thusiast could be elevated to the chair of State, however violent might be his hatred to the law in question, however devoted he might be to that "higher law" discovered by modern philanthropy, and however reckless, unscrupulous, and abandoned his general character, yet we much question whether he could be so deeply lost to every sense of moral obligation as to lay perjury to his soul by the violation of his constitutional oath, or to conspire for the subversion of a law which before the world he had solemnly sworn he would execute.

the anti-slavery prejudices of the North by requiring pledges which are contrary to the principles in which they have been educated, and which would only tend to foster sectional jealousies dangerous to the harmony and general prosperity of the country.

But in the mean time, if instead of permitting the excitement on the slavery question to expire for want of opposition, the friends of peace and order should proclaim that the approaching contest for the Presidency is to be a crusade against abolitionism, in which the disunionist of the North is to be for ever crushed, the hostile attitude you assume gives an importance to the political influence of free-soilism which the insignificance of the party does not merit. The force of the Union party is overwhelming. It can bring into the field a thousand to one, in a contest with disunionists; but you cannot thwart their policy or divert their purposes by engaging them in a warfare with a Union party. Their great destiny is to agitate. To excite, to irritate and inflame the public mind, is the object of their mission. Opposition gives vigor and importance to their action. They lose nothing by defeat, as they had nothing at stake. They are not even disappointed, for they expected nothing but to be overcome by superiority of numbers. They have in fact fully accomplished all their purposes. The friends of the Union may marshal their forces and shake the nation with their Union thunder, but the disunionist is neither killed, wounded, nor even disheartened at the tremendous explosion. He in fact rejoices that an opportunity is furnished to bring his batteries to bear, as he might express it, on the forces of oppression. The contest has plunged him in the whirlpool of excitement. It has quickened his blood. It has re-animated his flagging energies. It has given impulse and vigor to his discussions, and importance to his party. It has enlisted public sympathy for his cause, and brought new recruits to his standard. He has gained much by the contest.

It is admitted that there is a feeling of repugnance existing in the North towards the institution of slavery in the South; but much as the people of the North may deprecate its existence, there is neither the power nor the inclination to subvert it. Slavery in the South exists not by virtue of Northern will or legislation, but by Southern. A Massachusetts Legislature has no jurisdiction over existing laws and institutions in South Carolina. Northern zealots are fast learning that, however great the evil of slavery may be, it is far removed from their control. They are also making the discovery that the more they agitate the question of abolition, the more hopeless becomes the condition of the slave-the more tightly are riveted his fetters. They are learning too that in the tempest they have excited, the wheels of legislation have been stopped, important matters of general and local interest have been postponed or abandoned. During the contest of pro-slavery and anti-slavery over the prostrate and degraded African slave, the interests of the white free laborer of the North have been disregarded by both parties as unworthy of notice or protection. At this crisis, however repugnant African servitude may be to the feelings of the Northern man, he feels and knows it to be his true policy to cease from its useless agitation. He may regard the Fugitive Slave Law as a relic of barbarism, growing out of an institution established in an age less civilized and just than the present, yet is he willing to endure its continuance without a murmur, and sub- In the mean time victory has declared in mit to its most repugnant exactions without favor of the Union party. They have saved complaint, if his submission will silence the the Union, which was in no danger. They croakings of disaffection and fanaticism, and have manfully vindicated and proven the place a final quietus on the voice of agitation. truth of principles which scarce one in a This state of facts we should think would thousand ever doubted. What has the prove satisfactory to the most quarrelsome great "United Union party" achieved in the and jealous Southerners, without arousing contested field? It occupies the same

ground, stands in the same position, and leaves the nation resting on the same political basis on which it rested before the battle for the Union was fought. Nothing has been accomplished; no new principles have been developed; no new policy has been marked out for the progress of the nation in its march to greatness.

gold of California is found insufficient to pay the cost of imported fabrics, whilst American skill is idle and unproductive. It matters not to the enervated Mexican that his native mountains sparkle with precious ores. Whilst millions are dug from the earth, this nation is impoverished and bankrupt. And it matters not to the American that the California steamer discharges at his sea-ports her freight of massive gold; for the same gazette which announces her arrival and comments upon the incalculable wealth of the nation, heralds the departure of the European steamer freighted with the same precious metal for the purchase of cotton, woollen, and iron fabrics. At the same time American machinery is idle, her manufacturing skill paralyzed, her factories many of them closed, and the rest tottering on the verge of bankruptcy, and the commercial interests of the country threatened with a revulsion unprecedented in American history.

The same results will naturally flow from adopting as an article of party creed the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. This would give additional cause for dissatisfaction on the part of the disunionist of the South, and add more fuel to the flames of disaffection and nullification which have already burnt with so much fury. It would give strength and consistency to their action, and add numbers to their ranks. Many who have heretofore been silent in the discussion of these exciting issues, or who have manfully defended the Union, would be driven into the ranks of nullification by the repeal of a law which tended to guard their private interests from infraction. Even In the tempest of discussion relative to the States distinguished for their high-souled "Fugitive Slave Law," the internal compatriotism would waver in their devotion to merce of the country is perishing from the a government which had failed to recognize accumulated obstructions to river navigation. their peculiar institutions, and afforded no Whilst sage politicians are gravely discusprotection to their distinctive rights. They sing the constitutionality and expediency of may even be tempted to desert the national a law in which the great majority of Ameribanner under whose protecting folds they can citizens have no direct or practical interhave won imperishable glory on many a est, the boatman on our western waters, unhard-fought field, and range themselves un-cared for by Congress, finds a deep grave der the flag of treason given to the winds by the hands of nullification.

All our experience proves that any issue whatever made on the subject of slavery must tend to foster and strengthen those sectional jealousies which may yet become formidable to the harmony and perpetuity of the Union. The feeling of enmity between the hostile parties has never been harmonized, but always increased, by a discussion of their matters of difference.

beneath the treacherous wave. Apply to Democratic sages who control the action of that great party, and a portion of them will tell you that the "noise and confusion" incident to the settlement of the "Union question" is so great that you cannot now be heard. Others, who unscrupulously voted for the annexation of Texas and California, and are now encouraging the conquest of Cuba, without inquiring or caring for the constitutionality of any of these measures, In the mean time the nation has lost years will tell you that the improvement of such in this age of progress in raising new and a river as the Mississippi, rolling its mighty fruitless issues, whilst the practical interests waters from one extremity of the nation to of the nation-its commerce, its manufac- the other, bearing on its broad and ample tures and mechanical arts-are languishing bosom the products of half the confederated for want of adequate protection. Notwith- States of this Republic, is an object merely standing mines have been discovered in our local in its character, and that its improvewide domain unexampled in richness and ment was never contemplated by the Ameriextent, although millions may have rewarded can Constitution. Such counsels will conthe industry and enterprise of the pioneer to tinue to prevail so long as Congress continues the distant El Dorado, yet is the nation to be the centre of the agitation on the subdaily stripped of its vast resources, and theject of slavery. It will, then, be the height of

Our General Review.

folly and madness for the Whig party to admit into the coming Presidential contest any of those unprofitable and exciting topics that have been for the present professedly settled. Any attempt to revive them should be "frowned down," for they tend to weaken

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OUR GENERAL REVIEW.

AN ABSTRACT AND BRIEF CHRONICLE OF THE TIME.

ENGLAND.-In England the closing of the Crys-, tal Palace was permitting the press and people to direct their attention once more to the affairs of the world in general. It was closed on the 11th ult., after having proved one of the most successful and splendid speculations of the The structure will probably be removed, in spite age. of the popular desire to the contrary. Hyde Park is an appanage of the Court and the aristocracy, and it is thought a show-box or other property of the commonalty would be out of place within its precincts.

about to make remonstrances against it. London is, in fact, looked upon as the centre of the European democrats. The object of these is a steady radical revolution in Europe, to be brought about by the union of the people and by their contribushares shall be bought in national loans, which tions. The German Committee propose that the chief men of the movement shall guarantee, and which shall be repaid on the liberation of the nations. Mazzini has been trying to get up such a loan for the particular behoof of Italy. Just through the United States for the purpose of exnow Professor Kinkel, the poet, is travelling pounding and furthering, particularly among our German population, this grand liberating project.

The English were making great preparations for the reception of Kossuth, who was expected at Southampton in the American ship of war. Upwards of a score mayors of towns and cities wrote to the Mayor of Southampton to express a beginning to impress and agitate the United KingThe prestige of our American republicanism is desire to join in the popular welcome. London dom in a very remarkable manner. The English and its municipality were prepared to give the press has become greatly occupied with these Hungarian exile a polite and kindly reception. States, and its tone has become vastly more reThe desire to do honor to him is very general: spectful and conciliatory. Latterly the Hon. Mr. for the Ministers are not disposed to curry favor Lawrence has been creating a sensation in Ireland, with the despotisms just now. Two of them-the far more deep and general than that caused by Secretary of War (Lord Palmerston) and Mr. the visit of the Queen to that island. The Times Gladstone -have publicly denounced or con- allows that he was every where received" with demned the high-handed doings in Naples and else- almost royal honors." And indeed the sincerity where on the Continent. So that no government with which he was followed and feted was the consideration seems to stand in the way of a general English welcome. And it is a good and among the people to promise them any thing or to more emphatically proved, that he did not go a cordial thing to see the two great and powerful flatter their passions or political leanings. His families of English tongue and name, forgetful of speeches, throughout, tended the other waypast differences, standing side by side and fore- were full of calm advice to rely upon themselves most in the cause of humanity in the midst of and help themselves. Nevertheless, there he was such frowning and threatening despotisms. After all, there is no fear of the ultimate triumph of their dreams-the land in which millions of their -an American-from that great and rich land of free governments all over the world, when Eng- countrymen had a home and a refuge, and from land and America join hands in so noble a cause which within the last few years over two millions as this. Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet against the of pounds sterling had come from poor Irish laborKing of Naples has called forth a wrathful replyers to their poorer friends in the cabins at home; from his Majesty, implicating and taunting the so that, if Mr. Lawrence were really the grandson English Government; while the speech of Lord of Brien Boru himself, he could not have been rePalmerston at Tiverton has excited a general in-ceived with more cordial respect and enthusiasm. dignation among the continental rulers-Louis Napoleon included; and it has been stated in a German newspaper, (the Ober Post Amt Zeitung,) that the toleration extended to the band of Teutonic conspirators now in London is a breach of good faith towards the German rulers, who are VOL. VIII. NO. V. NEW SERIES.

Furthermore, they identified him with that spirit of American enterprise which, in the matter of steamships and railways, is making such wonderful changes in the world, and hoped something was about to be done for the country at last. Some of the people actually had an idea that he 30

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The submarine telegraph between France and England has been laid down in the English Channel, from South Foreland to Sanngate, near Calais. The line consists of four copper wires, like bell-which has caused some discontent on the part of wires, cased in gutta percha, and twined with hempen strands into the size of a rope an inch in diameter. More hempen strands and wires of galvanized iron are twined round this, and all form a flexible casing 44 inches thick. Messages have been flashed through very satisfactorily, and the communication with Paris will doubtless be shortly completed.

In Ireland the Catholic Association, which was about to be got up in opposition to the late Anti Popish Bill, has been a failure. The Catholic people and hierarchy are not agreed upon the mat- The London Morning Post contemplates a ter. Many of the Irish bishops are in favor of the larger steam project than the foregoing to wit, Queen's Colleges ard the government system of regular communication with Australia; giving as education. But Dr. Cullen, Primate of all Ireland, a chief reason the rapid advances of the Ameriis bent on an exclusively Roman system-sepa- cans in the Pacific, and the advantages offered to rating, in all things, the sheep from the goats-the their commercial marine by the repeal of the Catholics from the Protestants, with whom no Navigation Laws. The Post says that if England terms, no faith, is to be kept. All the Irish priests will not place efficient ships upon that eastern and bishops are not prepared to go these very Ca-line, the steamers of America will anticipate them, tholic and consistent lengths, and hence one more and manage the trade and intercourse of the Pa