way when it purports to convey a right of another kind, such as property, would hold a very weak brief in any tribunal of jurisprudence, if the question could be brought to that arbitrament. The American people have been very much accustomed to treat political grants, made by the sovereign power without reservation, as irrevocable conveyances and executed contracts; and although they hold to the right of revolution, they have not yet found out how a deed, absolute on its face, is to be treated in point of law, as a repealable instrument, because it deals with political rights and duties. If any court in South Carolina were now to have the question come before it, whether the laws of the United States are still binding upon their citizens, I think they would have to put their denial upon the naked doctrine of revolution; and that they could not hold that, as matter of law and regular political action, their ratification deed of May 23d, 1788, is "repealed" by their late ordinance. Most truly and respectfully yours,

I have your note of the 18th, and cheerfully authorize you to use my name, as you suggest.

The letter I read in the speech which I made in Frederick, should be conclusive evidence that, at its date, Mr. Calhoun denied the right of secession, as a constitutional right, either express or implied.

But, in addition to this, I had frequent opportunities of knowing that this was his opinion. It was my good fortune to be a member of the Senate of the United States, whilst he was one of its greatest ornaments, for four years, from 1845, until I became a member of Gen. Taylor's administration, and during two sessions (I think 1846 and 1847) I lived in the same house with him. He did me th honor to give me much of his confidence, and frequently his nullification doctrine was the subject of conversation. Time and time again have I heard him, and with ever increased surprise at his wonderful acuteness, defend it on Constitutional grounds, and distinguish it, in that respect, from the doctrine of Secession. This last he never, with me, placed on any other ground than that of revolution. This, he said, was to destroy the Government; and no Constitution, the work of sane men, ever provided for its own destruction. The other was to preserve it, was, practically, but to amend it, and in a constitutional mode. As you know, and he was ever told, I never took that view. I could see no more constitutional warrant for this than for the other, which, I repeat, he ever in all our interviews repudiated, as wholly indefensible as a constitutional remedy. His mind, with all its wonderful power, was so ingenious that it often led him into error, and at times to such an extent as to be guilty of the most palpable inconsistencies. His views of the tariff and internal improvement powers of the Government, are instances. His first opinions upon both were decided, and almost ultra. His earliest reputation was won as their advocate, and yet four years before his death he denounced both, with constant zeal and with rare power, and, whilst doing so, boldly asserted his uniform consistency. It is no marvel, therefore, with those who have observed his career and studied his character, to hear it stated now that he was the advocate of constitutional secession.

It may be so, and perhaps is so; but this in no way supports the doctrine, as far as it is rested on his authority. His first views were well considered and formed, without the influence of extraneous circumstances, of which he seemed to me to be often the victim.

Pure in private life and in motives, ever, as I believe and have always believed, patriotic, he was induced, seemingly without knowing it, in his later life, to surrender to section what was intended for the whole, his great powers of analysis and his extraordinary talent for public service. If such a heresy, therefore, as constitutional secession could rest on any individual name, if any mere human authority could support such an absurd and destructive folly, it cannot be said to rest on that of Mr. Calhoun. With sincere regard, your friend,

Hon. EDWARD EVERETT, Boston.

REVERDY JOHNSON.

APPENDIX C, p. 31.

The number of fugitive slaves, from all the States, as I learn from Mr. J. C. G. Kennedy, the intelligent superintendent of the census bureau, was, in the year 1850, 1,011, being about one to every 3,165, the entire number of slaves at that time being 3,200,364, a ratio of rather more than of one per cent. This very small ratio was diminished in 1860. By the last census, the whole number of slaves in the United States was 3,949,557, and the number of escaping fugitives was 803, being a trifle over of one per cent. Of these it is probable that much the greater part escaped to the places of refuge in the South, alluded to in the text. At all events, it is well known that escaping slaves, reclaimed in the free States, have in almost every instance been restored.

There is usually some difficulty in reclaiming fugitives of any description, who have escaped to another jurisdiction. In most of the cases of fugitives from justice, which came under my cognizance as United States Minister in London, every conceivable difficulty was thrown in my way, and sometimes with success, by the counsel for the parties whose extradition was demanded under the Webster-Ashburton treaty. The French Ambassador told me, that he had made thirteen unsuccessful attempts to procure the surrender of fugitives from justice, under the extradition treaty between the two governments. The difficulty generally grew out of the difference of the jurisprudence of the two countries, in the definition of crimes, rules of evidence, and mode of procedure.

The number of blacks living in Upper Canada and assumed to be all from the United States, is sometimes stated as high as forty thousand, and is constantly referred to, at the South, as showing the great number of fugitives. But it must be remembered that the manumissions far exceed in number the escaping fugitives. I learn from Mr. Kennedy that while in 1860 the number of fugitives was but 803, that of manumissions was 3,010. As the manumitted slaves are compelled to leave the States where they are set free, and a small portion only emigrate to Liberia, at least nine-tenths of this number are scattered through the northern States and Canada. In the decade from 1850 to 1860, it is estimated that 20,000 slaves were manumitted, of whom three-fourths probably joined their brethren in Canada. This supply alone, with the natural increase on the old stock and the new comers, will account for the entire population of the province.

A very able and instructive discussion of the statistics of this subject will be found in the Boston Courier of the 9th of July. It is there demonstrated that the assertion that the Northern States got rid of their slaves by selling them to the South, is utterly unsupported by the official returns of the census.

APPENDIX D, p. 37.

In his message to the Confederate Congress of the 29th April last, Mr. Jefferson Davis presents a most glowing account of the prosperity of the peculiar institution of the South. He states, indeed, that it was "imperilled" by Northern agitation, but he does not affirm (and the contrary, as far as I have observed, is strenuously maintained at the South) that its progress has been checked or its stability in the slightest degree shaken.

I think I have seen statements by Mr. Senator Hunter of Virginia, that the institution of slavery has been benefited and its interests promoted, since the systematic agitation of the subject began; but I am unable to lay my hand on the speech, in which, if I recollect rightly, this view was taken by the distinguished senator.

I find the following extracts from the speeches of two distinguished southern senators,

in "The Union," a spirited paper published at St. Cloud, Minnesota :

It was often said at the North, and admitted by candid statesmen at the South, that anti-slavery agitation strengthened rather than weakened slavery. Here are the admissions of Senator Hammond on this point, in a speech which he delivered in South Carolina, October 24, 1858:

"And what then (1833) was the state of opinion in the South? Washington had emancipated his slaves. Jefferson had bitterly denounced the system, and had done all that he could to destroy it. Our Clays, Marshalls, Crawfords, and many other prominent Southern men, led off in the colonization scheme. The inevitable effect in the South was that she believed slavery to be an evilweakness-disgraceful-nay, a sin. She shrunk from the discussion of it. She cowered under every threat. She attempted to apologize, to excuse herself under the plea-which was true that England had forced it upon her; and in fear and trembling she awaited a doom that she deemed inevitable. But a few bold spirits took the question up-they compelled the South to investigate it anew and thoroughly, and what is the result? Why, it would be difficult to find now a Southern man who feels the system to be the lightest burden on his conscience; who does not, in fact, regard it as an equal advantage to the master and the slave, elevating both, as wealth, strength, and power, and as one of the main pillars and controlling influences of modern civilization, and who is not now prepared to maintain it at every hazard. Such have been the happy results of this abolition discussion. "So far our gain has been immense from this contest, savage and malignant as it has been."

And again he says:—

"The rock of Gibraltar does not stand so firm on its basis as our slave system. For a quarter of a century it has borne the brunt of a hurricane as fierce and pitiless as ever raged. At the North, and in Europe, they cried havoc,' and let loose upon us all the dogs of war. And how stands it How? Why, in this very quarter of a century our slaves have doubled in numbers, and each slave has more than doubled in value. The very negro who, as a prime laborer, would have brought $400 in 1828, would now, with thirty more years upon him, sell for $800.”

Equally strong admissions were made by A. H. Stephens, now Vice-President of the "Confederacy," in that carefully prepared speech which he delivered in Georgia in July, 1859, on the occasion of retiring from public life. He then said ::

"Nor am I of the number of those who believe that we have sustained any injury by these agitations. It is true, we were not responsible for them. We were not the aggressors. We acted on the defensive. We repelled assault, calumny, and aspersion, by argument, by reason, and truth. But so far from the institution of African slavery in our section being weakened or rendered less secure by the discussion, my deliberate judgment is that it has been greatly strengthened and fortified-strengthened and fortified not only in the opinions, convictions, and consciences of meň, but by the action of the Government."

66

"E PLURIBUS UNUM."

BURKE remarks that "the march of the human mind is slow" in the discovery and application of great political truths. With respect to the all-important question, what is the best form of government, two truths only of the highest order have been discovered and applied before the American Revolution. Pope would suppress all further search in this direction, by his magnificent epigram:

For forms of government let fools contest,
Whate'er is best administered is best.

But this doctrine, absurd in itself, settles nothing. Besides placing the government of Turkey and that of England on the same footing, it leaves unanswered the only important question, what form of government is most likely to be best administered? Alexander the First of Russia understood this: when Madame de Staël flattered him that his character was the Constitution of his empire, he answered that if that was the case, their welfare depended on an accident.

The two great truths referred to were, that small states admitted free governments, and that large empires required strong ones; understanding by free governments those which proceed directly from the governed, and are directly responsible to them; and by strong governments, those which rest only on the acquiescence of the people; which are upheld by military power; and which admitted no remedy for abuses but the moral influence of public opinion and the extreme right of revolution.

The ancient world did not get beyond these two principles. The first was applied for short periods in Greece and Rome; but all the rest of the world, as far as we know from the beginning, and the two states just named, after brief and unsuccessful experiments of free institutions, settled down upon the assumption that the Nations of the Earth, in the long run, could be ruled by nothing but the strong arm of power. It has sometimes seemed that you might say of all Peoples what one of the ministers of Louis Philippe said, after his downfall, of his own country that there are two kinds of government which the people of France will not submit to, viz.: a Republic and a Monarchy. The dangerous maladies of

* Respecting "E PLURIBUS UNUM," Mr Everett writes to the publisher: "It was originally intended as a part of my oration; but finding that was running unduly to length, I determined to send it as an article to Mr. Bonner," for the New York Ledger. It is here re-published by the special permission of Mr. Bonner.

States sometimes spring not from this or that alleged abuse, but from the ambitions, the passions, and the corruptions of the leaders and the led, which make any government impossible.

The two principles to which I have alluded had each its great attending evil, that rendered some further progress in the Science of Government necessary for the happiness of mankind. The welfare of small states under republican governments, wholly administered by the people or very directly responsible to them, is apt to be constantly disturbed by gusts of popular passion. For the want of that time for reflection—that pause between the different stages of administration, which obtains in a system that spreads over a great space and large populations-the most momentous measures may be decided by the caprice of a popular assembly at a single session. All the social institutions and interests tremble for want of stability, and property and life become so precarious as to be almost worthless.

Then, if the state is very small, the policy will be small, the standard of politi cal character low, and every thing be planned and executed on a petty municipal scale. If a great character, Heaven inspired, springs up, his first impulse will necessarily be to stretch beyond the limits of the tribe, and by peaceful alliance or the conquering sword, possess himself of a broader and a nobler field of action. Moses leads forth his brethren from an Egyptian province to the conquest of Canaan. Pericles, from the citadel of Athens, struggles for the sovereignty of Greece. The chiefs of Republican Rome grasp at the dominion first of the surrounding states of Italy, and then of the world.

Finally, if a small state stands alone in the vicinity of a powerful neighbor, it holds its existence on sufferance. If a group of small independent states are placed side by side in the same region, they are doomed to eternal wars with each other, and fall at last the victims one by one to the intrigues or arms of the nearest aggressive Power. There were more than a hundred Hanse towns in the middle ages, each an independent little republic; Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck alone are left.

In this way the first form of government either sinks by its inherent weakness, and becomes a prey to its powerful neighbor, or grows up itself into an aggressive and conquering state, ruled of necessity by a strong hand.

The besetting evil of strong governments ruling over great empires is the neces sarily uncompromising nature of Power. The rights and interests of individuals are crushed by the inflexible rule. Power is a divine force, but on earth it has got to be wielded by fallible, often by wicked men. The power which decides the fates of millions by a rescript, has no time to study individual cases and examine particular localities. During the visit of the Emperor Nicholas to London in 1844, I was informed by a person in near attendance upon him, that more than nine hundred letters came to his address from Russia, in the three or four days of his visit. At home the daily number must be greater. How is it possible that one mind, with whatever subdivision of labor, can give heed to such a vast number of daily applications? The memoirs of Baron Menneval, the private secretary of Napoleon I., throw much light on this point; especially when we consider, that in addition to the personal appeals made to himself, the great mass of the business of his empire must, of course, have been transacted with the civil and military chiefs and departments of all ranks and names.