examination; and so many of them as are really blemishes will doubtless be corrected in a second edition. Such a work, involving such a multiplicity and commingling of details, and calling for a reconcilement of so many conflicting analogies and jarring authorities, could not be thrown off in a perfect form at once. Happy may the author think himself, if he makes a tolerably satisfactory approximation to perfection at the second trial.

We doubt not we have ourselves committed many oversights even in our censures a fault far less pardonable than oversights in an original essay. But as we have made our criticisms, not in any unkind or carping spirit, but simply with a desire to promote, so far as our small abilities might reach, the common cause of grammatical science, and, we may add, to contribute our modicum of aid towards the perfecting of a work which has already made so encouraging an approach towards what a Grammar of the English language ought to be; we trust our errors, too, may meet with indulgence.

The beau ideal of English Grammar never can be reached while it is treated as a mere art of parsing, a mere schoolboy's hornbook. The English language must be studied in connection with the languages that have gone before it, and especially with its own earlier forms, in its whole historical development. And not only so. It is not enough to go beyond a narrow and isolated view; it is not enough to go beyond the analogies and authorities of the classical languages even; we must also go beyond the old English and AngloSaxon, if we would have a thorough and scholarly development of English Philology. We must bring the English language into comparison with its neighbors and with languages in general — with an enlarged science of language. We shall then find that much of our private philosophizing upon the narrow data of one language, and the preconceived notions of one mind, is practically demolished by the higher philosophy of the human mind as revealed in the wonderful mechanism of universal human speech.

E. Peabody

ART. III. — 1. Jamaica in 1850: or the Effects of Sixteen Years of Freedom on a Slave Colony. By JOHN BIGELOW. Magnas inter opes inops: Horace. New York and London: George P. Putnam. 1851. 16mo. pp. 214. 2. First Annual Report of the Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia. Presented at the Annual Meeting, January 15, 1851. Boston: T. R. Marvin. 1851. 3. Abstract of the Seventh Census: Aggregate, by States, of the White, Free Colored, and Slave Population of the United States, in 1850. Published in the National Intelligencer. Washington.

It would be very surprising if the institution of Slavery were not the occasion of ceaseless discussion and agitation in the United States. It is a matter of vital interest to the South, and, indirectly, of scarcely less moment to the North. Its existence must of necessity be taken into the account as a main element in determining the policy of the General Government; political parties gravitate around it as if it were a fixed magnetic centre; it exerts a controlling influence over the industrial pursuits and relations of the country; and, what is of not less importance, creates around itself a peculiar social state and classes of interests which have been, and are likely to be, the occasion of perpetual irritation between the North and South.

It is a subject, which, above all others debated among us, ought to be treated with calmness and candor; and, happily, there seems to be prevailing a fairer and more conciliatory spirit, and a growing disposition to transfer its discussion from the tribunal of the passions to that of the judgment. The temporary lull of political excitement furnishes a fitting opportunity for presenting some of those considerations respecting the more general aspects of slavery which are essential to the formation of just conclusions, but which, in seasons of party strife, are apt to be neglected. How far and how fast is the institution of slavery susceptible of change and amelioration— what are the prospects of its being removed - and what can be done to promote its removal; - these are the great practical questions which present themselves to most minds. We

propose to consider them, partly on account of their intrinsic interest, but with a particular reference to their bearing on the subject of African colonization.

It is conceded on all hands, that the right to legislate in regard to slavery belongs exclusively to the individual States in which that institution exists. Each State has the right to abolish slavery within its own borders, and no other State is permitted to interfere with its action. The General Government may admit it into, or exclude it from, the Territories which belong to it, but its authority ceases when the Territories become States. This single fact, without reference to any thing else, shows that the direct power, both of the General Government and of the Free States over slavery, is confined within very narrow limits. Instead of the several States deriving from the Union authority to interfere with one another's domestic institutions, the organic law by which they are united excludes them from such interference, and at the same time relieves them from a corresponding responsibility.

There is, however, a limitation of our power over slavery far more invincible than any imposed by arbitrary laws or treaties, growing out of the manner in which it is wrought into the general framework of our institutions. Putting aside all questions which relate to the origin and character of slavery, and viewing it simply under its present aspects, the prominent fact which strikes one is, that it implies a certain condition of society, a stage of civilization, in which all-whites as well as blacks are implicated. Were negro slavery, as seems sometimes to be thought, a mere excrescence on the surface of society, something exceptional and alien to its general structure, it might with comparative ease be removed. But instead of its being an exceptional excrescence, it is an essential and controlling element in the whole social organization of the Southern people. It penetrates through and gives color to this organization. All the laws of the South, its customs, its industrial pursuits, its social habits, are modified by slavery. The education both of home and school, the notions of what constitutes an honorable position, the respect paid to labor, the condition of the church, the moral estimates of the true ends of life, are all, more or less, determined by it. In different ways, its

influence is equally decisive on the condition of the slaveholders, the non-slaveholders, and the slaves. The whites need to go through a training for freedom scarcely less than the blacks. The master is as much fettered to one end of the chain, as the slave to the other; and it would be difficult to say which is least prepared for emancipation.

It is obvious that to reconstruct the whole fabric of society which is what is implied in any wise method of abolishing slavery can never be the work of a day. Had the slaves been introduced a few years ago into a community whose industrial habits and social judgments and moral feelings had been formed under free institutions, they might be suddenly removed, and the transient void, soon filled, would scarcely be observed. But to change the organic life of ten millions of people, to change institutions and ideas rooted in the past and wrought into all the customs of common life, must, at the best, be a very slow and gradual process. To expunge slavery from the statute book would be the least and easiest thing required, far easier, certainly, than to legislate into the minds of whites or blacks the ideas which belong to free institutions. Were legal slavery abolished at the South, it would probably be centuries before it could be abolished from the southern mind. Even at the North, the black, though equal with the white before the law, is as far as ever from having vindicated for himself any position of social equality. In England, in spite of affinities of race, color, and general equality of culture, eight centuries have hardly effaced the distinction between Norman and Saxon, and still less that between Saxon and Celt. And thus far, all experiments in emancipation, which have left the negro in the same country with his former master, show how nearly impossible it is for either party to overcome the barriers of race, and caste, and color, and historical association, and for them to meet each other on equal terms.

Such considerations show plainly enough what formidable obstacles are in the way of all attempts to remove slavery. And, what is of still more consequence, they force upon us the conviction that any change, which deserves the name of improvement, in the social condition of a people among whom slavery exists, must, from the necessity of the case, be very gradual, and must be the result, not of revolution, but of growth.

This is, in many respects, a very sad and discouraging conclusion. There is one point of view, however, which ought not to be altogether passed by, from which the picture seems to be relieved of some portion of its depth of shadow. However deep-dyed in guilt slavery may commonly have been, both in its origin and its history, there are certain conditions of society and a certain stage of progress in which, if it be an evil, it has for the slave himself many counterbalancing advantages. If the wrong in our own country has been on the side of the whites, upon them also has fallen the heaviest part of the penalty. Jefferson, thinking of the whites, said, "I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is just." His apprehensions of the retributions of heaven are, day by day, blackening into more substantial realities. The very soil of the South is blasted by slavery, and there is not one moral or social interest which does not feel its disastrous influence. On the other hand, it can scarcely be doubted that the blacks, on the whole, have been benefited by their position. We do not mean by this that their condition might not have been more favorable than it has been; and, least of all, do we say it by way of apology for slavery. But it shows that there is an overruling Providence which educes good from evil, which makes evil correct or consume itself, and forbids it to be eternal; and, in doing this, makes us more patient with those social imperfections whose remedy is beyond our control.

The slaves of the South are, comparatively, not only a civilized people, but we doubt if, in the whole history of mankind, a single example can be adduced of a race of men starting from such a depth of moral degradation and barbarism, and in a century and a half making so vast an advance in civilization. This progress has been owing, as we believe, in no small part to the fact of their being slaves. Through this relation they have been brought into close contact with a superior race, under circumstances of restraint and excitement which have compelled them to abstain from some of the most debasing vices, to form habits of industry, and which have led them to catch rapidly the social, moral, and religious ideas of their masters. This does not extenuate the moral wrong of slavery, for it originated in no such philanthropic purpose. It is a fact, however, not to be overlooked. How great this progress has been, is seen the moment they are