like a dogmatical expression of opinion is the very farthest thing possible from my intentions. The subject, I know well, bristles with practical difficulties in every direction. In the direction of blockade, I can see them myself, of a kind so formidable as to forbid that I should even attempt to remove them. The law of what is called mercantile blockade, just like the law of contraband of war, rests obviously on the application of belligerent principles to neutral relations, and I have therefore no hesitation in pronouncing it to be theoretically indefensible. But then the investment and bombardment of a seaport town, and the total destruction of its commerce, being belligerent measures, springing legitimately out of belligerent principles, are just as clearly defensible. How the right of siege is to be vindicated, without asserting the right of blockade against neutrals, is more than I can tell you. Is starvation henceforth to be proscribed as a weapon of war? That would be an innovation on belligerent rights. In principle, I think the rule ought to be, that neutral ships may run in at their own risk; that if they are damaged, or sunk accidentally, by the fire either of the fleet or of the forts, the loss should fall entirely on their owners or insurers; but that if they are fired into intentionally, or even if they are turned back, by the bombarding force, their owners or insurers should be indemnified, on proving their case in the Prize Courts of the belligerent. Such, I say, looks to me like the rule which principle dictates; but in its application, I confess to you that I see difficulties which I cannot solve.

My hope that, in general, I may have indicated the direction in which we may look for progress in this department of jurisprudence, arises chiefly from the

knowledge that the views which I have indicated as to the desirableness and possibility of drawing a clearer line between belligerent and neutral relations, by insisting absolutely and peremptorily that peace shall be peace, even whilst we reluctantly and sorrowfully permit war to be war, are by no means peculiar to myself, but indicate rather the tendency which the more temperate portion of public opinion has manifested during the last few years. To go no farther for authorities, many of you will remember that, in his very able address to the International Section of the Social Science Association, which met amongst us in 1863, Judge Longfield advocated the abandonment of the law of contraband by treaty, on the double ground-1st, That its enforcement does not really deprive the enemy of arms and ammunition; and, 2d, That so long as it is continued, the law which permits the flag to cover the cargo loses half its value to the neutral ship; and that he farther indicated a very strong opinion to the effect that, in these railway times, a mercantile blockade is not worth what it costs. The latter view has been maintained in the Association, with great consistency, for several years, not only by the representatives of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, who, I think, are rather extreme in their views, but by its foreign secretary, Mr. Westlake, whose habit of mind, formed by the study of Continental writers on jurisprudence, enables him to keep closer to principle than is at all common with English lawyers. In a discussion which is reported in the Transactions of the Association for 1862, Mr. Westlake moreover indicated the very test of neutral conduct on which I have insisted, when he said that "the only point of the scale

at which any line could be drawn" (between interference and non-interference) "on principle, was the transition from personal to material," (or rather, I think) "from material to personal assistance." But I must not attempt to quote authorities, and I mention these names only because they are the names of persons whose acquaintance many of you made on a recent occasion, and for whose opinions, I am sure, you entertain, along with me, the highest respect. In turning your attention to such problems as those which have occupied us to-night, the friends who then visited us conferred, in my opinion, the very greatest favour, not on this maritime community alone, but on the whole country. For, if the maritime communities are to continue to be, as they have been hitherto, the sources of legislation in maritime affairs, it is altogether indispensable that their leaders, the greater merchants, shipowners, and underwriters of such seaport towns as this, should view the relations of neutrals and belligerents in aspects wider and more recondite than those which the immediate interests of commerce, or even of apparent humanity present. The laws of the social world, arbitrary as they seem to the superficial observer, are, as I said at the outset, all of them at bottom natural laws, just as much as the laws by which the physical world is governed. Unless we seek them as such, though we may stumble on them occasionally, we shall hold them by no secure or rational tenure. It will not do to wait till the difficulty occurs, and then set a few practical experts to work to find for us some narrow back-door by which we may get out of it for that time only, though such has been too much the fashion of our legislation of late, both national and international.

The

laws of society, believe me, are subjects for patient and reverent inquiry, not for ingenious and sudden contrivance; and he who would discover them must trust to cogitating with his brains, and not to counting with his fingers.

نش

The Problem.

The problem we are to examine this evening, is that of Freedom and Slavery in the United States of America, in reference chiefly to its material rather than its moral results.

Although still an unfinished problem, enough has been devel-‚ oped in 70 years for interesting and careful study. For all the purposes of history and philosophy, the area upon which it was to be worked out, could not have been better chosen.

The new world offered to it its virgin soil, its noble rivers, harbors and lakes, its varied climate, and all its vast capacities to call forth human industry and enterprise. The old world offered to it its science, religion and civilization, untrammeled by onerous precedents, and unawed by absolute power.

The period I have chosen extends from 1790 to 1860, from the first census to the last. Washington had just been chosen the first President under the present constitution; the states were re-covering from the extreme poverty and exhaustion of an eight years struggle with Great Britain; agriculture, commerce and the arts were rapidly reviving and expanding; and the first census was now to be taken

The first point to which I wish to direct your attention, and which is our starting point, is this census of 1790. There were then thirteen states, of which the seven Northern had chosen freedom, the six southern, slavery: their position and relative size are here represented upon the map, the while showing the free states, the black the slave states of that period.

In some respects there was a remarkable equality in the conditions, under which these two principles side by side were to