while scores have been passed and enforced for its protection. Their fugitive slaves have been remanded in almost every instance where they have been claimed, and more than once the navy and army of the Federal Government have been used for that purpose. But the states which have commenced this hard rebellion have lost scarcely any fugitive slaves; while those states which have the right to complain of losses on this score are still loyal to the Union and the Constitution. The John Brown invasion, the only instance of aggressive action of the North upon slavery during the whole history of the Government, was the action of a band of fanatics, for which no considerable part of the country was in the least responsible, and was suppressed by the Government of the United States itself. In no solitary instance have the rebel states had the slightest reason to complain of oppression or injustice at the hands of the Federal Government."

The South may not endorse every sentence of the above, but it shows conclusively that the North were persuaded that they had no reason to complain on the score of slavery; and how anxious they were to impress upon them the obligations they were under to the Union. Yet with all this they seceded. Is it not plain that something more than a dread of losing their slaves, of which there was no fear, must have been at work? The cause clearly was the oppressive tariffs. The consequence of such oppression was foretold in the House of Representatives, in 1828, on the tariff debate:

"If the union of these states shall ever be severed, and their liberties subverted, the historian who records these disasters will have to ascribe them to measures of this description. I do sincerely believe that neither this government, nor any free government, can exist for a quarter of a century under such a system of legislation."

It only remains, in the last place, to examine the Northern accounts of the cause of the war. This was at first to preserve the Union. President Lincoln held, "that in contemplation of their universal state, and of its constitution, these states is perpetual, and shall continue to execute all its express provisions. Our national constitution and our Union endure for ever. No state upon its own mere notion can get out of the Union. I therefore consider the Union as unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care that the laws of the Union are fully executed in all the states." Writing to Horace Greely, after the famous emancipation proclamation, he declares that he would emancipate all, none, or part, just as he thought it would tend to restore or preserve the Union. So far this is intelligible enough. But the latest authority on the subject, Mr. Beecher, tells us that the war is undertaken for the enclosing and extinction of slavery. "Aha! independent of pounds and pence, independent of national honour, independent of all merely material considerations, there is pressing on every conscientious Northerner's mind this highest of all considerations our duty to God to save that continent from the blast and blight of slavery. Shall we allow that hell-hound of slavery, mad as it is, to go biting millions in the future? We will peril life and limb and all we have first. You cannot understand how firm that national feeling is which God has bred in the North on this

subject." If such, indeed, be the feeling, one would very naturally suppose that the North would think of setting its own house in order first. The strongest supporters of slavery are the merchants of New York and Boston. The whole of the ships fitted out for the transport of slaves from Africa to Cuba were owned by Northerners. No feasible scheme for extinguishing slavery has yet been proposed by the North. It has not attempted to set free its own. The little state of Delaware has 1,800 slaves. The district of Columbia around Washington, and which is under the absolute control of Congress, has 3,181. But instead of so doing, they are left bound, while the slaves of the rebels, who refuse to return, are to be set free; those who do return being allowed to retain theirs. What a mockery then is this! Even when set free, is he to be treated as a "man and a brother"? Every one knows that he is not, and never will be so. The abhorrence of the black felt by the Northerner is most intense. He is looked upon as a Pariah, an outcast of society, and treated accordingly. Mr. Beecher was questioned upon this point, and failed, in our opinion, to give straightforward and satisfactory replies. When the deputation of blacks waited upon President Lincoln, what was his reply? We cannot give it verbatim, but it is doubtless still fresh in the recollection of many. In substance it was this:-"You are free men, and ought to be treated as equals, but no one here will do it. There is a prejudice against you so strong, that I am afraid it will never be overcome. The best thing you can do is to leave the country, go to Central America, and found there a Liberia of your own, where you will not be exposed to the scorn and insult of the white." At the late riot in New York the negro was taken and hung wherever found. The plea that the North wishes to abolish slavery is, therefore, futile. We shall show, in conclusion, that the South have no wish to extend it. Two new territories were added to the Union a few years since, New Mexico and Arizona. The South, to maintain its proper share of influence, had these classed as slaveholding states, thereby gaining four members in the senate, who would be likely to protect her commercial interests. But though the soil of both these territories is favourable to the production of cotton and sugar, no great effort has been made to extend the domestic institution. The territory is four times as large as England, and in ten years there were but twenty-two slaves, of whom only twelve were domiciled. The South, then, does not wish to extend slavery for its own sake; but has been compelled, to maintain its due political influence, to call states slave states which are not in reality so. The loss of this political influence, the disregard of the necessities and commercial interests of the South, and not slavery, have been the real causes of the war.

R. S.

The Reviewer.

An English Grammar. By ALEX. BAIN, M.A. man, Green, Longman, &c.

66

London: Long

Our opinion of the merits of the Professor of Logic in the University of Aberdeen has already been expressed with considerable freedom and copiousness in this serial (Jan., 1862). He makes a new claim upon our notice, not now as an elaborate thinker, and increaser of the sum of human speculation, but as a workman condescending to be useful, and "not needing to be ashamed." The present work has been composed with more particular reference to the class of English composition attached to the chair of Logic in the University of Aberdeen;" but it will be found specially suitable to self-culture. Our own acquaintance with English grammars is pretty extensive. We have looked into, read, compared, and to a certain extent studied, somewhat more than a thousand of them, ranging in price from a penny to a guinea, and in pages from sixteen 32mo., to a thousand royal 8vo., not to speak of cognate works, and leaving out of reference altogether the grammars of other languages, in which occasional suggestions on the subject may have been found. In very few of these have we seen so marked an individuality, and so large a quantity of distinctly original constructiveness and absolute thinking out from first principles, with so few flaws arising from straining after show and freshness. Though on almost every page there may be noted some good remark on word, phrase, or form of speech, there is no sign of a writer claimant for praise. The method of the book, though not entirely new, is carried out with an unexampled rigour and consistency. His plan is to work out all that regards words in each special department, as, for example, in classification, inflection, and derivation, rather than to exhaust successively all the considerations which require attention in regard to each part of speech. The special features of this grammar are careful distinctness, system, and clearness.

The Professor's scheme of alphabetization (we do not think much of it) is at once too complex, and too deficient in thoroughgoingness. His exposition of "the Sentence," as introductory to Etymology, is plain and sufficient. The classification of the parts of speech is given with great fulness of explanation. Inflection is most minutely examined. Indeed, we think too much space has been given to the exposition of merely orthographical changes or influences. We are also inclined to question how far the elaborate,

useful, and entertaining thirty pages, appropriated to derivation, falls within the true scope of grammar proper. Though it must be confessed the matter is admirably and concisely arranged, and well worthy of study, too great a concession seems to us to have been made to the new-fangled, German-borrowed style of teaching syntax, by "the analysis of sentences," which in our opinion falls far more truly under the domain of rhetoric or composition. The law of words among themselves which syntax brings before us forms a round of teaching which requires ample illustration, and therefore, as it appears to us, ought to be kept quite free from the laws which refer to the expression of given ideas in given forms, or, in short, from the laws which relate to the utterance of thought by words. If the analysis of sentences should be taught, the counterpart, synthesis, ought also to be explained. The sections on "The order of words," "Purity," &c., belong, as we have said, more closely to composition than grammar; yet as many expositions of the science of language have contained remarks on these topics, they may be held as excellent accessory lessons. The appendix on derivation is worthy of notice, as concise and capable of good use.

One special portion of the work we must not overlook, viz., the discussion of the idioms and constructions of the relative and interrogative pronouns. These are very useful and informing. We fancy, however, that the common purpose of the relative pronoun, viz., to enable us to construct adjectival sentences, for which our language furnishes no single term, has escaped the Professor's notice. The recognition of this fact would simplify the explanation of many phrases, and would show the incorrectness of many ordinary slipshod expressions, for it would teach us never to use a relative sentence instead of an adjective, so long as our language furnished one of the latter, suited to our purpose in speaking; e. g., "I will tell you an anecdote, which will instruct you," instead of. "I will tell you an instructive anecdote."

Such phraseology as that is among the most prevalent of our vices of style.

To thoughtful young men desirous of learning within brief compass a large amount of information regarding the method of employing our English language with purity, pith, expressiveness, and accuracy, this is a good book. We counsel a perusal of its pages to our readers thus-viz.: Read a whole section, carefully noting as it is perused the matter presented new, or in a new light; re-peruse these passages, marking off those portions of which the reader has been ignorant; commit these parts to memory, and write illustrations of the fact, or cull them from other works. Revise each distinct division of the work before proceeding to the next, making up in the process all felt omissions in study; and thereafter read the whole work systematically and observantly through. If it is used as we advise, it will be found of infinite value to the large army of self-educators, the volunteers in the cause of mental improvement, for whom we write.

Transportation considered as a Punishment and as a Mode of Founding Colonies. A Paper read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Newcastle, 29th August, 1863. By ROBERT R. TORRENS, Esq. London: William Ridgway.

THIS essay appears to have been called forth by the Report of the Royal Commission on Transportation and Penal Servitude, recently presented to Parliament, in which the resumption of transportation to Western Australia is recommended. Mr. Torrens has strong convictions on this subject, arrived at from his own observations made during a visit to the penal settlements, and in a colony adjacent thereto, in which, for more than twenty years, he held the commission of the peace, and during the greater portion of which period he was a member of the executive and legislative councils. His description of the system pursued in the penal settlement of Western Australia may be interesting to our readers. He says,

"The convict, on arrival, undergoes solitary confinement, and this, the only portion of the system that can, without a gross abuse of terms, be designated formidable, is doled out to all alike without regarding degrees of criminality, for the uniform period of nine months. This brief period of punishment over, the convict is thenceforth in a position, having regard as well to immediate physical requirements as to future prospects, far superior to that of the honest labourer of this country. With some thirty or forty of his comrades, under the guidance of a constable usually chosen from the gang, he is marched into the interior, where he is to sojourn for a period of from one to five years, proportioned by the term of his sentence, which period may, however, be reduced one-fourth, in case of good conduct, and is also shortened by deducting four months spent on the voyage. There he is comfortably hutted, well clothed, and fed with an abundance of bread, beef, mutton, tea, sugar, &c., varied occasionally by game of his own taking, or procured from the natives. The daily labour exacted is light, not more than is calculated to promote healthy digestion and sound sleep. The evenings are passed agreeably round the camp fires, with pipes and tea, the cup which cheers, but not inebriates,' whilst some bold cracksman recounts his deeds of burglary and violence, stirring the spirits of his auditors to emulate his daring; and oft the merry song goes round, and oft the jest.' Nor is improvement lost sight of in those hours of relaxation. The garotter's handicraft is playfully exhibited in the harmless practical joke, and the exquisitely delicate touch of the professional pickpocket is kept in practice by abstracting pebbles, deposited for that purpose in his neighbour's pouch. Captain Kennedy, governor of the penal settlement, naïvely enough describes this phase of convict life in his reply to query 2,447. "Yes, they do prefer it. They have a greater swing; discipline is less severe, and there is less routine. They like that sort of free and easy life better.'

But, alas! all human joys must end, and after a couple of years of this "free and easy life,' the third stage commences, and our convict is thrown upon his own resources as a ticket-of-leave man for the space of one to four years, according to his original sentence, with the restriction that he must not roam beyond the limits of his police district (comprising an area usually as large as Yorkshire), and cautioned against exposing himself to the night air after ten o'clock. To console him under these restrictions, he is assured that in case of sickness he will be supplied with medical aid, and maintained at the expense of the mother country; and that, as stated by Captain Kennedy and Colonel Henderson (queries 2331-2 and 6344-5), he may obtain employment at far higher wages than those