under a British king, set before them the glorious object of entire Independence, and it will breathe into them anew the breath of life. Read this Declaration at the head of the army: every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered, to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them hear it, who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it, who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support. Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I begun, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment; Independence now; and Independence forever. SLAVERY THE CORNER-STONE OF THE SOUTHERN CON FEDERACY.-ALEX. H. STEPHENS. THE new Constitution has put at rest, forever, all agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution-African slavery as it exists among us-the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. The foundations of our new government are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man. That slavery-subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. The truth may be slow in development, as all truths are, and ever have been, in the various branches of science. It was so with the principles announced by Galileo; it was so with Adam Smith, and his principles of political economy. It was so with Harvey and his theory of the circulation of the blood. It is said that not a single one of the medical profession, living at the time of the announcement of the truths made by him, admitted them. Now, they are universally acknowledged. May we not, therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the enslavement of certain classes; but the classes thus enslaved were of the same race, and in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature's laws. The negro by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with proper materials-the granite-then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best not only for the superior, but for the inferior race that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. LAUS DEO.-JOHN G. WHITTIER. [On hearing the bells ring for the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States.] IT is done! Clang of bell and roar of gun Send the tidings up and down. How the belfries rock and reel, How the great guns, peal and peal, Fling the joy from town to town! Ring, O bells! Every stroke exulting tells Loud and long, that all may hear, Ring for every listening ear Of Eternity and Time! Let us kneel; God's own voice is in that peal, And this spot is holy ground. Lord forgive us! What are we, That our eyes this glory see, That our ears have heard the sound! For the Lord On the whirlwind is abroad; In the earthquake He hath spoken; He has smitten with his thunder The iron wall asunder, And the gates of brass are broken! How they pale, Ancient myth, and song, and tale, In this wonder of our days, When the cruel rod of war Blossoms white with righteous law, And the wrath of man is praise! Blotted out! All within and all about Shall a fresher life begin: Freer breathe the universe As it rolls its heavy curse On the dead and buried sin ! It is done! In the circuit of the sun Ring and swing, Bells of joy! on morning's wing Send the song of praise abroad; With a sound of broken chains Tell the nation that He reigns, Who alone is Lord and God! THE DEATH OF SLAVERY. THE DEATH OF SLAVERY.-WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. O THOU great Wrong, that, through the slow-paced years, The scourge that drove the laborer to the field. Thy bondmen crouch no more In terror at the menace of thine eye; For He who marks the bounds of gulity power, And touched his shackles at the appointed hour, A shout of joy from the redeemed is sent; Seem now to bask in a serener day; The meadow-birds sing sweeter, and the airs A glory clothes the land from sea to sea, For the great land and all its coasts are free. Great as thou wert, and feared from shore to Я.re, Before thy lowering brow Devote thy memory to scorn and shame, And scoff at the pale, powerless thing thou <r 157 Go, then, accursed of God, and take thy place With many a wasting pest, and nameless crime, Through wailing cities lay, Worship of Moloch, tyrannies that built The Pyramids, and cruel creeds that taught I see the better years that hasten by, Carry thee back into that shadowy past, Thy victims pass no more, Is there, and there shall the grim block remain Molder and rust by thine eternal seat. There, mid the symbols that proclaim thy crimes, THE ISSUES-BIGLOW PAPERS.--JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Ir's war we're in, not politics; It's systems wrastlin' now. not parties; An' victory in the eend 'll fix Where longest will an' truest heart is. Ther's critters yit thet talk an' act For what they call Conciliation; They'd hand a buff'lo-drove a tract When they wuz madder than all Bashan |