people of each territory "to regulate their own affairs in their own way."

Up to the time of the outbreak of the insurrection, no new State had claimed admission to the Union, and the principles on which territorial legislation are to be based still remain unsettled. Had it not been for the war, the question would ere this have been brought up again by the demand of Utah for admission as a State. According to the Douglas compromise, the fact that she chooses to regulate her own affairs with regard to polygamy in her own way, is no more reason for opposing her admission than that she chooses to regulate her affairs with regard to slavery in her own manner. So, too, if the Union should be consolidated again, it is certain that Mexico and probably Cuba will come under its dominion. It is difficult to see by what extension of the territorial system these new acquisitions could be governed. They could not be admitted as States, and there is no power in the Constitution to hold them as Colonies. I cannot doubt that, even without this war, the "manifest destiny" would very shortly have led to an alteration in the relations between the United States and its Territories; or, in other words, to an alteration of the Constitution.

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

It was on an icy-cold night that I first heard Wendell Phillips. I mention this fact not for its intrinsic importance, but because it serves to show that I entered his lecture-room under unfavourable circumstances. For some days before, Willard's Hotel and Pennsylvania Avenue had been placarded with notices that Wendell Phillips was to lecture at the Smithsonian Institute. I had made up my mind to go, but in the evening I had gone in to the house of some kind friends of mine where the cigar-case was always ready, and the flask of monongahela was always full. Sitting there over the fire, talking politics, as was our custom, I felt less and less inclined to go out into the bleak, rainy night to hear what I expected was the harangue of a mere "sensation" orator. Amongst the company was Caleb Cushing, the most anti-abolitionist, perhaps, of Northern Democrats ; I happened to mention to him that it had been my intention to go and hear Wendell Phillips, if it had not been for the inclemency of the weather. His answer

to me was (and for that as well as for many pleasant evenings I shall always feel grateful to President Pierce's late attorney-general), "it is an opportunity you ought not to lose." This remark, coming as it did from an old political antagonist of the anti-slavery orator, induced me to alter my resolution, and through the dark, ill-lit, ill-paved streets of Washington I groped my way, in spite of the snow and rain, to the Smithsonian Institute.

This building, which, by the way, was founded by an Englishman, is about the chilliest and most cheerless of scientific institutes that it has ever been my lot to enter. It was full early when I reached the place, but the hall was crammed so that it was with difficulty I could find standing room. Upon the platform there was Vice-President Hamlin, looking in the half-light as if the Southern story was true, and his dusky complexion really bore traces of negro origin. There was there also Charles Sumner, resting his head as usual upon the stick grasped between his knees; half-a-dozen members of Congress, the two secretaries of the President, Mr. Hay, and Mr. Nicolay, and a good number of the minor Washington notabilities. The audience itself contained a large proportion of women, but the majority, I should say, were young men. Amongst the crowd, too, I observed a fair sprinkling of coloured persons seated side by side with the white hearers. I may mention that I was present at several other lectures at the

Smithsonian, and that on this occasion alone was there anything approaching to a crowd.

The orator was introduced by Professor Pierpoint, the President of the Institute, in a half-apologetic tone, requesting a lenient hearing for the speaker, if he should say anything calculated to shock the feelings of his audience.

After this address, Wendell Phillips came forward—a spare, slight man, with scanty, greyish hair, dressed in colours of almost quaker-like sombreness. My first impression was that he looked like a cross between a dissenting minister and a country doctor. His air was that of a man old before his time, worn out by anxiety and disappointment: the one sign of genius was the high, narrow forehead, and the one attractive feature was the wonderful sweetness of his smile. It was in a low, hesitating tone that he began to speak. Gradually his voice acquired volume, and somehow or other, without an apparent effort, or without raising his voice above the tone of ordinary conversation, he seemed to fill the room. A very few sentences convinced me that I was listening to no ordinary speaker. I have heard many orators, in many countries, but I can truly say that Wendell Phillips is the only one whom I could have listened to, standing, for two hours, without a sense of weariness. His speech, as I noted it at the time, and as I gathered from the summary of it published afterwards, ran as follows:

"My friends, I have not come here to bring you anything worthy of the journey, I have only come here, as I sincerely believe; to say 'amen' to the brave words which have of late been uttered in yonder Capitol. I do not make any pretensions as a speaker. I have talked a little on anti-slavery, but, as Dr. Johnson remarked on a similar question, I have only been able to do de.cently well what nobody else considered worth doing at all. But I have come here to-night very willingly, because, if a word of mine, or any number of words, any amount of effort, could add one atom of possibility to the chance that this war should carry comfort to the hovels of Carolina, I should deem my whole life an abundant success. I have no other object in life, as far as I know, than to make this Union, which I have sought honestly to sever, mean justice to nineteen millions of people, and who, I think, at this moment are willing it should be so. If any effort that I could make to-night would contribute toward that result, I would make it with more than cheerfulness— with the utmost enthusiasm.

"Well, gentlemen, as an abolitionist-and I am little more-devoted for thirty years towards having the negro recognised as a man in these thirty-four States, I confess to having no other interest in politics than that this Union should do the negro justice, should do itself the credit, to show it is educated up to the point of doing that justice.