judgment of the whole people in matters competent for that authority to decide, and to acknowledge the existence of those rights that are inherent in man, and beyond the authority of all earthly powers. No one doubts there exist such rights. Liberty of conscience in religious matters is one; freedom of opinion on all matters, whether of secular or religious concern, is another of these rights; and they remain, of right, undisturbed, unless they lead the holder to overt acts injurious to society: then the good order of society is felt to be of more value than is the individual right of the offending individual. For the protection of these individual and collective rights, courts of justice are organized; they are meant to secure justice, a universal right to all, against the power of a majority.

Government has been said to be of divine right, and so it is; but no particular form of government, whether monarchical or republican, can for itself claim this right as belonging to itself alone. Society has the right to select its political form of government; and it enacts laws and administers justice, by a right inherent in it. Its right to select a mode of government is under no limitation from any source; it may exercise that power, guided alone by the lights of its own reason. But this right is given to it only that it may perform a duty. Its duty is to see that the rights of each individual member are protected and enforced. If society disregards this duty, and wantonly force on the individual the observance of rules, simply because it so wills, or because the majority so will, it violates its duty, it becomes a tyranny, its right to the exercise of power is gone, and the obedience of the subject becomes a matter of expediency for him alone to decide and in proportion as the number of men increases, whose rights are disregarded, or (in questions of policy merely) whose wishes and feelings are wantonly disregarded, the expediency of resistance increases, and revolution against the established government may ensue; or in case the majority are for resistance to an already established government, the right of the minority to continue the government will lead to a struggle, more or less violent, between the factions.

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When society has once established a form of government for its well-being, a certain order of things grows up under it, and a shock to the fabric of government penetrates, and is felt in every part of the edifice; the whole frame of society is more or less convulsed. The continued preservation of that government becomes a duty upon all its subjects, till it is found that longer submission would be an evil greater than could result from its overthrow; and the hope of benefit from the change becomes almost a certainty. No evil can result from any government worse than a state of anarchy; and if anarchy must ensue upon its overthrow only, duty requires the evil government should be borne with. If benefit is certain, duty requires the change. If it be doubtful, duty requires submission, with efforts to remove the evil. If opinions of the result is divided among the citizens, duty requires that neither extreme of opinion be followed, but that a medium be followed, in which the largest possible number may unite, till circumstances arise that change the division of opinion into unanimity, or nearly so. When that exists, we can hope that

the path of real duty is found, and it may be followed cheerfully and confidently. "In multitude of counsellors there is safety," says the wise man.

These reflections furnish a rule for the guidance of the people in the present state of things at the South.

Doubtless the peculiar feelings of the South have been wantonly outraged doubtless a settled spirit of hostility has, in more than one way, been evinced by citizens of the North; and there are there many men who are wiling to disregard the guaranties of the Constitution in favor of the slave-holding states, and proceed directly to the enactment of laws, for which no warrant can be found. They have already denied obedience to a portion of the duties enjoined upon them, and would rejoice at a change of the Constitution such as would sanction a direct interference in our internal and domestic affairs. They have even set up a higher law for their direction and guidance than the fundamental law of the land-the will of all the people; and thus wickedly attempt to absolve their conscience from obedience to a law they have sworn to protect and defend. These facts present matters for serious consideration, and if the Southern people could be satisfied that the people of the North all felt alike in these respects, it would become the South at once to take bold steps to secure themselves against the threatened aggressions. A knowledge of the existence of these things in the free states, justifies them in preparing to take those steps. Thus far, probably, all men at the South can willingly go.

But here the division begins. Many hope, and are willing to believe, that these things can truly be averred of comparatively a small portion of the Northern people. Others think and assert, that the whole body is infected, and justice cannot be expected at their handsthat they will proceed from their present course to a still worse, and cease only with our entire destruction. These aver that the Constitution has already been broken, and our rights trampled upon. Those do not so regard the acts complained of, but on the contrary, assert they can see in them no violation of the Constitution; that though some parts of the recent legislation of Congress are highly objectionable to their notions of propriety, they were still within the power of Congress to enact, and form parts of a system, which was adopted avowedly to conciliate the honest prejudices of the two great sections of the country, and as such should be acknowledged.

The former are for immediate secession; for throwing off all connection with those they deem their oppressors, take their rights in their own hands, and defend, if need be, their new position, at the point of the sword. The latter think the forms of the Constitution are yet sufficient to their defence; that acts of oppression have not yet been committed that would justify extreme measures, and still look fondly to the union of all the states, as the common protector

of all.

Whichever of these parties may be right, they are both, in the main, beyond doubt, honest in the expression of their opinions; both patriotic; and each deems the course it recommends the one proper to be pursued.

These parties nevertheless exist, and they are each preparing to enlist as many of the people as they can in their favor. Words of patriotism, glowing imaginations, and high-wrought declamation, will not be wanting to either, and each will have some foundation for its assertions. The scene depicted may still be true, though the scene itself changes with the changing position of the observer.

The existence of these parties not only show a want of unanimity among our people, but that very division of sentiment indicates the course that will eventually be pursued by the people themselves. Entire unanimity of belief, where room has been left for inquiry, argues, and in general may be said to establish, the truth of that belief. For no institution ever yet generally existed among mankind, that did not have some portion of truth at its foundation; and in proportion to the degree of unanimity an opinion receives, so is the probability of its correctness, where means of investigation have been afforded. Where conflicts of opinion have occurred, the result has been, events have finally settled in a course between the two, and it will incline to the one side or the other, according to the relative numerical strength and force of those supporting the opinions respectively. Like an object acted upon by two mechanical forces, it pursues a line marked by the two jointly. These remarks are particularly applicable to questions of political concern, where the rule of conduct is prescribed according to the number of voices, and they find examples in the histories of all revolutions. The result is, in fact, a compromise of opinions; though when the passions of men are aroused, violent conflicts, great oppressions, and dire calamities often intervene between the beginning and the end. Success may apparently cheer each side: it is but temporary; the conflict was necessary to satisfy men that neither could wholly prevail. Calamities were necessary to teach them the folly of resorting to brute force to establish political opinions.

History is said to be philosophy teaching by example. Cannot men now learn the philosophy from the example, without furnishing another example from their own history? Cannot we of the South now avoid the dangers, that would certainly ensue, were we to continue divided? Some of these evils have already been mentionedthe evils of oppression and injustice committed upon our own citizens of proscription for political sentiments-disregard of the duties of justice and charity-evils that may be wofully increased, if acts of violence be committed; leading to civil war at home, and the intervention of neighboring powers in our domestic quarrels.

Cannot we of the South take measures to find what is the path of conduct that the common sense of the whole country would point to, as the one the wants of the case demanded should be pursued? Once found, there is little difficulty or danger in following it. The united, peaceful course of a great people, moving firmly to the attainment of a great national object, would carry with it a degree of moral force, far exceeding in influence and effect all that could be expected from a tumultuous outbreak of the passions. Its existence would be the certain evidence of the success that must attend it.

ART. II-ON THE DISADVANTAGES OF WATER.

THE poet Willis, in his admirable play of "Tortesa the Usurer," makes one of his characters anathematize "water," because, ever since the world was drowned by the deluge, it had tasted of sinners. And in real life we have heard of the New-Hampshire farmer, who being appealed to by a temperance orator to bear witness to the virtues of water, replied very gravely, that it was a very good thing for soiled linen, but when there arose a question of steady drink, he voted for rum! Certain it is, that too much water, like too much turkey at Christmas time, has its practical disadvantages.

Charles Lamb's well known witticism, that Hydropathy was worthy of attention from its antiquity-it having been in use during Noah's time-was but an intensified horror of too much water. Its blessings are great, but its disadvantages are not to be lightly summed up; and hereon we drop our inkstand by way of a clincher.

Ask the mummies now carried away from the shadow of their country,-pyramids into the recesses of village and city museums,— whether the Nile they worshipped so gratefully was not sometimes in their mortal knowledge a decided nuisance; whether rheumatisms and chills and fevers did not sometimes interfere with their mortal appetite for rice? Ask of the returned Arctic voyager on shore, whether he does not wish to make one of a party to view the Falls of Montmorenci in mid-winter? Ask the captain of a Canton packet to purchase a panorama of the Atlantic Ocean? Summon to your library the shade of Sidney Smith, and inquire of him whether or no Mrs. Partington, who combated the Atlantic with a broom, was not the widow of an ex-keeper of the Eddystone light-house? My word for it (the rain coming down in torrents as I write, and a painting of a shipwreck staring me in the face from over the mantel-piece opposite) the mummy, the voyagers, and the shade of the humorist, would shake their heads ominously at the water pitcher by the reader's el bow, and mutter, "all is not gold that glitters."

We may laugh at the Sayings of the dramatists, and of the rumdrinker before quoted; but who shall positively deny that the first was wrong, or the latter illiberal? I never could find that Adam, and Cain, and Abel drank water, or worshiped it as the greatest blessing upon earth. Cain set out to paddle his own family canoe, it is true, but what ancient geographer points out the lake of his retributive travel? Was there any water before the flood? Did not the deriders of Noah mock his ark because they could not understand its use? The spies praised a land flowing with milk and honey, not with water and bull-frogs!

Water has been deified too long. The Dagon must topple from its shrine, because the Philistines of utilitarianism have raised up an higher, in the substances of India-rubber and gutta-percha: topple from its shrine of universal practicability, I mean the most. And as children on the sea-cliff, readers may have a fling at it.

Water boils one's potatoes, it is true; but your true cook roasts

and fries them, or forms into croquettes. (A thousand blessings, en passant, to the Yankee who invented the steaming of vegetables as a means of cooking them.) Water gives us a speed of fifty miles the hour on rail-roads, when a pow-wow of pine sticks smoke their pipes beneath it; but how many grave-stones rise into the air over scalded remains! Water floats your ships and damages your dry goods. Water draws your cup of Bohea, but it weakens your milk. It drives us to the expense of pilot-coats, the buying of umbrellas "for another's use," the disfiguring ankles with India-rubber over-shoes, and makes us seek refuge in Kellinger's liniment and Mrs. Jervis' cold candy.

My good friend Robert Nosey was one of the kind who never could find any disadvantage in water. He had been born in a room, the east window of which looked out upon a mill-dam; and at the tender age of five he had been out "spearing" killy-fish in the neighboring brook, with his grandmother's largest knitting needle. When he grew up into man's estate he was as fond of water as ever, and daily took his sponge-bath. One New Year's Day (we were boarding together as bachelors, and his sleeping apartment was over mine) a friend presented him with a portable shower-bath, of an improved kind, just patented. I saw it when " on its winding way" up to his dormitory, and it looked as much like the barrel of a gigantic telescope covered with muslin as any thing. A height of twelve feet; a shape round as a solid circle; a basin at the top, which would hold three or four gallons of fluid; a pump at the side to force these gallons upwards; a string to precipitate the water downwards when pulled; and muslin curtains lined with oil-skin inside, behind which one might retire in modest security, like a Circassian beauty in a harem tent.

Of course, the very morning succeeding the day of the present, the thing has to be tried; the mid-winter luxury of a shower-bath, under the auspices of a new patent, to be indulged in! Nosey could talk of little else at supper, than his new shower-bath; "he was sure he never would have cold feet now, nor rheumatism; he would soon take an affectionate farewell of pilot cloth, and be as inured to the changes of weather as an Osage savage," etc., etc.; and loud and hearty were the congratulations from all his fellow boarders, including a Mrs. Griffin, whose axioms of health had relation to the taking of blue pills, (centennial preservers, as she termed them,) and held all other remedies for the keeping of sound health in perfect contempt. But she could not resist such a shower-bath,-a new patent!

The next morning I was awakened about daylight by a tremendous bump on the floor (echoed through the ceiling) of the room above me-of a bump as if the floor yet above that had come down on a sparring match with its neighbor, and was giving it to him right and left, in hearty good earnest, with an armful of rafters to spare. I listened, and heard a stifled shriek, followed by another bump.

Grasping a pair of drawers, and "legging" into them as I went along in search of humanity in distress-to bound up stairs and enter Nosey's room, was but the work of an instant; and opening the