Have the laws provided against it?

How can these laws be rendered effectual?

What opinion ought the community to hold respecting the corrupt elector?

Ought a corrupt politician to be regarded as a corrupt man?

What remarks are made upon a well conducted election ?

How much depends upon the purity of elections?

What is the rule of political rectitude in respect to elections?

What remarks are made in illustration of this rule?

Why ought not practises indulged under the institutions of the old world to be followed by us?

With what sentiments ought an elector to go to the polls?

Who is welcome there?

What does a party gain, by carrying an election by fraud?

What is the legitimate cause of division between political parties?

Are citizens required to act from the same motive-and what is it?
How are differences of opinion to be settled?
What remarks are made upon this subject?

What improper practises to influence votes are pointed out?
What is said of the public press and newspapers?

How is the abuse of the press to be restrained?

What are the advantages of a well-conducted press ?

Suppose the press to be corrupt, of what is this evidence?

What remarks are made upon the importance of high moral and in

tellectual qualities in public officers?

May a man possess great talents, and still be unfit for office?

Who is truly great?

What is said of man's moral nature, in comparison with his intellectual?

What contrast is presented between the character of Washington and Napoleon?

What is the effect of appointing middling men to office?

Suppose a second rate man to be elevated to the executive chair? to the bench? or to the halls of legislation? what will be the effect in each case?

What should be the enquiry of the elector in reference to the candidate for office?

APPENDIX.

There are important relations, duties, and rights, pertaining to individuals as members of society, which are necessary to be understood and observed, and without an acquaintance with which a man is ill prepared to enter upon his duties, and discharge his obligations as a member of civil society. A few leading subjects of this nature I propose to treat under the following heads, to wit:-Husband and Wife; Parent and Child; Master and Servant; Guardian and Ward; Wills; Executors and Administrators; Petit jurors; Witnesses, and Arbitration.

OF HUSBAND AND WIFE.

Of Marriage. Marriage, in the view of the law, is regarded only as a civil contract; and in order to the validity and legal consummation of a marriage, it is necessary that the parties should be willing to contract; capable in law of contracting; and that they actually do contract in the form required by law.

Who may marry. All persons are in law capable of contracting marriage, with the exception of those who labor under certain incapacities and disabilities.

Persons within certain degrees of consanguinity, or relation by blood, are prohibited by law from contracting marriage; and all marriages within these degrees are in

cestuous, and absolutely void. These are marriages between parents and children, including grand parents, and grand children of every degree, and between brothers and sisters of the half as well as the whole blood; and such marriages are of no sort of legal validity, and do not require the proceeding of any court to declare their nullity.

The marriage contract of persons laboring under other disabilities is void; as where a person marries during the life time of a former husband or wife. In this case the marriage is wholly void, without the intervention of any court, unless the marriage with the former husband or wife has been annulled, (for some other cause than the adultery of the person marrying,) or the former husband or wife has been finally sentenced to imprisonment for life.

But where a person whose husband or wife has been absent for five successive years, without being known to such person to be living, marries during the life time of the absent husband or wife, the marriage is void only from the time it is declared to be so by a competent court.

Persons marrying, who are prohibited from it by reason of being within the degrees of consanguinity above mentioned, are guilty of incest, and upon being convicted, may be imprisoned in a state prison not exceeding ten years: also persons having a former husband or wife living, (except under the exceptions enumerated by law,) who marry, are guilty of bigamy, and upon being convicted, may be punished by imprisonment in a state prison not exceeding five years.

There are other cases in which the chancellor may declare void the marriage contract, for causes existing at the time of the marriage; and in these cases the marriage is void from the time it is so declared.

1. Where the parties or one of them had not attained the age of legal consent at the time of the marriage.

This proceeds upon the ground of the imbecility of judg ment in the parties, and the law presumes the absence of

consent, where in all probability the minds of the parties are not sufficiently mature to be capable of yielding a rational assent to the contract.

The age of legal consent to a marriage contract was, by the revised statutes, fixed at seventeen years in the male, and fourteen in the female; but this law has been subsequently repealed, and this leaves the age of legal consent to the determination of the common law, by which males under the age of fourteen, and females under twelve, are incapable of entering into the married state.

The proceeding to annul a marriage on the ground that one of the parties was under the age of legal consent, may be instituted and carried on by the parent or guardian entitled to the custody of the minor; but such a marriage cannot be annulled on the application of the party who was of legal age at the time it was contracted; nor can it be annulled where the parties, after the age of consent, have freely cohabited as husband and wife.

2. Where the former husband or wife of one of the parties was living, and the marriage with such former husband or wife was then in force.

In this case the chancellor may annul the marriage on the application of either of the parties during the life time of the other, or upon the application of the former husband or wife. But when the subsequent marriage has been contracted in good faith, and with the full belief of the parties that the former husband or wife was dead, the issue of the marriage born or begotten before its nullity is declared, are entitled to the same rights of inheritance as legitimate children.

3. Where one of the parties was an idiot or lunatic. Lunatics within the sense here used, are all persons of unsound minds, other than idiots.

In case a marriage is sought to be annulled on the ground of the idiocy of one of the parties, it may be declared void on the application of any relative of the idiot, interested to

avoid the marriage, at any time during the life of either of the parties. In the case of lunacy, the marriage may be declared void at any time during the continuance of the lunacy, or after the death of the lunatic in that state, during the life time of the other party, and upon the application of any relative of the lunatic interested, to avoid the marriage. The marriage of a lunatic may also be declared void upon his own application after he is restored to reason; but not where the parties freely cohabited as husband and wife after the lunatic was restored. The children of a marriage annulled for idiocy or lunacy, are entitled to the same rights of inheritance as legitimate children.

4. Where the consent of one of the parties was obtained by force or fraud.

Such a marriage may be annulled during the life time of either of the parties, on the application of the party whose consent was so obtained, or of the parent or guardian of such person, or of some relative interested to contest the validity of the marriage. But a marriage cannot be annulled for this reason, if the parties before the commencement of the suit, voluntarily cohabited as husband and wife.

5. Where one of the parties was physically incapable of entering into the married state.

A suit to annul a marriage for this cause can only be brought by the injured party against the other, and this within two years from the time of the marriage.

Solemnization of marriage. By the revised statues, marriages for the purpose of being registered and authenticated according to the provisions of them, are required to be solemnized in a particular manner there pointed out; the details of which are too extensive to be embraced in this work; but the forms there prescribed are not necessary to be pursued, except for the purpose of securing more authentic evidence of the fact of marriage, than the generality of persons are careful about. The persons authorized to solemnize marriages according to these provisions are, ministers