334 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



permanency of our Republic and its liberal institutions. God 

 grant that we may have the wisdom to preserve them ! There 

 is great and almost universal discontent in this State at 

 the imposition of enormous duties for protection, greatly 

 beyond the actual wants of the government for legitimate 

 purposes, such as the payment of the debt, the civil list, 

 the army, navy, and other indispensable objects. It is be- 

 lieved that a tariff for protection is against the spirit of the 

 Constitution, and that it is oppressive, unequal, and unjust. 

 It is therefore very generally odious, and is weakening the 

 attachment of the South to the Union, though the value of 

 that is felt and appreciated, for you may be assured that 

 all charges of a desire to separate from the Union are 

 fables of a distempered imagination. It may ultimately 

 come to that, because our people would prefer even that 

 deplorable measure to having a government of unlimited 

 powers. At present we are divided into nearly equal parts, 

 not at all as to the evil, but as to the remedy, and to the 

 degree of forbearance. If the tariff of protection and vast 

 expenditures for internal improvements become the settled 

 policy of the government, beyond all hope of redress, the 

 separation of the Union will inevitably follow; which I 

 pray God I may not live to see 



Among the persons who had the misfortune to fall 

 under College discipline, but who did not lose their 

 respect and affection for Professor Silliman, was the 

 distinguished novelist, TVtr. Cooper. In a long letter, 

 of which a part is here given, he adds to political 

 speculations on the state of Europe some recollec- 

 tions of Yale. 



FROM MR. J. FENIMORE COOPER. 



PARIS, June 10, 1831. 



Now France is guilty of the extreme folly of 



attempting to imitate a system which is just found out to be 



