THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR OCTOBER, 1835.

Art. I. 1. The Rambler in North America: MDCCCXXXIIMDCCCXXXIII. By Charles Joseph Latrobe, Author of the Alpenstock, &c. 2 vols. sm. 8vo. pp. 658. Price 16s. London, 1835.

2. Tour of the American Lakes, and among the Indians of the NorthWest Territory in 1830: disclosing the Character and Prospects of the Indian Race. By C. Colton. In two volumes. 12mo. pp. xxxii. 704. Price 18s. London, 1833.

3. New England and her Institutions. By One of her Sons. Sm. 8vo. pp. 393. London, 1835.

4. The American Almanack and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1835. Boston, U.S.

IF

F the influence of public opinion in this country is to be brought to act with any force or beneficial effect upon the Transatlantic community, it must be public opinion competently informed as to the real state of things, and directed by a judicious discrimination of the good and evil which are found co-existing, as every where else, in American Society and American Institutions. The aspect of the Federal Republic at this moment is one which might seem almost to menace the breaking up of the social system. All the powers of government seem to be weakened. Popular tumults, oligarchical atrocities, negro conspiracies, commercial embarrassments, party conflicts, and general agitation seem to have overspread the whole of the Union; and the more intelligent and thoughtful of her citizens are beginning to express their doubt and wonder where all this is to end. This comes of Republicanism,' says one wiseacre in this country. Such are the consequences of having no ecclesiastical establishment,' says another. Yes, see what it is to have no house of lords, and a senate without bishops,' says a third! Now, gentlemen,' said Sir Robert Peel, at the recent Tamworth dinner, after adverting

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to the distressing statements contained in the American papers if you will only bear in mind what has been the issue of similar experiments, you will not very much indulge with a popular government.' What, then! have similar disorders never occurred under monarchical and despotic governments? There have been riots at Baltimore: have there not been riots in Berlin? Lynch-law has been inflicted upon a gang of gamblers at Vicksburg: were there not as lawless and atrocious proceedings against the Jews, the other day, at Hamburg? Or, to come nearer home, does Sir Robert forget the church and king mob of Birmingham in 1791, or the No-Popery riots of 1780? How shallow and delusive, then, is the declamation-argument we cannot call it-which makes the popular constitution of the American government chargeable with evils occurring under every form of government, but which, in the American Republic, are confessedly a phenomenon.

When we come to look a little more closely into the origin and nature of the disorders referred to, we shall find that they are neither directed against the Government, nor indicative of any weakness or relaxation of the governing power. The civil feuds in the North find their parallel in the fierce contest which was excited in this country by the first efforts of a virtuous band of philanthropists to obtain the legislative abolition of the Slave Trade. The treatment which Mr. Clarkson, in particular, met with from the people of Liverpool and Bristol fifty years ago, was not very different from that which Mr. Thomson has had to encounter from the Anti-abolitionists on the other side of the Atlantic. His life was repeatedly threatened; and on one occasion, he appears to have had a narrow escape of being thrown over the pier-head at Liverpoolt. Next, as to the servile wars in the South. The governments of South Carolina and Georgia are as 'popular,' and about as enlightened, as the legislatures of Jamaica and Barbadoes; and the Federal Government of the United States is not one whit more responsible for the atrocious legislation of those vile aristocrasies of slave-holders, than the British Government is for the murder of the Missionary Smith, the burning of the Baptist chapels in Jamaica, or the iniquities

With civil feuds in the North, tumultuous proceedings of anarchical and fatal character in the West, and a servile war in the South, to say nothing of the factious and incendiary spirit which has lately broken out in the various parts of our Atlantic border, the country does in truth exhibit a spectacle to the European nations, which, we fear, will be commented upon in a way not calculated to recommend the example of a popular government.' New York Evening Post, as cited by Sir Robert Peel.

+ Clarkson's History, Vol. I. p. 409.

of the colonial penal code. The squabble between the two States of Ohio and Michigan about their respective boundaries, might, in old Europe, with a standing army on either side, especially if the belligerent principalities were backed by neighbouring powers, grow into a very pretty seven years' war; but, on the other side of the Alleghanies, such an affair is not likely to breed more serious consequences to the Federal Union, than could result to the crown of Great Britain from a dispute between the Hudson's Bay Company and the people of Canada about their frozen territories.

Ignorance or inconsideration alone can adduce these occurrences as a proof that, in America, there is any deficiency of the controlling power which belongs to what is termed a strong government. Those who imagine that the power of the people is absolute in the United States, will find it difficult to reconcile with that notion, the conduct of the present President, who put the strength of the constitution to a severe test in opposing, on the Bank question, the decision of the Congress, and, by the sole force of his prerogative, defeated the most powerful combination that ever arrayed itself against the Executive since the formation of the Union. Imagine a similar exertion of the prerogative on the part of the Minister of the Crown in this country, in opposition to Parliament and the commercial interest! What an outcry would it occasion against the Minister! Or, if it were known to be the personal act of the King, what murmurs would be heard against the stretch of prerogative! Old Hickory' has shewn himself, as to the power of government, every inch a king'; and we discover in recent occurrences no proofs of any disloyalty on the part of the American people towards the executive.

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But the want of governing power, it may be said, is to be seen, not so much in the general government as in that of the several States. We ask for the evidence. Is it to be found in the tyrannical edicts, rigidly enforced, against freedom of religious worship, the liberty of the press, and the education of the slaves in the southern States? Even in the northern States, the laws are sufficiently severe, and the authority of the executive has always been respected. It is true, there have been riots. In some parts of New York and New England, we are told, Irish "Papists have been hunted and mobbed'; and in Washington, the houses of some free negroes have been demolished by the anti-abolitionists. But an American might justly retort, that we have had Spa-fields riots, and Bristol riots, and Nottingham riots, and Dublin riots, in the old country; and the spirit of our Orangemen is very much like that which has broken out against the countrymen of O'Connell in America. Lawlessness and insubordination of this character, however, prove nothing more than a defective police, which does not necessarily imply either

an inherent weakness in the Government or a general disloyalty in the people. The police of the slave-holding States is indeed as strong as need be. And, generally speaking, the assertion that in America there is a laxity in the laws, or a want of energy in administering them', is as contrary to fact, as the hypothesis which refers that assumed fact to the popular constitution of the Government is to common sense and experience.

The causes which are at this moment producing political agitation throughout every section of the Union, and filling the minds of the most thoughtful with alarm and perplexity, are such as, by the righteous ordination of Heaven, have ever wrought mischief and ruin to the community in whose social system they have inhered. In a word, the existence of SLAVERY, with its concomitant evils, will of itself account for all the feuds, and tumults, and jealousies which are menacing the peace of America, and the permanence of the Union. Upon this point, it is with no ordinary satisfaction that we find our statements fully sustained by the forcible representation of One of her Sons.' There is', says the intelligent author of "New England and her Institutions", but one opinion in New England, as to the iniquity of the system, the horrors with which it is replete, and 'the inevitable ruin which must accrue, if the evil be not speedily removed:

'It is true, that different individuals feel with different degrees of intensity upon this subject. Some are so excited and agitated by the appalling facts which are continually brought to light, that they are unable to reason soberly, or to speak calmly upon the subject. Others fold their arms in the indolent belief that nothing can be done, and that all effort is unavailing. Those, however, who feel most deeply interested in the subject, and whose consciences will not allow them to slumber when such a system of cruelty and injustice prevails in the land, are divided into two parties, the friends of colonization and the enemies of colonization. These parties are marshalled under the names of the Colonization Society and the Anti-slavery Society.'

After stating, with much candour and fairness, the counterreasonings of the two adverse parties, both professing to be alike anxious for the extinction of slavery, the Writer proceeds to say, that many of the former friends of colonization have become convinced of the futility of that plan, and are now its decided opponents.

Still, at the present moment, the great mass of the intellectual and moral worth of the land is decidedly in favour of colonization. The Anti-slavery Society has been, however, during the past year, and now is, rapidly gaining converts from its numbers. Not a few are greatly perplexed respecting the path of duty... ... Such is the present state of the public mind in New England upon this agitating question; and society here is agitated upon it, to its very centre. The

waters of the body politic are troubled. A storm is gathering, upon which many are looking with fear and dread. What the result will be, He only knows who rides upon the tempest, and who rules the elements. There are not a few who fear that, without some providential interposition, bloodshed must finally ensue. Slavery is the fruitful source of nearly all our national difficulties. This great national sin is continually exciting suspicion, and producing alienation between the South and the North. It is the origin of the Tariff strife, and the parent of Nullification. There is many a northerner who is resolved to give himself no rest, till every slave in the land goes free. There is many a southerner who is resolved to see the Union severed, and his wife, and his children, and himself weltering in blood, before he will submit to northern interference.

The prospect before us is a dark one. Our only hope is in the interposition of that God who has already carried us through so many scenes of danger. The Lord has not a few in the land who are the self-denying followers of his Son. Their prayers are daily directed to Him, that He will avert the approaching calamity. It cannot, it must not be, that our country will long be disgraced with so foul a stain. Such a comment upon our Declaration of Independence, such a caricature of our loud-vaunted freedom, cannot long be endured. God is overwhelming us with shame in view of the inconsistency. The clanking of chains is heard at the very door of our Capitol. The negro-driver cracks his whip, as he passes the senators and representatives in the streets of Washington. The husband and the wife, the mother and the child, are sold at public auction in our southern cities, and by the power of the lash torn from each other's embrace, and carried into hopeless bondage, never again to meet. Can such things long exist in a land of Bibles, and of Sabbaths, and of the preached Gospel? At this enlightened period of the world, and in a country feeling, as America does, the influence of the light, and the learning, and the piety of other lands, is it possible that slavery, in all these its most revolting features, can long be sustained? It surely is impossible: some means must be, and will be devised to remove the curse, and to let the oppressed go free.

The noble stand which England has made, with all her heavy burden of debt, in assuming new and weighty responsibilities, that the slaves of her colonies may be liberated, has produced an impression in this country which can never be obliterated. It has quickened the zeal of those who were already zealous. It has aroused the slumbering energies of many who have heretofore been dormant. It has given to our country a solitude of eminence in guilt which is far from enviable. ... The Anti-slavery Society is comparatively small, and as uninfluential in the character of its leaders. But it is progressing with a rapidity that is astonishing. Every day witnesses its triumphs. Every movement augments its ranks. Every appeal increases its converts. Judging from the results of the past year, it would not be strange to me, if in two years it should increase in numbers and in influence so as to outstrip the Colonization Society..... Now the press begins to lift its voice in louder and still louder thunders; the pulpit begins to plead more earnestly; the mind of the community is excited, intensely