The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1853-07-21

ed rigidly, as so many scientific propositions
and philosophical questions which enter into
it. No section of the work is formally devoted
to moral causes, no special consideration given
to the religious and moral sentiments concern
ed in 1.-THE argument is held severely within
the province of political economy. The author
guards himself well against the enthusiasm OF
feeling and the zeal of intellectual excitation,
but the reader does not fail to receive the
shock of his conclusions. Quiet and impassive
as the plates of galvanic battery the facts and
principles are arranged, but the man who puts
himself within the circuit Of its influence will
feel it none the less, in every nerve and fibre OF
his being. 1t is Of little consequence to can
did and capable inquirer whether the array OF
facts is complete, the principles entirely sound,
and the differences strictly just or not--the au-
thor is able honest, and abundantly rich in re-
sources His prejudices and commitments will
hurt nobody. No reader, either pro or anti
slavery, who lacks mental integrity or acute
ness, can make anything for his opinions by
them The bigot or partisan who finds mis-
chief in any one chapter, gets himself severely
corrected in the next one he encounters. Mr.
Carey religiously believes that all men every
where may be saved; that the industrial rels'
tons of all men may be tremendously ADJUST
ed to each other; that human nature is not
failure, nor man incapable Of bis highest and
happiest aspirations. A thinker, whose specu.
lations are governed by the faith, hope and
charity of an impartial salvation, may be trust
cd to help, if not to guide, in practical studies
whatsoever exceptions he is casually liable "a
himself
Our author is not an immediate emancipa-
ZIONIST he is not trader, nor any sort OF an
abstractionst. He does not call chattel slave
nv sin, nor prescribe abolition as duty; but
he treats every form and degree of human en-
thralment and oppression as an evil and an
error, and holds the harmony OF interests to
consist in equable justice and actual freedom
to all men, of every caste and color. He come:
to his subject neither as theologian, moralist
philanthropist, or sentimental reformer, but al
a political economist; and treats it throughout
az a question of cause and effect. And we
think reserving all special objections, thai
there is vacant place in every library in the
| country for his volume, and room in the rea.
sonings of most of those who are occupied with
the subject, on both sides for many of the
facts and ideas which it contains.
There are reasons, numerous and various
enough for Withholding any definite judgment
of the work. To the North it opposes too
many correctives of opinion and policy to get a
hearty reception The South it confronts with
continuous rebuke, which impeaches the struc.
ture and workings of their system from its fun.
damental maxims to the last particular, in
which they take actual operation. Philanthro.
py is checked for its want of science and expe-
dents; and sel6shness is brought to judgment
for its blind stupidity and cruel inhumanity
Moreover, the extinguishment of slavery-for
the author unequivocally asserts that +" the abo.
lition of slavery is the great question of our
days put upon the adoption of an indus
trial policy, which divides the political parties
of the country as much as the design itself di.
vides the South from the North and the rest OF
the world. The method proposed involves q
change in the entire policy of the Southern
States, and hinges essentially upon principles
as revolutionary in trade, industry, and poll
tics, as the designed enfranchisement of the
slaves would be in the domestic order Of their
society. The method proposed is reform Of
the Southern system of life and business; its
nrnrhecy in the inagitahla -nuarthraU of thAi,
arrayed against their system at every point.
Not word of comfort in the work for the sla-
very propagandist-the fanatic who on any
ground OF experience, or any pretcnce of neces-
sity, would perpetuate the legal or actual bond
age OF the laborer whom he holds and works
for his own benefit. The shareholders are not
sssailed on moral grounds for the evil of their
system, and, accordingly, their ordinary excuses
are set aside; they are not charged with nius.
tice to their bondmen, and cannot Offset the
interiority of the negro race and its incapacity
for freedom; every defence that they are won't
to make is put hOrS de combat by its felt imper-
tlnency; the essential unsoundness of the whole
system which slavery induces among them is
laid bare; its mischiefs, inherent and insepara-
BILE, are exposed on grounds which are not to
be affected either by the alleged dependency of
the slave upon his masters care, or his suppo-
sed unfitness for the functions of freedom.
1t was, perhaps, the simplicity of the discus
sion, and for the sake of its unembarassed FORCE
that the author excluded the argument drawn
directly from moral considerations from the
plan of his work. The advantage is that the
opponent cannot answer any argument Of the
book with the convenient opprobrium of fan
attic, incendiary, or abolitionist.
If the work takes as We suppose it must
take, in the South, the argument is shifted at
once from the Bible, the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, and personal responsibility, to ground
that admits of no such nonsense as patriarch.
al institution" "better off than if they were
free," Constitutional Compromises" Fright
of property the blood of our wives and daugh.
ters," "Integrity Of the Union" foreign in.
reference" and all the other squibs of the bull
ly-bravery of self.defenoe, against the agrees
sive conscience of all the world outside of the
slave States. The doctrine of the work can
not be met with charge of impracticable be-
nevolence, ineffective zeal, or rebellion agains,
the lower law order of existing necessities
The work is, indeed, a magazine Of missiles fol
the antagonists of English policy and many o.
them are those used against English philan
thropy; but they are very effectually guarded
by the array into which he has put them, from
the uses to which they have hitherto been per.
vorted by th1e who are accustomed to employ
them for the defence of their own wrong.
Treating the abolition of slavery as a ques.
ton depending simply upon the laws which
rule the conditions Of trade, industry, and 30