But, if the old spirit exist, it is not so manifest as it once was. It is not. Here at last we find common ground to stand upon. Let us now consider the problem calmly, and its solution will not prove very difficult. To my mind, it appears susceptible of demonstration. What we want is simply to have the case given as it exists, and then to be permitted to apply to it acknowledged principles of human nature. If we could forget that we are considering a contemporaneous question, it would be all the better. Let us look at it as if it were a statement in Herodotus or an hypothetic fable propounded by Socrates on the rocks of Sunium.

No species of authority is submitted to readily, and as a matter of course. To support it there must be either an exertion of irresistible power, or a controlling moral influence. The latter is the more effective, and is usually called in aid even when the presence of the other seems to render it superfluous. Those who wear crowns and wield sceptres, endeavor also to throw around their persons a semi-sacred halo. England herself, who boasts a constitution as firm "as the proud Keep of Windsor and its coeval towers," does not scruple to acknowledge, in the maxim that her King can do no wrong, one of the best guarantees of her stability.

The more unnatural the relation between the governor and the governed, the greater the need of a strong force of some sort to preserve it. Once it was held that a father should have absolute power over the life and limb of his son, in order to keep him in subjection. Subsequently the world found that an authority less despotic would suffice. Since the connection between parent and child is the simplest and most natural of all, it stands in least want of extrinsic support. The State, which is a more artificial institution, has been compelled to assume the power which is not needed at the domestic hearth. Magistrates bear the sword, and have frequent occasion to show that they bear it not in vain.

But there is no relation more unnatural than that of master and slave. If the king, the parent, and the Commonwealth, require the aid of what, for want of a more strictly appropriate team, is called a moral

the master require it. And the power of

this moral influence is almost incredible. A Mississippian plantation is by no means an extreme example. Let one meditate on the social condition of ancient Attica. There, the serf was not inferior in physical development, nor strikingly so in intellectual capacity-there was there no broad, impassible separation of color.

The influence to which reference is made can do wonders where full scope is given. Yet is it a sensitive thing, and will not bear to be tampered with. Destroy it, and only a single alternative is left-that is severity-relentless severity. In the early period of American Slavery, authority was supported by the iron hand. The master has, by degrees, stripped himself of the stern coercive power with which he was invested. Once it was law in Virginia, that if a master or other person appointed by him, should, in the act of punishment, chance to kill his slave, he should be "acquit of molestation." This statute, as well as others like it, has been repealed. The law is now nearly as regardful of the security of the black man as of the white, and public sentiment goes further than the law. A runaway slave who killed a white man attempting to arrest him, has received as charitable a construction from the community as the most dispassionate philanthopist could ask. It was held that the man not designing to commit the homicide was guiltless. This was favor which the common law would not have shown.

The slave looks up to his owner, frequently with affection, always with reverence. He acknowledges the authority because he sees nothing which shocks or contravenes it. The same principle renders the servant dutiful, and allows the master to be lenient. Let this subtile, impalpable influence be disturbed, and what follows? The startled master is like one awakened from a state of Arabian enchantment. Surrounding objects suddenly put on a strange and frightful hue. He has long ago cast away that stern material armor. which was once his safe-guard. Yet is not his situation desperate, though it imposes on him a responsibility from which his nature. shrinks. The sharp old weapons are not familiar to his hand, but they are still within reach. He must resume the temper

with which men used to greet Hawkins as he unloaded his cargoes on the strand of Hispaniola.

This crisis has not come-the harsher alternative is not yet in requisition. The possibility of the approach of that dark day is, however, forseen. Convinced that a danger threatens, the Southern people esteem it their duty to be watchful. Hence that conduct apparently inconsistent with their former declared and still heart-felt sentiments. Truth they know is the same every where, but circumstances may exist potent enough to qualify the utterance of truth. We can speak words at Washington which would be treason at Westminster. Britons are not therefore serfs or feudal bondsmen, though we are in a happier position than they. That all men are born with the same absolute rights is as clear an abstract verity in Virginia as in Massachusetts. Yet the safety of the community forbids this article of political faith to be proclaimed at the one latitude in tones quite as loud as it may be at the other. If the soil of Massachusetts be esteemed the more fortunate on that account, this consideration, it is evident, is far from proving that the distinction does not exist. Comparisons of this kind, whether intentionally invidious, or advanced only by way of argument, are equally out of place. When of the former character, they are unchristian and inhuman, because insults to those who are laboring under an inevitable dispensation of Providence; when a logical aspect is put on, they are utterly futile-extreme instances of the fallacy of Ignoratio elenchi.

The slaveholder has a reason for caution. If this caution be carried somewhat to excess, the fact ought to excite neither surprise nor anger in the breast of any one who has studied the nature of man. Furthermore, is it not a legitimate inquiry how far those who stand at a distance from the scene are qualified to estimate the necessities which it involves? The Northern Statesman is tempted to judge a measure by no other standard than its mere irrelative justice. In other words, he is liable to the error of private interpretation-an error that exists not less really in politics than in theology-an error reprehended by Thucydides as well as by Peter.

Take for example, the abolition of slain the District of Columbia. What at

very

first sight appears to the speculative observer more reasonable? How fit, in the nature of things, it is, that the Government of the freest nation on earth should have its seat on free ground! What hurt can it be to the South that the "area of liberty" should receive the trifling enlargement of two or three score of square miles? While so large a surface of the map is covered with States privileged to slavery, wherefore the outcry on account of a mere speck whose brief dimensions the eye can hardly recognize?

Yet, behold, what a stroke this seemingly innocent measure would be to that moral influence which, as we have seen, is the slave-holder's chief reliance. Think of it as the establishment, in the heart of the South, of a place to which every discontented slave could turn his eyes—a sanctuary for refugees-a Whitefriars !

There may be men, however, on the free-soil side who have attained such a sublime apathy as to be quite indifferent to any perils which may menace the white population of the South. No consideration, arising from this view of the matter, is capable of placing the slightest restraint upon their inclination to carry abstract theory to the utmost length. Indeed all the sympathy of which they are capable, is enlisted in behalf of the negro; he is the most debased and least endowed with sensibility and judgment, and therefore should monopolize all the intellectual and moral superfluities of the outside world. What though the foundations of a social organization be upturned? What though the mild, yet mighty element which gives the master such easy control over the servant be annihilated? Selfishness says, 'tis naught to us : Pseudo-philanthropy says:-We ought not to regret that the slave will have an opportunity of struggling-even through blood and fire-to his freedom.

SINCE the days when the celebrated novels of Sir Walter Scott were issued from the Edinburgh press, and heralded forth to the eager and admiring world as productions from the magic pen of the unknown "Author of Waverley," no work has created such high expectations or been read with such lively enthusiasm as that now before us. Indeed, it has been rather devoured than read, and seems to have been sought after, (if we may be pardoned the expression in connexion with so popular a book,) more with the desire to gratify an ephemeral curiosity than with a view to solid improvement. This species of furor is harmless and tolerable when produced by the pompous annunciation of a new novel from Bulwer or Alexandre Dumas; but it is very apt, if not quite sure, to prove fatal in the end and consequences, to the permanent popularity and esteem of a grave history and more especially of a history of England. The impressions of fiction are pleasing, light, and transient, and even where a novel is deficient as to style and sound moral instruction, the interest of the story, if only tolerably sustained, will rescue it from harsh or condemnatory judgment. But it is far different with a work of history. Diffuseness of style, sparkling sentences, entertaining and brilliant episodes, occasional and tasteful metaphors, will do well in romance, and it is mainly in romance that such things are looked for by the refined lovers of literature. In a work of history these all, in our humble judgment, are both untasteful and sadly out of place, especially if the author's ambition is directed less to ephemeral popularity and to the desire for speedy profits, than to a lasting fame and lofty place among historians who will be read in after ages as reliable for authority and reference, as well as

for useful instruction. We shall be much deceived if the brilliant and gifted author of the work now before us, does not experience the truth of the above remarks before many years will have passed. We are much mistaken if Mr. Macaulay does not soon find that his hopes of greatest fame must rather be reposed on those splendid Selections and Miscellanies, recently collected and published from among his numerous contributions to the Edinburgh Review, than upon this work of greater labor and higher expectations. The first may challenge not admiration only, but the severest and harshest scrutiny also, as to beauty, novelty and terseness of style, acute and unequalled powers of criticism, splendor of description, correctness and vigor of judgment, and rare fertility and chasteness of imagination. Besides all this, the Miscellanies are replete with sound lessons of instruction in ethics, the sciences, and politics. They abound with nice and elaborate illustrations of human character in all its features, and of human nature in all its aspects. All of this description of writing that we find in his history, we shall find previously and better done in his Misellanies. Nor is Mr. Macaulay at all singular in the notion, if, indeed, he has chosen to rest his reputation on the work which has cost him most time and labor, in preference to what he doubtless deems his lighter productions. Both Petrarch and Boccaccio were engaged for years in writing ponderous volumes of Latin on which to repose their fame, and through the medium of which they had fondly expected to be handed down to a remote posterity. Yet these works of labor are scarcely known, never or very rarely read, and are passing from. all connexion or association with their names; whilst the Sonnets of the first, and