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ability, integrity, and firmness, with which he discharged the duties of the high office of President of the United States; and especially of the inflexible fidelity with which he maintained the true doctrines of the Constitution, and the measures of the Democratic Party, during his trying and nobly arduous Administration; that in the memorable struggle of 1840 he fell

a martyr to the great principles of which he was the worthy representative, and we revere him as such; and that we hereby tender to him, in his honorable retirement, the assurance of the deeply seated confidence, affection, and respect, of the American Democracy."

Some of Mr. Van Buren's opponents have urged against him the charge of pressing forward upon the Democratic party for its renomination. On such judges his Missouri letter, which we know to have expressed the sincerest sentiments of his heart, disavowing any such desire, and declaring his determination not to allow his name to be made any occasion of discord in his party, is wholly thrown away. Yet never was imputation more unjust. Most of our readers-all indeed but a very few-will now receive the intelligence for the first time, that after his defeat in 1840, he was only prevented by the earnest remonstrances of his friends from making a similar positive and final withdrawal as he has now made. Such was indeed his decided desire-though as clear then as at any subsequent period in the prophetic conviction that before 1844 the Democratic party would have returned into its habitual and natural ascendency. It was well understood, too, at Washington, that the letter signed by nearly all the Republican members of Congress inviting him to a dinner before his departure from that city, was meant as a formal expression of their sense that he should not pursue that course, and it would afford food for some curious speculation to recall now the names of some whose signatures were appended to that call upon him then. No; Mr. Van Buren's renomination, as made by the constituent popular bodies which sent their instructed representatives to the Baltimore Convention, was the spontaneous and instinctive movement of the great masses of the Democracy, acting chiefly under the feeling of a desire to fight the fight of 1840 over again, under the same flag and the same leader. Its

true character was illustrated by several such experiments, on the pulse of the popular heart, as that made in Feliciana county in Ohio; where the Democratic electors being called upon to signify their presidential preferences by noting opposite to their names in a book opened for the purpose, the candidate of their choice for the nomination, upwards of nine-tenths were for Mr. Van Buren. His own State, with all the influence of its greatness and power, held scrupulously back from any movement to bring him again before the Democracy of the Union; nor was it till after sixteen other States had emphatically declared for him, that New York added the expression of her glad and cordial concurrence. This indeed is a fact placed beyond question by the amplest concessions of those whose opposition effected the defeat of his friends in the Convention, that prior to the introduction of the new Texas issue into the canvass, he was the choice of what we may call the universal Democracy of the whole Union-the choice, too, of most of the speakers in that body, who declared themselves now compelled, with reluctant regret, under the necessity created by the torrent of popular feeling in their section, on the Texas question, to advocate the selection of some candidate more in harmony with that feeling. We advert to this point only for the purpose of making plain, that it was from the people that the call for Mr. Van Buren's renomination proceeded-proceeded in a manner denying to him any right to refuse a response of willing and grateful acceptance-and not upon the people that it was in any way or degree either forced or pressed. We have it in our power to declare that no individual can be found within the waters that encompass our continent, to whom was addressed, in any mode or form, directly or indirectly proceeding from Mr. Van Buren, a single syllable or single act looking towards the end of effecting his renomination. All in particular who approached him during his western tour, must testify of the scrupulous steadiness with which he declined all conversation on the subject; while some of his friends, whose alarm at the state of things known to exist at Washington a month or two prior to the assembling of the Convention, led them to desire to use in his favor in that body,

counteracting means of influence and combination against those which they believed to be active on the other side -so as to secure the consummation of the purpose for which they considered its members sent there by the people received from Mr. Van Buren himself an emphatic prohibition against any thing of the kind; anything calculated to interfere in the slightest degree with the perfect freedom of action of any member of the body. It cannot be necessary for us to more than allude to the letter in which, in advance of its assembling, he requested his most intimate friend there to withdraw his name, the moment he should become satisfied that it was desirable to do so for the sake of the harmony, union and success of the Democratic party and

cause.

So far, therefore, as regards that which is the true honor of a renomination, to a candidate fallen in honorable martyrdom under the circumstances which characterized the election of 1840-we mean its expression of the feeling of the popular heart and the just judgment of the popular mind--the laurel of that honor at this moment adorns Mr. Van Buren's brow as undeniably as if that renomination had been carried into formal and practical effect by the Convention, as it had been already virtually made by the people, in a majority which would almost justify us in calling it unanimity. The excellent candidate taken up in his place-a candidate well worthy of that selection,

and of succession to a place in the noble line of his Republican predecessors in that office-will undoubtedly be elected by a sweeping majority of both the popular and electoral vote; and that election will be almost as complete a reversal of the insane folly of the election of 1840, to the credit of Mr. Van Buren's historical fame, as would have been a formal reëlection in his own person.

But enough. It is time now to turn over the leaf, in the book of events, on which we confess that we have found a grateful but melancholy satisfaction in thus for a brief while lingering. It is time to say "Good Night to Marmion !" We take leave of Mr. Van Buren from the stage of political affairs, with emotions which shrink from public utterance. Others may hasten to the mountain-tops to wait in eager impatience for the first ray of the morning's dawn; we are reluctant to withdraw our gaze, of reverential homage and admiration, from the glories streaming over the departure of the sinking, the sunken sun of the day now for ever past. We do not mean to be understood as speaking merely individually, we are but interpreting the sympathies of millions; and well do we feel assured that there are few of our readers, even among those least friendly to Mr. Van Buren, who will not yield, to this farewell tribute to a great and good statesman, now become historical, a generous approval and response.

AVARICE AND ENVY.

A TALE, FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO.

ENVY and Avarice one summer day,

Sauntering abroad

In quest of the abode

Of some poor wretch or fool who lived that way-
You-or myself perhaps-I cannot say―

Along the road, scarce heeding where it tended,

Their way in sullen, sulky silence wended;

For though twin sisters, these two charming creatures, Rivals in hideousness of form and features,

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The only words that Avarice could utter,
Her constant doom, in a low, frightened mutter,
"There's not enough, enough yet in my store!"
While Envy, as she scanned the glittering sight,
Groaned as she gnashed her very teeth with spite,
"She's more than me-more, still for ever more!"
Thus each in her own fashion, as they wandered,
Upon the coffer's precious contents pondered.
When suddenly, to their surprise,

The god Desire stood before their eyes-
Desire, that courteous deity who grants

All wishes, prayers and wants;

Said he to the two sisters: "Beauteous ladies,
As I'm a gentleman, my task and trade is
To be the slave of your behest ;

Choose therefore at your own sweet will and pleasure,
Honors or treasure,

Or in one word whatever you'd like best.
But let us understand each other-she

Who speaks the first her prayer shall certainly
Receive-the other, the same boon redoubled."
Imagine how our amiable pair,

At this proposal, all so frank and fair,

Were mutually troubled!

Misers and enviers, of our human race,

Say, what would you have done in such a case?
Each of the sisters murmured sad and low :

"What boots it, oh Desire, to me to have

Crowns, treasures, all the goods that heart can crave, Or power divine bestow,

Since still another must have always more!"

So each, lest she should speak before

The other, hesitating slow and long,

Till the god lost all patience, held her tongue.
A frolicsome and merry little god,

He was enraged, in such a way
To be kept waiting there all day,

With two such beauties in the public road;
Scarce able to be even civil,

He wished them heartily both at the d-1.

Envy at last the silence broke,

And smiling with malignant sneer

Upon her sister dear,

Who stood in eager expectation by,
Ever implacable and cruel, spoke :

"I will be blinded of one eye!"

THE RE-ANNEXATION OF TEXAS:

.

IN ITS INFLUENCE ON THE DURATION OF SLAVERY.

ONE of the arguments in favor of reannexing Texas, which was well represented by Mr. Walker in his letter, seems to have been overlooked in the more recent discussions of the question. Even Mr. Calhoun seems to suppose that the peculiar institutions of the South, as it is the fashion to call slavery, are to be rendered more durable by the annexation; and the Abolitionists, as well as some of the more rational opponents of those institutions, object to the annexation on the same ground. Both are wrong, absolutely wrong, and a little attention to facts will prove the error. So far from perpetuating slavery in the United States, the annexation of Texas, or of the slave-holding portion of it at least, gives the only wellgrounded hope, according to all present appearances, for its ultimate extinction. This may appear to be a paradox; but it is sober truth, and fully susceptible of demonstration. Let us reason coolly and candidly about this matter, without regard to the opposite fanaticisms which rage on both sides of it.

Every one who has either read or thought on the subject is aware that the value of a slave's labor is never equal to that of a freeman, and that the expense of his support is greater. He has less inducement to work hard, for he gains nothing by it; he has no inducement to be thrifty, for it saves him nothing. He gets his food and his clothing, whatever may be the crop or the expenses of making it; and in any event he gets nothing else. He is therefore an unthrift, as all are who live from hand to mouth; and he only differs from other unthrifts in this, that he has no inducements to reform. He is unskilful, too: he learns nothing: he has no occasion to think. Whether he plough deep or shallow, it is all one to him. Besides, where slaves are, white men will not work. Labor is degraded there, and the white freeman is glad to excuse his natural laziness by refusing to wear what he calls the badge of servitude.

The consequence of this is, that a

Yankee farmer with his sons will live and grow rich upon the corner of a farm, from which a Virginia planter with his slaves has just been driven a bankrupt. The Yankee works himself, his son works at his side, his wife and daughters are at work in the dairy of the kitchen. They all save, for it is their own. They study to increase the products of the farm and to improve the farm itself, for it is their wealth or to be their inheritance.

Go down into old Fairfax in Virginia, just beyond the Potomac, the neighborhood of General Washington, formerly the garden of the South. Ten years ago it was almost a wilderness like Actæon devoured by his own dogs, the planters had been eaten up by their slaves. First, came mortgages on the proud old homestead; then mortgages on the slaves to raise money to feed them; at last the Sheriff: and the oldfashioned Virginia gentleman who used to import his pipe of wine a year and drive his blood horses to the Springs, has become a julap drinker at the stage house, or has struck out into the world to seek his fortune. But the land was too good to be lost. The Yankee has bought it. He has put up the fences, and driven his plough to the deeper soil, and turned in the clover; and old Fairfax is beginning to smile like a colony of New England.

We have moved one step forward in our argument; for we are agreed now that a freeman can support himself by agricultural labor where a slave can

not.

But there is another thing to be considered, and that is skill. Now and then, you will find in the South a smart negro, who has learned a trade. Now and then, not often,-for trades are not to be learned without attention, and few will give much attention to that which is not to repay them for their trouble. A skilful slave is worth more to his master; but he is worth no more to himself. If he even makes himself a master workman, he gets no wages; and if he is the veriest botch, he still gets his two suits of clothes, his corn

meal, and his bacon. The slave mechanics are the.efore few and not expert. The great mass of the slaves in all countries has always been, and always must be, employed in mere labor, the commonest labor of the plantation. Taken as a body, they cannot support themselves by any other agricultural occupations.

Now, agricultural employments require more ground than any other. A shoemaker can make his living on six feet square, a place just big enough for his bed and his bench. A thousand men can work in a single manufactory. People who live by their wits, thank Heaven, are not expected to be great landholders.

Freemen then can be stowed closer and make a living, than slaves can. The traders, manufacturers, mechanics, professional men, may be crowded into towns, so that a hundred thousand shall live comfortably on a square mile of land. The slave must be a farmer, or rather a farmer's laborer, and a lazy, unskilful and wasteful laborer to boot, who makes small crops, and requires therefore much land to raise enough to clothe and feed him.

Remembering this, as a second fact about which we are not to have any further argument, let us go on to another topic. In new countries, where land is cheap, agriculture is careless. That is to say, the farmer picks out the best soil and neglects the worse, and works over the best somewhat roughly. When an acre of new land can be bought for a dollar and a quarter, people are not apt to pay much for manuring an old one. In a new country, therefore, population is apt to be scattered, only the best soils cultivated, and those cropped hard, so as to make the most out of them for the time. When they are exhausted, the settler moves on to another tract.

But as the country grows older, land becomes more costly. People learn the art of living on smaller farms. The farmer tries to improve what he has got, and to make it yield all that the best culture can bring out. Population thickens, and at last the country becomes so full, and land so dear, that it is difficult to obtain a living by mere labor. Then it is that emigration begins, and the surplus population, incapable of finding a support at home,

moves away to regions where land is cheaper.

Now, if ever such a time shall come to the slave States, it is very certain that the slaves, instead of being valuable property to their masters, will become an incumbrance. Whenever a man eats more than he earns, he must be dependent for support on the earnings of others; and in the case of the slave, the dependence must be on the master, for no one else is bound to support him. Let this state of things come about, and there will be no objections to abolition, at least on the part of the masters.

And this state of things must and will come, as surely as men continue to eat and drink. The only question isWhen? When will the land of the slave States be so fully covered with population as to crowd out the slave? Let us see if we can answer this question.

There are parts of Europe which we know to be fully stocked with population, where mere labor scarcely earns a living, but relies in part on the poorrates, and where government is willing to pay and does pay passage money for emigrants to America, in order to relieve itself of the burden of supporting them at home. In the more fertile part of the continent of Europe, the population at present time averages 110 persons for every square mile, or one for every six acres in the northern regions it is much less. Not that every square mile can do this. One may be a swamp, another a coal field, hundreds of others covered with the waters of rivers, lakes and inland seas; but on the whole, taking the good with the bad, the productive with the impractica ble, the city pavement and the turnpike road, and the woodland with the arable farm, in the long average, six acres of land in the west of Europe, are barely sufficient to raise food for a human being. Beyond this, with the strictest economy, and highest skill, and most unflinching industry, European lands have not gone. Indeed, long before the population reaches this point, voluntary emigration begins with those who have the means; and when the point is fully reached, the guardians of the poor are busy freighting ships to carry off their paupers.

But all these Europeans do not live by agriculture. One half at least, so

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