our appreciation of the ludicrous element in it. But we protest once more, that we have written the earlier portion of our Article with no ill-will-with not the slightest intermingling of unkindliness in our joyous laugh. And we trust that the lat ter portion has been hearty and serious enough in its appreciation and approbation of the writer, for what she was and for what she did, to prove even to her own friends the truth of our protestation.

We commend the volume to every reader of these pages. He will be amused by the style; and entertained by the account of the olden time; and charmed by the good nature of the authoress; and softened into tenderness of soul by the story of the way in which God led her home to Himself, through all the comforts and trials-through all the joys and sorrowsthrough all the discipline and experience of a long and wellspent life.

We add a single word more. Mrs. Sigourney, we believe, was by no means deserving of the censure thrown upon her poetry by so many persons in our country. She was not, as we frankly confess, a poet of a very high order. She unconsciously shows, even in these Letters, the inferiority of her own poetry by her occasional introduction of brief passages from those who have written under a true inspiration. She has a sameness in all her productions, which is wearisome. She evidently knows more of religion than she does of the Muses. She has committed the almost intolerable evil of publishing a volume containing from fifty to one hundred obituary sonnets. In a word, she is Mrs. Sigourney. But she was one of the first among American women to venture within the poetic field; and, while she has led the way, she deserves not only the praise awarded to a pioneer, but the praise of a fair measure of success. We think even the Norwich people might well honor their own prophet, by acknowledging her gifts;though, at the same time, we can scarcely believe that the "boy nature" will ever become so "quiescent" in us, as to prevent us from telling of or laughing over the melancholy issue of the encounter between her lyric poem and the scornful Norwich musician.

ARTICLE VII.-THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON's veto of the bill for extending and systematizing the operations of the Freedmen's Bureau, the passionate and almost revolutionary tone of his harangue to the Washington mob, in connection with the drift of his late conversations and speeches of a more informal character, have justly created disappointment and anxiety in thousands who, nevertheless, do not subscribe to Mr. Sumner's doctrine about suffrage and the idea of a "Republican" government, or find much wisdom either in the recent orations or in the recent political action of that Senator. There is no use, even if there were no impropriety, in inveighing against the President. At the same time, his course should be candidly and boldly criticised. The hardest thing that can be said of him is said by his special partisans, who require us to speak of his official conduct with bated breath, lest he should be driven into the ranks of the enemies of the country,-for the party which, during the last four years, has done everything it could, short of taking up arms, to break down the Union cause, deserves to be so styled. We do not believe that the President intends to gratify this party, yet we confess that our belief is not free from misgivings. In the brief comments which we have to offer upon the political situation, we shall endeavor to touch on the main points in controversy.

1. It is undeniable that the so-called Confederate States are. not now in "practical relations" to the Union. Their inhabitants are subject to the United States, but those States, in consequence of their own act, are not in possession of their former powers and privileges as members of the Union. They went out of the Union de facto, if not de jure. On any theory of the rebellion, it swept away the State governments in the rebel Communities; and hence, provisional governments, acting through military law, were set up by national authority. In

our judgment, the contest in which we have been engaged, was a war; and while we are not deprived of the right of dealing with individuals according to municipal law, we have, in the event of success, all the rights which justly belong to the conqueror. But waiving this point, and admitting for the moment, that the rebel States did not lose their character as States, by the act of secession and of insurrection, it is still agreed that they were left without governments; and government must be reconstructed in each of them, de novo. It is plain that not everything claiming to be a legitimate government, in either of these States, is to be considered such. The National authority must determine the question whether a given organization shall be considered, to all intents and purposes, a State government. In other words, the whole subject of reconstruction is in the hands of the national government, and the rebel Communities must await and abide by its decision.

2. It is necessary and proper that each of these rebellious Communities should be readmitted, before it enjoys the privilege of representation in Congress. The recognition or readmission-use whatever term we will-of the State is the prior question to be determined. The policy advocated by Senator Dixon, and those who concur with him, is extremely fallacious. Their plan is to admit to Congress individuals here and there who can give evidence of personal loyalty. But the representative of a district represents the State in which that district lies. If that State is not in good and regular standing," as a member of the Union, no part of it is entitled to representation. The State government creates the district, and may alter its bounds to-morrow. It may draw the lines so that a loyal district or constituency shall be supplanted by a disloyal. The policy to which we refer, which is called the President's policy, is simply a plan for smuggling back into the Union the late Confederate States, and for cutting off the deliberate discussion and settlement of the prior question of their fitness to resume their former places.

3. The determination of this prior question belongs preeminently to Congress. Congress must judge whether an organization which pretends to send Representatives and

Senators to Washington, is truly and properly a State government, entitled to representation in Congress. This power belongs to Congress, and to Congress alone. The doctrine that the Executive or some other magistrate is to determine this all-important question, which appears to be implied in the President's veto message, needs no answer since the crushing refutation which it has received from Senator Fessenden, and after it has been disowned by the President's advocates. Aside from the particular question of representation in Congress, the settlement at the end of this great conflict is rightfully in the hands of the Supreme Legislature of the land. To hold that this great work is the function of the Executive, is to endow him with power greater than is possessed by any sovereign this side of Russia. And the Senate and House of Representatives, now in session at Washington, are the Congress of the United States. The implication, come from whatever quarter it may, that they are not endowed with all the functions which the Constitution confers upon Congress, is treasonable, and deserves to be met with stern indignation by every good citizen. Were it well founded, the whole action of Congress, or of the body supposed to be Congress, for the last four years, would be void. A journal in New York, which claims to be respectable, speaks of the Congress of the United States as "the rump Congress." The suggestions contained in this appellation we believe to be powerless, as far as their effect on the body of the people is concerned; but they are not the less base and iniquitous. The man who, in the knowledge of what his words mean, applies that title to Congress is at heart a traitorous villain, however he may fear to carry out his words in correspondent action. The propriety of coöperative action on the part of both Houses, on the question of admitting members from the rebel States, is obvious. Neither House should assume to restore a State to its relations to the Union, independently of the other branch of the Legis lature. Hence the appointment of a Joint Committee was eminently wise, and in denouncing this Committee President Johnson set a bad example.

4. It being the right of Congress to fix the terms and the manner of the restoration of the rebel States, Congress is

bound to exact of them sufficient evidences of loyalty and the best attainable guarantees for our future security; and, also, to provide for the protection of the freedmen against injustice and wrong. It is preposterous to maintain that the moment the rebel Communities cease from organized and armed warfare upon the national government, they must be forthwith admitted to a part in the administration of it. The President himself has required of the rebel States the acceptance of the great Amendment to the Constitution for the perpetual destruction of slavery. If consent to that Amendment may be required, consent to other changes may also be demanded for equally good reasons. Nothing should be done in vindictiveness; but, on the other hand, the legitimate fruits of the war should not be thrown away or put in jeopardy. Why should not security be taken, in the form of a Constitutional Amendment, that debts contracted in forwarding insurrection shall never be paid by Federal or State authority, and that the payment of the national debt shall never be resisted or in any way impeded? Why should not the South be precluded from disfranchising the whole black population, and at the same time reaping the benefit of them as a basis of representation? The protection of the emancipated slaves in all civil rights should be secured beyond a peradventure. It is easy to object to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill that it introduces an anomalous. class of magistrates and a somewhat arbitrary system of admin istration. But how shall these millions of blacks be sheltered from cruelty and oppression? Not by Southern juries, surely, either in State or Federal courts. The South has not yet given evidence of a disposition to treat the freedmen with justice; and this is why the Bureau is necessary. We see no means of accomplishing the end, which the nation is solemnly bound to accomplish, except by the employment, for the present, of quasi military magistrates in the districts where the blacks are exposed to peril, until the disaffected whites shall become reconciled to the new order of things, and learn to treat their former slaves as freemen. The securing of their civil rights to the blacks ought never to be confounded with the question whether the right to vote shall be conferred upon