What Stewart’s New York emporium is to shoppers for goods, the Constitution of the United States is to shoppers for civil and political rights. There one may find whatever he is in quest of, and may very often see things, beautiful in texture, color, and quality, which he would never require, even if he lived as long as his long-winded ancestor Methuselah. On his very first entrance, he will stop to look at that very handsome fringe, “the preamble,” woven together in such exquisite tissue-work. As he examines it, he will note the quality of the material, the even strands “more perfect union,” “justice,” “domestic tranquillity,” “common defence,” “general welfare,” “blessings of liberty,” braided together by the deft, expert, and strong fingers of the people of the United States “for themselves” and “their posterity,”—a bit of domestic hand-weaving which has now lasted over fourscore years, and is still bright in color, and, although much handled and tumbled about, just as good as new. Patterns have been taken from it, and cheap imitations attempted; but these latter are just as easy of detection as cottonized linen, dyed hair, or carminized blushes. [Illustration: THE STATE TAKES LEAVE OF THE COLONY. (p. 314) ] There, too, one finds readily and in abundance heavy cloths for the country’s wear through the wintry storms of financial distress, foreign wars, or domestic insurrection; ready-made clothing for legislative and executive use; white linen goods for the judges, as stainless as snow, although not quite as cheap; a great variety of under-garments to fit the powers of Congress, and a large assortment of hosiery to encase with restrictive woof its rapid understandings. As one advances, he finds a miscellaneous collection of rights; patent contrivances to give people in one State the same expansion, weight, and solidity as in another; admirably adjusted devices for catching persons with colored skins, when attempting to run off with them over boundary lines,—a device ingeniously stamped “labor-saving machines,”—an article in great demand between 1850 and 1861 in the southern portion of the Union. On the same counter lie _habeas corpus_ non-suspenders, a strap occasionally called for by passionate judges and choleric magistrates; tacks, which can only be driven in all over the surface of America up to the same point; muzzles over legislative bills and hungry congressmen, to prevent them from pecking at the estates of people politically decapitated, and from whetting up the keen edge of _ex post facto_ laws; handsome checks on the treasury; good bills of lading, current in all the ports of the Union, if at any time introduced in any one of them; specimens of gold and silver, made very tender in all the States, especially during a time of plenty, and before a war; and a large variety of odd gear, to prevent people from getting into, or, if in, out of, trouble.