of fugitives from justice would be an absurdity, because the question to be decided before giving them up is, not whether they are guilty or not, for that question can be decided only where the offence is said to have been committed, but simply whether they shall be given up to be tried. The fugitive from justice is not given up as guilty, but simply as accused by a legal authority, and no jury is needed to try the fact whether he is so accused or not. So the person claimed as a fugitive slave is not surrendered as a slave, and the question to be decided is not whether he is really a slave or not, but simply whether he is claimed as such by a legal authority or not. The legality of the claim is another question, and must be settled in the courts of the State in which it is alleged the person claimed is held to service. A jury in his case would be as great an absurdity as in the case of the fugitive from justice. Undoubtedly no one, under the Constitution, can be deprived of his liberty without a trial by jury, but not therefore may no one be detained in prison for trial, for the law does not regard one as deprived of his liberty till after trial and the judgment of the court. Then the demand for the jury is not made in the interests of justice, not for the purpose of preventing persons from being given up as fugitive slaves who are not such, but for the purpose of screening those who are, and preventing those from being given up whom the Constitution declares shall be. We have in the Constitution pledged ourselves to surrender fugitive slaves; we are bound to do it in the way provided by a law of Congress, and it is not at all to our credit to try to get a law which will practically defeat the end for which it is enacted.

The whole difficulty on the subject of slavery grows out of the fact that the antislavery party really denies the obligation of all constitutions and laws. It professes to appeal from the state to the law of humanity, or the law of God, for God and humanity are for it identical. Mr. Seward appeals to the Bible, and professes to find there a law of God which forbids him to do what he is required to do by the Constitution. The law of God is paramount to the Constitution; we must obey God rather than man. And therefore he concludes that he is justifiable in refusing to perform that duty. If this be so, he is bound to resign his seat in the Senate; for, according to him, the Constitution conflicts with the law of God. No man can lawfully hold office under, and swear to support, a constitution that is repugnant to the law of God. Mr. Seward, while he holds his seat, denies to himself the right to make the appeal from the Constitution; for if he can lawfully hold his seat, the Constitution does not conflict with the law of God; and if he continues to hold his seat, believing that it does so conflict, he practically declares that the fact of its so conflicting does not in the least derogate from its authority. In either case he only declares that

the appeal does not lie, and proves, probably, what few who know him are disposed to doubt, that he is as little to be esteemed as a lawyer as he is as a theologian.

Certainly we are not among those who deny that the law of God is in all cases supreme, and we certainly hold that no act of human legislation that conflicts with it is or can be binding; but we do not hold that Mr. Seward or any one else has a right to assume that the law of God is whatever he chooses to have it, and to plead it as he makes it as his justification for refusing to perform his constitutional duty. Every one is bound to regard the Constitution as conformable to the law of God, till he is able, on an authority paramount to that of the state, to declare the contrary. Those who wish to see the question settled, whether the Federal Constitution is incompatible with the law of God, will do well to read Dr. Cummings's Lecture. That it is not contrary to the law of God to restore a fugitive slave to his master, is pretty evident from the fact that St. Paul restored, after having converted him, the fugitive slave Onesi mus to his master Philemon. St. Paul is for us a better authority for what is or is not the law of God, than the Hon. Wm. H. Seward, William L. Garrison, or Abby Folsom. If every one is free to interpret the law of God as he pleases, there is an end of all law and of all government; for every one will interpret the Divine law in a sense that will annul every human law he does not choose to obey.

We confess we do not regard the slave question as of any great intrinsic importance. Slavery is an evil in relation to the master and the state, but, aside from its abuses, it is not necessarily an evil to the slave. The negroes are far better off on our Southern plantations than they are in their native Africa, and they would, as a body, lose rather than gain by emancipation. It is all very fine to declaim in favor of liberty and against slavery; but the negroes, if emancipated, would not, with individual exceptions, be free; they would be a degraded and dependent class, with all the responsibilities of freedom and none of its advantages. We have, in order to be sure of this, only to look at the free negroes in our own Northern cities. They cannot take rank with the whites as free and independent citizens. If they were not separated from the dominant class by color, if they could become merged in the general population of the country, the case would be different; but as it now is, for the masters to emancipate them would be little less cruel than for a father to turn his sons and daughters under age out of his house, and bid them go and take care of themselves.

But be this as it may, slavery has in this country very nearly reached its limits, for the very sufficient reason that a much further extension of it would be ruinous to the slave-owners. Slave labor can sustain itself only in the production of certain staples for com51

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VOL. IV. NO. 111.

merce, and in our country only in the production of rice, cotton, sugar, and tobacco, and these four great staples are pushed about as far as the markets of the world will admit. The demand for cotton is destined to diminish rather than increase, not only because foreign nations will be unable to take the quantities they now take, in consequence of the continually decreasing demand in our own country for their productions and manufactures, but because linen, silk, and wool will soon to a great extent take its place, as they are already beginning to do. The present commercial and industrial system, which builds up large cities, trading-houses, and corporations, while it reduces the mass of the people to abject poverty, cannot last for ever, and either the world will soon come to an end, or nations will be obliged to return to the system of really domestic, really home industry, a system which will render families as well as nations comparatively independent of one another. Commerce and manufactures have nearly, if not quite, reached their maximum, and a change in the industry of all civilized nations must before long take place, and in this change slavery will be abolished, because it will be utterly unable to sustain itself in competition with free labor. It must gradually die out, and it seems to us that all we are called upon to do in regard to it is, to correct, as far as we can legally and morally, its abuses. In a Christian community slavery is no great evil, and in a community not Christian, if you have not domestic slavery, you will have other evils still worse.

The greatest evil in any country just now, after the frightful infidelity so prevalent, is fanaticism, which goes by the name of philanthropy, and our grand error has been in indulging it till it has become nearly unmanageable. In no State in the Union, we are sorry to say, is this moral pestilence more rife than in this ancient Commonwealth. It infects our whole society, and turns a large portion of our citizens into madmen. It destroys our judgments, our moral life, and is fast bringing us into a bondage to which Southern slavery is freedom. It rages in the legislature and in the halls of justice, and spits its venom from sectarian pulpit and press. The well-disposed are overawed, the sober-minded are browbeaten into silence, and even the brave wellnigh quail before it. Something must be done to stay it, or all that is dear and sacred to Christians and freemen is gone. Not a few of those who see and deplore the evil are guilty of a shameful cowardice in regard to it. Let the honest, sober, and sensible portion of the community resist it boldly, denounce it, and give it no quarter, not even a hearing, and it would soon cease to exist. But we have not dared to do this. We have tampered with it, we have courted it, hoping to turn it to the advantage of our sect or our party. It is high time to put an end to this worse than folly, and to speak and act like high-minded and moral men.

Most happy are we that Mr. Webster, from his

place in the Senate of the United States, has set us an example worthy of imitation, and we hope that his timely word will rouse our courage, and inspire us with resolution to shake off the tyranny of fanaticism.

5.

Religion in Society: or the Solution of Great Problems placed within the Reach of every Mind. From the French of the ABBÉ MARTINET. With an Introduction by the Right Reverend JOHN HUGHES, D. D., Bishop of New York. New York: D. & J. Sadlier, 58 Gold Street. Boston, 72 Federal Street. Montreal, C. E., 179 Notre-Dame Street. 1850. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 191 and 270.

We have already expressed our opinion of this work under its French title, Solution des Grands Problèmes, and it was at our suggestion and earnest request that its translation was undertaken. We need not, therefore, say that we welcome its publication in an English dress. Without pretending that it is in all respects perfect, that its language is in every instance exact, or that it always adopts the best line of argument, we regard it as one of the most brilliant, and, upon the whole, most satisfactory, popular works on the several topics it takes up that we are acquainted with. The entire work consists of four volumes, and is intended to answer three great questions; 1. "What is it to be a man?" 2. "What is it to be a Christian?" and 3. "Can society be saved without returning to Catholicity?" These are great problems, and the volumes before us contain the answer to the first two; the remaining two volumes, which we trust the public will soon call for, are devoted to the solution of the last. Of the wit and sprightliness, as well as real depth and earnestness of the author, our readers who recollect the Salve for the Bite of the Black Serpent, noticed in our Review for April, 1845, may form a tolerably fair opinion, for the excellent Dr. Evariste de Gypendole is no other, we are assured, than the learned, philosophical, and pious Abbé Martinet, the author of Platon-Polichinelle. The Abbé turns the laugh upon the other side, and without departing ever from the dignity of his subject or his profession, covers the enemies of religion and society with a ridicule as just as it is irresistible. We have room only for one slight specimen. The author thinks the learned men of the last century gave an undue importance to atheism by treating it as a serious malady. "All the blows inflicted by the Herculean club of the Sorbonne," he says, "are not so effectual as the box on the ear of a celebrated unbeliever, given by the hand of beauty. After having in vain preached to a circle of ladies, he attempted to revenge himself, by saying, 'Pardon my error, ladies, I did not

imagine that, in a house where wit vies with grace, I alone should have the honor of not believing in God.' 'You are not alone, Sir,' answered the mistress of the mansion; my horses, my dog, my cat, share that honor with you; only these poor brutes have the good sense not to boast of it.""

The translation has been executed with taste, spirit, and fidelity, and has the freedom, freshness, and glow of original composition. The work has suffered nothing by being translated, and we read it with more pleasure in the translation than in the original. As far as we have compared, we have found the sense of the original faithfully, and in general felicitously, rendered, and throughout expressed in pure, idiomatic English. We commend it as a model to those of our friends who are engaged in translating Catholic works from the French.

In glancing through these volumes we have found a few typographical errors, which we trust will be corrected in the second edition. We have space now to point out only one, Vol. I. p. 99, where the author is made to say of our Lord, "He assembled its awful legislation in the Sermon on the Mount, in which, exalting all that man prizes, overthrowing all that he adores," &c. It should be, "exalting all that man despises," -l'homme méprise. The others we have noticed are of less moment. We return our thanks to the accomplished translator for giving to our public, Protestant as well as Catholic, a work of no ordinary interest and value, and which all who ever ask themselves, "What is it to be a man?" and "What is it to be a Christian?" will do well to read and study long and thoroughly. We cannot better close this brief notice than in the words of the distinguished prelate who has honored the work with a brief but admirable introduction. "These volumes will come to the American reader with freshness and novelty. They will take their place amongst our standard works of literature, and both the gifted and accomplished translator and the spirited publishers will have merited, and I trust will receive, the thanks of the Catholic and the literary public."

6.-Études Critiques sur le Rationalisme Contemporain. Par l'ABBÉ H. DE VALROGER, Chanoine Honoraire de Bayeux, et Professeur au Seminaire de Sommervieu. Paris. 1846. 8vo. PP. 612.

THIS volume is devoted to a critical examination of "Eclectisme Rationaliste et du Syncretisme; de l'Histoire de la Philosophie et de la Philosophie de l'Histoire," as set forth by Cousin, Jouffroy, Damiron, Lerminier, Pierre Leroux, and others, and is the best work on the subject that we have seen from a French author. The Abbé de Valroger, as a critic on the philosophical systems of the