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1850.]

Constitution of Ollmütz.

479

more prompt to sacrifice its prerogatives, than an aristocracy is to abandon its privileges; for the former hopes to retrieve at a future day the ground which it has lost, while the latter, if once depressed, can never rise."

This custom of royalty - the granting of concessions in seasons of emergency which are to be retracted on the first opportunity is a system whose success has been more encouraging to the monarchs who have practised it, than to the nations who have trusted them.

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The passage last quoted is found on page 102. On page 121, the Reviewer tells us that Austria" engages in a crusade for the purpose of forcing a liberal constitution upon feudal and aristocratic Hungary." After proceeding to eulogize the "magnanimity" of Russia, he remarks on his own statements, with great naïveté, "This statement of the case will take most persons in this country by surprise."

Neither of the authorities cited by the North American Reviewer gives any support to his so often repeated assertion, that the Magyars took up arms in support of feudal institutions. Neither De Langsdorff nor Desprez, though both are decided opponents of the Magyars, dreams of attributing to them any such design. We have already seen that M. de Langsdorff enumerates among the first demands made by what the Reviewer calls "the revolutionary party," the very same measures against which that writer supposes them to rebel. He brings against this party, and especially against Kossuth, charges the very reverse of those alleged against them by the author of "The War of Races."

"Kossuth does not resemble the Hungarian liberals, as we have been accustomed to meet them, always animated by chivalrous and somewhat aristocratic sentiments; he is a radical of the new revolutionary school, ready for every thing, who will seek to disembarrass himself of the nobility when he shall have disembarrassed himself of Austria. He has already signified to the chamber of magnates, that its existence is only provisory and tolerated, that it will be reformed by the sovereign assembly, and reduced to a sort of state council. It is he who has arrested the liberal movement in Hungary, to make of it a revolu tionary and demagogic movement. It is he, who, to realize dreams of universal equality, more chimerical in Hungary than anywhere else, has not feared to overthrow the whole political

Revue des Deux Mondes,

and social condition of his country.". 15 Oct., 1848.

What the Hungarians themselves considered their own objects to be, the reader may learn from the following extracts from a speech of one of the "revolutionary party," whom the North American Reviewer honors with reprobation only second to that which he bestows on Kossuth. Szemere, in a speech delivered in the last session of the diet in July, 1849, takes a retrospect of the original objects of their revolution:

"There are three fundamental principles on which our revolution rests, as upon so many pillars. The first principle, the reformation of our form of government. Hitherto the country, in regard to its government, was under tutelage. It was neces sary, then, to introduce the parliamentary form of government, that the people might govern themselves; that the nation might direct its own fate.

"The second principle, the security of individual rights. It was necessary to abolish distinctions, to proclaim an equality of rights and obligations, that, this principle being established, merit might be regarded, and not name and arms, that capacity might be rewarded, and not a long line of ancestry; that the prince, the count, the noble, might resign their dignities, and all who dwell in the country enjoy that equal dignity which is implied in the name freeman, free citizen.

"The third principle, the free development of nationalities. The free development of its nationality should be allowed to every race. Nationality is not an end, but an instrument for freedom, as freedom is not an end, but a means for the perfecting of the man and the citizen. This development of nationalities should be limited only by a regard to the unity of the state, and to a prompt and exact administration of the government.'

That the Hungarians, at least, believed themselves to be engaged in the cause of freedom, is admitted even by their opponents. The Revue des Deux Mondes, in May, 1849, when the Hungarians seemed about to triumph, counts among the chief elements of their strength the enthusiasm inspired by a sense of the justice and greatness of their cause. It speaks of them as "enthusiasts, exalted beyond all imagination by victory, so much are they persuaded that they combat for the welfare of Europe

1850.

Szilágyi, A' Magyar Forradalom Napjai 1849. Julius elsője után. Pest,

1850.]

Objects of the War.

481

and the liberty of the world." With this view of the objects for which the Hungarians supposed themselves to be contending, let the reader compare the following passage from the North American Review:

The Magyars, indeed, fought with great gallantry; it was hardly possible to avoid sympathizing with a people who struggled so bravely against immense odds. But their cause was bad; they sought to defend their ancient feudal institutions, and their unjust and excessive privileges as an order and a race, against the incursion of the liberal ideas and the reformatory spirit of the nineteenth century.” p. 122.

We presume it must have been to this and similar passages in "The War of Races" that the author referred, when he informed the gentlemen who called on him with a request for a lyceum lecture, that this article contained much that was "new even to himself.*

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Our limits compel us to close. We have here considered the view taken by the North American Reviewer of the general character and objects of the war in Hungary. In a future article we shall examine the specific statements which he makes in regard to the war and the events which immediately preceded it, and shall point sout the extraordinary errors in regard to facts and date into which he has fallen. We shall also examine his statements in regard to the affairs of Transylvania and Croatia, and shall consider the confirmatory testimony adduced in his second article, entitled "The Politics of Europe."

M. L. P.

"I answered that I had nothing on hand which was fitted for such use, and had no leisure to prepare any thing; but that I had just finished a Review article, on which a good deal of labor and research had been expended, and, as it contained much that had appeared new and very interesting to me, perhaps a popular audience might not be unwilling to hear a portion of it read to them." Letter of the Editor of the North American Review.

NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

The Rights and the Duties of Masters. A Sermon preached at the Dedication of a Church erected in Charleston, S. C., for the Benefit and Instruction of the Colored Population. By REV. J. H. THORNWELL, D. D. Charleston: Walker & James. 1850. 8vo. pp. 52.

We have read this pamphlet with that interest which always attaches in our minds to every attempt of Christian ministers in the Slave States to connect the Gospel with chattel slavery. The introduction informs us that the sermon was preached on Sunday evening, May 26, 1850, before a large assembly of intelligent and respectable citizens. Whether any of the slaves were pres ent at the services we are not informed, but the phraseology and tenor of the discourse, in which the word slave is freely used, would lead us to think they were not. The edifice, however, is intended for a mixed congregation. It is in the form of a capital T, the transepts, which are entered by separate doors, being appropriated to white persons. The congregation worshipping in it will be under the ecclesiastical supervision of the Session of the Second Presbyterian Church, of whose fold the communicants will be members, and by which the minister will be appointed, so that there will be no separate ecclesiastical organization. A Sunday school of about one hundred and eighty pupils is connected with the congregation.

The text of the sermon is Colossians iv. 1. The preacher be gins by rejoicing in the completion of an undertaking which met at first with opposition, as it involved to some extent the separation of masters and servants in the offices of religion. As it was found that a large number of the colored population would be left without any religious instruction unless a separate provis ion was made for them, such separate provision has been ventured upon. The result, says the speaker, is to be regarded as a triumph of Christian benevolence, as it has been attained during a period of fierce excitement, and in a community which has been warned by experience to watch with jealousy all combinations of the blacks. The preacher does not at all disguise or smother over the indignant feeling which he knows has been aroused against slavery. He says plainly, "The Slaveholding States of this confederacy have been placed under the ban of the public opinion of the civilized world." And again, "God has not permitted such a remarkable phenomenon as the unanimity

1850.]

Notices of Recent Publications.

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of the civilized world, in its execration of slavery, to take place without design." We were sorry to find the preacher repeating the stale sarcasm that "the philanthropists of Europe and this country can find nothing worth weeping for but the sufferings and degradation of the Southern slave, and nothing worth reviling but the avarice, inhumanity, and cruelty of the Southern master, and nothing worth laboring to extirpate but the system which embodies these outrages," and that they "overlook the evils that press around their own doors." The falsehood of this statement exceeds its satire, for it so happens that, in the communities in which the antislavery spirit is most rife, all other charitable and reformatory efforts are most zealously sustained. If thousands have been given for the Abolition cause, hundreds of thousands have been spent for other merciful ends; and the North has furnished a score of temperance lecturers and charity agents for each single Abolitionist lecturer. After some general remarks upon the "vituperation and abuse" which have been heaped upon the slaveholders," the misrepresentations which ignorance, malice, and fanaticism are constantly and assiduously propagating," "the insane fury of philanthropy," which has aimed at a distance to stir up insurrections at the South, and the machinations of Northern man-stealers, who pretend that conscience moves them "to violate the faith of treaties, the solemnity of contracts, and the awful sanctity of an oath," after these remarks, and more in the same strain, the preacher acknowledges that the South has been unwisely, though naturally, moved, by the violence of resentment, to indulge in the language of defiance, and to yield to suggestions of policy which are not to be approved. In opposition to his own understanding of a scientific theory on the races of men, the preacher maintains that negroes are of the same blood with ourselves; in form and lineaments, in moral, religious, and intellectual nature, our brethren; and he takes credit to the slaveholders for their rejection of an infidel theory which might seek" the protection of our property in the debasement of our species." We will not, however, digress to discuss the question whether there is the lesser measure of faith and humanity in regarding the blacks as men and women, descended from a distinct human stock, or in maintaining their unity of descent with ourselves, while we treat them as beasts.

The preacher then identifies the Abolition spirit with the political and philosophical speculations which are agitating Europe, "the excesses of unchecked democracy," " the social anarchy of communism and the political anarchy of licentiousness," and he thinks that, if God will enable the slaveholders, as such, to discharge their duties with moderation and dignity, they will give efficient help towards settling for the world "the principles of

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