here is
the celebrated alliance and treaty of 1814 and 1815 of Vienna, between
the great European Powers, establishing FOREVER, by a congress, the
balance of European power? Is there a single clause now in force? Where
is the clause securing France to the Bourbons, and guaranteeing her
forever against the reign of any of the Bonaparte family? Where are the
states whose independence was forever guaranteed by those treaties?
Where are Parma and Modena and Tuscany? Where is Lombardy, where the
Romagna, Naples, and the Two Sicilies? Where are the duchies of
Lauenburg, Schleswig, and Holstein, and where the treaty of 1852 in
regard to them? All, all have passed away, just as would our proposed
treaties or alliances. The first war would sweep them out of existence.
No, my countrymen; as Washington, the father of his country, most truly
told us in his Farewell Address: 'To the efficacy and permanency of your
Union, a Government _for the whole_ is indispensable. _No alliance_,
however strict between the parts, can be an adequate substitute; they
must inevitably experience the _infractions_ and _interruptions_ which
_all alliances_, in _all time_, have experienced.'

Washington thus foresaw and warned us against this most insidious
proposition to divide our country into separate confederacies, no matter
how strict the alliances between them might be; and let us adopt his
counsels.

Is it not strange, while Italy and Germany seek, in Italian and German
unity, relief from the ruin and oppression of so many independent states
and governments, and are each making advances to that great
consummation, that we are asked to adopt the reactionary policy, and
separate glorious Union into distinct confederacies, soon to be followed
by grinding taxation, by immense standing armies, and perpetual wars?

And now then, my countrymen, I bring this letter to a close, imploring
you to give no vote which will subject the Union to the slightest peril.
Come, then, my friends, of all parties, come, Republicans, and Whigs,
and Democrats, and Irish and German and native citizens, trampling under
our feet all past issues, and all old party names and prejudices, and,
standing on the broad basis of principle, let us vote, not for men or
parties, but for the salvation and perpetuity of the Union.

R. J. WALKER.

GENIUS.

Far out at sea the wave was high,
While veered the wind and flapped the sail;
We saw a snow-white butterfly