OR The Last Days of the 9 merican Republic. BY INVISIBLE SAM. Renbein love Unknown he lived, unenvied, not unblest ; ROGERS. NEW YORK : 115 AND 117 NASSAU STREET. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1856, by HALL & WILLSON, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. STEREOTYPED BY PETER DUNCAN, 22 Spruce Street. : INTRODUCTION. In the month of May, 1856, I was walking leisurely toward the battery. A gentle breeze came from the west-the full moon was directly over my head, and the light was almost the splendor of a cloudless day. I sought the spot where once the stairs were placed on which the stranger steps as he lands on our soil. I found the place, and stood mute as I gazed in astonishment on all around me. What a change was the exclamation that escaped from my lips ! Here, where I now stand, Washington once stood ! An eminent poet has said that the spirit of Poetry, if the goddess ever visits the earth in a visible form, would here hold her court. Alas, he did not know wbat wicked aldermen could do ! The evening previous I bad called with a friend at the house at which a spiritual medium had arrived, and a few believers had called to congratulate the empiric. To exhibit bis powers as a revealing medium, he gave conversations with Bacon, Washington, Franklin, Clinton, Webster, and others; and he |