press or implied. Page after page of one of Calhoun's speeches is transferred to it. Extracts from the partisan speeches of Southern Senators and Representatives, quotations from newspapers, and other scraps of no authority whatever on such a question, constitute a large portion of this defense of secession.

The author labors hard to show that the convention which met solely because the evils of the Confederacy were intolerable, accomplished nothing but the formation of another compact between States. The United States, according to his views, have grown in size and strength with unexampled rapidity from a mere mistake. The people supposed that they constituted a nation which was powerful and self-sustaining, but it was because they had not discovered the character of the Constitution. The Ship of State was a vessel of fine appearance and carried a great deal of canvass, but it was not fastened together by a single bolt, and the slightest shock would scatter its disjointed fragments upon the waves.

Now, it is a remarkable fact, which seems to have escaped the notice of Professor Fowler, that the very men who framed the Constitution, established a government as distinct and independent of the States as if it was in a foreign country. A President was elected who acknowledged no responsibility to the States, either individually or collectively. He had an army which he could march through any or all of them without their leave. He had the command of a navy, while they had not a single ship-of-war. A Congress was appointed who made laws operating in each of the States, which they could neither repeal nor authorize their citizens to disobey. A judiciary was appointed who did not hesitate to annul the decisions of State courts, frequently very much to the dissatisfaction of citizens of the States, but State authority could not relieve them. There is not a nation on the globe whose government exercises more completely all the functions of sovereign power, and yet we are told that our government is a mere agency of the States. If a grand jury, organized under a United States court holding its session in the State of New York, should find an indictment of treason against Governor Seymour, the

Marshal, with a warrant issuing from United States authority, could go to Albany, and while the Legislature is in session, enter without leave the Governor's official room, and seize him and put him in prison, and there would be no power even in the Empire State to rescue him. What sort of a sovereignty is that where its chief executive officer is liable to be imprisoned by one of its own subjects? How ridiculous does this make the doctrine of exclusive State Sovereignty appear, when it would be as much in vain for its highest officer to call on it for help, as it was for the priests of Baal to call out from morning until noon, "O Baal, hear us." "The Constitution," says our author, " contains only delegated powers. The constituent, by the force and meaning of the term, is superior to the delegate." So we have here a delegate overriding the constituent! an agent not accountable to the principal! a subject imprisoning his sovereign! What unparalleled absurdity!

To establish the right of secession, Professor Fowler, following the example of many others, says that "the people ratified the Constitution, as the act of the States. Thus each State, acting by itself, in convention, became a party to the constitutional compact." He does not seem to be able to comprehend the obvious fact that the people could and did act, each for himself, when voting in this way, as fully and completely as if all the people of all the States had voted at once. Suppose that for convenience, or some other cause, the people of Hartford county had voted on the Constitution of the State of Connecticut one day, then of New Haven county on another, and so on, would not the Constitution have been adopted by the people of the whole State? The fallacy of this mode of reasoning will be clear from this consideration:-Suppose the Constitution had vested the whole instead of a part of the power in the General Government, and then it had been adopted by the people of the several States successively, precisely as it was, that would have formed, beyond doubt, a distinct, independent sovereignty created by the people. There would have been no State sovereignties left. Yet the mode of forming it would have been precisely the same as in forming the present government with limited powers.

To sustain his argument, the author repeatedly resorts,

without any authority, to interpolation. Where the preamble of the Constitution commences, "We, the people of the United States," he insists it should read, "We, the people of the States of the United States." He seems to be ignorant of the fact that one member of the Convention proposed this very same change, and it was rejected.

There is one suggestion of the author which reminds us of the adage, ne sutor ultra crepidam. He claims that a strong argument is to be drawn from the use of certain phrases. Because the government is called the Federal Government, and federal is derived from fœdus, a league, therefore, he says, the Constitution makes a mere confederacy. But we know that at the same time when this term was applied to the government, the party which insisted that the government was national and supreme, was called the Federal party.

He insists, again, that because secede is the converse of accede, and States are said to accede to the Union, therefore they have a right to secede from it. A man sometimes accedes to the terms of a copartnership. Has he a right, therefore, to secede from it at his pleasure, to the ruin of his copartners? A bachelor accedes to a state of matrimony. Has he a right to secede at his pleasure, and become single again? It would not require many such instances to satisfy the reader that a life spent however usefully and creditably in the study of etymology, does not qualify the mind to grasp the great questions that enter into the science of government.

If "Sectional Controversy" was to have, especially at the present time, a general perusal, it would, we think, have a tendency to produce a pernicious effect. We anticipate, however, but little injury from its publication. Its sentiments are so obviously disloyal, that the friends of the Union will, without a perusal, reject it with scorn. The disloyal will not read it, as they care not for either fact or argument. They avoid any examination of the subject, for fear that their own consciences will convict them of their error. The consequence will be that "Sectional Controversy" will sink into merited oblivion. If it survives the present hour, it will be owing to the notice given to it by loyal publications, as insects are sometimes preserved in amber.

ARTICLE VIII.—NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

THEOLOGY.

STANLEY'S LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISHI CHURCH.* -At any time, a work from Dr. Stanley on the Old Testament History would be cordially welcomed. Now it will be read with more than usual curiosity, on account of the interest in the subject excited by the books of Bishop Colenso and the discussions they have provoked.

The History of the Jews, in Dr. Stanley's view, naturally divides itself into three periods: the first-which is covered by these Lectures-extending from Abraham to the foundation of the Monarchy; the second, from this epoch to the Babylonian Captivity; and the third from the Captivity to the Capture of Jerusalem by Titus and the final extinction of the national independence in the war of Hadrian. The First period reaches back into the Patriarchal age and embraces the "first Revelation of the Mosaic religion and the first foundation of the Jewish Church and Commonwealth." The Second period includes the whole history of the monarchy, in which is contained the downfall of the Northern Kingdom and the overthrow of Jerusalem by the Chaldæans,--comprehending "the great development of the Jewish Church. and Religion through the growth of the Prophetic Order, and the first establishment of the Jewish Commonwealth as a fixed institution." The Third period embraces the Exile, the Return, and the successive eras of Persian, Grecian, and Roman dominion; including the rise of the Maccabæan dynasty, the colonization of the Jews in foreign parts, and especially "the last and greatest development of the Prophetic Spirit, out of which rose the Christian Church," and which effected at once the dissolution of the Jewish state and the expansion of the Hebrew religion into a religion for

Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church. Part I. Abraham to Samuel. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D. D., Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford, and Canon of Christ Church. With Maps and Plans. New York: Scribner. 1863. For sale by Judd & Clark. Price $3.50.

the world. This arrangement is natural and correct, although the appearance of Moses constitutes an epoch not less decisive than these which Dr. Stanley has taken for his landmarks. Everything before Moses being preparatory to the full organization of the Hebrew people and the Hebrew religion, we should be inclined to set the first great boundary at the Exodus.

Dr. Stanley has taken care at the outset to define with precision the plan of his work, in order, as we judge, not to raise unfounded expectations in the mind of the reader. This work is composed of Lectures, and does not pretend to be a continuous history, like the work of Dean Milman, (a revised edition of which, we are glad to learn, is about to appear); yet it aims to present the main characters and events in regular order, and from the stand-point of historical investigation, divested of the conventional haze which has often veiled them from the view of readers of the Bible; and it professes to be "ecclesiastical" in its design and spirit,-the history of the Jewish Church, dwelling especially on those things which bore directly on the religious development of the nation. By these preliminary explanations, Dr. Stanley relieves himself from the responsibility of entering into "discussions of chronology, statistics, and physical science,-of the critical state of the different texts and the authorship of the different portions of the narration,--of the precise limits to be drawn between natural and supernatural, providential and miraculous,-unless in passages where the existing documents and the existing localities force the consideration upon us." But is not the consideration almost constantly "forced upon us," if we undertake to present the course of Old Testament History? It appears to us quite impossible to handle intelligently and thoroughly the history of the Israelitish people, without previously arriving at conclusions upon the age and character of the documents from which our knowledge of that history must be derived. The Introduction, or the Criticism of the Literature, is an indispensable prelude to the drawing up of a narrative of the events which it brings to our notice. We are constantly driven back to these questions concerning the date, authorship, and consequent trustworthiness of the various books of Scripture. This inquiry is not less necessary than a similar study for one who would write the history of any other nation. And on the results of such an inquiry will depend the complexion which the history of the Old Testament will assume in the hands of any