rejoice that, since he could not, his place has been supplied by a race of men capable to appreciate the high vocation of their species. On this topic, as on that of the negroes, we ask no advice from Europeans, thrusting upon us, at the distance of three thousand miles, casuistical abstractions, in utter ignorance of our real situation. Let that nation which, in all its dealings with its own citizens or with foreign countries, has been guided and governed by the sovereign rule of right,-the fay ce que tu dois, advienne ce que pourra,-throw the first stone at us. Let those, on the contrary, who have forgotten it, as interest or policy dictated, remember the proverb of glass houses. We console ourselves with the reflection, that, if a few savage tribes have, imperceptibly, withered away before us,-that, if a dark seed, planted by Europe herself in our virgin soil, two hundred years ago, has grown into a tree which casts a shade too dark for shelter, and bears a fruit too bitter for nourishment, we, at least, have sacrificed no armies to the lust of power, we have no bloody records of perjured and perverted justice, we have exiled no citizens for conscience sake, and slain no mobs for revenge. We have neither a holy inquisition, nor a holy alliance, no royal conspiracy against men's secular rights,-no priestly cabal against their hopes of heaven. Beziers is not ours, nor St. Bartholemew's, neither the ordinances of Versailles nor the proscriptions of the Rue St. Jacques. Human and imperfect as we are, we have done what the structure of our government (weak perhaps, but weak for evil as well as for good) would permit, to alleviate misfortunes which no mortal power could prevent. We are answerable for no more -the rest is with Omnipotence. There are passages of much force and a good deal of interesting speculation in the chapter devoted by M. de Tocqueville to the present lot and probable fate of the American negroes, but we cannot enter upon the discussion, interesting as it is. Leaving the philosophy of the topic aside, we will dismiss it altogether, with a single extract from its poetry. It is a tribute to the philanthropy of the Colonisation Society : "Transported back to their father-land, the negroes have introduced there the institutions of America. Liberia has a representative government, negro juries, priests, and magistrates. She has her churches, and her newspapers; and, by a singular revolution in the vicissitudes of the world, no white man is permitted to dwell within her boundaries.Strange sport of chance indeed! Two centuries ago the native of Europe tore the African from his family and country, to transport him to the shores of North America. Now he recrosses the Atlantic to restore that African's posterity to the country of their forefathers. The barbarian has found the light of civilisation in the bosom of slavery, and learned in bondage the lessons of freedom." It is as a commercial people that the Americans have most attracted attention abroad. The wealth and strength arising from the pursuits of successful trade, and a new flag pushing its way into the most remote seas, are, in this age of money, circumstances which must force a passing notice from every traveller. Commerce is the parent of naval strength, and naval strength of political importance. A young power already formidable, and capable in this respect of unlimited development, is a problem worth watching. Besides, our trade, in the absence of foreign alliances, is the chain which binds us to the old world, and the most potent peace-maker between us and Europe. Those who scarcely know the language we speak, well understand that we grow cotton, and that we carry it to Europe on cheaper terms than any other nation. This latter circumstance, together with its incident, successful rivalry in the foreign carrying trade, has given interest in Europe to the enquiry, whence the comparative cheapness of American navigation arises? Some have sought an answer to it in the improved models on which our ships are constructed, losing sight of the consequence, that what is gained in speed is lost in capacity; others in the abundance of certain materials for shipbuilding, forgetting the high rates of mechanical labour, and seamen's wages. The subject has not escaped our author; and if not wholly conclusive, his explanations are original and interesting: not the less interesting, that the prospect of a struggle between his country and ours, of which the ocean will be the principal theatre, seems to be increasing. "My impression is, that the superior economy of American navigation is not to be accounted for upon physical grounds; it must be referred to causes wholly intellectual and moral. The following comparison will illustrate my meaning. "During the wars of the revolution, the French introduced into the military art a system of tactics whose novelty perplexed the most veteran generals, and threatened the destruction of the oldest monarchies of Europe. They essayed, for the first time, to dispense with many things hitherto deemed indispensable in war, and they required from their soldiers uncommon efforts, such as no civilised people had ever before demanded. Every thing was carried by storm, and men's lives were unhesitatingly sacrificed for the accomplishment of the object in view. Although poorer and less numerous than their antagonists, and infinitely more restricted in their resources, they were uniformly successful, until their enemies learned to imitate them. The Americans have ordered their trade upon principles somewhat analogous-what the French did for victory, they do for economy. "The European mariner exercises his trade discreetly; he puts to sea only in favourable weather, and returns if he meets with an accident; at night he takes in sail, and where the colour of the water indicates an approach to land, he lies to and consults the sun. The American, on the contrary, omits all this precaution, and defies danger; he sails while the gale is still raging, and pushes on, night and day, under a press of canvass. He repairs his shattered vessel on the voyage, and on approaching its termination, makes as confidently towards the coast as though he was already in sight of port. He is frequently shipwrecked, but there is no sailor who crosses the seas so rapidly as he. Doing what others do in less time than they, he must of course do it cheaper. "In the course of a long passage, the European thinks it his duty to touch at several ports, wastes precious time in seeking proper places for his purpose, and pays heavily while he waits an opportunity to resume his voyage. The American starts from Boston, to buy tea in China. He arrives in Canton, stays a few days, and returns. In less than two years he has traversed the circumference of the globe, and been but once ashore. For eight or ten months he has lived upon salt beef and brackish water. He has struggled without intermission with the perils of the sea, and against maladies of mind and body, but he can afford to sell his tea at a cent in the pound less than his English rival; he has accomplished his end. "I cannot better explain my idea, than by saying that the Americans have mingled a kind of heroism with the pursuits of trade." After all, we cannot flatter ourselves that our commercial heroism possesses much of the ideal. It dwells in the profit, not in the glory of the exploit. Americans will never vex the Frozen Ocean to find out a northwest passage, though no nation will use it more than they, after the discovery is made. We saw not long ago a letter from a young countryman of ours-a person of education and refinement-dated at St. Helena, which spoke only of "Hamburg and a market," forgetting entirely that Napoleon lies there, midway between Asia and Europe, so completely was the writer's romance swallowed up in reality. Yet the letter was not addressed to a consignor, but to a friend of his own age, uninterested in his adventure. We must make room for one or two additional extracts. They are from the summary with which the author concludes his work. After asserting that the ratio of increase among the Anglo-Americans, during every period of their history, has been the same, he adds: "There is no reason to believe that the progress of the Anglo-American race in the United States, can be checked. The dissolution of the Union, accompanied by civil wars, or the substitution of despotism for a republic, may retard its development, but cannot hinder the irresistible fulfilment of its destiny. No power on earth can prevent emigration to those fertile wastes, which on every side invite the industrious settler, and offer him a safe asylum from misfortune. Future events, be they what they may, cannot deprive the Americans of their climate, their inland seas, their great rivers, or their fertile soil. Bad laws, revolutions, and anarchy, cannot destroy that love of comfort and spirit of enterprise which are the characteristics of their stock, or extinguish at once their intelligence and knowledge. In the uncertainty of the future, one result at least is apparent. At no very distant period (for we are speaking of the existence of a nation,) the Anglo-Americans alone, will occupy the immense space between the Polar Sea and the tropics, and will spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. "The territory covered by this race, will one day equal three fourths of Europe. The climate of the United States is on the average better than hers; their natural advantages are at least equal; their population must therefore become proportionately large. Now Europe, in spite of her numerous territorial divisions, in spite of incessant wars and the barbarism of the dark ages, reckons four hundred and ten inhabitants to the square league. What is there to prevent America from doing the same ?" "The single tie of religion was sufficient, during the middle ages, to unite the various nations of Europe within the pale of a similar polity. The English of the new world possess a thousand other ties, and they exist, moreover, in a period the universal tendency of which is towards equality. The characteristic of the middle ages was dismemberment. Each nation, province, city, and family, strove for individuality. At present the tendency is the other way, towards union. Intellectual links unite the most remote portions of the earth, and men are not content to remain for a day strangers to each other, or ignorant of what is passing in any corner of the world. Thus, notwithstanding the ocean between them, there is really less difference at this moment between Europeans and their descendants in America, than between certain towns of the thirteenth century, which were separated but by a river. If this tendency to assimilation is sufficient to unite distant nations, the supposition that different offspring from the same stock will become estranged, is opposed to all sound logic. The time must therefore come, when North America will present the spectacle of one hundred and fifty millions of men* mutually equal, belonging to the same race, having the same point of departure, the same civilisation, the same language, religion, habits, and manners, and among whom thought circulates under the same form and colouring. The rest is doubtful; but so much is a reality hitherto unknown in the history of the world, and of which the imagination itself cannot figure the scope and issue.' Incendit animum famæ venientis amore. If we owed nothing more to M. de Tocqueville, he deserves our gratitude for holding out to us the noblest incentive to virtuous exertion ever presented to a people. That vision of the future, vast as it has seemed even to ourselves, he has interpreted and verified. Its consummation depends upon the laws of nature alone-its fulfilment is as certain as the revolutions of the planets. That is no more a theme for doubt or derision. But what shall be the moral characteristics of that future, and on what safe ground the long-vexed question of might and right shall finally settle, are enquiries which he may leave to uncertainty, but which it behoves us neither to palter with nor avoid, inasmuch as upon us depends, to a certain extent, their solution. "This is founded on the European estimate, mentioned above, of four hundred and ten to the square league."-M. de T's note. It is not to be denied, that of all the attributes of national greatness, mere material power is the most fearful and uncontrollable. It is the eyeless Cyclops, reeling madly about his cavern, or thundering over the hills and waters. Yet who doubts that the tendencies of society are naturally towards the development of this power, and that the whole history of the world exhibits a series of struggles between it and the ascendency of thought and reason, in which the former has most frequently been successful? From the period when, in the great allegory of antiquity, Strength and Force bound the benefactor of mankind to Caucasus, down to the latest outbreaking of popular violence, scarce a year but can furnish its proof of the position. Government has in most ages been founded upon it, varying only in the application of the rule: now combined with the people, setting fire to its chariot-wheels by the very rapidity of its progress; anon opposed to them, until the elements which should temper and confirm their union have become ineffectual or hostile, and the ingredients of society have ceased to cohere. The world has never seen a thousand years of strength subservient to law. The people, in some sudden fury, tear their own charters, if no invader comes to cut them, or no despot arises to override or obliterate them. They kindle a flame in the market-place for sport, and keep it up for spoil, forgetting that they are but rebels against themselves. There is little in the annals of ancient times to help us in this difficulty. The old world had plenty of beacons, but no lighthouses. Individual greatness there was, in abundance; patriotic actions, the mark and majesty of the primal age; but a demagogue, "with his sponge moisten'd in gall," could wipe them all away. Octavius eclipsed Cicero in the catalogue of Anchises; in truth, he half overshadows him still. The few who dared to seek an antagonist power to that which governed the world, like most early discoverers in science, physical, moral, or intellectual, found a short way out of it: "Die Wenigen, die was davon erkannt, Die thöricht g'nug ihr volles Herz nicht wahrten, Convulsive struggles, if successful, ended in fierce and irreconcilable factions,-if unsuccessful, in an apathy which was equally fatal to happiness if not to repose. Antiquity closed as it began, in chaos, for that state of society must be a chaos where the moral ties which unite men to each other, are as nothing; and where the central force (the only one left) cannot communicate a single impulse to the extremities. When, therefore, the Arabian prophet sundered with his sword the two |