[A] It is, in fact, rather singular, that until this mention of it by
Mr. Calhoun, the amending clause of the Constitution had, as far as we
are informed, never been alluded to in connexion with the much-debated
subject of _State Sovereignty_. It is obviously, of itself, decisive
against any such pretension. There were originally two specific
limitations to the amending power, one of which expired in the year
1808; the other, which is still in force, provides that no State shall
in this way 'be deprived, without its consent, of its equal suffrage in
the Senate.' Of every other political power, privilege, liberty and
franchise, a State may be constitutionally deprived, _without its
consent_. And yet the States retain their _Sovereignty_ unimpaired!!!
[B] We allude to the following passage in Mrs. Barbauld's Eighteen
Hundred and Eleven.
There walks a Spirit o'er the peopled earth;
Secret his progress is, unknown his birth;
Moody and viewless as the changing wind,
No force arrests his foot, no chain can bind.
Where'er he turns the human brute awakes,
And, roused to better life, his sordid hut forsakes;
He thinks, he reasons, glows with purer fires,
Feels finer wants, and burns with new desires.
Obedient Nature follows where he leads,
The steaming marsh is changed to fruitful meads;
Then from its bed is drawn the ponderous ore;
Then Commerce pours her gifts on every shore;
Then kindles Fancy, then expands the Heart;
Then blow the flowers of Genius and of Art;
Saints, Heroes, Sages, who the land adorn,
Seem rather to descend than to be born;
While History, midst the rolls consigned to fame,
With pen of adamant inscribes their name.
The Genius now forsakes the favored shore,
And hates, capricious, what he loved before.
Then Empires fall to dust;--then arts decay,
And wasted realms enfeebled despots sway.
E'en Nature's changed:--without his fostering smile,
Ophir no gold, no plenty yields the Nile.
The thirsty sand absorbs the useless rill,
And spotted plagues from putrid fens distil.
In desert solitudes then Tadmor sleeps,
Stern Marius then o'er fallen Carthage weeps;
Then with enthusiast love the pilgrim roves
To seek his footsteps in forsaken groves,
Explores the fractured arch, the ruined tower,
Those limbs disjointed of gigantic power,
Still at each step he fears the adder's sting,
The Arab's javelin or the tiger's spring,
With doubtful caution treads the echoing ground,
And asks where Troy and Babylon are found.