GENERAL SMITH'S
VIEWS
OF THE POWERS AND POLICY OF THE
GOVERNMENT
OF THE
UNITED STATES.

The first edition, which this edition is designed to reproduce, contains a few typographical and other errors corrected in later editions (e. g. that of 1866). For clarity, several readings from later editions are used in this text; all are marked with brackets. In only one case (a tarriff being 'subversion' in the first edition and 'supervision' in others) did the changes produce a significant difference in meaning, and the context clearly supports the latter as the correct reading.

Born in a land of liberty, and breathing an air uncorrupted with the sirocco of barbarous climes, I ever feel a double anxiety for the happiness of all men, both in time and in eternity. My cogitations, like Daniel's, have for a long time troubled me, when I viewed the condition of men throughout the world, and more especially in this boasted realm, where the Declaration of Independence "holds these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," but at the same time some two or three millions of people are held as slaves for life, because the spirit in them is covered with a darker skin than ours: and hundreds of our kindred for an infraction, or supposed infraction of some over wise statute, have to be incarcerated in dungeon glooms, or suffer the more moral penitentiary gravitation of mercy in a nut-shell, while the duelist, the debauchee, and the defaulter for millions, and other criminals, take the upper-most rooms at feasts, or, like the bird of passage find a more congenial clime by flight.

The wisdom which ought to characterize the freest, wisest, and most noble nation of the nineteenth century, should, like the sun in his meridian splendor, warm every object beneath its rays: and the main efforts of her officers, who are nothing more nor less than the servants of the people, ought to be directed to ameliorate the condition of all: black or white, bond or free; for the best of books says, "God hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on the face of the earth."

Our common country presents to all men the same advantages; the same facilities; the same prospects; the same honors; and the same rewards: and without hypocrisy, the Constitution, when it says, "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, [do] ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America," meant just what it said, without reference to color or condition: ad [infinitum]. The aspirations and expectations of a virtuous people, environed with so wise, so liberal, so deep, so broad, and so high a charter of equal rights, as appears in said Constitution, ought to be treated by those to whom the administration of the laws are intrusted, with as much sanctity, as the prayers of the Saints are treated in heaven, that love, confidence and union, like the sun, moon and stars, should bear witness,

(For ever singing as they shine,)
"The hand that made us is divine!"

Unity is power; and when I reflect on the importance of it to the stability of all governments, I am astounded at the silly moves of persons and parties to foment discord in order to ride into power on the current of popular excitement; nor am I less surprised at the stretches of power, or restrictions of right, which too often appear as acts of legislators, to