PROFESSOR OF JURISPRUDENCE AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IN QUEEN'S COLLEGE, GALWAY; AND "I could easily prove that almost all the differences, which may be remarked between the characters of the Americans in the Southern and Northern States, have originated in Slavery," -DE TOCQUEville. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by GEO. W. CARLETON, In the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. R. CRAIGHEAD, Printer, Stereotyper, and Electrotyper, Carton Building, 81, 83, and 85 Centre Street. LITTLE by way of introduction is needed for an American edition of the present volume. The object of the work is stated clearly and concisely in the author's preface. Considering Slavery as the true origin of the civil war now existing, he treats of its economic basis, of the organization, tendencies, development, and external policy of slave societies, and of the career and designs of the slave power, with the calmness of an impartial and philosophic observer, and in a popular and practical manner. Democratic institutions, territorial extension, tariff questions, state rights, secession, and all other subjects, which either at home or abroad have been made use of to complicate the quarrel, are here put aside as irrelevant; and the philosophic observer concentrates the attention of his readers on the simple issue at stake" whether the Power which derives its strength from slavery shall be set up with enlarged resources and increased prestige, or be now once for all effectually broken." Similar views and arguments relating to this all-absorbing topic may no doubt be found scattered through the current literature of the day, expressed with all the warmth natural to those whose feelings and interests are immediately affected. Earnest and thoughtful books have also been written here by men whose testimony may be relied upon, and which have had more or less influence upon public opinion. But the present volume has an advantage over any work written on this side of the Atlantic, that it is free from any imputation of party or sectional bias; that it has something of the tone of a historic analysis of a grand social drama which has been acted, rather than of one of which the curtain of the fifth act has just risen; and it will on that account be acceptable to men of all shades of political opinion, while its clear style and systematic arrangement of subject will be grateful to all, young as well as old. The chapter relating to the career of the Slave Power is particu |