multitudes of expatriated and starving Europeans, who are continually arriving on our borders, in the language of Joseph to his brethren, "fear not, it was not you who sent us hither, but God, to preserve life, and feed and settle you in the land of Goshen." Yes. The United States of America is the land of Goshen for the laboring and oppressed people of the nations of Europe. Is there not, in our position and circumstances, the indelible evidence of an overruling Providence? And if we, as true republicans, and enlightened citizens, can discern cheering indications for the future, in the present prostration of European rights and liberties; if we can find occasion for hope and anticipation of better things, amid the sufferings and wailings of our fellow mortals on the eastern continent; what shall we think-how shall we feel-and what may we not expect, when we calmly and considerately look upon our own progress and prosperity?

Let us be thankful, but let us not be too confident; if we have received much, much is looked for at our hands. We have the power of being, in deed and in truth, a model republic, a glorious commonwealth; but to use this power rightly, and to accomplish our great destiny, we may, and ought to take warning from the fate of former governments and nations, both republican and monarchical, as well as those we have now been contemplating. What is the rock upon which they have been wrecked? Selfishness!! Avarice! unbounded avarice! The governors have invariably enacted partial and unjust laws, whereby a few have been enabled to obtain enormous wealth out of the labors of the many, till at length the masses have become pauperized, debased, discontented, and miserable, and have ultimately risen in the full force of oppressed and revengeful humanity, put down and destroyed their oppressors, and instituted another, and another, and another government, down to our own days. We, however, are not like them-we are better off-we have the inestimable advantages of an almost universal system of education, and an unfettered press, and through them the bulk of our citizens are yearly improving, so that there is every reason to hope a few years will enable us to correct our present selfish theories of legislation, and be content with nothing less than free men, free-soil, free-speech, free-trade, free institutions both civil and religious, with just and equal laws.

By adopting and persevering in honest legislation, and enjoying the greatest amount of freedom, we shall become and remain the glory and admiration of the world, an example and blessing to European nations, the authors of our own happiness and prosperity, and shall receive the gratitude and benedictions of succeeding generations. This is the good time that is coming; may we, the citizens of these United States, hasten and secure it. For ourselves, we are no believers in, or expectants of any marvellous and sudden enlightenment of the public mind, either in the Eastern or Western hemisphere; but we have a firm faith in progress; and tedious, tortuous, perplexing, and disheartening, as the route may yet prove, we are willing to take the past, as a promise of a better and brighter future. We say, therefore, once for all, and in conclusion, "there's a good time coming."

POLITICAL PORTRAITS WITH PEN AND PENCIL.

HON. EMERY D. POTTER, M. C., OF OHIO.

Ir has always been a source of great satisfaction to the writer of this sketch, to contemplate the career of self-made men; for they furnish the most striking and forcible illustrations of the remarkable tendency of our institutions to lead those on to fame and fortune, who most deserve to attain these chief objects of man's exertions in every age and clime. Their lives present, at a glance, as it were, a faithful type of the most essential cause of our national prosperity; of the fact, that while we have always possessed dormant resources, equal, if not superior to those of any other people under the sun, we have also been blest with the opportunity for their development, and the energy and good sense requisite to make them most available. Ninety in every hundred men, who, in this country, have reached enviable positions in the public eye, have made themselves, by industriously applying and husbanding their physical and mental resources, persevering until success had crowned their labors, amid troubles and trials which, to the individual, were like those against which our fathers struggled, to lay the foundations of the success, prosperity and happiness with which, as a whole, our country is blessed in so eminent a degree.

Few men have risen to eminence and distinction in our republic, whose lives more faithfully portray the proneness of all things in our great West, to press on rapidly in the safe line of progress, than does that of EMERY D. POTTER, who represents the 5th district of Ohio, in the 31st Congress of the United States. He was born in Providence county, R. I., the son of Abraham Potter, a farmer in limited circumstances, of that state, which has furnished so many eminent statesmen, lawyers and merchants, to aid the giant strides of our country to its present condition. At two years of age, Mr. P. was taken by his parents to Otsego county, New-York, then well-nigh a wilderness; and there he remained, until having completed his academical education, and being prepared to enter college, circumstances interfered, which compelled him to commence the study of the law without achieving collegiate honors. He was entered in the office of the Hon. John A. Dix and Abner Cook, Jr., at Cooperstown, with whom he diligently pursued his studies until he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the state; after which, he pursued his profession at that point for two years, with much success for one of his age and experience. Finding that field already occupied by men of more mature age and well established reputations, he soon came to the conclusion that the region was "too old" to afford him the opportunity for which he longed. So, in the fall of 1835, he emigrated to Toledo, in Lucas county, Ohio, his present residence, where he immediately re-commenced the practice of the law, and soon rose to distinction, earning a high reputation as a forensic orator, and for the extent and soundness of his legal attainments. His success at the bar having indicated him as the proper person

on whom to bestow the office of Resident Judge of the 13th Judicial Circuit, he was accordingly elected, without solicitation, to that post of responsibility and honor, in February, 1839. The region embraced in his circuit, (comprising ten counties,) was the last settled part of the state-the north-west-an eighth of the whole vast territory of Ohio. In the discharge of the duties of this office, he was compelled for five years to travel these counties on horseback, swimming creeks when the waters were high, and at times laying out in the woods, when that might be necessary to enable himto meet his professional engagements. Indeed, as in all new countries, the history of his judicial career was marked with hair-breadth escapes from perils which, though lightly regarded in the western country, would not be encountered by professional gentlemen of older communities, for many times the meager compensation usually accorded to judges in the great north-west. In the discharge of these duties, Mr. Potter of course become very extensively acquainted with the people of the circuit, upon whose regard he so won, that in the fall of 1843 he was nominated and elected to Congress by a handsome majority; the district having been previously represented by a whig, which party had always been victorious there, by from five to six hundred majority. A few months before this election, he married Mary A., the daughter of Thomas Card, Esq., a merchant of Willoughby, O., one of the earliest, as well as one of the most respected, prosperous, and public-spirited citizens of that region of the state. taking his seat in Congress, though declining to make long speeches of a party character, his excellent sense, quickness of apprehension, good temper, and general knowledge of all the great issues between the parties at that era, soon caused him to be regarded as one of the leaders of the democracy upon the floor, on all delicate and difficult occasions.

On

Those knowing Washington, are well aware that the representative of greatest weight in the Hall, is by no means the gentleman who makes the most set speeches. In fact, "talking members" usually injure causes they take in hands; a quiet, well-poised rejoinder, brief sentences, from the man of few words, known to the House to understand its business thoroughly, and as not being disposed to trespass upon its patience, being usually sufficient to do away with the effect of the most dashing speech that can be delivered upon a really debatable question. It is certainly true, that then, as at present, those who effected most in the way of shaping the final decision of the House, upon questions in which the future of the country was deeply involved, were gentlemen whose interference in any matter on hand was a sure guarantee that it was being approached only after careful investigation and due deliberation.

Thus, in the anxious, early efforts of the democracy of Congress, to ef fect the repeal of the tariff of 1842, no other gentleman exerted a more wide-spread influence in concentrating the opinion and labors of our political friends in favor of the free-trade principles which triumphed upon our banner in 1844. The records of that Congress are replete with the history of the effect of his mind and character upon his fellow-members, in the general adoption by his political friends of his suggestions upon this and its kindred subject, the graduation of the price of the public lands, to which his attention was early and closely turned. Mr. Potter was placed upon the select committee, to consider and report upon the best method for carrying out the will of the Philanthropist, Smithson,

and after a thorough investigation of the subject, he joined Mr. Adams in his famous report, which in fact formed the foundation of all the subsequent legislation of Congress, enacted with the view to render this noble charity, available for the purpose designed to diffuse knowledge among

men.

In the spring of 1845, at the end of his congressional term, Mr Potter returned home, an invalid, having contracted a dangerous and distressing bronchitis while discharging his duties in Washington. He was so afflicted with this affection, as for the two succeeding years, as to have been in a great measure incapacitated from active business pursuits, although occasionally he was enabled to continue the practice of his profession before the courts of his former judicial circuits.

In March, 1847, death deprived him of his wife on the day after their youngest son was carried to the grave. These sad bereavements injured his health to such an extent, that he has not yet recovered from the blow. In the fall of the same year, though in no condition to undergo the trials of a western canvass, Judge Potter was nominated and elected, reluctantly consenting to serve his county (Lucas) in the state Legislature. The momentous importance of the questions at issue, however, overruled his objections to serve. These were, the future policy of the state with reference to the banks, and the unconstitutional apportionment law subsequently surreptitiously enacted by the whig party. On both of these it was early and correctly anticipated that there would be a struggle between the parties of far greater severity than had ever before occurred in the Legislature of Ohio.

There are points in the history of this struggle worthy of the attention of those who are interested in the progress of the public mind towards the goal of the liberal American statesman. Towards that point of improvement in our system, at which we shall only arrive after having incorporated therein all the grand and philanthropic ideas which Thomas Jefferson advocated, and so ably defended against the assaults of those of his day, who wrote and spoke in the cause of special privilege. In no other state of this Union have the privileged few struggled harder against reform; though the hour is at length fast approaching, when they must relinquish all their ill-gotten advantages over the mass of their fellowcitizens of Ohio; for public opinion has become so aroused to the evils of the anti-republican, and labor-crushing tendencies of their veteran abuses, that when the reform may be achieved, it will be sweeping indeed.

In the session of 1843 and '44, the bank law of Ohio, now in existence, was enacted; under it, the capital stock of the banks of the state was exempted from taxation, they being required only to pay a tax of six per centum per annum upon what they might see fit to return as their profits.

In the session of 1847 and '48, it became necessary to re-arrange the general tax law, and Judge Potter brought forward an amendment thereto, which gave rise to the present Ohio bank controversy. This was, to tax the banks pro rata with other descriptions of property-assessing them neither more nor less than the farmer or the merchant was compelled to pay into the state treasury on his stock in trade. The whigs, to a man, took ground against the proposed reform, alleging that the legislature possessed no power to alter or amend (in this connection) the action of the previous legislature which had granted the bank charters. The

cry of "vested rights" at once went up from all parts of the state in defence of the banks, whose owners, according to their neverfailing custom, brought the voices and pens of their debtors, attornies and editors, to aid the efforts of their agents in the Legislature to defeat the proposition of Judge P. The struggle that winter was severe indeed. Judge Potter and his fellow democratic members contended that the power to tax, to alter, or at any time to arrange the rates of taxation, was at the basis of all government; that one Legislature could not deprive a succeeding one of the power to tax any description of property in the state. They held that the bank advocates might, with as much propriety, claim that any or all personal or real estate in Ohio, should be exempt for ever from bearing a fair portion of the expenses of the state government, as to maintain that all bank stocks should be exempted from taxation.

The whigs were in a majority of this Legislature, and, as a consequence, our friends failed to incorporate their desired provision in the law, and the banks yet continue to pay into the treasury but six per cent. on their profits. This unjust exemption is the more odious to the mass of the people of the state, from the fact that it is well known that the stock of most of their banks is held by a few wealthy individuals, who employ their own relatives, or are themselves the nominal officers of their" institutions" at enormous salaries; thus eluding most of the small tax which they pretend to pay upon their nett profits. It is also beyond dispute, that more or less of these stock-holding bank managers nett really twenty-five per cent. per annum upon their capital invested, which is rarely returned as yielding even six.

In this controversy Judge Potter occupied the distinguished position of the democratic leader of the House, and with the assistance of his political co-laborers, shed so much light upon the iniquity of the banking system as well as of that particular bank law of the state, as to induce the party to declare with great unanimity against the banks one and all. To this day his anti-bank ball has been rolling, until not only nearly every democrat of Ohio, but a considerable wing of their opponents, are now enlisted and vigorously contending under the banner of bank reform, with every prospect of at least placing all the Ohio banks, in their relations to the public, upon the footing of individuals and all chartered copartnerships.

At the same session, (1847-8,) the whigs created a sinking fund to pay the state debt of twenty millions by a system of taxation, looking to that end alone. This was to collect for that purpose in the first year $200,000, in the next $212,000, and in the third year a sum sufficient to amount to $212,000 and interest thereon-adding each year interest upon the amount collected the year before, to that sum. As this bill is arranged, the state debt will be paid near about the period when the charters of the banks expire; thus affording those owning bank stocks an opportunity to escape altogether the taxation for the liquidation of the debt to which all other property-holders are subjected.

Judge Potter, though strongly in favor of paying off the debt of the state, by the creation of a sinking fund, strenuously opposed this bill, because it was neither honest nor just, inasmuch as that it exempted by far the most profitable description of property in the State from paying a penny of this new tax. On these two questions and a third, the two great parties of Ohio have been divided, contending upon them with far greater earnestness than