patriot, and every tendency to a state of things likely to produce it immediately checked. Such a tendency has existed-does exist.

Always the friend of my countrymen, never their flatterer, it becomes my duty to say to them from this high place to which their partiality has exalted me, that there exists in the land a spirit hostile to their best interests-hostile to liberty itself. It is a spirit contracted in its views, selfish in its object. It looks to the aggrandizement of a few, even to the destruction of the interest of the whole. The entire remedy is with the people. Something, however, may be effected by the means which they have placed in my hands. It is union that we want-not of a party for the sake of that party-but a union of the whole country for the sake of the whole country-for the defence of its interests and its honor against foreign aggression-for the defence of those principles for which our ancestors so gloriously contended. As far as it depends upon me, it shall VOL. II.-31

be accomplished. All the influence that I possess, shall be exerted to prevent the formation at least of an executive party in the halls of the legislative body. I wish for the support of no member of that body to any measure of mine that does not satisfy his judgment and his sense of duty to those from whom he holds his appointment, nor any confidence in advance from the people, but that asked for by Mr. Jefferson, “to give firmness and effect to the legal administration of their affairs."

I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound reverence for the Christian religion, and a thorough conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility, are essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness; and to that good Being who has blessed us by the gifts of civil and religious freedom, who watched over and prospered the labors of our fathers, and has hitherto preserved to us institutions far exceeding in excellence those of any other people, let us unite in fervently commending every interest of our beloved country in all future time. [Here the oath of office was administered by Chief-Justice TANEY.] Fellow-citizens: Being fully invested with that high office to which the partiality of my countrymen has called me, I now take an affectionate leave of you. You will bear with you to your homes the remembrance of the pledge I have this day given to discharge all the high duties of my exalted station according to the best of my ability; and I shall enter upon their performance with entire confidence in the support of a just and generous people.

A PROCLAMATION.

MARCH 17, 1841.

WHEREAS, sundry important and weighty matters, principally growing out of the condition of the revenue and finances of the country, appear to me to call for the consideration of Congress at an earlier day than its next annual session, and thus form an extraordinary occasion, such as renders necessary, in my judgment, the convention of the two houses as soon as may be practicable, I do, therefore, by this my proclamation, convene the two houses of Congress, to meet in the capitol, at the city of Washington, on the last Monday, being the thirty-first day, of May next, and I require the respective senators and representatives then and there to assemble, in order to receive such information respecting the state of the Union as may be given to them, and to devise and adopt such measures as the good of the country may seem to them, in the exercise of their wisdom and discretion, to require.

In testimony whereof, I have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed, and signed the same with my hand.

Done at the city of Washington, this seventeenth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-one, and of the independence of the United States the sixty-fifth.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

OF

JOHN TYLER.

THE ancestors of John Tyler, the tenth president of the United States, and the sixth chief magistrate of the nation whose birthplace was Virginia, were among the early English settlers of the Old Dominion. This family of Tyler, it is understood, traced their lineage back to Walter, or Wat Tyler, who, in the fourteenth century, headed an insurrection in England, and, while demanding of the king (Richard II.) a recognition of the rights of the people, lost his life in their cause.

The father of the subject of this sketch, bearing the same name, was the second son of John Tyler, who was marshal of the colony, under the royal government, up to the period of his death, which occurred after the remonstrances against the stamp act, and whose patrimonial estate covered a large tract of country in and about Williamsburg. The son early entered with warmth and spirit into the discussion of those grievances which afterward kindled the flame of the revolution; and so earnestly were his sympathies enlisted in the cause of colonial rights, and so unhesitatingly were his opinions expressed, that his father, the marshal, often told him that he would some day be hung for a rebel. A rebel he did indeed prove, but his consequent exaltation was destined to be, not the scaffold, but the chair of state. Removing from James City, some time in 1775, to Charles City, he was, not long after, elected from that county a member of the house of delegates of Virginia, and in that capacity distinguished himself by the zeal and fearlessness with which he advocated the boldest measures of the revolution, and the devotion with which he lent all the energies of a powerful mind to its success."

The intimate friend of Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Edmund Randolph, he was scarcely less beloved by the entire people of Virginia.

• We are indebted to a life of President Tyler, written by one of his friends, and published by Harper and Brothers, in 1844, for a part of this sketch.

་

Throughout the revolution, Mr. Tyler devoted himself unceasingly and untiringly to its success. A bold, free, and elegant speaker, his voice was never silent when it could avail aught for the great cause in which he was enlisted; and possessing an ample fortune at the commencement of the revolution-partly the inheritance of his father, but more the result of his own industry as a distinguished lawyer of the colony-the liberality with which he lavished his wealth upon its progress, and the utter disregard of selfish considerations with which he sacrificed his whole time during its continuance, to aid in bringing it to a successful termination, left him almost utterly impoverished at its close. None appreciated better than the people of Virginia the great services he had rendered, and the patriotic sacrifices he had made to the cause of independence; and he was elevated by them successively to the offices of speaker of the house of delegates, governor of the state, and judge in one of her highest courts. At the breaking out of the last war, he was appointed, by Mr. Madison, a judge of the federal court of admiralty. In February, 1813, he died, full of years and honors. The legislature passed resolutions expressive of their sense of the bereavement, and went into mourning for the remainder of the session.

Judge Tyler left three sons, Wat, John, and William, the second of whom, the subject of this memoir, was born in Charles City county, Virginia, on the 29th of March, 1790. Passing over the period of his early youth, when he was noted for his love of books, and particularly of historical works, we find young Tyler, at the age of twelve years, entering William and Mary college. Here he soon attracted the notice of Bishop Madison, the venerable president of that institution; and during his whole collegiate course, Mr. Tyler was, in an especial degree, a favorite of that distinguished man, as well as of his fellow-students. He passed through. the courses at the age of seventeen, and on that occasion delivered an address on the subject of "female education," which was pronounced by the faculty to have been the best commencement oration delivered there within their recollection.

After leaving college, Mr. Tyler devoted himself to the study of law, already commenced during his collegiate studies, and passed the next two years in reading, partly with his father, and partly with Edmund Randolph, formerly governor of Virginia, and one of the most eminent lawyers in the state. At nineteen years of age, he appeared at the bar of his native county as a practising lawyer, a certificate having been given him without inquiry as to his age; and such was his success, that ere three months had elapsed there was scarcely a disputable case on the docket of the court in which he was not retained upon the one side or the other. The year after his appearance at the bar, he was offered a nomination as member of the legislature from his own county, but he declined the proffered honor, until the following year, when, having reached the age of twenty