I heartily accept the motto, -"That government is best whichgoverns least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidlyand systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, whichalso I believe-"That government is best which governs not atall;" and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind ofgovernment which they will have. Government is at best but anexpedient; but most governments are usually, and all governmentsare sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have beenbrought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against astanding government. The standing army is only an arm of thestanding government. The government itself, which is only themode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equallyliable to be abused and perverted before the people can actthrough it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work ofcomparatively a few individuals using the standing government astheir tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consentedto this measure.This American government, -what is it but a tradition, though arecent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitalityand force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to hiswill. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves; and, ifever they should use it in earnest as a real one against each other, itwill surely split. But it is not the less necessary for this; for thepeople must have some complicated machinery or other, and hearits din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposedon, even impose on themselves, for their own advant