In 1800 there were 36,946 slaves in what are now free-states. The emancipation of these increased the free blacks in the free-states-but the multiplication of the free blacks in the slave-states is much more rapid, and is increasing upon the proportion of slaves. Thus, the free blacks in those states, in 40 years, reached 25 per cent. of the original number of slaves-the emancipation being always 10 per cent. of the increase. This has been greatly retarded by the abolition excitement. It is observable that the free blacks do not emigrate from the southern states. Their social position there is less onerous than the nominal freedom of the North. The increase of free blacks at the South, in 40 years, was 250 per cent., and at the North 140 per cent. It is undoubtedly true, that the unconquerable repugnance of the North to permit the presence of blacks if they can possibly be excluded, has, to a very great extent, checked emancipation. Thus, the constitution passed by Ohio on its organization as a state, with the black laws passed by its legislature, by preventing the ingress of slaves, greatly retarded emancipation. To suppose that the ordinance of 1787 stopped slave migration, is a great mistake. It was the opposition of the white settlers to the presence of negroes that alone prevented it. Had any number of slaves been settled in Ohio, they would ultimately, as in New-York, have been emancipated, and would, by so much, have reduced the existing number of slaves. Thus, notwithstanding all the false sympathies of the North, the progress of emancipation at the South is quite as rapid as it should be, to avoid convulsions. It is more than probable, that when the body of free blacks shall have become more considerable, that they will supplant slaves as domestic servants, until slavery becomes, in those states, almost entirely predial. There is no comparison between the well-trained free black, subject to dimissal for misconduct as a domestic servant, and the slothful slave who has no fear of loss of place before his eyes. The free blacks must necessarily crowd out the slaves, by a gradual and regular process, as the latter become more fitted for freedom. It is an inevitable law of political economy, that slavery must eease where trade is free, and the population of freemen becomes more dense. This process is gradually and surely elevating the black race, and to disturb it by any means, is at once to plunge this incapable race into hopeless barbarism, as complete as that which pervades Africa. An earnest desire for progress, political and social, for both races, as well on this continen, as upon that of Europe, will find, in a firm adherence to the compromises of the constitution, the only sure mode of accomplishing that double end. To preserve the harmony of the several sections, by refraining from an attack upon that state of things which we may wish did not exist, but which we cannot remedy, is the only mode of ameliorating them. Those political schemers who seek for their own advancement amid the ruins of an empire, the desolation of a continent, and the barbarizing of a race of men will find, in the awakened intelligence of the people, the fiat of their own destruction.

HISTORIES AND HISTORIANS OF OLIVER CROMWELL.*

THERE have been issued from the American press, within the last few years, several works of much historical interest, upon the subject of the English Revolution of 1640, and its great actor, Oliver Cromwell. These works are for the most part professedly liberal in tone, and if they do not wholly satisfy, are such for the most part as do no great violence to the prevailing liberal sentiment of the age. All of them, with the exception of the late production of Mr. Headley, are republications from authors on the other side of the Atlantic. Thus from France, we have had Guizot's history of the Revolution; from England, Forster's biography, and Carlyle's elucidations of Cromwell's character, as shadowed forth by his letters and speeches; from Geneva, D'Aubigné's vindication of the Protector. The republication of all these works, and their wide circulation in America, evince the lively interest that the subject excites, and the sympathy that anything liberal in tone coming from the other side of the Atlantic is sure to create in the public mind of this country. These works have not been without their good results. If they have not placed before us the character of the Protector in really a new light, as some of them claim, they have at least served to dispel many prejudices, and to create in favor of the popular movement of two centuries since in England, the same lively sympathy. which we feel for that of the past century in France, and the present in Europe. A brief review of some of these later publications may perhaps prepare us for a better appreciation, and a more correct study of the true history of Cromwell, when it shall have been written. So, too, it may give us a clearer insight into that mysterious character-the Proteus of History-which has hitherto been impervious to the most subtle critical acumen, and has baffled the analysis of the wisest and most learned historian.

In opening the various biographies of Cromwell, the first striking fact to be observed is the utter diversity of theory entertained by different writers in their speculations upon the character of the man. The reason

of this is apparent upon a moment's reflection. The materials for our histories are mostly derived from contemporary annals. The biographies of Cromwell, which Noble, Harris, Vaughan, Southey, and others have written, are drawn mainly from the memoirs and annals of Cromwell's contemporaries, men whose judgments were strongly influenced, and whose minds were biassed if not blinded by party prejudices. It is undoubtedly true, that in Cromwell's own time there were wider differences of opinion existing as to his real character, than in our day—such men

Oliver Cromwell's letters and speeches, with elucidations. By Thomas Carlyle. Wiley & Putnam, 1845.

Statesmen of the Commonwealth of England. By John Forster. Edited by J. O. Choules. Harper & Brothers, 1846.

History of the English Revolution, commonly called the Great Rebellion. By F. Guizot, late Prime-Minister of France. Appletons', 1846.

The Protector—a vindication. By J. H. Merle D'Aubigné. Robert Carter, 1847. The Life of Oliver Cromwell. By J. T. Headley. Baker & Scribner, 1848. 2

VOL. XXVI.-NO. CXXXIX.

as Milton, Hugh Peters, Dr. Manton, and the enthusiast Harrison,* knew him to be a different man from what Rupert and the cavaliers represented him to be. So, too, it is not surprising that the same disagreement should exist among the annalists of the day of deadly party strifes. It is impossible that the historian should separate himself wholly from the active partisan.-Nor ought we to look for an impartial and unvarnished narrative of their own times, either from the royalist Clarendon, the presbyterian Holles, or the republican Ludlow.

Take for example the former. Edward Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, sat with Cromwell at the opening of the Long Parliament. He saw him as he first appeared in the Commons, unheralded and almost unknown, as Philip Warwick saw him "in his broad brimmed hat without a hat band," and his slovenly attire. He heard the first speech of the man of whom his cousin, John Hampden, even then said "if a contest should unhappily spring up between the King and Parliament, that sloven will be the greatest man in England," and he watched the progress of Cromwell to the supreme power. A man like Clarendon had the materials in his hands, had he stood an impartial spectator, to have sketched a truthful and perfect history of the times. But he was a bigoted royalist and an active partisan. He fled from his country, and officiated at the mock ceremonies in the court of Charles II. on the continent, while his colleagues in the Long Parliament were manfully battling for the liberties of England. The chancellor of Charles II. was not the man to write for posterity the true history of Oliver Cromwell, or the English Revolution. The very title page of his work indicates its partisan character. It is the history of" the great rebellion," not the REVOLUTION, that he undertakes to write-and Cromwell is of course the great rebel. This formidable rebellion, not however without great difficulty, was at length happily put down, and the king de jure made king de facto. This is all that Lord Clarendon can see of importance or of any consequence to posterity in this great event. The timely treachery of George Monk," the scoundrel of fortune," as he is appropriately called, made way for the "blessed restoration" of his most Christian majesty, Charles II. To-day Cromweli is buried with royal honors, and his gorgeous coffin placed by the side of the kings of England-the ablest, the mightiest monarch of them all; tomorrow his tomb is ruthlessly violated, and his bones like those of a felon and a traitor swing from the gibbet, with the loud applause of loyal England, amid which is heard in no disapproving tones the voice of that chancellor of King Charles. But Clarendon has a worse deed to answer for than his history of the great Rebellion-the judicial murder of Sir Henry Vane, the purest and noblest statesman whose name adorns the annals of England. Vane was not one of the regicides; though a republican he refused to sit in parliament after "Pride's purge," and during the proceedings against the king, If any of the "rebels" could fairly

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* While the Cavalier was scoffing at the hypocrisy of the "Canting Roundhead," the sincere Harrison's faith in Cromwell's religion was unbounded. The following is an extract from one of his letters to Cromwell, about the time of the battle of Worcester: My dear lord, lett waiting upon Jehovah bee the greatest and most considerable busiuess yow have every daie; reckon itt soe more than to eate, sleepe or councell together. Run aside sometimes from your companie and gett a word with the Lord. Why should you not have three or four precious soules allwaise standing att your elbow, with whom you might now and then turne into a corner."

claim the benefit of the king's declaration of amnesty, assuredly it was Vane. After an infamous mockery of justice, and a noble defence, still preserved for the admiration of mankind, he was slain by the executioner under due form of law. The false and fickle Charles might have been moved from his purpose of sacrificing Vane, but Clarendon could give no quarter to the vanquished republican and the illustrious statesmen of the commonwealth. We repeat it, assuredly he was not the man to write for posterity the history of the English Revolution, and Oliver Cromwell.

*

We have mentioned the contemporaneous memoirs of Ludlow and Holles, the one a Republican and the other a Presbyterian, and both zealous Parliament men. These narratives, like the collections of Rushworth, Whitelock, and other diligent annalists of that day, are known to us mainly by their titles, and as works of learned reference; or, occasionally, by an extract incorporated into the pages of some modern author. Ludlow is said not to have done full justice to Cromwell, and Holles still less than that, which is very probable. The truth is, we are not to expect, even from the Republicans, much less the moderate Presbyterians, a truly impartial account of the government of the Protector. Latterly a wide breach existed between them and Oliver. Even his old friend, Harry Marten, who pretended to no very large share of godliness, once thought Cromwell sincere, but at length came to regard him as little better than an hypocrite and an impostor. Vane, on the expulsion of the Long Parliament, told him to his face he was honest," and afterwards did not scruple to pronounce him an usurper and a tyrant. Such a man as Holles, a zealous Presbyterian, therefore, may well have been brained by party animosity, when he witnessed the Presbyterian influence annihilated by the Lord General. Such a man as Ludlow, a sincere republican, may well have shared the distrust of his friends, when he saw Cromwell trampling under his feet all that remained of popular institutions in England, and substituting the government of the army for that of the people.

"dis

The same causes have produced precisely the same errors since that day. Historians have looked upon the men and events of the "Great Rebellion" as Clarendon did, or as Ludlow and Holles did, not with the natural vision, but through the discolored medium of partisan prejudices. It became the fashion, on the Restoration, to regard Cromwell as the prince of impostors and knaves; a "beggarly fellow," and a canting hypocrite. Such was he in the eyes of grave divines, like Dr. South; such to the butterfly courtiers who thronged the licentious court of Charles II.; and such, for more than a century, and until within a recent period, has he appeared to the loyal people of England. Hume stands at the head of the class of royalist historians who have inculcated this view-a man of an otherwise liberal mind, and candid judgment, but filled with the highest-toned notions of arbitrary government, and utterly unable to sympathise with the popular movement anywhere. Hume's history appeared about the middle of the last century, before the experiment of popular institutions had been successfully tried in America; before the French Revolution had waked up the slumbering mind

It is Holles who insinuates, on the authority of one Crawford, the absurd charge that Cromwell acted cowardly in one of his engagements.

of Europe. He found his countrymen settled in the quiet and passive belief that the English Revolution, and its actors, were as Clarendon and the Stuart dynasty had represented-the most monstrous historical falsehood to be met with. Hume did not seek to unsettle this belief. He himself believed it partially, and he perpetuated it, and rooted it, as it were, into the soil, under the sanction of his name and authority. His learned and elaborate work is still a standard English classic, and the national mind has never, until the waking up of independent thought and feeling in Europe, toward the close of the last, and the beginning of the present century, made the very first effort to shake itself free from the historical fallacies and fictions of David Hume. More than any one else-more even than Clarendon himself-he has contributed to foster the injustice his countrymen have done the memory of Oliver Cromwell. We have some strictures presently to make, as a republican, upon Cromwell's course; but, surely, Englishmen who revere the illustrious deeds of their Edwards and Henrys, ought to be proud of such a monarch as Oliver. Instead of it they have contemned his memory. Where stands to-day, in England, a public statue of the great ruler, who made the British name renowned all over the world-whose victorious arms defended the Protestant faith-whose fleets swept the sea, and laid the foundation for his country's naval glory--the man, whose threat made both the Sultan and the Roman Pontiff tremble-at whose feet both France and Spain were suppliants, and whose name the haughty Mazarin "feared more than the devil?" Instead of erecting his statue, England has refused him a grave. No monumental marble, no gorgeous cenotaph, for a mightier monarch than the proudest Plantagenet or the wisest Tudor,--nothing, during a century and a half, but the histories of Lord Clarendon and David Hume!

But Mr. Hume has been found insufficient to satisfy the public mind of the present day, even in his own country, to say nothing of ours. The last half century has produced several elaborate histories of this period, of a different character. Among these may be mentioned Dr. Lingard's learned history of England, published in 1825. The author professes entire partiality, and, in many respects, attains it. A Roman Catholic priest, he regards the contest between the Church of England and the Puritans with the philosophical indifference of the Hibernian matron, at the fight between her husband and the bear. Mr. BRODIE'S history of the British Empire, from the accession of Charles I. to the Restoration of Charles II., is a work of a different character. The author, a Scotchman, sympathises with the Puritan or popular party, and has done much to infuse among his countrymen a better and juster view of the leaders of the Commonwealth, particularly the chiefs of the Presbyterian interest. Closely following the publication of Brodie's history, and a year in advance of Lingard's, appeared Godwin's great work, the History of the Commonwealth of England, in four volumes, published at London, in 1824. We do not hesitate to express the opinion that this is by far the most complete, as well as the best history of that period, ever published. It is distinguished by great learning, extensive research, and a careful accuracy, such as to make it altogether invaluable as a reliable authority. Mr. Godwin does not pretend to look upon the contest with the cool indifference of Lingard. He is republican in his feelings, and warmly sympathises with the popular party, but he never suffers this