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with its arbitrary dispositions, and the reso- | unless we are to consider them alone the lutions formed by the Diet at Frankfort in sole perfection of human nature, must have 1831, but which were not published until greater interest than their superiors in effi ct1832. What a singular scene must that ing a change; and consequently, that conDiet have presented, at which the English servation and variation are both equally selfish. minister presented remonstrances in the To build a form of government on any other naine of his king against resolutions to basis than this principle of selfishness would which his Hanoverian colleague, in the be attempting an abstract perfection, not an name of the same king, gave his consent and adaptation to mankind as now constituted; and affixed his signature! would therefore be useless, as all attempts at realizing this beau-ideal have proved.

but the present case offers an opportunity of examination into the proceeding itself; and, from all that appears on this head, we have no hesitation in saying that the hostile impression, wherever existing, is decidedly premature.

We have now gone at considerable length into the history of the later Hanoverian The assumption, then, that those who changes, repudiating to the best of our conduct governments, are in general more power the assumption of any marked tone, blind or more selfish than the rest of the or party feeling, throughout the whole de- world, is manifestly groundless; and if we tail. We have referred, for the spirit of in-are to take particular instances, these at least quiry into existing political abuses, to the should be approached and examined with French revolution, but rather as the first candor. To judge of an act of the ruler, as obvious and exaggerated development of in the case of the Hanoverian patent, merely that spirit, than as itself originating principles by the effect it has produced on one portion which in reality grew out of the progress of of the people, is assuredly unjust. Feelings society, and of which the revolution was can be adopted as the measure of facts only only the perverted child. In the continuous when there is no other criterion to judge by: progress of nations, and the consequent ceaseless increase of those complications which necessarily arise from hourly multiply ing interests and eternally extending ramifications of thought, fresh views and feelings must unceasingly spring up in society, and its very nature materially change. But to refer these changes to the sagacity of any particular school, or the vehemence of any particular explosion, is only, we submit, mistaking the effect for the cause, and asking our gratitude not for the source, but the misdirection of principles. The impulses so generally referred to the French revolution had their origin long before; in the gradual enlightenment of the age: but it is a singular hypothesis to assume that this, confessedly general, enlightenment, was only partial and confined to the lower ranks of society instead of being participated by the upper also. It would be difficult to devise a reason why the latter, who possess in a higher degree the advantages of education, should yet be ignorant of truths so obvious, guides of our judgments? as is pretended, to their inferiors. The We must further be allowed to observe, classes in whom the power of a government that we shall here endeavor to avoid mislead. is generally vested could scarcely be more ing ourselves or others, by a misapplication ignorant than those beneath them. And are of terms. The apparent meaning of the they more selfish and interested? Has Na word popular refers to the People itself, yet ture two sets of feelings and passions? The its general use refers, not to the People but upper ranks, it is said, are more concerned the Populace: that lighter portion of a in the conservation of an existing order of solid mass which flies off at every breath, things; and this in proportion to the per- and atones for want of weight by levity and sonal interests they hold in the state. This agitation. We have therefore through is undeniable, or else their possession of out this article, substituted the term Demoproperty would be of no use to the com- cratic in its purest sense, as better convey. munity at large. The inferior classes are ing the idea of those extreme opinions, which less concerned, and this from their inferior give their stamp to the system of opposition interests it follows, therefore, that these, to the Government.

We must first simply state the facts of the case, observing preliminarily that if a Government is necessarily slow to effectuate a change in its own constitution, the cause may fairly be attributed rather to doubt of the propriety of such change, and a sense of the difficulties attendant on it, together with a salutary distrust of an untried system, than to the mere want of information as to principles. The Government of a country too is always answerable, the people never, for the measures adopted there. The supporters of innovation, who adopted an opposite course from different motives, as we have shown, have therefore no right to assume for themselves an exclusive wisdom or disinterestedness. How then can we take their views as the sole basis, their impressions as the sole

We now turn to the facts of the case be-affirmative of despotic power, have shown fore us, premising that, as we have shown, their own sense of the incompleteness of this both the Government and the People were anomaly, by arguing for a later effectiveness agreed on the necessity of material changes in the Constitution of Hanover.

of the change, and the validity of the Constitution in question, because that Fundamental Law was subsequently agreed to by the States themselves.

The General Assembly of the States, in 1832, propounded as a basis of future changes, and, in fact, of a Fundamental Law, that this should be the joint work, and settled by the mutual consent, of the King business. and the States.

This has the double merit of being the best and the worst argument in the whole

If, as is contended, it is conclusive of the

The Government, accepting this condition, validity in question now, it is not less concluwas thus bound by its own act to abide by it. The propositions for the Fundamental Law were accordingly offered by the States to the Government.

The Government, receiving the propositions, altered some of the most material,* by a no less violent change than the transfer of the knights from the Second Chamber to the First; which created an aristocratic proponderance not contemplated by the States: i. e. the Representatives of the People.

The law, so altered, was at once put into force without the consent of the States, by the very Government that had bound itself to act only with that consent. Thus vitiating the very basis of its own proceedings by a Despotic Act.

Further, the Crown had itself dissolved these very States before issuing its patent for the enactment of the law in question. So, that in fact, the Crown had barred the popular voice from pronouncing the very judgment it had been expressly empowered to pro

nounce.

The Fundamental Law was thus, by the sole power of the Crown, fixed as the Law of the People, and enforced and acted upon as such.

Yet this irregularity was objected to at the time by a formal protest of the minister, on behalf of the People, and thus the right of objection was preserved.

So far then, every subsequent step of the proceeding vitiated, and was vitiated by, the first arrangement and the protest stamped the seal of its invalidity.

But the advocates of this singular proceeding, which multiplies a Sovereign into a Representative Assembly, and makes the two negatives on the popular side into one

the

sive of the invalidity previously. For it establishes that, by the general sense of the Estates or Popular Representatives, the carrying of the Fundamental Law into effect in the first instance was a violation of acknowledged Representative Rights, and that all proceedings since are thus arbitrary and invalid.

But further if the subsequent consent of the States legalizes the act, a door is thrown open to all future Despotism-for it estab lishes the Precedent that any confessed illegality, however ARBITRARY, AND EVEN TYRANNOUS-may be enforced by the Sovereign alone; and he has only to enact an additional clause, rendering future dissent penal, to obtain all he can desire in future.

For the rejection of this precedent Europe may well be grateful to King Ernest.

We have hitherto considered only the public grounds of this proceeding: but a private one is also mixed up with it. The German Jura Agnatica, or Rights of Relatives, expressly gives the Crown-property as Entail to the Heir Presumptive, and provides for his Consent in cases similar to the one before us. So jealously is this guarded, that it has been laid down as an obvious consequence of the foregoing, that even a novel arrangement, or interference in this property, by the States, is a virtual alienation; and consequently only binding on the succes. sors when the entirety of the Family consent unto the same.

In Hanover then, as in England, to cut off an Entail, in defiance of Protest from the next Heir, is decidedly illegal. Thus Private-Right as well as well as Public-Right was sacrificed by the Royal Patent of William IV. in 1833.

The establishment of the Fundamental These alterations were fourteen in number. Law being thus defective in Constituted Amongst them were the Liberty of the Press. Forms, and destructive in Constitutional tenThe power of the Crown to determine upon the dency rendering the Sovereign, in fact, cases where the army might be employed; right to interfere in corporations in matters of sole judge of his own rights, and of those of justice, in the transfer of causes from one tribunal his family; master of the private property of to another its exemption from the national audit his subjects and of their public voice in the of its own household accounts, and its right of States: the establishment, we repeat, is dispensing with the oath to the Fundamental

Law in its own servants: to say nothing of the equally futile in itself, and fatal in its conse. How then could the present King

feudal tenure, &c. &c.

VOL. XX.

29

quences.

Ministry, cannot, if calmly considered, be a matter of regret to any one not compromised by former acts.

on his accession to the Throne publicly approve of what he publicly condemned? He could not, we submit, agree to what he, in common with many, held to be a violation of With regard to the assumed displeasure his own and his subjects' rights. Instead of of the Diet, it will suffice to say that not the temporizing, instead of dissembling, he at slightest indication of any such feeling has once and openly appointed a Board of In- yet appeared, and we would challenge quiry into the operation and results of the proof of any grounds for the assertion: we obtruded law. The names of the Members know they do not exist, and that the King's are those of men of acknowledged skill in present course is viewed there simply as jurisprudence; and the result of this moder- suspensory, this being its real character. ate, and, in every sense, fair Constitutional Equally and utterly untrue is, we positiveproceeding was, a Report, showing the in-ly asseit, the allegation, that the King of elegibility of various provisions of the Fundamental Law, and the invalidity of its establishment. Hence issued the Royal Patent of Nov. 1, 1837, declaring its invalidity in fact and the abrogation of its mere form; and announcing, farther, that a careful inquiry should be made into its provisions, and a comparison of these with the previously existing Constitution instituted by the States of the People, for the formation of a more legal system.

The Patent of last November is therefore the suspension of a despotic enactment, and an examination into its tendency: and the fact that the States are convoked for an immediate consideration of the question, exhibits nothing like an apprehension of popular opinion. The steps that seem to ourselves so hostile to Liberty are simply the very forms of the old Constitution, necessarily brought into play, when the fundamental law that superseded them was shown to be nugatory by the Commissioners of Inquiry. But these forms in Hanover are very different from the view taken of them elsewhere: the elder Governments of Germany are essentially, as we long since remarked, Despotic Paternities-where the voice of the sovereign is imperative, but his sway attempered. If the Fundamental Law is nugatory therefore, the old forms must remain in force, or else the people be left without any Government till a new one is prepared. Though the last Constitution therefore is nought in point of fact, the Repeal may be necessary as an Act of Form: there are abuses to be remedied even in the last: and amongst them surely the seizure and donation of private property by the CrownMandate of William IV. is not one of the least. The strangely anomalous position of the English and Hanoverian Ministers of the same Sovereign at the Diet is a striking proof of the mismanagement complained of: and that a system so fraught with doubts and uncertainty should be suspended till it can be constitutionally corrected by the joint labors and cooperations of the National Representatives and the

Hanover consulted or acted by advice of any English conservative whatever, as to the course to be followed in his dominions.

We would remark too on a point upon which far greater stress has been laid than it seems to us to deserve; we mean the proceedings respecting the seven Gottingen. Professors. We perceive that the protest of these justly eminent men does not turn upon the Constitutional right of the main question so much as on the point, whether, having accepted and sworn to one Constitution in 1833, they can, consistently with that oath, act under the abrogation of the system. This, however important, is totally distinct from the main question, and is in fact a mere point of conscience for themselves. But the long interval between their protest and dismissal, is, in itself, an indicative of moderation on the Sovereign's part, and totally opposite to the feelings he is accused of entertaining. He seems, in truth, to have proceeded to the last act only when the example was becoming contagious through his clemency or supineness. The fact, or even the rumor, long since current in Germany, that Kiel had invited these Professors to her walls, proves that in the opinion of their warmest admirers the dismissal of the seven Professors was a natural consequence of their conduct, while the calumniated King of Hanover himself, wishing to shut his eyes to the whole proceeding, delayed it to the utmost, and has at length reluctantly yielded to the necessity of preserving subordination at home.

We would therefore recommend our readers to wait the result of the deliberations of the States; and not take assumptions for granted, and argue on them for improbable conclusions. Nothing is yet known, and nothing can be known of the future, till it comes to pass. To anticipate the results of uncommenced deliberations without one clue to the nature of those deliberations is an error, of reasoning we will not say, but of imagination and prejudice, of which we shall be most reluctant to accuse our countrymen.

ART. IX-Reise nach dem Ural, dem Altai, [ of the latter, may be considered as a fortuund dem Kaspischen Meere auf befeht Sr. nate circumstance for science in the present Majestät des Kaisers von Russland im instance, as opening a wide field for investiJahre 1826. ausgeführt von A. von Hum- gation by a European power, aided by the boldt, G. Ehrenberg, und G. Rose. Mine- light of European intelligence, and by the ralogisch-geognostischer Theil und_his-regularity of an established European potorischer Bericht der Reise von G. Rose. (Travels in the Ural, the Altai, and the neighborhood of the Caspian Sea, by command of H. M. the Emperor of Russia, in the year 1829. By A. von Humboldt, G. Ehrenberg, and G. Rose. The Mineralogico-geognostic Portion and Historical Report of the Journey by G. Rose.)

litical system, into the mineral riches of a continent continually displaying unquestionable indications of affluence in that department of nature, but the levity of whose natives, and the instability of whose proper governments, have hitherto barred the researches of travellers in their own territory; and this is no less from the absence of every thing like security for the person, than from Mineralogisch-geognostische Reise nach dem the want of every facility to bring their labors Ural, dem Altai, und dem Kaspischen to an efficient termination. Through the long Meere von Gustav Rose. Erster Band. chain of communication thus opened from Reise nach dem nordlichen Ural und dem the West towards the East, we might look Altai. Mit Kupfern, Karten, und in vain for native governments competent Holzschnitten. (Mineralogico-geognostic to understand the utility of such labors, still travels in the Ural, the Altai, and the less to commence, or even assist, the underneighborhood of the Caspian Sea. By taking. The borders of the Turk and the Gustavus Rose. Vol. 1.-Travels in the Northern Ural and Altai, with Copper-plates, Maps, and Wood-cuts.) Berlin, 1837.

Persian, overrun by fierce and uncivilized predatory tribes, display and insult the weakness of the respective governments; yet these are established Asiatic powers; the Afghan, the Usbek, the Bucharian, like the Mongol and Manchew, possess even fewer elements for the task; and though their cupidity can be easily excited, it is only by visible objects, the scanty and irregular spoils of plunder; or, at best, a laborious and imperfect traffic.

THE objects of the journey, of which the volume before us affords us the first and a partial report, are too well understood in Europe and the civilized world in general to render necessary any details in this article. To those who seek to inquire into its causes and particular objects, a full explanation is In Persia, it is true, not many years offered in the preface of this work, extracted since, awakened a partial anxiety to ascerfrom the writings of Von Humboldt. It tain and cultivate the riches hidden beneath may be requisite here to apprize the reader the soil; and some dispositions of the late that the volume under consideration is not enterprising and intelligent Prince, Abbas the production of the celebrated traveller Mirza, led almost to an attempt to form a himself, as a glance at the former title Company for Mining. But the desire of would induce him to believe; but simply personal aggrandizement that might have the scientific report of Mr. Rose, the first led to some beneficial result gave way to portion of which is now presented, and the the narrowness of personal interests of the contents of this part fully indicated by the hour in the individuals themselves; and to second title at the head of this review. It this was superadded, not merely the sense is therefore necessarily less interesting to of insecurity, so fatally verified shortly af the world at large, and even to general terwards by the conquests of their northern science, than former details from the pen of neighbors, but also the obstacle of personal M. A. Von Humboldt; but yet it is impor- avarice in the Head of the State. European tant in itself as affording not merely the capital and enterprise were vainly sought positive facts of the expedition, but also as at a moment when Europe was awakening to a certain extent assisting us to form a to the ruin of American dreams; and even distinct idea of the mineral productions of the blindness of speculation at length felt the Russian Empire; and consequently, as the objections of want of wood and water, well of the resources that country can com- machinery, cattle, means of transit, submand as of the inducements that may tend sistence, accommodation, and of roads; and, to divide her pursuits, of the objects of am- more than all these, the dangerous vicinity bition now generally attributed to her, with of an all-grasping native Government, and more domestic acquisitions. of a still more dangerous, powerful, and incumbent European enemy.

The long extent of the Russian dominions in Asia, bordering so many kingdoms

If then in the hands of native Powers

any possible approximation towards Mine-than of partial extracts from passages; since ralogical labors and discovery is utterly those to whom the details are of superior inhopeless, it is only the two great European terest will naturally recur to the book itself proprietors of the land that can undertake and the Chart of the Ural chain which acthe task with any prospect of success. The companies it. For something beyond mere chain of British research extends along the science, we must wait, we fear, for details mighty range of the Himmalayeh, and links from M. A. von Humboldt himself. the recent province of Assam to the Indian This accomplished traveller had it seems Empire; while Russia is actively exploring been requested in the year 1829 by M. de for the purposes of science, and perhaps of Cancrin, the Russian Minister of Finance, future dominion, the northern course of the and to whom the present volume is dediUral mountains and the eastward declen-cated, to give his opinion as to the eligibility sion of the Altai: and thus the projecting of a coinage of Platina from the Ural and its arms of advancing civilisation approach, and relative value to gold and silver. He had may yet include or haply dissever the ter- already been applied to by the Spanish go. restrial portion of the territories of "the Son vernment on the same subject; and a proof Heaven." posal had also been made by some private We have dwelt somewhat largely upon individuals to the Congress of Vienna to inthis portion of the subject, for the facts in troduce the new metal into circulation by a the volume before us open an entirely novel coinage supported and recognized by Go. view of the possible destinies of Russia. In vernment authority. The doubts entertainthe alarm that has been so long and widely ed by M. von Humboldt of the eligibility of spread regarding the views of Catharine the measure proposed to him, have not, he and her successors, though we rejoice to candidly states, been justified by the result ; recognize the stern and suspicious mastiff though possibly the moderation of the issue vigilance of the national spirit, watchful for and the great extent of the Empire lessened its own independence in integrity, we have or averted altogether the anticipated misnever fully participated in the belief of the chiefs. But the confidence and esteem of practicability of those views to any very the Russian Government was no way diserious extent and we are the less dispo- minished towards the eminent philosopher by sed to entertain such alarm when we exa- this occurrence. On the contrary, happenmine the long pretension of the Russian ing in the course of the correspondence to line into the heart of a wild and lawless express his wish to visit the Ural Mountains nomade existence, whose cupidity will be and compare them with the Andes chain of increased in proportion to the riches disco- New Gren ida, he received an invitation from vered, and whose aggressive inroads will the Emperor Nicholas to undertake the jourrender indispensable an eternal chain of ney at the Imperial expense. As he was fortified posts; which either by warfare or then (December, 1827,) engaged in giving more gentle intercourse must necessarily public lectures, he was allowed to fix his own disseminate a portion of civilisation amongst time for the expedition as well as to select his them. Thus, while the dominion of the predominating Power is gradually consoli dating itself, it will likewise tend to improve its ruder neighbors in the very arts most formidable to its own extension; and the years, perhaps ages, that must elapse before either par y can securely maintain an ascendancy dangerous beyond their length of frontier, will surely give time for remoter nations, such as now acknowledge our own dominion or influence, to offer the firm barrier of civilised communities to the already anticipated aggression.

companions; and in 1829 he accordingly set. out with Professor Ehrenberg of Berlin, the celebrated botanist, and Professor Rose, the Mineralogist, author of the volume before us. The direction and objects of the journey were left to M. von Humboldt's own discretion; he shared the scientific investigations with his two learned associates; nor, judging from the manner in which Professor Rose has executed his portion of the task-the only one that has yet appeared-could the labor have devolved into abler hands.

The Minister of Finance made all due We have thrown out these remarks, as provisions for the undertaking, with regard naturally suggested by the circumstances; to the various expenses. Carriages, couand shall hereafter return to a more careful riers, and from 15 to 20 post-horses were and prolonged consideration of the question: placed at the travellers' disposal: a military but for the present article we must confine escort was provided for their safety.and even ourselves to the peculiar information afford a selection of residences for their accommo. ed by the volume immediately before us, and dation. They were attended also by an of in the shape rather of a digest of the most ficer of the Mines who spoke French and material and interesting points throughout, German; nothing was neglected to insure

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