long enough to form parties and acquire means to perpetuate their power. We see that now. But we cannot discern what evil can arise from permitting clerks, postmasters, &c. to remain in place while they discharge their duties with diligence and fidelity. Add, that if the tenure of such offices is to depend on the whim and caprice of the president or the heads of departments, no honest, capable man will accept them. Frequent change has more evils yet. We take it for an axiom that one who has fulfilled the duties of a post for years with general approbation, must at least be as well versed in its requisites as a novice. In such cases the public may lose by change, but cannot possibly gain. It is an old adage that sunshine is the weather for haymaking, and if an officer is to enjoy the sun for but four years, there is danger that he will spend them in peculation instead of attending to his duties. The husbandman who has a long lease of a farm, will improve it to the utmost; it is his interest to do so; but he whose lease is short, will make his greatest profit though he exhaust the soil. Any landed proprietor will acknowledge the force and truth of the illustration. No prudent individual changes an honest and capable agent. Why should the nation?

When the public interest requires a change, it should be made, without regard to the inconvenience the individual removed may suffer. But where the qualifications of both candidates are equal, the voice of humanity should be heard. Few American public officers receive more than a mere maintenance, and fewer become wealthy on the emoluments of their places. Public business usually disqualifies a man for any other, and public men

marry and have children, like the rest of the world. Their discharge, therefore, occasions great private injury, and should never be the consequence of the exercise of a legal right, that of suffrage.

Rotation may be carried into the army and navy with as much propriety as the civil lists. Why not, if the principle be just, adopt it in private life, and change our tailor every time we need a coat. The evils of the system are great and manifold. The freedom of elections is prostrated by it. By it bad and venal expectations are encouraged, and the press is perverted from its legitimate purposes. Vide the distribution of public printing, and the cohort of rewarded editors. By it a multitude have been induced to forsake the quiet and lawful pursuits of life, in the precarious hope of reward, and to become disturbers of peace and morals. By it great private misery has been occasioned. It is said in extenuation of president Jackson's conduct, that age and infirmity have deprived him of his former energy and activity, and that these abuses were suggested by others, and effected in many instances without his knowledge. Be it so this is our own view of the matter, and affords a palliation only, not an excuse. The man who looses a wild beast may do it ignorantly, but is not therefore the less accountable for the mischief done by the animal. We might reverse the simile, and say, that the hero of two wars' has often reminded us of the brute, and his cabinet of the exhibitors. For nearly two years we have seen Martin Van Buren leading the political bull by the nose, and Duff Green, in the spirit of his original occupation, following in the rear, goad in hand.

11

The president's message. The doctrines of Mr. Jackson and measures proposed by him. Whether the people can be better represented than at present or not. Of the proposed distribution of public money. Brief sketch of the Cherokee case. Extension of the laws of the southern States over the southern tribes. Their application to president Jackson. His answer. Measures of Congress. Conduct of Georgia. Execution of Corn Tassel. Decision of the supreme court.

Farther than his labors in the cause of reform we are n rare that any of the acts of president Jacksor ..ng the first year of his executive existence meric commemoration. His message to Congress at the opening of its session in December, 1829, was an important document. It was evidently not the production of his own pen. Public opinion ascribed it to the united labors of the cabinet, and in truth there was reason, from its style, to believe that such was the fact. It is of little importance who wrote it: it was a well written State paper, and contained matter of deep

interest.

The principal measures the president recommended were,

That the constitution should be amended in those provisions which prescribe how the chief magistrate shall be chosen. He wished that the choice should be made immediately by the people, without the

intervention of electors. He desired too, that the president should be ineligible for a second term.

He advised that the judiciary law should be altered so as to extend the circuit court to all the States. That the number of judges of the supreme court might not be too much increased, he proposed to divide the court into two equal sections. These were to hold alternate sessions of the supreme court at Washington, at which the chief justice was always to preside.

He recommended that no more first-rate ships should be built, but that the materials of marine architecture should rather be collected and placed in situations where they might readily be put to use.

Congress were invited to investigate the condition of the government thoroughly, in order to ascertain what offices might conveniently be abolished, and what expenses retrenched. As one part of this subject, the message recommended a new organization of the department of State, hinting at the same time that the appointment of more clerks and an increase of its expenditure, would be an improvement.

Touching the stumbling-block of offence to our southern brethren, the tariff, the president stated that it had not had any material effect on our commerce, agriculture, or manufactures. While he admitted the power of Congress to impose proteciing duties, he recommended a gradual reduction of some of those already prescribed.

The message stated that a large part of the national debt had been paid in the course of the year, and that the whole would probably soon be extinguished. When this should have taken place, it recommended that the surplus revenue should be

apportioned among the several States, in the ratio of their representation, for the purposes of internal improvement. If this should be found not warranted by the constitution, the president advised that it should be authorized by an amendment. He neither admitted nor denied the power of Congress to make appropriations for internal improvements, but hoped his suggestion would do away with all difficulties connected with the subject. He had a very exalted opinion of the rights of individual States, and took leave of the topic with an admonition to Congress to beware of construing their own powers in too liberal a manner, and of meddling with the separate sovereignties.

The president desired that the pension law might be so altered that its benefits should extend to every soldier of the revolution.

Mr. Jackson expressed great good will toward the Indian tribes within the limits of the United States, and explained their political condition. He was of opinion that the tribes residing within the southern States had no right to erect governments of their own without the consent of the said States, and that the general government had no power to countenance them in so doing. He thought it too late to discuss the justice and humanity of former proceedings toward them, and that the government should remove them to lands beyond the Mississippi. They were not to be compelled to go, but if they chose to stay, they were to be abandoned to the mercy of those States within whose limits they resided; to the mercy of Georgia and Alabama!

The president roundly asserted, that the bank of the United States had failed in its primary object,