It is interesting in connexion with them to notice the
passing of one of those paroxysms which have alternated in Ame- rica with the endeavours to counteract the extension of slavery, or even to put down "the domestic institution." The latest American message, just brought over by the mail, is rather re- markable in the series. It has been construed, and not unfairly, as indicating a desire on the part of President Pierce to obviate any unpleasant contrast which might present itself between his own trumpet-clanging messages and the quieting conserva- tive appeals anticipated from his successor. Pierce has drifted into the position of a Pro-Slavery President. It seems very doubtful whether he ever intended to seek that position ; but he is a man whose administration has proved that he is not stronger than circumstances. His policy has been made for him ; he has probably in past life acquired his repute by accept- ing all the circumstances of the post in which he has been placed. Since he has come before European eyes, that has un- questionably been the principle by which he has attempted to succeed ; and as the circumstances were in themselves very incon- sistent, and little conducive to the permanent welfare of the Union, they have identified Pierce with a disastrous and not creditable period. The time had arrived in the extension of the States when the balance of the Free and the Slave States was to be maintained by a continuous struggle on the part of the South, or to be determined for ever in favour of the North. The Slave States are allowed a certain portion of representatives on the basis
of their Black population ; yet they have not been able to keep pace with the Free States. The Slave States can only muster 90 re- presentatives against 145 of the Free States—about two to three ; and in almost any possible extension of the Union that increase in the Representative Assembly must continue to augment.' In actual divisions on special questions, the votes sometimes cross; but we are speaking of the fixed statistics of repre- sentation for the Free and the Slave States. The balance has been better maintained in the Senate, where population is not represented but individual States—sixteen Free States each sending their two Senators, and the fifteen Slave States their two. Should Kansas be made a Slave State, it would give an ab- solute equality in the Upper and Conservative Chamber' which might for a time counteract the increasing influence of freedomedom in the Representative Chamber. If Kansas be not made a Slave State—if two more Senators be added to the existing majority in the Upper House—even there the Slave interest is doomed to be in a minority, which in the proportion would be continually decreasing. It was worth a struggle, although the hope was faint. The struggle has been violent in proportion to the faint- ness of the hope. It has more or less infected the whole Union: a kind of revolutionary Conservatism has shaken the entire Re- public. The impolicy of the North assisted the agitators of the South by the attempt to meet violence with violence, fraud with fraud. There was a race at once to pack the State with a view to its votes, and to take military possession of it for the exclusion of hostile votes. Curiously enough, two Governors both selected from the North, were whirled away by the force of local circum- stances and became the upholders of local statutes which at once defied the laws of humanity and common sense, Congress and the Constitution. The third man, who has been sent also from the North, appears to have corrected the mistake of his predecessors by carrying their principles somewhat further. It is reported of him, and plausibly, that he seeks, as they did, to discover what is the law, and to enforce it with inflexible determination ; but he has also, it is understood, tried. to test the validity of the local State law by the overruling law of the Republic. The consequence is, that he has put down lawless conflicts. If this be done effectually, it is highly. probable that the territory which has been convulsed by the preliminaries of a great Parliamentary contest between Slavery and Freedom, may be so completely re- cruited by free settlers . that the State itself will determine the great question upon which the future policy of the Union depends. We have watched the passage of the Republic through a storm ; we have endeavoured to point out the sources of hope, and of dan- ger; and we have never forgotten to note the fact, that through all these changing phases of a day, there has been a guiding prin- ciple which has animated, the most sagacious men m the Union since the Republic existed. There has been a party represented by eminent men who have sought to solve the great question whether the curse shall continue' or whether the Union shall be permanently relieved from its stain by a course consistent with existing laws, moderate, yet certain of its results. We need scarcely recapitulate the principles of that party,—to pass a law in each State fixing a date after which every child born should be free, with the encouragement of colonization in Liberia by ci- vilized Blacks sent back from America. Although the subject has not blade much noise, it is well known that Mr. Roberts, the late President of Liberia, had acquired a very extensive and increas- ing confidence with eminent Americans. We believe that he has received also much attention in this country. We know that one object which he had was to procure an enlargement of the colony of Liberia, probably absorbing into it that settlement which we maintain at so much cost and with such compara- tively small advantage—Sierra Leone. A support from this country for a time would materially contribute to strengthen the resources of the Liberian Government, and, would sus- tain it in being the intermediator between Caucasian civili- zation and African barbarism. We do not know what influ- ences have arrested the prosecution of Mr. Roberts's design. We observe, however, that in the American Union there have been, and there continue to be, a party of men who look steadily forward to the enduring operation of a moderate policy. We have in this country seen ideas, originally confined to a few stu- dious persons, succeed in the face of what appeared to be impos- sibility. It is somewhat less than twenty years since a small knot of gentlemen set themselves' against the public opinion of this country, against the authority of Government, the Houses of Parliament, and the apparent interests of influential Colonies, to expose the evils of convict-transportation. The abolition of that curse was then derided as an impossibility. We have already reached the day when transportation has ceased, and when its re- newal is an impossibility, which no rank in office, no political in- fluence' could achieve. It is not because great ideas are main- tained by small numbers that we must assume their ultimate failure ; and there is too much of plain sense and solid. humanity in the principles of the Clay policy to forbid the hope that it will persevere even to ultimate accomplishment. Meanwhile, when the recent paroxysm of slavery-extension has had its day, and is subsiding, Dr. Livingstone appears effectually to have opened the interior of Africa. Liberia has gone through severe trials, and still stands ; and when three separate influences are considerable, and have been maintained through such formidable disturbances and obstructions, it does appear not un- fair to calculate that at last they must converge in a final success.
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