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man, its productions would be much more various, and yet so much more abundant, as to be reduced in price. It would thereby add ten or twenty fold more than now, to the aggregate wealth of the world, although the nominal value, in money, might be little or nothing greater than that of their present productions.

A necessary consequence of the present state of things is, that when the North and the South make an exchange of productions, of the same nominal value, the North gives the South ten or twenty times as much wealth—or the product of ten or twenty times as much labor-as the South gives in return.

When the North sells to the South a yard of cotton in exchange for a pound of tobacco, she gives to the South an article of wealth, which its slave labor, if educated only by the masters, with no aid or instruction from free laborers, would probably never have been able to produce. A community consisting solely of slaves and slave-holders, if cut off from the rest of the world, would probably never bring the mechanic arts to that degree of perfection that would enable them to manufacture a yard of our cheap cotton. These things illustrate, in some measure, how little in comparison a slave population - if placed in the same circumstances as a free one would contribute to the aggregate wealth of the world. They show also that our slave states in reality give comparatively little in exchange for what they receive, when they make exchanges with the free states.

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[We learn from the best authority that there are not in the state of Connecticut ten adults born in that state and unable to read and write; of the 536 persons reported in the census as ignorant to that degree, almost all are Irishmen. This fact makes the educational difference between Connecticut and South Carolina still more enormous than before.-T. P.]

9.-Essays, Lectures, and Orations, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things,

We shall be wise perforce."

London: William S. Orr & Co. 1848. 1 vol. 18mo. pp. XII and 364.

THIS is a piratical reprint of nearly all the published prose writings of Mr. Emerson. The volume contains a preface entitled "Emerson and his Writings;" the first volume of his Essays, his essay called "Nature," sketches or reports of three lectures on the Times, and four Orations; namely, the Addresses delivered before the Divinity School; before the Mechanic Apprentices' Library Association; before the Phi Beta Kappa Society; and before the Adelphi in Waterville College.

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Arnobii adversus nationes. Libri VII. Ex nova cod. Paris. Collatione recens. &c. Dr. G. F. Hildebrand. Hal. Sax. 1. 8vo.

Dr. F. X. Diefinger. Die barmherzigen Schwestern vom heil. Karl Borromäus zu Nancy; geschichtlich dargestellt, &c. Bonn.

J. H. Thommes. Thomas Morus, Lord Kanzler v. England. Historisches Gemälde d. despotischen Wilk ürherrschaft Heinrich's VIII., &c. Augsburg. 1847. I. 1 Thl.

F. T. Clemens. Giordano Bruno und Nikolaus v. Cusa; Eine philosophische Abhandlung. Bonn. 1847.

Dr. F. X. Diefinger. Der heil. Karl Borromäus und d. Kirchenverbesserung seiner Zeit. Köln. 1. 8vo.

Leibnitzens Gesammelte Werke, a. d. MSS. d. Kön. Bibliothek zu Hannover herausg. v. G. H. Pertz. Vol. I.-III., Annales Imperii occidentis Brunsvicensis. Vol. IV., Leibnitzens geschichtliche Aufsätze und Gedichte. Briefwechsel zwischen Leibnitz, Arnault, und d. Landgrafen Ernst v. HessenRheinfels. Herausg. v. Dr. C. L. Grotefend.

Leibnitz-Album, herausg. v. C. L. Grotefend.

Historia et origo Calculi differentialis a G. G. Leibnitio conscripta. Herausg. v. C. L. Grotefend.

Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Fr. H. Jacobi. Herausg. v. M. Jacobi. Leipzig. 1847. 12mo. s. VIII. u. 274.

Schiller's Briefwechsel mit Körner. 1 Thl. Berlin. 1847. 8vo. s. 404. De l'Italiè dans ses rapports avec la liberté et la civilization moderne. Par A. L. Mazzini. Paris. 1847. 2 vols. 8vo.

Die Mährchen v. Clemens Brentano. Zum Besten der Armen, nach d. Willen d. Verf. herausg. v. Guido Görres. Stuttgard. 2 Bde. 8.

Der deutsche Protestantismus, seine Vergangenheit, und seine heutigen Lebensfragen beleuchtet von einem deutschen Theologen. Frankfort A. M. Gravenhorst. Dr. J. V. C. L. Vergleichende Zoologie. Breslau.

Nasse, W. Commentatio de functionibus singularum cerebri partium, ex morborum perscrutatione indagatis. Bonn. 1. 8vo.

Sammlung der schönsten Grabmäler im Baustyl des Mittelalters, &c. Coblenz. Heft 1.

F. X. Karker. Die Schriften der Apostolischen Väter übersetzt und durch kurze Anmerkungen erläutert. Breslau. 1. 8vo.

J. H. Friedslieb. Quatuor Evangelia sacra; Matthaee, Marce, Lucae, Johannis, in harmoniam redacta, &c., &c. Breslau. 1. 8vo.

Dr. A. Corul. Riblische Hermeneutik, nach den Grundsätzen der Katho lischen Kirche. Fulda. 1. 8vo.

Dr. J. Chr. K. Hofmann. Egyptische und Israelitische Zeitrechnung. Ein Sendschreiben an Dr. Böckh. 1. 8vo.

H. Hattemer. Denkmale des Mittelalters, gesammelt und herausgegeben. Vol. III. 8vo.

Von Hammer-Purgstall. Cardinal Khlefl's Leben. Mit eine Sammlung von Khlefl's Briefen, Staatschreiben, &c., &c., bisher ungesammelt. Bonn. 4 vols. 8vo.

Waitz. Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte. Kiel. 1847. 8vo. XVII und 668 s.

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The Past, the Present, and the Future. By H. C. Carey, author of " Principles of Political Economy," &c. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 1848. 12mo.

pp. 474.

Don Quixote de la Mancha.

Translated from the Spanish of Miguel de

Cervantes Saavedra, by Charles Jarvis, Esq. Carefully revised and corrected, with numerous illustrations by Tony Johannot. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard. 1847. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 465 and 456.

The Haunted Barque, and other poems. By E. Curtiss Hine. Auburn: J. C. Derby & Co. New York: Mark H. Newman & Co., 199 Broadway. 1848. The Children at the Phalanstery: a Familiar Dialogue on Education. By F. Cantagrel. Translated by Francis Geo. Shaw. Boston: Wm. D. Ticknor & Co. 1848. 24mo. pp. 60.

Position and Duties of the North with regard to Slavery. By Andrew P. Peabody. Reprinted from the Christian Examiner of July, 1843. Newburyport: Charles Whipple. 1847.

The Triumphs of War: a Sermon. By Andrew P. Peabody. Portsmouth: John W. Foster. 2d ed. 1847.

Fame and Glory: an Address before the Literary Societies of Amherst College, at their Anniversary, Aug. 11, 1847. By Charles Sumner. Boston: Wm. D. Ticknor & Co. 1847. 8vo. pp. 51. Poems. By James Russell Lowell. Nichols. Boston B. B. Mussey & Co. A Lecture delivered before the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Salem. By William W. Brown, a fugitive slave. Boston: 1847.

Second series. Cambridge: George 1848.

A Discourse delivered before the Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., upon Thanksgiving day, Nov. 25, 1847. By Henry Ward Beecher. New York:

1848.

The Duty of Obedience to the Civil Magistrate. Three Sermons preached in the Chapel of Brown University. By Francis Wayland, President of the University. Boston: 1847.

The New Church Repository, and Monthly Review: devoted to the exposition of the Philosophy and Theology taught in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Conducted by Geo. Bush, A. M. Vol. 1, No. 1., Jan., 1848. New York: John Allen, 139 Nassau street.

On Self-Government, together with General Plans of a State Constitution, and a Constitution for a Confederation of States, &c., &c., to which is added the new Constitution of the State of New York. Boston. 1847.

Supplement to Essays on the Progress of Nations in Productive Industry, Civilization, Population, and Wealth, illustrated by Statistics. By Ezra Č.

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An Introductory Lecture delivered at the Massachusetts Medical College, Nov. 3, 1847. By Oliver Wendell Holmes, M. D., Parkman Professor of Anatomy and Physiology. Boston.

1847.

Ueber Religion und Christenthum, Eine Aufforderung zu besonnener Prüfung, an die Deutschen in Nordamerika. Von Frederik Muench. Herrman. Mo. 1847.

A Grammar of the Mpongwe Language, with Vocabularies. By the Missionaries of the A. B. C. F. M. Gaboon Mission, Western Africa. New York. 1847. 8vo. pp. 94.

Reminiscences of the last hours of Life, for the hour of Death, &c. By Jean Paul Friedrich Richter. Boston. 1. 24mo. pp. 98.

The Library of American Biography. Conducted by Jared Sparks. Vol. XXV. Second Series, XV. Boston: Little & Brown. 1848. 16mo. pp. 461. [Contains, 1. Life of Wm. Richardson Davis. By F. M. Hubbard. 2. Life of Samuel Kirkland. By S. K. Lathrop. With a portrait of Kirkland.] Immigration into the United States. By Jesse Chickering. Little & Brown. 1848. 8vo. pp. 94.

Address and Poem delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, Jan. 3, 1848. Boston: Printed for the Association.

The History of Roxbury Town. By Charles M. Ellis. Boston. 1848. Oregon Missions and Travels over the Rocky Mountains, in 1845-46. By Father P. J. De Smet. New York: Edward Dunnigan. 1847.

MASSACHUSETTS QUARTERLY REVIEW.

NO. III. -JUNE, 1848.

ART. I.-HAS SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES A LEGAL BASIS?

We examined in a former article the pretensions of slavery, as it existed in the British North American colonies prior to the revolution which converted those colonies into the United States of America-to rest upon a legal basis. We found in most of the colonies statutes of the colonial assemblies of an earlier or later date, and in all of them a practice, assuming to legalize the slavery of negroes, Indians, and the mixed race; to make that slavery hereditary wherever the mother was a slave, and in all claims of freedom to throw the burden of proof on the claimant. But we also found that this practice, and all the statutes attempting to legalize it, were in direct conflict with great and perfectly well settled principles of the law of England, which was also the supreme law of the colonies; principles which the colonial legislatures and the colonial courts had no authority to set aside or to contradict; and thence we concluded that American slavery, prior to the Revolution, had no legal basis, but existed as it had done in England for some two centuries or more prior to Somerset's case; a mere usurpation on the part of the masters, and a mere wrong as respected those alleged to be slaves.

Nor is this view of the matter by any means original with us, or at all of recent origin. It was taken and acted on and made the basis of emancipation in Massachusetts, while the British rule still prevailed in America. The best account, indeed, almost the only original account of the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, is contained in a paper by Dr. Belknap, printed in the Massachusetts Historical Collections. Dr. Belknap states, that about the time of the commencement of the Revo18

NO. III.

lutionary disputes, several opponents of slavery "took occasion publickly to remonstrate against the inconsistency of contending for our own liberty, and at the same time depriving other people of theirs." Nathaniel Appleton and James Swan, merchants of Boston, distinguished themselves as writers on the side of liberty. "Those on the other side generally concealed their names, but their arguments were not suffered to rest long without an answer. The controversy began about the year 1766, and was renewed at various times till 1773, when it was very warmly agitated, and became the subject of forensic disputation at the public Commencement in Harvard College."

This subject, at least so far as concerned the further importation of negroes and others "as slaves," was introduced into the General Court; but neither Bernard, Hutchinson, nor Gage would concur in any legislation upon it. "The blacks," says Belknap, "had better success in the judicial courts. A pamphlet containing the case of a negro who had accompanied his master from the West Indies to England, and had there sued for and obtained his freedom, was reprinted" at Boston, "and this encouraged several negroes to sue their masters for their freedom and for recompense of their services after they had attained the age of twenty-one years." ." This pamphlet was undoubtedly the Somerset case, though Belknap dates the first of these Massachusetts cases in 1770, two years previous to that important decision. "The negroes collected money among themselves to carry on the suit, and it terminated favorably. Other suits were instituted between that time and the Revolution, and the juries invariably gave their verdict in favor of liberty." The old fundamental law of Massachusetts authorizing the slavery of Indians and negroes was no longer in force; it had fallen with the first charter. Under the second charter no such statute had been reenacted, but slavery had continued by custom, and had been recognized by the statutes of the province, apparently as a legal relation. "The pleas on the part of the masters were, that the negroes were purchased in open market, and bills of sale were produced in evidence that the laws of the province recognized slavery as existing in it, by declaring that no person should manumit his slave without giving bond for his maintenance, &c. On the part of the blacks it was pleaded, that the royal charter expressly declared all persons born or residing in the province to be as free as the king's subjects in Great Britain; that by the law of England, no man could be deprived of his liberty

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