Daily National Intelligencer

THE OLIVE BRANCH.

It has afforded us particular satisfaction to observe that the work called the Olive Branch, written by Mr. Carey of Philadelphia, has had so wide a circulation throughout the United States. No work could more richly have deserved it. Its merit is peculiar and of a very high order. It is written with an energetic, enlightened and patriotic pen, and animated by a spirit altogether candid and national. For real utility we scarcely think it possible that any work of similar compass could go beyond it. And fortunately its compass is extensive, comprehending the largest and most interesting portions of our civil history since the adoption of the federal constitution.

The author has aimed to instruct rather than to please. He compels conviction throughout every page of his discussion. It is not upon his own genius merely, prompt and prolific as it appears to be, that he relies. He has fortified himself step by step as he goes along upon the authentic and immovable basis of public documents, legislative statutes, and state papers of every description and always of the most pertinent and forcible application. Hence the potency of his work. Hence its unanswerable, overwhelming character.

We speak in the general, for we cannot as to all his points, and where he has so many this is not at all remarkable, concede him our judgment; yet we think the book characterised by an almost entire aspect of good sense, undeniable fact, and irresistible argument. He has prostrated in the dust the faction of Boston federalism; shown beyond all power of contradiction its folly, its wickedness, its inconsistencies, its blunders, its stupidity. The work is so richly loaded with interesting and luminous matter from the solemn laws of the land from General Washington's time downwards, from the files of Congress, from the diplomatic correspondence, from all the ranges of the public offices, from the debates of the legislative hall, and in short from every accessible fountain of the best information, and all bearing with so conclusive a weight upon the ignorance or the wilfulness of most of the tenets of federalism, propagated during the war, that no citizen of the United States who really seeks for political instruction should remain without a copy of it. It will be found an admirable compendium, supplying, especially to those who are without many books, the place of volumes, and serving to all as a most convenient and satisfactory epitome of knowledge not to be attained but by laborious and often vexatious investigations. With singular propriety and zeal of selection, and persevering and successful industry, the author has gone through these investigations which few other men would have been at the pains to do, and the result of his labors is well, very well, worth a place in every library. Some of the metaphysicians teach that the judgment acts necessarily when proper lights are before it, like the will; that it cannot withhold its inward assent, at least, to truth. We believe that if a law could pass obliging every federalist to read this book, the happiest effects would be produced. The film would drop from the eyes of thousands, and the case-hardened feel alarmed.

Since the fall, it has passed through four editions, if we are rightly informed. This is a rare thing in our country, and bespeaks the impression which it has made upon the public mind. We believe a fifth has been called for, and is now preparing. May it continue to circulate and produce more abundantly its good fruit.

Mr. Carey has rendered essential benefits to the community, and is entitled to the thanks of every enlightened and patriotic member of it.