The chapter on the formation of the present Federal Constitution is one of great interest. The miserable state of collapse and imbecility into which the States all fell, when the external pressure of the war was first removed, is briefly stated; the measures which led to the call of the Convention for amending the old platform of Confederation, are summarily noticed; and the Convention itself, with some of its difficulties and debates and compromises, very interestingly occupy the remaining pages of a portion of the book, which deserve to be made more familiar by reiterated study. We give a few specimens only.

Eleven States were soon represented by about fifty delegates from among the most illustrious citizens of the States-men highly distinguished for talents, character, practical knowledge, and public services.

The Convention, as a whole, represented in a marked manner the talent, intelligence, and especially the conservative sentiment of the country. The Democracy had no representatives, except as far as the universal American sentiment was imbued, to a certain degree, with the democratic spirit. Jefferson, the ablest and most enthusiastic defender of the capacity of the people for self-government, was absent in Europe, and that theory, of late, had been thrown a little into the shade by the existing condition of affairs, both State and national. The public creditors especially demanded some authority able to make the people pay; and among a certain class, even monarchy began to be whispered of as a remedy for popular mal-administration.

As the Convention had met on the invitation of Virginia, it seemed to belong to the delegates of that State to give a start to the proceedings. Accordingly, Governor Randolph, at the request of his colleagues, opened the business in a set speech on the inefficiency of the Confederation; after which he offered fifteen resolutions suggesting amendments to the existing federal system. These resolutions proposed a national Legislature, to consist of two branches, the members of the first branch to be chosen by the people, and to be apportioned to the States in the ratio of free population or taxes; those of the second branch to be selected by the first branch, out of candidates nominated by the State Legislatures. A separate national executive was proposed, to be chosen by the national Legislature; also a national judiciary; and a council of revision, to consist of the executive and a part of the judiciary, with a qualified negative on every act of legislation, State as well as national. These resolutions of Randolph's, known as the "Virginia plan," were referred to a committee of the whole, as was a sketch submitted by Charles Pinckney, which, in its form and arrangement, seems to have furnished the outline of the Constitution as ultimately adopted. That, however, which is printed as Pinckney's sketch, contains many things which could hardly have been found in the original draft-interpolations, probably, from the subsequent proceedings of the Convention.

The far-reaching sagacity of Franklin thus anticipated one class of evils to which experience has proved we are greatly exposed :

Franklin was opposed to giving the Executive any salary beyond his

expenses, and, in general, to any high salaries, as adding the temptation of avarice to that of ambition, and tending to throw the administration of the government into the hands of the violent, bold, and selfish, to the exclusion of the wise, moderate, and disinterested. He read a speech to that effect, to which the Convention listened with marked attention; but his views were regarded as visionary and impracticable.

The vexed question of our times was in full view before the Convention :

Gouverneur Morris broke out into an eloquent denunciation of slavery. "It was a nefarious institution. It was the curse of Heaven on the States where it prevailed. Compare the free regions of the Middle States, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of the people, with the misery and poverty which overspread the barren wastes of Virginia, Maryland, and the other States having slaves. Travel through the whole continent, and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery. The moment you leave the Eastern States and enter New-York, the effects of the institution become visible. Passing through the Jerseys and entering Pennsylvania, every criterion of superior improvement testifies to the change. Proceed southwardly, and every step you take through the great region of slaves presents a desert, increasing with the increasing proportion of those wretched beings. Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens and let them vote. Are they property? Why, then, is no other property included? The houses in this city [Philadel phia] are worth more than all the wretched slaves that cover the rice swamps of South Carolina. The admission of slaves into the representation, when fairly explained, comes to this, that the inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina, who goes to the coast of Africa in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away his fellow-creatures from their dearest connections, and damns them to the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes in a government instituted for protection of the rights of mankind, than the citizen of Pennsylvania and New-Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so nefarious a practice. He would add, that domestic slavery is the most prominent feature in the aristocratic countenance of the proposed Constitution. The vassalage of the poor has ever been the favorite offspring of aristocracy. And what is the proposed compensation to the Northern States for a sacrifice of every principle of right, every impulse of humanity? They are to bind themselves to march their militia, for the defense of the Southern States, against those very slaves of whom they complain. They must supply vessels and seamen in case of foreign attack. The Legislature will have indefinite power to tax them by excises and duties on imports, both of which will fall heavier on them than on the Southern inhabitants; for the Bohea tea used by a Northern freeman will pay more tax than the whole consumption of the miserable slave, which consists of nothing more than his physical subsistence and the rag which covers his nakedness. On the other side, the Southern States are not to be restrained from importing fresh supplies of wretched Africans, at once to increase the danger of attack and the difficulty of defense; nay, they are to be encouraged to it by an assurance of having their votes in the national government increased in proportion, and, at the same time, are to have their slaves and their exports exempt from all contribution to the public service. Let it not be said that direct taxation is to be

proportioned to representation. It is idle to suppose that the general government can stretch its hand directly into the pocket of the people, scattered over so vast a country. They can only do it through the medium of exports, imports, and excises. For what, then, are all these sacrifices to be made? He would sooner submit himself to a tax for paying for all the negroes in the United States, than saddle posterity with such a Constitution." He moved to confine the representation to free inhabitants.

Sherman "did not regard the admission of the negroes as liable to such insuperable objections. It was the freemen of the Southern States who were to be represented according to the taxes paid by them, and the negroes are only included in the estimate of the taxes. This was his idea of the matter."

C. Pinckney considered the fisheries and the Western frontier more burdensome to the United States than the slaves, as he would demonstrate if the occasion were a proper one.

There are critics in plenty, overmuch disposed to fault Mr. Hildreth, for the apparent lack of all enthusiasm, for a want of becoming national spirit, a patriotic sympathy with the rapidly developing greatness of our country, which he here records. For our own part, we cannot but rejoice in this, as on the whole a feature to be commended. So much is this age-and, if foreigners are to be credited, our countrymen in particular-given to self-laudation, to an overwrought appreciation of our greatness present or prospective, that it is really refreshing to meet with one writer able and determined entirely to avoid this vaingloriousness. It is the less needful that our historians should deal in stimulants to national vanity, because it is an element which each American reader will so readily furnish without the bidding of a prompter. Nor can it be wondered at, that such success as free institutions have here achieved, should make the light-minded almost disgustingly self-vaunting. We hope there are, however, an increasing number who trace to the right, but high and hidden source of God's unmerited benignity, the influences which have made us to differ from most of the nations of the earth. Their pious thankfulness will not be less likely exercised in the perusal of these volumes, because they are not formally and frequently called to itsutterance.

No Christian patriot, from the position we now occupy, can fail to review the history of these United States, and the development which it has hitherto furnished of Divine wisdom and beneficence, without adoring thankfulness. Had the question been raised two hundred and fifty years since, When, and where, and by whom shall a great empire of and for freedom be established? how futile would man's wisdom have proved to furnish the answer! The Old World then as now was without the elements of this great conception;

hence God prepared a place for this grand experiment in the New World. Far away from the debasing contamination and the blighting, overshadowing influence of colossal, time-mossed despotisms, he planted the germs of this nation. But what were to be its constituent elements? Was ever an experiment tried before combining such a heterogeneous colluvies of what to the eye would seem discordant materials? The proud cavaliers of Virginia, hunting for gold and earldoms; the genuine Puritans of Plymouth, and the semi-Puritans of Massachusetts Bay; the French Huguenots of Carolina; the Spaniards of Florida; the Dutch of New-Netherlands; the Irish Catholics of Maryland; the exiled Baptists of Rhode Island; the Swedes and Finns of Delaware; the Quakers and Germans of Pennsylvania; the Scotch of NewJersey and Georgia; and the French Catholics of Louisiana,what a compound must all these ingredients form when melted down in the great alembic of a national unity. Yet has this very diversity in many times and ways proved of the utmost benefit; nor has it failed to impress on the active and improving masses the necessity and desirableness of mutual forbearance, of conciliatory and kind regard for each other's principles, practices, and even prejudices. To learn of each other, also, what each was enabled to teach the rest which was better and wiser than these had known before, seemed so much a matter of course, from this daily proximity, that it has excited no marvel, though in the review it should not fail to awaken gratitude.

Then the political training which each of the colonies in various ways had experienced to fit them for self-government, and for coalescence too; the various exigencies which imperiously required of them mutual concessions, and thus fitted them to combine with one another; the right men, raised up always at the right moment; the results of their endeavors often guided by an unseen hand to accomplishments far beyond their short-sighted aims;-all these things, in instances almost innumerable, are well adapted to fill the most devout with still more adoring conceptions of that infinite power and wisdom and goodness which have been so largely engaged in making us what we are.

In conclusion, we can most cordially express the hope, that such will be the success of the present publication, as to warrant the author's early fulfilling his promise, "in two more volumes to sketch the story even to the present times."

ART. III.-WASHINGTON IRVING'S WORKS.

Irving's Works. New-York: G. P. Putnam. 1848-9-50. The Crayon Reading Book: Comprising Selections from the various Writings of Washington Irving. Prepared for the use of Schools. New-York: G. P. Putnam. 1849. A Book of the Hudson, collected from the various Works of Diedrich Knickerbocker. Edited by GEOFFREY CRAYON. New-York: G. P. Putnam. 1849.

We do not propose to attempt a full review of Mr. Irving's works. The collection is not yet complete. One of the most characteristic parts is still wanting; and it will be both easier and pleasanter to do it when this beautiful mind has been spread before us in all its abundance. Most of the volumes which have appeared thus far are old friends, our daily companions of many years, whom we cordially greet in their new garb. We thank Mr. Putnam heartily for his taste and his enterprise; he could not have done a more honorable thing for himself, or rendered a more important service to American literature. There is no American writer who awakens such associations as Mr. Irving. Salmagundi carries us back to the very dawn of our literature; Knickerbocker was like the opening of an exhaustless mine; the Sketch Book was the first American book which Englishmen read. We shall never forget the first appearance of "Columbus." Our enthusiasm had been warmed by a recent visit to the great navigator's birth-place. A friend, fresh from Spain, had seen a chapter in manuscript,) and told us things about it which haunted us even during the excitement of a first winter in Rome. Soon after the newspapers were filled with the tidings of its approach. Murray had published-Galignani was printing it. There were no railroads in those days, and we were constrained to curb our impatience as best we might. At last, one sunny morning,-we shall never forget it-such mornings as Florence gives you in summer, when the cool shadows fall gratefully from her massive palaces, and the murmur of fountains steals like music on the perfumed air,— we had eaten our breakfast of fresh figs and grapes still dripping with dew, and strolled out towards a friend's, with that indefinite anticipation with which you are sometimes made to feel that the day will not pass without bringing you