national business, he confirms or loses his reputation as a statesman, not only with his own country, but with the world at large.

The post of Secretary of State has generally been regarded as the steppingstone to the Presidency; but the national statistics do not wholly confirm and justify this popular impression. Of the twenty-one incumbents (without, of course, including the present one), only six subsequently became Presidents, viz. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, and James Buchanan. The character and acts of these distinguished men, whether for good or evil, are indelibly recorded in the history of the nation, and are familiar, to a greater or less extent, to all the civilized world. Another-John Marshall -though he did not reach the Presidency, attained what has been described as, in some respects, a higher eminence, the Chief Justiceship of the National Supreme Court. Three others, viz. : Edward Livingston, William L. Marcy, and Lewis Cass, created for themselves honourable and distinguished reputations as statesmen or diplomatists, which will doubtless stand the test of time; but few memories of a distinct and decided character, I imagine, will even now be excited, either at home or abroad, at the mention of the names of Edmund Randolph, Timothy Pickering, Robert Smith, Louis McLane, John Forsyth, Abel P. Upshur, John M. Clayton, and Jeremiah S. Black. They were all, it may be presumed, respectable men and capable politicians in their respective days and generations; but, in some instances, their careers were prematurely closed by death, and, in others, they failed, from various causes, to produce that impression upon the country at large necessary to secure their further elevation. The three unquestionably ablest men the country has produced, at least, in modern times, viz.: Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun -although their personal merits and paramount claims to the distinction were universally acknowledged-owing to the chicanery of party politics, and partly

to the uncertain and defective mode of conducting the national elections, found this "stepping-stone" but a treacherous support for their ambitious feet, and were doomed to witness the coveted prize consigned to other hands just as it seemed within their own grasp.

The first Secretary of State, under the Constitution, was Thomas Jefferson, who was appointed in 1789, and retained the office until 1794, when he was succeeded by Edmund Randolph, who, at the end of about two years, gave place to Timothy Pickering, who served during the remainder of Washington's Administration, and the greater portion of that of John Adams, a part of the last year of which the incumbent was John Marshall. James Madison was the Secretary during the whole of Jefferson's two presidential terms, from 1801 to 1809, and, on succeeding to the Presidency, appointed Robert Smith his own successor in the State Department, who held the office until 1811, when James Monroe accepted it, and retained it until 1817, when he also became President. The Secretary during Monroe's two presidential terms, ending in 1825, was John Quincy Adams, who then succeeded his chief in the Presidency, and gave his old post to Henry Clay, who retained it until the accession of General Jackson, in 1829, when he was succeeded by Martin Van Buren. He served only about two years, when Edward Livingston was appointed, who, two years later, was followed by Louis McLane, who resigned after about a year's incumbency, when John Forsyth became the Secretary, and continued such during the remainder of Jackson's Administration, and the whole of that of his successor, Mr. Van Buren. Daniel Webster was appointed by General Harrison, in 1841, and, after that President's death, was retained by his successor, Mr. Tyler, until 1844, when he was succeeded by Abel P. Upshur, who was accidentally killed about eight weeks after, by the bursting of a gun on board the United States' frigate Princeton, and John C. Calhoun occupied the post during the remaining year of Mr. Tyler's Adminis

Two important political facts of the last month have been-the announcement by the King of Prussia that he means to show to his subjects that the part of Charles the First of England may be performed over again with new results in these times and amid a German population; and the decision of the Emperor of the French that he is still to sustain the Pope, and prevent Rome from becoming the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

These two facts have this in common, that they are calculated vividly to remind us, in these islands of ours, that there are still parts of the earth, very near us, where the will of one man may possess a degree of efficacy, as regards direct political consequences, such as we have long ceased to witness, or to consider possible, among ourselves. There is no human being amongst us whose single obstinacy could block the current of our national ideas and commerce; there is no human being amongst us upon whose single determination it could depend whether the national weight of Britain should be thrown into one scale or the other of any great cause publicly adjusting itself anywhere abroad. A Gladstone or a Bright, indeed, may wield an important influence on our system of taxation, or other parts of our internal polity; and it may happen, as we fear it happens now, that a supreme Palmerston may be able so far to commit us, in the dark, to some such wretched chimera of foreign politics as that "preservation of the integrity of the Turkish Empire," of which we hear so much, but of which—both phrase and thing-the best of us are beginning to be sick, and of which we shall all unanimously be sick to nausea ere long. But not the most powerful man among us can do anything of large political effect, sheerly of his own will, that would not be done otherwise; and

if our Cabinet do proceed, for example, to the recognition of the nationality of the Southern States of America, it will be because, though many of us may object to such a course, there will have seemed to be sufficient demand for it among the rest, and sufficient certainty of backing. Everywhere in the world, our social philosophers tell us, the most powerful individual men are but the mouthpieces of general tendencies, and succeed only so far as they express what must be at any rate; but, where tendencies have ten thousand mouths, it rarely depends on the "Yes" or the "No" of any one mouth what turn things will be seen taking, even for twenty-four hours.

We are bound to view with peculiar interest the progress of the constitutional struggle which has been begun in Prussia. History is not apt, any more than nature, to repeat herself very exactly. But this Prussian struggle, in its present stage, is marvellously like. the beginning of the struggle of our own Charles the First with the English people, and sends us back to those years, 1626-1628, when Charles quarrelled with his first Parliaments on the subject of tonnage and poundage, as well as on more spiritual matters, and, getting no satisfaction from them, dissolved them one after another, and took to governing for eleven years without a Parliament. There may not be in the present popular cause in Prussia all that accumulation of noble ingredients which dignifies in history the English Liberalism of the days of Eliot, and Pym, and Hampden. There may be more of the mere Tonnage and Poundage question in it, and less of those other great questions of intel lectual and spiritual liberty with which the Tonnage and Poundage question in England was then inextricably associated. But, allowance being made for

change of time and place, it does seem that among the Prussian Liberals there is the sense of wrongs of a general kind -of systematic and long-continued repressions of many of the various liberties and just desires of an intelligent and well-educated nation-entitling their present struggle with the Crown to something even of that high respect with which the struggle of the English Liberals with Charles, in the beginning of his reign, is now universally regarded. The battle may be upon the Budget; but there are other grievances, and many of them, behind. Though we knew nothing of Prussia by more direct means, we have the assurances of this in the voices of such men as Humboldt and Varnhagen von Ense, speaking from their graves through their letters and diaries, and uttering those posthumous criticisms of the public men and events of the last Prussian reign the sharpness of which almost scandalizes propriety. But, even if we regard the struggle only in its obvious aspect as a battle of the Budget, it has strong claims on our interest. That any king under a Constitution, were he the wisest that lives, should, for the support of an increased army, or for any other purpose, insist on having more of his people's money than they through their representatives will vote him, and, when these representatives are firm, should announce his intention of taking the money without their consent "by means beyond the Constitution "-this is a course of royal conduct antipathy to which, and the conviction that it ought to be opposed and frustrated, may surely be assumed as incorporate with English nerve and blood. The right of the Commons over the national purse is a fundamental principle in our own politics, and we can hardly avoid extending it to Prussia. Were the present Prussian king the wisest king that lives, and were his determination to have a large army clearly an act of wisdom in opposition to the unanimous blockheadism of his Parliament, some among us, perhaps, might not care though we kept the English principle to ourselves and

But

did not let it cross the salt water. it does not appear, from any evidence that we yet have, that the present Prussian king is the wisest king living; nor does it appear that the entire assembly of respectable men to whom the Prussians have delegated the right of judging for them in such matters are fools and blind to the true interests of their country, in thinking a certain amount of armed force sufficient. Nothing, then, as far as appears, ought to hinder Prussian Liberalism from having full sympathy from Britain in its present movement-there being reserved, of course, full liberty of criticising, should it seem worth while still to do so, the past conduct of Prussian liberalism, and full liberty also of observing how, from this new starting-point, it will continue to conduct itself.

The Prussian Liberal leaders are said to have made, for the purposes of this very struggle, a minute study of that English precedent which could not but suggest itself even had it not before been thought of, but which they are believed to have deliberately kept in view as their model. As accurate Germans, their own historical researches have probably given them more exact knowledge of the methods by which the English constitutional struggle was carried on to success than can well be furnished them offhand by the less learned British journalists who are advising them and patting them on the back. It is not likely, therefore, that the grand maxim of "Passive Resistance," in which all here have agreed as the best advice to be sent over, will startle them by its novelty. But it is one thing to have a historical knowledge how a certain people behaved in given circumstances, and another to be able to do as they did. Have the Prussians the energy, on the one hand, and the obdurate stubbornness on the other, required for a successful policy of passive resistance? We miss, at this outset of the Prussian struggle, anything equivalent to that declaration with which the English House of Commons, in March 1628-9, announced their policy of passive re

"Whosoever shall counsel or advise the taking or the levying of the subsidies of tonnage and poundage, not being granted by Parliament, or shall be an actor or instrument therein, shall be reputed an innovator in the Government, and a capital enemy to the kingdom and commonwealth.

"If any merchant or person whatsoever shall voluntarily yield or pay the said subsidies of tonnage and poundage, not being granted by Parliament, he shall likewise be reputed a betrayer of the liberties of England, and an enemy to the same."

The Prussian Assembly had, perhaps, no opportunity for such a declaration before their dismissal, even had it been right or expedient in their circumstances; and it is also to be remembered that this declaration came from the English Parliament at a rather late stage in their struggle, and when they had become vehement. Without any such defiant and irritating declaration, unnecessary at this stage, the Prussian people may carry out practically and quietly, as the English people did, the policy it points to. If the King fulfils his threat, there may be, as there was in England everywhere, resistance to the tax-gatherer by courageous householders. There may then be trials in law-courts. There may be Prussian John Hampdens and Richard Chamberses, fighting the public cause to their last shilling, and going to prison rather than pay. And so there may be that accumulation of individual prosecutions and persecutions, and of all sorts of illegal acts, which is sure to bring things to a dead-lock. This policy, if persevered in, even without any general outbreak, must, in the nature of things, succeed. It is to be hoped that the first real indication that it is likely to be persevered in will shake the King's purpose, and dispossess him of his notion that the part of Charles the First may be performed now with a complete variation in the style of the consequences.

British sympathy for the Italian cause, in the new phase given to it by the recent decision of the French Emperor, requires no such solicitation as may be necessary to evoke an interest in the Prussian question. It exists ready-made. The Garibaldi Riots in various parts of the country are seriously, though rudely, significant. They show that the idea of the unity of Italy, and of the suppression of the temporal Papacy as necessary to this unity, has firmly gained possession, as only such simple and definite ideas can, of the universal popular mind. The process of education has been gradual; and, perhaps, only in the form of a sentiment of personal admiration for a man like Garibaldi could such a notion at the last have been so suddenly and strongly diffused. The consequences cannot but be important as regards the possible foreign policy of our Government for some time to come. If on no other foreign question, at least on the Italian question, the mass of the British people have made up their minds, and know exactly what they wish for. On this question, therefore, if on no other foreign one, the Government have the eyes of Argus upon them, and all that compulsion towards one particular line of policy, by whatever diplomatic methods they may pursue it, which must result from the consciousness that they are jealously and multitudinously watched, and acting for a vast constituency, the very dregs of which are under the excitement of a belief which is also, though less excitingly, that of the thoughtful. The Government, however, hardly now needs this stimu

on the Italian question. That Italy from the Alps to Sicily should be one nation; that it would be a good thing for the world, politically, commercially, and intellectually, if it were so; that it is a pity that this result is not consummated in a peaceful manner, by the withdrawal of the French troops from Rome, and the cession of the Venetian territories by Austria-this, we may say, is the belief of the whole British nation, with the exception of