OUR WORLD, OR THE DEMOCRAT'S RULE. * Tins work, " by
a Knownothing," is of course an American book, but not of a kind which the title implies. Our World is not an exposition of Knownothing politics, but a novel with the same objects as Uncle Tom's Cabin, and evidently .suggested by that successful fiction. It is, however, deficient in all the qualities which imparted attraction to Mrs. Stowe's work. Through critical skill or inherent perception, the fair welter stopped short of what was coarse or morally repulsive in her subject. Exaggeration in the virtues ascribed to the slaves there doubtless was, and one- sidedness in the impression left as regards them, and perhaps as regards the planters ; but this was concealed with very remark- able art. Often painful as were the incidents to be portrayed, the writer contrived to modify the painful feeling to the reader's mind, or to leave him impressed with the necessity of the termination. The manners displayed remarkable skill. The essential qualities proper to the persons were exhibited, but not the local or particu- lar accidents. For instance, in the case of Mr. Haley the slave- dealer, there was no "low language "; but his moral obtuseness, his flashy tastes, his unconscious self-sufficiency, not only rendered
him vulgar but showed that he must have been vulgar in any position.
The author of Our World hardly possesses the novelist's quali- ties at all. The story is not a succession of occurrences conducing to a necessary end, but a series of scenes, often very little connected with the main subject, and not forwarding the story. The book iii less a narrative than a great number of sketches, in which the aim of the writer seems to be to exhibit the vices of the Southerners generally, as well as the evils connected with their "peculiar in- stitution." It is not only that the Southerners are licentious, creel, and even fraudulent towards their slaves ; they cheat their fellow Whites when they can, oppress them if they are poor, and turn their backs upon them if they sink to poverty. This dark exhibition is effected by taking extreme cases, or as we should rather imagine exceptions, and putting them forth as examples of a rule. It is just as if a man picked out some low, sharking, London attorney, and held him up as a sample of English legal practitioners. Among the abuses of the South that occur in the story, the most popularly revolting is that a father cannot liberate his own children from thraldom if he becomes insolvent. Yet as long as slaves are property, this is inevitable under slavery laws, because all laws require that men should be just before they are generous, and pay their debts before they enrich their families. Transferred from property to man-holding, the subject is not a bad one to ap- peal to the sensibilities; but the writer- is unable to develop it. Marston, the father of two almost white children, (the Anti-Sla- very writers do not venture on a black skin when the higher sympathies are to be touched,) is drawn as a generous, open- hearted planter. His nephew, misled by the gayety and tempta- tions of Southern city life, is ruined. To put off the evil day, he commits forgery : his uncle, to save the family credit, becomes se- curity, signing a blank paper, which Mr. Graspum, a slave-dealer and usurer, fills up in twice the proper amount. As the nephew " goes abroad " after his disgrace, there is no evidence to avert Marston's rain. The story consists of the adventures of his two favourite children after they are taken from him, when, struck with the enormity of the system and the sinfulness of his own - conduct, he is taking steps to liberate them ; and of his own ruin and incarceration in prison as a debtor, till death overtakes him. A part of this scene will convey an idea of the writer and his mat- ter. Marston has been attended throughout by an old slave, and frequently visited by his affectionate niece Franconia; whose un- fortunate marriage, by the by, affords matter for another exhibition
of Southern vices.
" Bad job this here ! ' exclaims the warden, as he comes lumbering into the cell, his face flushed with anxiety. This pallet fever beats everything; but lie hasn't been well for some time,' he continues, advancing to the bed- side, looking on the deceased for a few minutes, and then, as if it were a part of his profession to look on dead men, says, How strange to die out so soon!'
"'He was a good master,' rejoins Harry. " 'He wasn't your master—was he ? ' inquires the gaoler, in gruff accents. " Once he wail: " But, did you see him die, boy ?'
" ' Thank God, I did not!'
" And this stupid old nigger hadn't sense to call me!' (he turns threat- eningly to Bob.) Well—must 'a dropped off like the snuff of a tallow candle.' " Daddy knew master was a poor man now ; calling would have availed nothing ; gaolers are bad friends of poverty.
" ' Could you not have sent for me, good man ? ' inquires Franconia, her weeping eyes turning upon the warden ; who says, by way of answering her question, We must have him out 'a here.' " 'I said mas'r was sicker den ye :posed, yesterday : nor ye didn't notice 'um ! ' interposes Bob, giving a signibcant look at the warden, and again at Franconia.
" What a shame, in this our land of boasted hospitality ! he died ne- glected in a prison-cell !' "'Truth is, ma'am,' interrupts the warden, who, suddenly becoming con- scious that it is polite to be courteous to ladies wherever they may be met, uncovers, and holds his hat in his hand, we are sorely tried with black- vomit eases ; no provisions is made for them, and they die on our hands afore we know it, just like sheep with the rot. It gives us a great deal of
• • Our World ; or the Democrat's Rule. By Justia, a Knownothing, Author of &c. &c. &c. In two volumes. Published by Low, Son, and Co. trouble ; you may depend it does, ma'am ; and not a cent extra pay do we get for it. For my own part, I've become quite at home to dead men and prisoners. Ms, name is (you have no doubt heard of me before) John La- fayette Fleweilen : my situation was once, madam, that of a distinguished road-contractor ; and then they run me for the Democratic Senator from our district, and I lost all my money without getting the office; and here I am now, pestered with sick men and dead prisoners. And the very worst is that ye can't please nobody : but if anything is wanted, ma'am, just call for me ; John Lafayette Flewellen's my name, ma'am.' The man of nerve, with curious indifference, is about to turn away, to leave the mourning party to themselves, merely remarking, as he takes his band from that of the corpse, that his limbs are becoming fridgid fast. • " Mr. Moon, the methodical coroner, was not long repairing to the spot. He felt, and felt, and felt the dead man's limbs ; asked a few questions ; bared the cold breast ; ordered the body to be straightened a little; viewed it from several angles; and said an inquest was unnecessary. It would reveal no new facts, and, as so many were dying of the same disease, could give no more relief to his friends. Concerning his death, no one could doubt the cause being black vomit. With a frigid attempt at consolation for Fran- conia, he will withdraw, He has not been long gone, when the warden, a sheet over his left arm, again makes his appearance; he passes the sheet to Harry, with a request that he will wind the dead debtor up in it."
Although the enormities of the South are pretty freely ex- hibited in Our World, one evil result of slavery has been over- looked—and that is its influence in producing the disregard of international right, the unprincipled aggression, which disgraces America, perhaps even more than Russia in avowed audacity. Filibusters are doubtless to be found at the North, as reckless and wrongdoing men are to be found everywhere ; but it is chiefly in the South that the piratical expeditions are formed and fostered. The agricultural and commercial spirit is not unwilling to wage a " necessary " war, but it is opposed to needless or wanton hos- tilities—its tendency is in favour of peace. The state of slavery, based as it is upon an abstract opposition to natural rights, and either from terror or bravado extending that opposition needlessly through all the social ramifications, is not favourable to the en- couragement of scruples for the rights of others when they stand before desired objects. The feeling of superiority in the slave-own- er engenders a spirit of tyranny ; and tyranny after all is but a dis- regard of what is right, whether it consists in overbearing law, or " rigidly screwing up right into wrong." The reckless and expensive habits of Southern life, the contempt in which labour is universally held, a sort of second-hand aristocrat feeling towards industry in general, and the loose characters which this opinion and these social conditions attract to the South from the other States, form a mass of needy, unprincipled, and desperate men, ready for any attempt that may better their fortunes or end their lives. We do not mean that there are not excellent and re- spectable men in the South, in great numbers, though their virtues may not lean to the side of peace and regelarity ; but the denial of a career to the poorer Whites—the reckless habits of planters generally—the violent passions and licentious pleasures in which Southerners whether from their climate or their institution " in- dulge—and the greater laxity in the administration of the law, which induces the lawless, the " convicti judioiis," or "pro factis judicium timentes," to take refuge in the newer States—increase the quantity of what is called the " scum " of society, and at the same time give it greater power. So far as regards the immediate object of lawless desire, Cuba, the South has the more solid inter- est of increasing the number of Slaveholding States. If an Euro- pean war should arise out of any American aggression or its punishment, the probability is that slavery and the South will be in reality if not formally the cause of hostilities.
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