and instruction) of society. If a similar plan should be adopted with the Africans their fate would be like that of the red-skinsdestruction. The Indians can be as little cultivated at home as the Africans. They should have been for this purpose transported to Europe, just as the Africans had on this account to be brought to America. Without domestication abroad no savage ever will improve.

The constitution contains no prohibition of the acquisition of foreign territory, as happened with Florida, Louisiana, New Mexico; and this makes the utmost caution of Congress imperative not to transgress in this regard its powers. It should, as far as possible, always be done with the consent of the population in question; for we annex not the land, but men. Men, not acres, form the Union; men, not rocks, establish states; and these are made for men, and not for mountains and vales. It is but right that no state should be arbitrarily divided, since a state is a social institution, based upon a convention or compact, embodied in a written constitution and represented by a government. This, then, must be the organ by means of which a dismemberment of such an institution must be made. Any other procedure would be improper, arbitrary, and revolutionary.

The necessity of dividing states, with a fast-increasing population, will soon be felt, not only because municipal states containing more than about one million inhabitants are generally badly governed it being then almost impossible to exercise the political mutual control of which I wrote in a prior letter-but also because such states acquire, in consequence of party organizations, too powerful an influence upon the national affairs. I refer in this regard to the list of electoral votes elsewhere. The state of New York commands in Congress as many votes as eight smaller states taken together.

This produces an undue preponderance in the national councils. Moreover, in the population of a state of about three millions of inhabitants the sentiment or feelings of nationality begin to become conscious and substance. This consciousness steeled the arms of the American colonists in their struggle for freedom and self-government. It will cause trouble in our Union. Factionists and intriguers will use it for selfish purposes.

There is a certain measure based upon the natural laws of

society for municipal and national state districts and organizations. This is a most important subject for the consideration of statesmen, debating societies, and patriotic citizens in general. The population in the states of New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania has reached that number which renders a good republican municipal government more and more impracticable. History proves that the power of self-government is lost in states of too great a population. France, with thirty-five millions of inhabitants never will be a republic for a longer time than it requires to pull down the throne in Paris. She should be first divided into at least thirty-five state districts, for the municipal political business, with a central federal government like ours, for the national business, to become a stable republic. In a monarchy the municipal and national business is blended and centralized. It would be constantly thrown into confusion if not supported by a powerful soldiery, rich hereditary aristocracy, a hereditary dynasty, a wealthy state church, aud more such props, against which, if well combined, a discontented or oppressed people can not do much. But as soon as these artificial props give way, and especially the army turns traitor, the crown rolls into the street, where it is a plaything of the mobs. If you understand the federal constitution well you will better understand the bistory of bygone states, empires, and republics, especially those of France. From this history the noble framers of the constitution learned more than the Napoleons, Bourbons, and those who made constitutions after them..

This clause, I say, is without precedent, and the mother of nineteen new states, peopled by those whom it pleased to seek a shelter in this Union. What a beautiful social phenomenon ; what a picture of human progress; what a triumph achieved by that simple honest common sense which has founded our Union!

Still, this exceedingly wise proviso, if not wisely executed with regard to the population, which naturally accumulates in favored localities, will, I repeat it, in the course of time produce trouble. Each proviso of a constitution is subject to abuse, as all other things in this world.

Remark here that when the federal constitution was framed every state tolerated slavery. Since that time two, only two states have been added sanctioning slavery, so that there are at present

fifteen slave states, all counted, while there have sprung up seventeen free states at the time (1858) of writing this letter. This shows what course we take under our constitution. Our march is toward freedom on the path of justice and order.

LETTER XXXIII.

Territories. Their Disposal and Regulation. - Three Periods. — Indian Policy. Territorial Policy. - State Policy. - Kansas Nebraska Act. Missouri Compromise not Constitutional. - Dred Scott Case.

THE following clause refers to the land belonging to the United States:

"2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory, and other property belonging to the United States, and nothing in this constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state." Some say that this proviso should be restricted to the territory of the United States at the time of the establishing of the constitution, but I see not for what practical use, since the nature of the case requires a discretional power. Increase of territory was foreseen by the framers of the constitution.

In regard to government, society in the United States goes through three periods. The first is entire dependency of thinlysettled regions upon Congress, without any state-like organization of their own; it is called the period of the Indian policy. The second is the period of territorial organization, lasting until the population is large enough to be entitled to state representation in Congress. During this period the people make their own laws, but the executive and judiciary are appointed and paid by Congress. The third period begins when a territory is admitted into the Union, on the ground of a republican constitution, as an independent state. This once done, the state is an indissoluble part of the Union, except Congress should see fit to exclude it on constitutional grounds, as by adopting a monarchical constitution. If people, as the Mormon sect, should abuse their territorial rights, Congress may deprive them of such, and place them back under a government entirely depending upon Congress.

This clause has gained of late undeservedly much interest in consequence of the change produced by the act of Congress concerning the organization of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. Up to the 34th Congress, by a law of Congress of 1820, it was declared that in all the territory north of lat. 36° 30′ not included within the limits of Missouri, slavery and involuntary servitude should for ever be prohibited. By this act Congress was involved in the slavery question, which, however, as a mere municipal business does not belong to its business sphere. To terminate the eternal, angry debates about this subject in Congress, it saw fit to abrogate in the bill just mentioned this geographical or sectional line, on the ground that the question of slavery should be left to the people to decide when they had formed a state and accepted a constitution. You, my dear children, will now be able to form for yourselves a pretty correct opinion upon this subject. We leave the constitutionality of the prior acts to the supreme court to decide upon, since there is not the least doubt that Congress, by virtue of the clause under consideration, has the right to repeal or alter such acts at pleasure. But so much is certain, that a Union divided by a political geographical line in regard to bound or free labor, commerce, religion or anything else, ceases to be a union or unit, but appears as a divided thing. This much-talked-of Kansas and Nebraska act will work rightly under the constitution, provided only real actual settlers have to manage the public business. These will, you may be sure, adjust their state constitution to the actual circumstances, and this is all they should do. But if there are men allowed to vote which are, by the abolition party or others, expressly hired for this purpose, the result will be different. That such mercenary

votes are a fraud and illegal is obvious.

It is to be devoutly hoped that we shall not hear a single word more about bound labor in Congress. If the principle pointed out above of free settling of the territories by Americans, Europeans and Asiatics be right, it is self-evident that no American citizen can be excluded from any section of our territories, may he keep bound laborers or not. At least, the federal constitution, our supreme law of the land, does not contain a single word against this principle, as may be presumed considering its origin.

Allow me to ask here; would not the often-mentioned family

state vote at once prevent party outrages in such instances? would families be liable to be abused for fraudulent voting errands? have you ever heard of families going fillibustering? This proves what a great difference there is between the family and the usual personal suffrage, how the first naturally guaranties order, and the second produces all kinds of mischief and social corruption. Usurpers, like the Napoleons, understand this difference very well, and side with our demagogues. Congress has the power to make the laws on the suffrage in the territories. Why not use it?

Who has seen the managing of the voting in territories and new states will agree that it is impossible, in most instances, to distinguish bona fide settlers from fraudulent voters. The real bona fide settlers are families, because they are forced by nature to found a home. That legislature which first substitutes the family suffrage for the personal or general suffrage, relieves society of an evil which every patriot and good citizen deeply deplores. Its name is mob-rule.

As the parents are advising and helping their children when they are going the first time to housekeeping, so Congress supports the young settlements until the appointed time has come for the independent management of their own state affairs. This kind of transient regulation of territories must be in its nature discretionary, and should be borne with cheerfulness, and not resented by fierce demagoguism and treasonable revolt, as has been done in Kansas of late; for Congress acts for the best of society, and does, indeed, nothing but bears the first expenses of the local government, which the settlers have in their hands, by making their own civil and criminal laws.

I have perhaps dwelt too long upon these subjects, but you see what dangers are surrounding us, and will therefore not be tired if I repeatedly recur to important principles to better show their working in society.

Postscript. After this letter was written, there appeared in the papers a notice of a judgment of the United States supreme court in the case of Dred Scott against his master, claiming his freedom on the ground that he had resided two years, by the act of his owner, in a state where slavery was prohibited by its constitution, and afterward in a territory from which it was prohibited by the Missouri compromise. The supreme