uri Compromise" (which confined slavery south of the 36 3'
parallel of latitude) having been repealed, it became optional with them
to adopt slavery or not. Kansas fought barbarously for the dishonourable
privilege, and with temporary success: Nebraska has declined the honour
as yet. The interests of territories are watched over at Washington by
delegates in the House of Representatives, who have a seat, but no vote.
This sensible arrangement might, in my humble opinion, be adopted in
this country with reference to our colonies, whose wants at present have
no interpreter intimately acquainted with colonial affairs in either
branch of the Legislature.

Each State in the Union has its own Governor, House of Representatives,
Senate, and Judiciary, and is in every respect a sovereign State--they
like the word as much as they pretend to dislike the reality--acting
perfectly independently within its limits, except in such cases as were
mutually agreed upon by the terms of the Union, and to some of which we
shall refer by and by. This sovereignty of individual States renders the
elective franchise different in different States.

At the date of the first elections after the Declaration of
Independence, no State admitted mere citizenship as a qualification for
the elective franchise. The great men who appeared upon the stage at
that period, profiting by the experience of past ages, threw certain
guards around the franchise in every State in the Union, varying in
different States, but all bearing unmistakeable testimony to the fact,
that a perfect democracy was not the basis on which they ever
contemplated building up the Republic. A few short years have rolled by;
the 13 States are increased to 33, and according to Mr. Tremenheere, "a
grave departure from the theory of the Constitution, as it existed in
the eyes and expectations of its careful and prudent founders, has taken
place, in the gradual lowering throughout nearly all the States of the
Union, and the entire abandonment in two-thirds of them, of those
qualifications for the exercise of the franchise which existed when the
Constitution was adopted." In one State--Illinois--aliens being
residents are entitled to vote. Now, if the great men of 1776 thought
safeguards around the franchise wise and prudent in their day, before
the great tide of emigration had set in to the westward, and when the
population was only 4,000,000, what would they say, could they but rise
from the