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though it was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer. It is accomplished! The deed is done! He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder; no eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe!

Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake! Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. Not to speak of that Eye which glances through all disguises, and beholds everything as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by man.

True it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's blood seldom succeed in avoiding discovery: especially in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circumstance, connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery. Meantime, the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself; or, rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself; it labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant; it finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it asks no sympathy or assistance, either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him; and, like the evil spirit of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demand

ing disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion; it breaks down his courage; it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed; it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but in suicide, --- and suicide is confession!

ASPIRATIONS FOR AMERICA. — C. M. Clay.

WHILE the Union lasts, amid these fertile verdant fields, these ever-flowing rivers, these stately groves, this genial, healthful clime, this old Kentucky land, hallowed by the blood of our sires, endeared by the beauty of her daughters, illustrious by the valor and eloquence of her sons, the centre of a most glorious empire, guarded by a cordon of states garrisoned by freemen, girt round by the rising and setting seas, we are the most blessed of all people. Let the Union be dissolved, let that line be drawn where be drawn it must, and we are a border state: in time of peace with no outlet to the ocean, the highway of nations, a miserable dependency; in time of war the battle-ground of more than Indian warfare — of civil strife and indiscriminate slaughter! When, worse than Spanish provinces, we shall contend not for. glory and renown, but, like the aborigines of old, for a contemptible life and miserable subsistence! Let me not see it! Among those proud courts and lordly coteries of Europe's pride, where fifty years ago we were regarded as petty provinces, unknown to ears polite, let me go forth great in the name of an American citizen. Let me point them to our statesmen and the laws and governments of their creation, the rapid advance of political science, the monuments of their fame, now the study of all Europe. Let them look at our rapidly increasing and happy population, see our canals, and turnpikes, and railroads, stretching over more

space than combined Britain and Europe have reached by the same means. Let them send their philanthropists to learn of our penitentiary systems, our schools, and our civil institutions. Let them behold our skill in machinery, in steamboat and ship building, hail the most gallant ship that breasts the mountain wave, and she shall wave from her flag-staff the stars and stripes. These are the images which I cherish; this the nation which I honor; and never will I throw one pebble in her track, to jostle the footsteps of her glorious march!

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.-L. Woodbury.

THERE seem to me some points of opinion common to us all in relation to the excellences and glories of the independence we celebrate. One of these points is the great importance of that event. On that account, inspired by one common gratitude, we all join heart and tongue in one chorus of thanksgiving to the statesmen and patriots and heroes who won our hallowed independence. They established among us its immortal principles, we hope, forever.

Lisping infancy, therefore, youth, manhood, and decrepit age, come together to-day; matron and maid, as well as the sunburnt millions from the plough and the vessel's decks, should come,

- all professions and ranks, and forms of faith, political or religious, —— from every hill, and valley, and prairie, of our beloved country, from Maine to California, -all gather in joyful throngs, and all bend in veneration before the glorious event, and its thriceglorious doctrines.

This is not, that almost fourscore years ago some plain American farmers, planters, merchants and lawyers, assembled in a small room near Independence-square, in Philadelphia. It is not, that some among them, with iron heart and eagle eye, dared do all which had immortalized the Brutuses and Cromwells of other ages, and not only speak their wrongs, but redress and avenge them. It is not, that then and there was done a deed, to become a newspaper theme for a brief month only, or to be known not beyond the few

cities and settlements then scattered over the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, containing a population but little larger than the State of New York now does alone; or to live in its influences only a generation, a half-century even, and then die out, as have perished from the page of history millions of other occurrences, at first far more dazzling to the inexperienced eye. But it was, that then occurred an event which has become incorporate with Liberty herself, —is a part of her substance no less than symbol, - and shall endure as long and spread as wide as the longest and widest portion of her magnificent empire. An event, which, if not destined to revolutionize all nations and people, has been already felt, in some degree, wherever civilization pervades mankind, and is likely, in coming ages, more and more, by "the war of opinion” it wages, to leaven the political views of the whole habitable globe. To dethrone a king by oppressed subjects has always been one of the most glowing themes in the annals of the human race. To change a dynasty of kings looms up still larger in the horizon of history and poetry. To alter the whole form of government in any country often has a bearing more important than either on its future destinies; and especially so if it be a change from slavery to freedom, for the people at large. But to do all these, more than all, to show consummate skill in the cabinet at the same time with heroic bravery in the field, and to accomplish a revolution in principles of government and legislation by the pen and the tongue, while another was carried on and gloriously sustained by the sword, by the blood of freemen poured out in torrents whereever the invader polluted the soil, or a ruthless savage was let loose, with tomahawk and torch, on an exposed frontier, this was an event that all the millions who have been signally blessed by it may well celebrate, for its grandeur, may long and loudly celebrate, and will, by God's permission, hold in holy remembrance, while they preserve any of the virtues of the patriots who accomplished it.

Myriads elsewhere, who have enjoyed only some of its reflected light, would shame us for any neglect of so great a revolution, by their heart-felt rejoicings over only so much of its influences as have reached and animated them in the

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cause of political reform;

because it has been the talisman and tocsin to freedom in all countries since. Whenever, for the last half-century, an oppressed whether in France, or Hun

people have broken their chains, gary, or the classic soil of Italy,

the recollection of American

independence has strengthened, if not guided, the blow; and, when tyrants since have trembled at popular indignation, and listened to remonstrances, and relented or reformed, the memory of American liberties and victories has struck terror to their hearts, and made them relent, oftener than arms or arguments, or a returning sense of justice towards the victims of their wrongs.

Not only have this western continent and some of its adjacent islands both sides of the Andes been thus made vocal with songs of gratitude for the example set this day, but Europe, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, has felt the influence of some of its sacred principles, and been slowly but surely reforming, in order to save at all, a portion of its superannuated institutions. Even Asia has witnessed a grand vizier appealing through the press in favor of popular education and the welfare of the people at large; and ere another century closes, it would not be more extraordinary to see such principles prevailing in China, — in one kingdom alone of the populous east, half of the whole human race. Misunderstood and misrepresented, I admit, often have been the character of our Revolution, and the designs and doctrines of the patriots who accomplished it; and many, it must be conceded, have been the outrages committed under a pretence of justification through its principles, as flagrant crimes have, in all ages, been committed under the sacred names of liberty and religion. But the establishment of American independence is no more answerable for such abuse, such perversions of her holy cause, than are religion and liberty for the profanations before, as well as since, committed under their consecrated banner; and proceeding, as we ought on occasions like this, to make some inquiry into the true civil consequences of that independence, no less than its military daring, in order to appreciate duly the greatness of the event, it will be found that their legitimate operation, their true essence, their full and perfect work, both here and elsewhere, is likely to prove most auspicious to the human race.

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