advocate of a strict construction of the Constitution, and of the sovereignty of the States,-thus expending, at a single debauch, the treasures of moral force our fathers had employed half a century in accumulating.

The Northern States, in this posture of affairs, need not trouble themselves on the subject of the balance of power. The sceptre has departed from Judah, and, from present appearances, they will wield it without challenge from the children of Judah. The strength of the Southern people consisted in their attachment to their mighty principles. Their reverence for the great work of their ancestors, implied by their watchword, "a strict adherence to the Constitution," gave a vigor to their purposes, and an aim to their policy, which nothing could overcome. In those words are contained a spirit of equality and justice, a holy regard for private rights, a fidelity to the pledges which their forefathers had given as the bonds of political union, a jealousy of the employment of power, and a watchful guardianship over the public liberty. A people, whose faith and works were embodied in those words, by consent were placed at the head of the empire and administered its institutions. It is the degeneracy and imbecility manifest by their indifference to this ancient faith,-it is the estrangement every where visible in the Southern States towards it, that enables the seer to predict with accuracy their degradation from the eminence they have so long maintained in the councils of the nation. The admission of Texas to the Union will not restore to them their lost position. The States that may be formed out of it, will hardly grow with the rapidity of the States taken from the North-Western territory; and the loss to the slave-holding States in the centre, will not be compensated by the formation of new States at the extremity of the Union. The consideration on this point, should have no influence upon the decision of this question. The single question involved is-Shall a slave-holding community be taken into the American Union?-the objects of the admission being, to exclude British interference with our domestic institutions,-to prevent British encroachments on our borders, to extend our navigation, commerce and manufactures, to fortify our weakest and most vulnerable frontier, and, finally, to secure a heritage for our children. The opposition to it, arising from fanatics at home combined with our enemy abroad,-the argument upon the staVOL. VI.--NO. 12.

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bility of the institution of slavery, and involving the inquiry how far it will be affected by this measure, are mere speculations. No one can furnish any solution to such questions. It may pave the way for a gradual but speedy removal of that population to the Mexican States, where they will meet with a population with which they may amalgamate, and through which they may improve;-it may weaken the institution in the central States, and induce them to undertake enterprizes for its extirpation there. The refusal to admit Texas into the Union, and the consequent abolition of slavery there, may inspire the South-Western States to erect barriers against the accumulation of that population within their limits. The tide of emigration, which has so long flowed from the North and East to the South-West, may return upon them, and leave the negro race a permanent fixture on their soil. The South-Western States may neglect these necessary precautions, they may remain supine and careless to the consequences before them, until the waves become irresistible,— until they overturn every obstruction and destroy all the vestiges of progress and civilization within their borders. Finally, the pressure under which the slave-holding interests have been bound, for fifteen years, may be removed, and considerate, well-contrived plans for bringing our institutions in harmony with the opinions of mankind and our own principles, may be adopted and executed in the Southern States; or this pressure may become intolerable, and our faint and dispirited chiefs may lead us into the adoption of crude, ill-digested, impracticable measures of emancipation, under the operation of which, social torpor, steady and resistless decay, and national degeneracy and worthlessness, may supervene in these States. No one can foretell the direction which Providence may take to work out its good from these complicated relations. In one conviction, however, we repose with entire confidence, and that is, that the annexation of Texas to the Union will preserve the control over this institution to those whom it most concerns to govern it wisely and humanely,-who are most intimately connected with it,-whose honor is involved in it,-whose fortunes depend upon it;—that the refusal to annex it to the Union will place the institution, and those connected with it, under the dominion and control of a power, which seeks that dominion and control for purposes fatal to the peace, prosperity, honor and happiness of this Union.

We may be asked-Where do we find the proofs that Great Britain will assume this dominion and control? The highest authorities of Texas have declared it to us. The letter of General Houston to General Jackson is too plain to be misunderstood. The evidence of every visiter to Texas confirms the statement of that letter. Texas will not burden herself with independence. She wants peace, security, protection. She wants pecuniary advances for the payment of her debts. Her American population find that the emigration from the United States has ceased, that a European population is filling the land. In ten years, the power of that country will be in the hands of these emigrants. The American population have determined to secure the future by engagements to be made now. These engagements will result in the dependence of that country on Great Britain, or in the surrender of its government entirely to her peculiar policy.

The condition of Texas is such, that a provincial position is natural and suitable to it. It.has not the foundations upon which to rear at once a separate national existence. The population is sparse and small. It is surrounded by bold and warlike races of Indians. The pursuits of its people render them dependent upon their commercial connexions with other nations for the necessaries of life. An entire preponderance over its affairs by some foreign power, is a direct and an inevitable consequence of its position. The only question open is--Who shall acquire this preponderance? We may regret that such a question has arisen. We may have preferred that Texas should exist separately from us, or even in connexion with Mexico. There is no room for a gratification of such desires. Texas has made her own election to abandon the Mexican empire, and to destroy her own independent national existence, and a statesman is blind to the events transpiring before him, if he does not decide the question relating to her upon these assumptions.

The contest lies between the United States and Great Britain. Great Britain, for fifteen years, has coveted a control over the Mexican empire. Her ablest statesmen, near fifteen years ago, expressed the national jealousy at the advance of the United States along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and at the offer, upon their part, to enlarge their borders towards the South-West,

At the time Mr. Huskisson expressed the apprehensions and uneasiness of the British cabinet at the efforts of the United States to acquire Texas, the importance of that measure was perceived but by few of the statesmen of the two countries. The magnitude of the prize is now open to the view of all. If we refuse the gift proffered to us by the people of Texas, we place a wall of separation between our country and the vast region of the West,-we surrender to Great Britain the command of this continent,-we prepare, now, the materials for "a new conquest of Mexico," to be accomplished by some British Clive, Cornwallis or Hastings. The acquisition of Texas will form a stage, a resting-place, in the progress of the British empire in America. The next step will be the annexation to it of the Californias, with the command of the coasts of America on the Pacific Ocean. The sacrifice to her ambition and lust for dominion of Southern and Western America, will not complete the measure of our disgrace. Our own frontiers will be opened to her. Her machinations in the South-Western States of this Union, will soon be felt. Her command over the prosperity and repose of our country, will be taught us by a bitter experience.

Such being our opinions, we approve of the Treaty submitted to the Senate. We entirely concur with the administration, in the opinion expressed by it in communicating the measure to the Senate and the British government. These may be summed up in the language of the illustrious statesman, who proposed, by the bold and determined measure of occupying Louisiana in the face of the power of Napoleon, to fortify the defences of our freedom. He said: "We are exposed to imminent danger. We have the prospect of great future advantage,-we are justified by the clearest principles of right, we are urged by the strongest motives of policy,-we are commanded by every sentiment of national dignity," to consummate this work.

ART. X.-CRITICAL NOTICES.

1.-The History of Rome, from the First Punic War to the Death of Constantine. By B. G. NIEBUHR. In a series of Lectures, including an Introductory Course on the Sources and Study of Roman History. Edited by LEONHARD SCHMITZ, Ph. D. London: Taylor and Walton. MDCCCXLIV. 2 vols. 8vo., pp. xxviii. 434-xii. 406. Forming the Fourth and Fifth Volumes of the Entire History.

FOR some years before Niebuhr composed his great work on Roman History, he had been lecturing on the subject in the University of Bonn. These Lectures were repeated to his class after the publication of that work, which had been principally framed upon these. It is well known that Niebuhr left his History unfinished: he only lived to see the publication of the first two volumes. A third has lately been given to the world, which he had left nearly ready for the press; but a long and interesting period remained to complete the task which he had designed for himself. He had only brought down his narrative, even in the posthumous volume, to the end of the First Punic War, and the important times of the Second and Third Punic Wars, of the Hellenization of Roman manners and literature, of the Gracchi, of Marius and Sylla, of Cicero and Cæsar, and of the Augustan Age, were still untouched. Further than this Niebuhr had not intended to continue his History. It had been his prayer that his life might be prolonged, until he had brought down his work to the point where Gibbon commenced. The accomplishment of this most ardent desire was denied him. He died while his labours were unfinished, like the reaper struck down in the midst of the harvest.

Conscious of the natural curiosity which the world always has to become acquainted with the slightest remains of a great man, the Editor of this continuation has endeavoured to supply, so far as it was practicable, the hiatus left in Niebuhr's colossal History of Rome. Mr. Schmitz had enjoyed the good fortune of being a pupil of Niebuhr: he had attended his historical Lectures, and had been sufficiently provident to take copious notes of them at the time. These he has carefully collated with similar notes taken by his fellow-students, and has augmented from the same sources. These are the materials of the present work. His just reverence for the mighty dead has prevented him from indulging in the presumption of attempting to re-construct Niebuhr on this slender basis. He has only arranged in a readable form what he had thus preserved. The consequence is that the continuation is desultory, fragmentary, and hurried. You can perceive that you are.only running over a collection of notes. Yet the work has its value. No