sarily exercised together: for the legislative | the nature of things, and the nature of all is the first and necessitates the others; but of any class of powers called governmental we find no record or description. In regard to the District of Columbia, some doubt still rests in the minds of conscientious legislators whether Congress has full power over it. "But the case is very different in reference to territories," says Mr. C., "lying as they do beyond the limits and jurisdiction of all the States. The United States possess not simply the right of ownership over them, but that of exclusive dominion and sovereignty." A fearful admission! but then on a sudden the Senator recovers his former ground, and starts a new distinction. "It may be proper to remark," says he, "in this connection, that the power of exclusive legislation conferred in these cases must not be confounded with the power of absolute legislation. Absolute power of legislation is always, indeed, exclusive, but it does not follow that exclusive legislation is always absolute. Congress has exclusive power of legislation as far as this government is concerned, and the State legislatures as far as their respective governments are concerned, but we all know that both are subject to many and important restrictions and conditions, which the nature of absolute power excludes." Which places the governments of the States and of the Union upon the same footing, as far as "absolute" power is concerned; the idea of absolute power being thus very justly excluded from that of republican government in any shape; but this does not touch the question whether the nation may not abolish slavery from its territory. On the contrary, if the States have this power in their dominions, though they be not "absolute," much more should the general government, which, though not absolute in any case, being, like the State governments, under the Constitution, is yet vested with the twofold power of State sovereignty and of imperial control over its territory; and in such a view of the matter, Mr. Calhoun's third distinction, like his first and second, falls useless to the ground. He has not yet proved that the Constitution, either directly or by close construction, forbids the general government to exercise those powers which it has acquired over its territory, both by honestly acquired power; and in this argument we set aside as useless and exploded. the ancient doctrine of "right acquired by conquest;" though if we chose to resort to that doctrine, it would reduce the question to a point that the narrowest understanding might grasp at once. We now come to the very heart of this subject, to the very policy against which the Senator from South Carolina has opposed this broken chain of suggestion, which he is pleased to regard as a demonstration. By an ordinance of the Confederation in 1787, slavery was excluded from the territory ceded by Virginia. The ordinance, said Mr. Madison, had no constitutional authority; it serves, therefore, only as a landmark to show the opinion of the Congress at that time. It established a precedent for policy only, and not for legal decisions. We regard it only as the first step in the line of a particular policy. By that first step, slavery was excluded from the temperate climates of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and the territory north-west. That exclusion was the result of the first step of a certain line of policy. It was a compremise, says Mr. Calhoun, conditioning for the delivery of fugitive slaves, as a set-of against the freedom of the territory: and yet he somewhat unguardedly quotes Madison to prove it valueless; by whi procedure he does the slaveholder mater injury in removing one of the ancient land marks of his rights. The history of the transaction does not much help or hinder the arguments on either side. We therefore pass it over. He adds, for all that, that the South acquiesced in the ordinance and a served it strictly; which is a strong provi of its expediency; and now, at this late day, a South Carolina Senator condemns. M Now follows the Missouri Comprom The entrance of Missouri as a State wa severely contested through the years 181920, when HENRY CLAY ended the war by moving the compromise. It was observed of this statesman, by John Quincy Adams that in negotiation, and in all difficult f fairs where opposite interests and riha were involved, he discovered a pecu and almost infallible tact: his remedy we always the best that offered. By de compromise he reconciled the two interes a of slaveholders and non-slaveholders. He | neither hold him nor let him go. Justice is was himself a slaveholder, and he knew in the one scale, and self-preservation in that slavery, at least in temperate climates the other." Then follows the remark and northern latitudes, could only prove that the diffusion of slaves over a greater curse and keep landlords poor, as it does territory will better their condition and on the south banks of the Ohio. This hasten their emancipation. He justifies compromise was carried, says Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Holmes in voting for the compromise by the almost united vote of the North rather than for the total exclusion of slaagainst the South. By it a line was very from the territory, and recommends drawn, separating the northern and south- that every means be taken to allay the ern territories. "The South," he adds, jealousy of the South, of the interference of "has never given her sanction to it." The Congress in their domestic affairs. He warns act was done by the non-slaveholders as an his country against stirring up angry pasact of mere self-protection; and could sions upon this terrible question, and presouthern gentlemen understand how neces- dicts ruin from its agitation.* sary it is to the emigrant to be removed from the neighborhood of a rich and aristocratical planter, to enable him to carry on unshamed his honest but humble industry, and finally, by humility, to rise into independence, wealth, and refinement, the generosity of their nature at least, if not the justice of it, would be moved with a sacred regard; and however jealous they might be of their own rights and privileges, in which no man will dare disturb them while the UNION stands, they would not with so ambitious a grasp, clutch at all the territory. No, indeed; not at all the territory! *Mr. Holmes, of Maine, said Mr. Calhoun, long a member of this body, who voted for the measure, addressed a letter to Mr. Jefferson, inclosing a copy of his speech on the occasion. It drew out an answer from him which ought to be treasured up in the heart of every man who loves the country and its instituions. It is brief. I will send it to the secretary to be read. The time of the Senate cannot be better occupied than in listening to it. To John Holmes. MONTICELLO, APRIL 12, 1820. I thank you, dear sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. It is a perfect justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers, or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant But this momentous ques We respect the ordinance, therefore, and tion, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and fillthe Compromise, and can say that our greatest desire is, that the present difficulty be as wisely met as were those which prompted those measures. So much for the measures of compromise, which Mr. Calhoun laments that they were ever passed. Mr. Jefferson's letter, which he quotes, contains no argument. It only expresses a very just fear. Why he chose to quote it, it is difficult to guess. It does not condemn the compromise, and while it admits it to be an uncertain, dangerous, and temporary expedient, a mere palliative, it offers no other. It says in regard to slavery, "there is not a -man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of this property, (for so it is misnamed!!) is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if, in this way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected; and gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and can ed me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated: and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property, (for so it is misnamed) is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if in that way a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected: and gradually, and with due sacrifices. I think it might be. Bat him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold and self-preservation in the other. Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one State to another would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them the accomplishment of their emancipation, by diindividually happier, and proportionally facilitate viding the burden on a greater number of coadjutors. An abstinence, too, from this act of power, would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress to regulate the condition of the different descriptions of men composing a State. This certainly is the exclusive right of every State, which nothing in the constitution has taken from them, and given to the General Government.Could Congress, for example, say that the non-freemen of Connecticut shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other State? After disposing of the compromises, Mr. | cluded from emigrating with their property into Calhoun repeats at large his former argu- any of them.” ments and distinctions in regard to the power of Congress over the territories. He assumes that he has completely established the point, that Congress cannot forbid any citizen from taking any kind of property he may please into the territory, when, in fact, he has merely asserted that the power of Congress is limited, and has not proved the particular limitation. On this point it is, perhaps, unnecessary to argue further. If the point be proved for the territory that Congress has not this power, much more is it proved for States; and States have then no longer that power which they claim of excluding and freeing slaves, within their own limits. If Congress and the several states have not this power, it follows that all laws, ordinances, and compromises, whatsoever, against slavery, in all the States and in all the territories, are null and void. To what follows, all that we need offer, therefore, is simply a denial. "I have now concluded the discussion, so far as it relates to the power, and have, I trust, established beyond controversy, that the territories are free and open to all of the citizens of the United States, and that there is no power, under any aspect the subject can be viewed in, by which the citizens of the South can be ex I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away against an abstract principle, more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect. THOMAS JEFFERSON. But now, allowing that all may not be convinced that Congress has not the pow ers contended for, Mr. Calhoun appeals to equity and expediency. Is it equitable, and, for fear of consequences, is it politic for non-slaveholders to attempt to exclude slaveholders from a territory purchased by the money, and defended by the arms of all citizens alike? To this we answer, as before, that if there be a real joint ownership in the thirty States, any one, or any number of them, may demand a division be of the property. But we have shown that the States, as such, have no distinct right or title to the territories: it belongs to the Nation as a whole. If then a division line is to be established, it must be from motives of Public Economy, and not in accordance with, or by arguments deduced from, the doctrines of extreme factions of the North or South. We do not wish to hurry on the inevitable crisis by any arguments of ours. We wish only that the minds of all men may be tempered for the issue. The bill containing clauses which protect the citizens of Oregon against slavery, and throw the whole responsibility for the other territories upon the Supreme Court. has once passed the Senate, and its passage is predicted through the House. If the Court decide that slavery is not lawfa in the territories, how will the South fet!* And if the contrary, then how will the North feel? Was not this measure, after all, only a shifting of the responsibury upon shoulders less able to bear it? And if the Supreme Court is to be used for the decision of political questions, will not future Presidents extend such an influence, and so fill the bench as to leave its p ions on such questions no longer doubti W. THE LIFE AND GENIUS OF DANTE ALIGHIERI; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. IN Germany, which may be called the free-port and world-market of the literature of all ages and nations, Dante has been made, since the commencement of this century, a subject of serious study, and, if that be not too strong an expression, of enthusiastic veneration. Schelling, the philosopher, and the two Schlegels, first recalled attention to him. Thereupon followed a mass of translations and expositions of the Divina Commedia, the most successful among which were those of Kannegiesser, Streckfuss, Philalethes, (Prince John, brother to the reigning King of Saxony, and heir to the throne,) Kopisch, and Graul. Almost every aspect of this wonderful poem, poetical, historical, philosophical, and theological, has had light thrown upon it with more or less success, in larger works and in treatises, but always in such a way that much was eft to engage the attention and study of uture scholars. In the small compass allowed to us by he limits of this article, we must content urselves with endeavoring to present, in utline, A GENERAL IDEA OF THE DIVINE COMEDY, AND WITH IT THE KEY TO ITS ROPER UNDERSTANDING IN DETAIL. We will offer, first, a few remarks on he life and age of the poet, as some nowledge of these is necessary to an unerstanding of his work. Dante, or properly speaking, Durante, e. the enduring, was descended from the cient, noble, and venerable family of lighieri in Florence, where he was born May, 1265, during the pontificate of lement IV., a few years before the downll of the illustrious imperial family of e Hohenstauffen. He prosecuted his udies in the Latin classics, especially irgil, the Aristotelian philosophy, and e scholastic theology of his age, first in s native city, and afterwards in Bologna, idua, and Paris, with such energy and VOL. II. NO. II. NEW SERIES. spirit as to make this foreign material his own inmost property, and to work out of these single elements of culture an independent organic world-view. In his wanderings through the halls of science and art, he was accompanied by the genius of a pure ideal love, that exercised a moulding influence on his whole character and literary activity. It was when in his ninth year, that he saw for the first time, on a festive May-day, under a laurel tree, Beatrice, a Florentine maid of the middle rank of life, of wonderful beauty and attraction. The impression made upon him opened to his imagination for the first time the rich fountain of poetry, and determined the whole character of his life. The chaste and deeply earnest character of his works, as well as the express testimony of his cotemporaries,* compels us to believe that this mysterious relation was throughout of the purest and noblest kind. Dante himself has scribed it in his Vita Nuova, in a tender, deep, and moving manner. de Beatrice was not destined to be the companion of his life. They continued separate from each other, though united in spirit by the bonds of a Platonic love. But seldom was he so fortunate as to enjoy her smiling salutations, and as early as the year 1290 she was, to his deepest sorrow, torn from his view by an early death. Still, though lost to him as far as her earthly form was concerned, her enrapturing image rose again in his poetic imagination, transfigured, as the symbol of Divine Wisdom and Love, or as Theology, and accompanied him in his Divina Commedia through the holy precincts of Paradise, until the sight of the Triune God burst upon his view. Hence Uhland has beautifully sung : "Ja! mit Fug wird dieser Sänger After this beautiful period of learning and loving, our poet entered upon political life in the service of his native city. His public career, and yet more the years of his banishment, were full of troubles and storms. The trivial every-day world would on this account call him unfortunate; for it has not even the most distant conception of the secret and purely spiritual enjoy ments of a deep-thinking genius, wearing out his life upon the highest and noblest themes, who is raised equally far above fortune and misfortune in the common sense of the terms. pe The Florentine republic was in that riod torn by the severest party dissensions between the Cerohi, or White, (Bianchi,) and the Donati, or Black, (Neri.) By far the larger portion of the city belonged to the Guelph party; but the Ghibelline families united with the Bianchi, and these two parties now mirrored forth again the contests of the Ghibellines and Guelphs, a contest that continued itself throughout that whole period. By means of his talents Dante forced himself, in his twen ty-fifth year, up to one of the highest honors in the magistracy of Florence, to the office of Prior, and was sent on several embassies to the courts of Naples and Rome. But the hatred of his enemies soon accomplished his fall. He joined himself to the party of the Ghibellines, and interceded for them with Pope Boniface VIII., but without success. The opposite party prevailed. passion, and assisted by the Pope just named, they robbed the poet, among many others, in the year 1302, of his property, and banished him from Tuscany for two years; and subsequently, for contumaciousness, he was sentenced to be burnt alive, in case he should ever return. With sorrowful heart he bid farewell to his un Led by blind "Yea! with reason is this singer honored as the Divine Dante ! Whose earthly love transformed itself into heavenly." grateful, but still warmly-loved native city. never more to see it, and to his fami which he was also compelled to leave be hind him. With this commenced the third and last period of his life. From this time Dante wandered abo through Middle and Upper Italy, poor. restless, and ever longing for home; every where meeting friends and admirers, b enemies also and detractors; nowhere finding rest, but in the profound contem plation of Eternity, and its philosoph and poetic representations in the Div Commedia. This was commenced, if D.. as early as the year 1300, at least sour after his banishment, and amid all sorrows was gradually completed. For * "Poesie ist tiefes Schmerzen, Und est kommt das ächte Lied Einzig aus dem Menschenherzen, Das ein schweres Leid durchglüht") Dante says himself, (in the Convits, "Truly I have been a vessel without su and without rudder, driven about upt different ports and shores by the dry wind that springs out of dolorous poverty; and hence have I appeared vile in the eyes o many, who, perhaps, by some better report, had conceived of me a different impression, and in whose sight not only has my person become thus debased, but an unworthy opinion created of everything which I did or which I had to do." He of his banishment in Rome, Bologna, Paseems to have spent most of the years dua, and Verona. He sojourned for time in Paris also, where he buried himself in the deepest theological studies, and held a brilliant disputation. The report of the expedition of Henry VII. to Italy in 1310. recalled him to his fatherland. He hoped from him the overthrow of the Guelphs, and exhorted him, in a letter of 1311, to employ energetic measures. But Henry could accomplish nothing against Florence. and died in 1313. With his death the hopes of the banished Florentines, and the Ghibellines in general, were totally crushed. See, on this point, the investigation of Bianc. in his thorough and instructive article on Dante, in Ersch and Gruber's General Encyclopædia of the Sciences and Arts, (a truly colossal work in compass and contents,) Sect. I., Part 23, p. 67, ff. "Poetry is deep sorrow; and the true song comes alone out of the human heart, through which glows an intense grief." |