While Mr. Godwin's Essays may be taken as the expression of the soundest Northern sentiment in regard to the actual aspect of affairs, the writer of the Essays on the Constitution' in the Charleston Mercury,' gives voice to the deliberate convictions of many intelligent Southern men, whose influence upon their own section of the country is more likely to increase than to diminish. This writer dissects with singular ability the constitutional theories which have found favour at different times and with different parties in both the Northern and the Southern States. He examines the original conception of the Constitution as it existed in the minds of those who framed it, and looks fully in the face the circumstances of the present day which must determine its final interpretation. He comes unhesitatingly to the conclusion that the Constitution must inevitably be administered in a sense adverse to the institution of slavery; and he summons the South to prepare for a surrender of that institution, or for a secession from the existing Union, and the formation of a new slave-holding confederacy. The temper of these Essays is admirable, and their argumentation, we think, decisive. This view of their merits has been confirmed by one of the most eminent of American publicists, well known in this country, who assured us that in his opinion the writer in the Mercury' had seized the absolute truth of the ' question.' The Charleston Mercury' has long been considered the leading organ of extreme Southern opinion; it was the mouthpiece of Mr. Calhoun, and is supported by the principal public men of South Carolina. The name of Charles Sumner is too well known in England to need more than a passing mention from us. The sympathy and indignation which were excited throughout the Northern American States, by the atrocious assault which prostrated him upon the floor of the Senate, and with him the dignities and decencies of that august body, met with a ready response throughout England; nor will a perusal of his Speeches and Addresses' tend to lessen the amazement and the disgust of Englishmen at such an outrage, perpetrated upon a man so accomplished, so earnest, and so honourable. We shall have occasion, in the course of this paper, to recur to the position of Mr. Sumner, as one of the signs of the times in America, and we content ourselves therefore, in this place, with recommending to the particular attention of our readers this volume of Addresses, in which they will find the most careful and eloquent expression of the ultra-Northern principles and policy. In the same category of opinion with Mr. Sumner, we must place Mrs. Beecher Stowe, whose new novel of Dred' has been written, we presume, with the intention of completing the impression so forcibly produced by Uncle Tom.' In Uncle Tom's Cabin,' Mrs. Stowe undertook to paint the effects of slavery upon the enslaved; in 'Dred,' she means to describe its influences upon the slaveowner, and upon the race to which he belongs. We have no space here for an examination of the literary merits of Dred,' to which, however, we may observe in passing, less than justice will probably be rendered by the public, who rendered more than justice to Uncle Tom,' since the interest of novelty which attached so passionately to the first vivid picture of American slavery ever held up to mankind, has been largely satiated, and Dred' must pay the penalty of his predecessor's success. As a representation of the effects of slavery on society,' we cannot think Dred' successful; for it is evident that Mrs. Stowe has attempted to describe classes of persons with whom she has had but little intercourse. Nowhere are the lines of social life more sharply drawn than in America between the people of the world and the specially 'religious' circles in which Mrs. Stowe has been born and bred. It is one of the unfortunate consequences of the extreme Puritanism which reigned so long supreme in New England, that the professing Christians,' as they are called, of the Northern cities, still form an Israel of their own, carefully distinguished from the rest of the world in the midst of which they live, by manners, by habits, and even by a certain Shibboleth of speech. Whether the world's people,' or the professing Christians,' are to be held responsible for a state of things so undesirable and dangerous, it might be hard to determine; but it is hardly just to the Americans, that such singular personages as Nina and Tom Gordon, in Dred,' should be allowed to pass as unchallenged representatives of Southern society, and it would be unfair to Mrs. Stowe herself to withhold the true excuse of her failure. When Southern people of the rank in life of the Gordons visit the Northern States, they naturally associate with the more brilliant and the more fashionable, rather than with the graver and more pious portion of the Northern community, and into whatever frivolities of temper and feeling they may fall, they certainly do not learn from their acquaintances of Newport and New York the provincial patois of Connecticut. In the character of Nina Mrs. Stowe wished to paint a brilliant little American coquette, but she has only succeeded in producing a nondescript combination of the Parisian lorette with the Yankee factory-girl. Tom Gordon, we are we are given to understand, has learned his manners and his morals in the school of chivalry to which Mr. Brooks, the assailant of Senator Sumner, owes his education, and the implication therefore is, that Tom Gordon may be taken as a type of the South Carolinian gentleman. But Tom Gordon' is simply a melodramatic blackguard, an absurd caricature of the class of persons to which Mr. Brooks belongs. Such a misrepresentation is not merely wrong in itself, and false in point of art, it destroys the value of one of the most instructive signs which the times present to us in America. If Mr. Brooks were but a vulgar villain, there would be nothing particularly alarming in the incident which has given him so undesirable a notoriety. The true and terrible significance of that dastardly deed is to be found in the evidence it affords of the height to which party passion has risen in America, and of the ferocity which slavery keeps alive in the breasts of men, who not only bear the semblance of gentlemen, but who in most of the relations of life really act upon the principles, and govern themselves by the rules, of civilised honour. We believe that the personages of Dred' are no more faithful illustrations of Southern society than if Hannah Moore or Mrs. Fry had undertaken to describe the patronesses of Almack's. The chief value of this new work of Mrs. Stowe's, apart from its unquestionable truth as a representation of the corrupt religious feeling of the Slave States (and nothing in Uncle Tom' is finer in its way than the Camp Meeting scenes of 'Dred') is its symptomatic value. It is a signal proof of the intensity with which the great religious community of the Northern States has been and is agitated on the question of Slavery. We have no doubt that the brief and earnest preface, in which the author expresses her passionate sense of the importance of the actual crisis in the affairs of her country, may be taken as a virtual manifesto of the feelings of the great body to which she belongs, and consequently of a large majority of the most respectable and energetic classes of Northern society.* Since this passage was written, we have received from America the fullest confirmation of our views on this subject. It appears that the religious press of the North, with scarcely an exception, is declaring itself in favour of the Republican' candidate on anti-slavery grounds. The leading organ of the New York Presbyterians addresses its readers in these most eloquent and impressive terms:'We do not wonder that timid men, who dread a conflict, or who 'distrust the strength of the national tie which unites us, should fear ' and turn pale. Nor do we wonder at the shifts and turns which are resorted to, to postpone a little longer the mortal struggle which is 'to put our principles to so terrible a test, and to settle the question whether Freedom or Slavery is to be the controlling spirit and formative power of our national life. It is a serious, eventful, sealing, Those who would know what are the true effects of slavery on the society of the South, may be referred with confidence to the excellent work of Mr. Olmsted, upon the Seaboard Slave 'States.' Mr. Olmsted is evidently a man of judgment, wellinformed, familiar as a practical farmer with the laws of agricultural profit and loss, fitted by the nature of his faculties, and by experience as a traveller, to observe the aspects of society, and master of the happy art of describing truly and clearly what he sees. He visited the Slave States in detail, 'decisive issue-one that has been coming on ever since the forma'tion of the Government-one that touches the vitals of our political 'existence - one that, having come up, can never be turned aside ' until it is settled. For years, in all spheres, and in every form, it 'has been preparing. It has entered into everything. Religion, lite'rature, social life, politics, commerce, legislation, have all been in'vaded by it. There is not a religious body that has not felt its 'influence, nor a sphere of activity, thought, or life, in the country, which it has not coloured or shaped. It is and has been for years 'the all in all of our public concerns; no other topic begins to gather to itself such a universality and intensity of interest as this. Whether 'for good or evil, the last great struggle is upon us, and we can no 'more avoid the responsibility, the excitement, and the consequences ' of it, than we can escape the Providence of God which calls us to 'the conflict. If not decided at the present election, it will continue 'to reappear, like Banquo's ghost, till the policy of the country becomes settled-till it is finally determined whether of the two is to 'be the animating, guiding genius of the Republic-Freedom or 'Slavery. 'If now the right of suffrage implies at all times the duty of giving 'due attention to political concerns, it cannot be doubtful to what degree of interest and effort the present canvass is entitled at the 'hands of every conscientious citizen. Where so much is involved, it cannot be right for any lover of his country, of his children, or 'his kind, to be indifferent. It cannot be right for any Christian man to withhold, or to trifle, with his vote. It cannot be wise to 'ignore and overlook the significance of the struggle in which we are engaged, nor honourable or just to seek to evade it. It is now the set time of Providence for the religious prosecution of political 'duties; and as at other times, it should be our paramount duty to open the hand of charity to the starving or pestilence-stricken poor; or to contend earnestly for the faith, or to go forth with zealous 'words to warn the impatient and to guide the inquiring; so now, if we discern the signs of the times, it seems to us to be the one call of Providence, and the uppermost duty of the Christian life, to ' understand the meaning of, and to engage manfully and heartily in, 'the conflict that is to have its decision at the ballot-box in No'vember. There ought to be the principle and the earnestness of a ⚫ service rendered to God, Truth, and Freedom.' 6 with the express purpose of discovering for himself their real condition, and his book is one of the most valuable, if not the most valuable, contribution to our knowledge of these States, which has yet been given to the world. Praise so high we cannot bestow on the History of the American Compro'mises,' by Miss Harriet Martineau. This pamphlet is a remarkable instance at once of its author's conspicuous felicity in seizing upon the leading merits of a case, and of her singular infelicity in dealing with details. Miss Martineau is too ready to reason from the particular to the general without examining the value of her premisses; and her inferences consequently remind one continually of that famous medical generalisation, founded upon two instances, by which it was decided that a certain drug would surely heal all shoemakers, but just as surely kill all tailors. In her History of the American 'Compromises,' Miss Martineau declares her belief, that the extreme Abolitionists of America alone have seized upon the true principles of political action; a belief which we do not share; and she sketches the political course of certain leading Americans with more freedom than accuracy. This is particularly the case with the celebrated Judge Story; of whom she speaks as the most cautious of politicians,' and whom she takes to task for his lukewarmness, and want of faith in the instincts of the people. Singularly enough, the very quotation from Judge Story's letters (vol. i. p. 362.), which she adduces to support this charge, directly controverts it; and it is a fact well known to all who are familiar with the political history of America, that Judge Story, while the most temperate of judges, was at the same time most earnest in holding his political creed, and most frank and fearless in avowing it on all proper occa sions. Much more interesting, however, than the speculations of Miss Martineau, is the Address on the Nature and Power of 'the Slave States, and on the Duty of the Free States,' delivered by the Hon. Josiah Quincy, before the citizens of the town which bears the name of his family, on the 5th of June, 1856. Mr. Quincy, who is one of the most venerable Statesmen of the North, utters his convictions fully, fearlessly, and with amazing force. He is persuaded that a time has come at last which must thoroughly try the temper of men's souls, and decide the question whether liberty or slavery shall for ever colour the character and the policy of the American people. If the young men of the North shall be inspired with the wisdom, and her old men animated with the fire which distinguish this address of Mr. Quincy, there need be little fear for |