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tice, and many of them have gone down to their graves in pinching poverty for want of their property, thus plundered by a foreign power, and reclaimed, but never restored by their own government. We regret to state that the House did not concur in the passage of this bill.

Of the action of the majority on the Texas question, what shall history say? Must it not be compelled to portray a flagrant sacrifice of high national considerations to subserve the lowest party ends? And this by those who are eternally mouthing of this matter of Annexation as a great American question, far above the sphere of party objects and party struggles. But when the question of Annexation was, in truth, no party question, but one of simply National concern, and Texas appeared (in 1837) at our metropolis, an unsolicited applicant for Annexation, with a far smaller public debt and a much larger public domain than at present, and with less complicated foreign relations, President Van Buren and Secretary Forsyth, the latter as thorough and ardent a Southron as the sun ever shone upon, at once repulsed the kindly proffer, and repulsed it for reasons of enduring force. You are at war with Mexico,' said the Secretary of State; "she claims rightful dominion over you; and until this war is terminated, this pretension abandoned, the question of Annexation is for us a question of peace or war with Mexico. We decline to compromise our friendly relations with that power." Here was a great national question promptly and justly met as a national question, with the universal acquiescence and approval of the American people. Some years afterward (1843), the subject came before the Massachusetts Legislature, and a unanimous decision was given against Annexation, on grounds as valid to-day as then, and most sweeping in their range of hostility to the measure and its incitements. Here was no party difference each party vied with the other in the freedom and earnestness of its assertion of the principles both deemed essential, not to party but to national well-being. Some of the members who were then foremost in condemning, are now prominently zealous in approving the project! And thus is it also with many members of the Twenty-Eighth Congress. Had the naked question been stated, and the vote taken on its first assembling-Will you advise and consent,

in defiance of the protest of Mexico, to the Annexation of Texas to this country?"-with no party interest in, or influence over the measure, who can doubt that the result would have been an overwhelming negative? But the President and Cabinet were first enlisted in the interest of Annexation; then a few prominent politicians of the party Mr. Tyler had last joined; and soon a little coterie of avowed Annexationists was formed, the Representatives of the Mississippi Repudiators very properly taking the lead. By dint of the most industrious canvassing, backed by the power and patronage of the Executive and the money of Texas land-jobbers and scrip-holders, the number had been gradually swelled, until fifteen Senators, (nearly one-third of the body,) were induced to record their votes for the confirmation of the Tyler Treaty. Probably a like proportion, say sixty in all, might have been brought to the same point in the House, but at no time prior to May last, could any measure, proposing Annexation in defiance of Mexico, have received over one-third of the votes of either House. But when, near the close of May, the activity and resolution of the Annexationists had accomplished the overthrow of the man who stood in the way of their obtaining complete control of the party machinery, the transformation was complete. Thousands who, up to that moment, had been steadfast and open in their hostility to the project, now joined in the hurrah for Annexation.

It

Yet it is not wholly true that the Texas Question defeated Mr. Van Buren. very probably turned against him the nicely balanced scale; but his real or supposed unpopularity, his many inveterate adversaries in the ranks of his own party, and the disgust excited by the clumsy manner in which delegations to Baltimore had been packed in his favor, had already prepared the train which was fired by the fuse of Texas. Thenceforward Annexation became to some extent a party Shibboleth, though there were notorious instances of non-conformity, as in the cases of Senators Benton and Wright, the Evening Post, and the signers of the exposed Secret Circular here. It was found necessary to use the strength which Mr. Wright had acquired by his opposition to Texas to bridge a threatening chasm between the Texas candidate and the Presidency, and the nomination thus made for Governor of New York was one without which Mr.

Polk would not have been elected. AntiTexas men mingled lovingly with Annexationists in the canvass, and no questions were asked implying an exaction of conformity on this critical question. But the contest once over, and Mr. Polk pronounced the President elect, there was an instant and important change. It was now asserted that all who had voted for Polk had thereby declared for Annexation, and that the American people had expressly approved of that measure! The latter assertion is as contrary to reason as the former is to fact. There was a very decided majority on the entire Popular Vote for President for the candidates opposed to Annexation, and if the Anti-Annexation vote had not been divided, Mr. Polk would have been beaten by 146 Electors to 129. But this, though known to, is utterly unregarded by the bestriders of what was originally Mr. Tyler's hobby. Annexation is now pronounced the great issue in the late contest, and repugnance to it hostility to the incoming administration, to be punished by a denial of its smiles. That this new phase should have won many friends to the measure in Congress is not amazing. No where is there a larger proportion of anxious suitors for or expectants of Presidential favor than in that body. Scores of the Members have already been relieved from all farther care on behalf of their constituents, and will sink on the 4th inst. into a very dense obscurity, if unblessed by Executive sunshine. Of the nine from this State who voted for the Joint Resolution of the House, only one (Mr. Maclay of this city) had been reëlected. Melancholy as is the fact, it is therefore not unaccountable that the Joint Resolution, which could not, a year before, have obtained sixty votes in the House actually passed that body in 1845 by the decisive majority of 120 to

98.

At last, the stupendous wrong and mischief devised by the Tyler dynasty, and rendered inevitable by the election of Polk, have triumphed, so far as the single action of our Government can effect that result. Congress has been coerced, by a most flagrant exercise of executive power and patronage, into a consent to the Annexation of Texas. Overriding every consideration of constitutional limitation, or respect for popular sovereignty, a bare majority of the Senate

* Merrick, of Maryland.

has assented to the House Resolutions. That majority was made by the help of one recreant Whig, who betrayed his constituents and spurned the emphatic request of their Legislature, with that of three Loco-Focos,t who notoriously defied the will of their constituents, and the express instructions of their respective Legislatures. Had these four votes been cast as they ought, the measure would have been lost by six majority, instead of being carried by two. Yet the smallest possible majority has been held sufficient to change the very elements of our national existence-to subvert the established balance of power, and remove the centre of the Union-to place the American people practically under a different government from that which their Constitution created, and to which alone they had assented. This is the crowning achievement of the Twenty-Eighth Congress.

That there are men who, so that their end be gained, laugh to scorn all scruple as to means, is sadly true. These, being in favor of Annexation per se, regard as frivolous all considerations of illegality and iniquity in the means of effecting it. But, to every reflecting, conscientious patriot, it must be evident that the forcing of so momentous a measure irrevocably on the country, through the action of a bare majority in one House of Congress, through the appliances of Presidential smiles and frowns and the severest party drill, is an outrage on the spirit and the forms of our institutions, which cannot fail, if unrebuked, to draw after it immeasurable evils.

Whether Texas should, or should not, at a proper time and under proper circumstances, be admitted to a place in our Union, should she desire it, we need not, and do not here discuss. That a Southern boundary might somewhere be found for us more acceptable than the line of the Red River and the Sabine, is quite possible, though it is by no means certain that the acquisition of Texas, with no single boundary settled but that which has hitherto divided her from us, will give us, eventually, a better frontier. But no sane, considerate man, can doubt that if the novel step is to be taken of uniting two independent nations, there should first be a careful removal of all obstructions or impediments to the union. If the junction be one dictated by nature and the

†Tappan and Allen, Ohio; Niles, Connecticut.

enduring interests of the two nations respectively, there can certainly be no danger in awaiting such removal. The junction should clearly not take place while one country is at war with a nation with which the other is at peace, nor while the territory of one is claimed to be the rightful property of a third power. All such difference should be settled before the untrammeled nation should venture to complicate its relations with the other. But, should it farther appear that a very large proportion of the people of the one country were utterly averse to any such union, then a decent self-respect should impel those of the other to decline it; while no wise and just government, surely, would force its own citizens into so intimate a relation, for which so many of them entertained a deep aversion. That no effort should first be made to secure the favorable regard of other nations, with whom these two had different and perhaps irreconcilable treaties, would seem impossible. And yet, the people of the United States are suddenly and recklessly involved in this union, while a full half of them are resisting and struggling against it; while Texas is at open war with Mexico, and her independence unacknowledged; and when it is known that other and far more powerful nations are greatly averse to this union. No effort is made to conciliate adversaries, to terminate the War, or to quiet the internal resistance. With an indecent haste, which the whole world will understand, our Annexationists have screwed a consent through the Houses

of Congress, and rush to consummate their project. Who can fail to discern in these proceedings the elements of future convulsion and calamity?

The

But no remonstrance will avail. first act of the Annexation drama has been played out by Tyler and the Twenty-Eighth Congress, and these indifferent performers have retired from the stage, leaving to Polk and a new Congress the task of concluding their work. That it will be pressed with zeal by the former, we need not remark; and already we have significant whispers that the new Congress must be called together, in extra session, at an early day, to receive the assent of Texas, and perfect the enterprise. The cost of this may well be disregarded, in view of the aggregate of expenses which this acquisition is to fasten upon us. Bravely ended, then, is the first act of Annexation, amid roar of cannon and shouts of approving thousands! What, think you, shall be the end of the next ?—and the next?

Enough for the day is the evil thereof. In the next Congress-before, its close, if not at its outset-three new StatesIowa, Florida, and Texas-will be represented in either House. Florida has a deficient population; but a slave State was insisted on to balance Iowa, and now the admission of Texas will give us fifteen slave to fourteen free States-in all twenty-nine. And here, with the exception of mere business of routine, like the passage of the Annual Appropriation Bills, closes the record of the doings of the Twenty-Eighth Congress.

WINTER.

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

With howling fury Winter makes his bound
Upon us, freezing Nature at a look.
He dashes out the sweet and dreamy hues
Of Indian Summer, that the eye, where it
The golden softness and the purple haze
Beheld at noon, at sunset sees the mist
Darken around the landscape, and the ear,
Nestling upon its pillow, hears the sleet
Ticking against the casement, whilst within
The silvery cracking of the kindling coal
Keeps merry chime. The morning rises up,

And lo! the dazzling picture! Every tree
Seems carved from steel, the silent hills are helm'd,
And the broad fields have breastplates. Over all
The sunshine flashes in a keen white blaze
Of splendor, searing eye-sight. Go abroad!
The branches yield erisp cracklings, now and then
Sending a shower of rattling diamonds down
On the mail'd earth, as freshens the light wind.
The hemlock is a stooping bower of ice,
And the oak seems as though a fairy's wand
Away had swept its skeleton frame, and placed
A polish'd structure, trembling o'er with tints
Of rainbow beauty, there. But soon the sun
Melts the enchantment, like a charm, away.

Then the gray snow-cloud from the dim Southwest
Rises, and veils the sky. The vapory air
Is freckled with the flakes, till o'er the scene
There steals a gradual hue of white, like sleep
Muffling the senses. From the freezing North
The mighty blast now tramples, whirling up
In mist the snow, and dashing it along,
As the lash'd ocean dashes on its spray.
Through the long frowning night is heard the war
Of the fierce tempest. Wo! oh, bitter wo
For Poverty !-here shivering in sheds,
And cowering, there, by embers dying out
In the white ashes. Wo! oh, bitter wo!
The starving mother, and the moaning babe!
The aged, feeling in their veins the blood
Freezing forever! Thou whose board is spread-
Who sittest by thy household fire in peace—
Think of thy brother's lot, condemned to die,
Hungry and shivering in a pitiless world,
Made for the use of all by Him who saith,
That not a sparrow falleth to the ground
Unnoted; think, and let sweet Charity,

That white-winged angel, keep her blessed watch
Beside the kindled altar of thy heart.

Then the bland wind comes winnowing from the South,
And the snow melts like breath. The wither'd grass
Is bare; in forest paths the moss is green.
And in old garden nooks peers tearful out
The frozen violet; purlings low, of rills

Flashing all round from vanishing banks and drifts,
Are heard. May's softness steals along the air,
And the deep sunshine smiles on limb and earth,
As it would draw the leaves and blossoms forth;
But soon the mellow sweetness dies away,
And Winter holds his bitter sway again.

Yet is he not a foe. Behold, he casts
His ermine robe o'er Nature's torpid sleep;
That, when again he draws his mantle warm
At Spring's command, a glory shall burst forth,
And the wide air be filled with breath of praise-
The delicate breath of tree, and plant, and flower
Rising to Heaven like incense.

MR. EMERSON AND TRANSCENDENTALISM.*

I. PERHAPS Some of our readers are still ignorant of the meaning of the term Transcendentalism. We will, for their sakes, attempt a definition. Transcendentalism is that form of Philosophy which sinks God and Nature in man. Let us explain. God, man, and nature, in their mutual and harmonious relations (if indeed the absolute God may be said ever to be in relations) are the objects of all philosophy; but, in different theories, greater or less prominence is given to one or the other of these three, and thus systems are formed. Pantheism sinks man and nature in God; Materialism sinks God and man in the universe; Transcendentalism sinks God and nature in man. In other words, some, in philosophising, take their point of departure in God alone, and are inevitably conducted to Pantheism;-others take their point of departure in nature alone, and are led to Materialism; others start with man alone, and end in Transcendentalism. It is by no means difficult to deny in words, the actual existence of the outward universe. We may say, for example, that the paper on which we write has no more outward existence than the thoughts we refrain from expressing; we may affirm that it has merely a different kind of existence within our soul. When I say 1 perceive an outwardly existing tree, I may be mistaken; what I call a tree may have no outward existence, but may, on the contrary, be created by my perception. Who knows that a thing which appears red to me may not appear blue to my neighbor? If so, then is color something which I lend to the object. But why stop at color? Perhaps hardness and weight have no existence save that which the mind gives. Whether nature enjoy a substantial existence without (says Mr. Emerson), or is only in the apocalypse of the mind, it is alike useful and alike venerable to me. Be it what it may, it is ideal to me so long as I cannot try the accuracy of my senses." "What differs it to me (he asks on another page) whether Orion be up there in heaven, or some god paint the image in the firmament of the soul?" "

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Fabre d'Olivet believed the outward

universe to be so dependent upon the individual soul that we might properly be said to create it ourselves. He thought that we ourselves produced all forms and the world, that we might create whatever we would, isolatedly and instantaneously, and hoped to construct a system of magic on this fact as a basis. In truth, if all outward things depend for their being and manner of existence upon ourselves, and upon our inward states, a change in those states involves a change in outward nature. If we discover, therefore, the connection of our thoughts and feelings with outward nature, the whole universe is in our power; and we may, by a modification of ourselves, change the world from its present state into what we all wish it might become. Mr. Alcott thinks the world would be what it should be were he only as holy as he should be; he also considers himself personally responsible for the obliquity of the axis of the earth. A friend once told me, while we watched the large flakes of snow as they were slowly falling, that, could we but attain to the right spiritual state, we should be able to look on outward nature, and say, "I snow, I rain." To Mr. Emerson a noble doubt perpetually suggests itself, whether nature outwardly exists." In the eighth number of the Dial we find a beautiful poem touching upon this theory, from which we make an extract :—

"All is but as it seems

The round, green earth,
With river and glen;
The din and mirth
Of busy, busy men;
The world's great fever,
Throbbing for ever;
The creed of the sage,
The hope of the age,
All things we cherish,

66

All that live and all that perish, These are but inner dreams

"The great world goeth To thy dreaming.

To thee alone

Hearts are making their moan,
Eyes are streaming.

Thine is the white moon turning night

to day,

Essays: Second Series. By R. W. Emerson. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1844,

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