Of the territory of the old thirteen states, we say nothing; but of the rest, which far exceeds it, will Mr. Webster seriously set its acquisition down to the credit of our political principles and institutions? The Louisiana purchase he cannot, for Mr. Jefferson, who purchased the territory from France, confessed that he did it in violation of the constistitution he had sworn to observe and defend. The acquisition of Texas he cannot; for he maintained in the senate that it could not be constitutionally annexed to the Union, and he opposed its annexation with all his energy, ability, and eloquence. The acquisition of New Mexico and California he cannot; for he opposed as unjust the war which led to their conquest, and also opposed to the last moment the treaty by which they were acquired, and even voted against its ratification. As to Oregon, we know not under what title we hold it, unless it be that one Captain Gray happened to approach very near to, perhaps entered, the mouth of the Columbia river, before any one else was known to have done so. Now, we submit to Mr. Webster himself, if he has any right to consider this vast acquisition of territory, effected for the most part by open violation of the constitution, or by a war which he held at the time to be aggressive and uncalled for, a war, as he pronounced it, "of pretexts,❞—as any thing honorable to the republic or republican institutions in general.

But we have extended our remarks much further than we intended, and we hasten to dismiss this painful subject, although we leave several points of some importance untouched. We need not add, that for Mr. Webster, both in consideration of his public services and of what we have seen of him in social intercourse, we have entertained a very great, indeed, a very profound respect; and we have looked to him as the leader of that true American party which, we trusted, would be formed out of the conservative elements of the two great parties which have hitherto divided the country. We have particularly approved his course in regard to the so-called "compromise measures," and we were exceedingly gratified when we heard that he had consented to accept the department of state in Mr. Fillmore's cabinet. It has therefore been with great disappointment, as well as unfeigned sorrow, that we have read the document on which we have commented. As a diplomatic document we shall not trust ourselves to characterize it, any further than to say that it is singularly irrelevant in several of its topics, incon

As a

clusive in its reasonings, and undignified in its tone. political document embodying the views of the government and announcing American principles, it is in a high degree objectionable. In it Mr. Webster leaves the statesman for the demagogue, the conservative for the radical, and instead of availing himself of his position and the occasion to announce sound and salutary principles, he has assumed the bonnet rouge of the Jacobin, and descended to pander to the worse principles, the basest passions, and the most dangerous tendences of his countrymen. Little did we think that he who some years since applauded, and induced not a few others to applaud, our own indignant denunciation of these principles, passions, and tendencies, would himself one day need to be remonstrated with for proclaiming them, and proclaiming them as American, and inseparable from the American character, condition, and destiny. We hope his lapse will prove but momentary, that he will hasten to take back his defence of rebels everywhere, and assume his rightful and natural position once more on the side of authority, in defence of historical rights, and of liberty through law. This, with disunion preached throughout the land, and the laws openly resisted, in our cities, is no time to proclaim sympathy with rebels and rebellion.

AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY.*

[From Brownson's Quarterly Review for April, 1852.]

THESE are two interesting and in various respects highly instructive volumes. The author is a native of Switzerland, and was formerly tutor to the young archdukes of Austria, and, we believe, to the present Emperor Francis Joseph. He is a man of learning and talents, of firm faith and sincere and tender piety. He travels as a Catholic and as an ecclesiastic, but as one who well knows the world, as a shrewd observer, and as an able and impartial commentator on

*Les Saints Lieux. Pélerinage à Jérusalem, en passant par l'Autriche. la Hongrie, la Slavonie, les Provinces Danubiennes, Constantinople, l' Archivel, le Liban, la Syrie, Alexandrie, Malte, la Sicile, et Marseille. Par MGR. MISLIN, Abbé Mitré. Á Paris: 1851.

VOL. XVI-14

what he sees and hears. A more pleasant, instructive, and trustworthy traveller it has rarely been our good fortune to meet, or one whose accounts of the countries through which he has passed are more interesting or more important. We see and learn more of them in his pages than we could by visiting them ourselves, for he always seizes the right point of view, and shows you the precise things a Catholic traveller ought to see and become acquainted with.

The Abbot Mislin set out from Vienna on his pilgrimage to the Holy Places on the 24th of June, 1848, after the first red-republican revolution in that city, and just before the open revolt of Kossuth and the Magyars. His position at the court of Austria gave him a good opportunity of understanding the character and purposes of each, and his candor, independence, and obvious good faith render his statements worthy of all confidence. He loves Austria, indeed, and is strongly attached to the imperial family, but he is no blind idolater of Austrian policy, and though far from sympathizing with the false liberalism of the age, he comments with great freedom on the acts of the imperial government. He is no enemy to Austria, but he is no flatterer of the Austrian government, which, though not censurable under the relations alleged by the revolutionists, had many and great faults, which no lover of freedom and Catholicity can palliate or disguise. The imperial family were pious and well disposed, but the administration was almost wholly in the hands of the enemies of the church. Happily, however, the government was forced by the rude shocks it received to recognize its errors, and the present emperor has already done much, and we trust he will do still more, to correct them. Even as a matter of sound policy, he should leave the church free, for it is only through her freedom and independence of the state that government, or even society, is practicable in any part of Christendom. The attempt to maintain society on atheistical principles, by chaining up the church, disparaging the clergy, ridiculing religion, and directing attention solely to worldly interests, roast beef and plumpudding, has signally failed, and we hope it will be long before a new crop of fools will be produced to renew it.

From Vienna the author passed through Hungary. As he visits Presburgh, the ancient capital of Hungary, the author makes some reflections and offers some details not without interest. The Hungarian revolution has not yet broken out, but it is on the eve of its explosion. The author

sees clearly what is coming, and gives a brief and trustworthy account of the causes and nature of the struggle which was then prepared. He fully confirms the view which has been uniformly taken in this journal of the Hungarians and of their late rebellion against Austria.

"A few years ago I assisted at one of those turbulent Hungarian diets which preluded the present tempest. After a stormy session of the chamber of deputies, in which I had seen the Austrian government furiously attacked without hearing a single voice raised in its defence, save the official and almost indifferent voice of the president, I observed to the president, that it was impossible for an edifice to remain a long time standing which everybody conspired to demolish. The Hungarians' (Magyars), he replied, 'are ardent, vivacious, high-spirited, clamorous, and fond of opposition in-phrases. It is necessary to let them throw off their excess of fire and eloquence. My predecessor, who took every thing literally, died in endeavoring to restrain them, but I, who know them, leave them to act and speak in their own way. Whatever they may do or say, they are sincerely attached to their king, and let there come a real danger for the state, they will be its most courageous defenders.' The president left me very little convinced by his observation.

"I love the Hungarians for their open and chivalric character. They are religious, brave, hospitable, prepossessing to strangers. When I first presented myself in the chamber of magnates, I knew nobody; a simple priest, I was at once received as a brother by many prelates and bishops, who came to meet me, and with whom I have remained ever since tenderly united. More lately I have obtained rank among the Hungarian clergy, who had for a long time opened to me both their arms and their hearts. But this year, 1848, the Hungarians have forgotten the recollections of 1741; they have forgotten that chivalric cry of loyalty and enthusiasm, Moriamur pro rege nostre Maria Theresia, which had remained as the symbol of their national character. It is true, Joseph II. but ill repaid the devotedness of this people; but, strange as it may seem, he is the idol of the revolutionary party. If he struck the people, he struck the church still harder, and the Brother Sacristan of Frederic the Great has obtained the pardon of the sovereign who imposed on Hungary the German language, and carried away from Presburg the crown of St. Stephen.

"A violent reaction has manifested itself in the late diets, not only against the German language, but also against the Latin, which was the language of public affairs; and they have substituted the Hungarian or Magyar language in its stead. In Europe generally this victory is regarded as the triumph of the liberal party; but it was in fact only the self-styled victory of a turbulent minority over the Catholic clergy and the Austrian government. This, however, is enough to render it popular with foreigners.

"In Hungary, in a population of twelve millions and a half, there are not less than fifteen or sixteen distinct nationalities, each for the most part with a different language of its own. The Hungarians, or rather the Magyars, form only about one-third of the whole population. How embarrassing for a government to make itself understood in this tower of Babel! Usage had introduced the Latin. The Latin of Hungary had long been the subject of the railleries of those who did not know it; but, without being as pure as that of Cicero, it had the advantage of not be ing the idiom of the Illyrians, the Magyars, the Croats, the Wallachians, or the Saxons, and of being understood by all the nations of the earth. In the United States as in France, in England as in Germany, they can use a passport, or any other document, written in Latin; but if written in Hungarian, it would be as unintelligible as if written in Chinese or Sanscrit.

"In a political point of view, the triumph of the Magyar language has been, therefore, an act of oppression, and the liberals who committed it were so intolerant, as to wish to oblige the Croatian deputies present at the diet forthwith to speak a language which they did not know. Through the intervention of the Austrian government, the Hungarian diet granted to Croatia the interval of two diets to provide herself with a language. Yet this decision did not prevent the Magyar liberals from hissing her deputies, as often as they attempted to avail themselves of this respite to defend the interests of their country in Latin.

"I insist on this fact, because it has been, not in itself, but in the tendencies it betrayed, the first cause of the misunderstanding between the Croats and the Magyars, and of the war which is on the point of breaking out between them. The triumph of the Magyar language in the parliament was a new irruption of the Magyars into Pannonia, the subjection of fifteen nationalities to one alone, or of eight millions of people of other races to four and a half millions of Magyars.

The revolution in Vienna, last March, was hardly known at Presburg, before on the one hand the Hungarians attempted their separation from the empire, and on the other sought to incorporate with Hungary proper Croatia, Sclavonia, and Transylvania, so as to have a compact kingdom of fifteen millions of inhabitants. The diet, the ministry, the palatine, that is to say, the three constitutional powers, took the road to Pesth, under the direction of Kossuth, who soon absorbed them all, and summoned the Sclaves to unite with them. The Croats, with their Ban Jellachich at their head, who had heard it said that the revolution of Vienna was made in favor of all the nationalities of the empire, and therefore in favor of their own, declared that they would be to the Hungarians what the Hungarians wished to be to the Austrians, that is to say, independent, holding immediately from the crown alone.

"The Magyars take up arms to subject the Croats, and the Croats take up arms to defend themselves against the Magyars. Here are the two nations in face of each other, or, I prefer to say, two men, Kossuth