vindicate the practical working of our system.

In this point

of view, it is a contribution to the great cause of freedom. Mr. Grund is a thorough democrat. He upholds the cause of the many against the few, and takes every opportunity to enforce the importance of religious and political freedom. The latter, he estimates as the two most prominent moral causes which promoted the trade of Holland and the United States. We know of no work, that has appeared for a long period, which will be more interesting than the present, to those of all countries engaged in the cause of human rights. And yet, while using these terms of commendation, we would not be understood as subscribing to all that he has written on this subject. As Americans, living under a constitution made and sustained by the people, in whose breath is all political power, we cannot doubt the rights of the people. In any honest advocacy of these rights, we shall be ever ready to join. No cause is more sacred, or more intimately allied with the progress of man. History is full of testimony in its favor. Past generations, which have descended to the tomb, all unconscious of the invigorating air of freedom, warn us, by the voiceless story of their wrongs, against surrendering ourselves to be governed by others. And the extended prosperity which has always attended the establishment of political privileges, diffusing itself, with life-giving power, over every department of human thought and action, encourages us to persevere in this cause, and to strive after a universal recognition of

"Well-tempered liberty,

The last and largest boon to social man."

In Mr. Grund's zeal for the people, therefore, we find no occasion for dissent. But we do object to the alloy of party views and considerations, which is intermingled with it. Mr. Grund is a devoted friend to the past and present administrations. On this account, however, we have no quarrel with him. He is welcome to his political partialities or prejudices. But he has done injustice to himself, and been false to truth, by allowing them to influence his opinions. The difference between him and De Tocqueville, the masterly French writer on the democracy of America, is at once apparent. The Frenchman has surveyed our institutions from the serene heights of an unprejudiced philosophy, and produced a work, VOL. XLVI. - No. 98.

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which, in brilliancy, condensation, and pregnant sense, will rank with the Spirit of Laws of his great countryman. The German has chosen the humbler elevations, afforded by the political party to which he was attached, and seen objects more or less invested with the mists and smoke of earth. It is on this account, that, while we concede to Mr. Grund the highest praise for knowledge of his subject, and the general ability with which he has handled it, we hesitate to give him our confidence. We feel perpetually that he has something more in view than directly meets the eye, and that secret undercurrents are at work beneath the unruffled surface of his page.

The author has taken several occasions to exhibit his personal partiality for General Jackson. One of the most striking is as follows;

"Universal suffrage has been decried as leading to anarchy, and thence to despotism. General Jackson had already been represented as the future dictator of the republic. How have these predictions been verified? The democratic party have developed more union and strength than any previous one in power. They have reconciled the south with the north, and preserved the integrity of the Union. They have, in every instance, upheld the law, and subjected States and individuals to the proper authority of Congress. They have, at the same time, abstained from any undue and unconstitutional interference with the internal regulations of the States, and procured justice for all that were injured. They have made the government respected abroad, and obliged even the most powerful nations to preserve peace and good faith with the United States. In short, they defeated their antagonists at home and abroad, and inspired universal confidence in the safety and stability of American institutions.

"And what has become of the dictator? He is indeed yet the idol of the people, whose interests he endeavoured to protect by every act of his military and political life; but he is retiring from office, as all his predecessors, with no other personal gratification than the affections of America and the admiration of Europe. He will leave to his successor the example of his virtue, and a government established on liberty and justice.". pp. 410, 411.

We should do injustice to Mr. Grund, if we did not relieve him from some of the force of our last remarks, by explicitly stating, that on the subject of credit and the currency, he

has taken ground different from that occupied by the late and present administrations. The advantages of the American. system of credit are treated of with great force of argument and illustration, and with a philosophical perspicacity. The character of the American merchant, so much vilified of late, meets with distinguished commendation at his hands.

"An American merchant is an enthusiast, who seems to delight in enterprise in proportion as it is connected with danger. He ventures his fortune with the same heroism, with which the sailor risks his life; and is as ready to embark on a new speculation after the failure of a favorite project, as the mariner is to navigate a new ship, after his own has become a wreck. An American carries the spirit of invention even to the countingroom. He is constantly discovering some new sources of trade; and is always willing to risk his capital and credit on some terra incognita, rather than follow the beaten track of others, and content himself with such profits as are realized by his competitors. This is undoubtedly the cause of a great number of unfortunate speculations and subsequent failures; but it constitutes also the technical superiority of the American merchant over the European. He is an inventor, not an imitator; he creates new sources of wealth instead of merely exhausting the old ones. Hence his vigilance and application. The ordinary routine of business is not sufficient to ensure his success; he must think, invent, speculate; for it is more by ingenuity and foresight, than by the regular pursuit of trade, that he can hope to realize a fortune. None of the present French or Dutch fashions of trade would now prosper in the United States. Fortunes there are not made by small savings, but by large and successful operations. It is not by hoarding money, but by employing and investing it, that property accumulates in America; and the inexhaustible riches of the country open daily a thousand new roads to industry and commerce." pp. 240, 241.

The author continues his remarks on the character of the American merchant, in the same strain with what we have just extracted. Lorenzo de' Medici could hardly have received a more elaborate eulogy. The enthusiasm, with which our merchants enter upon their undertakings, and venture their fortunes, and upon which Mr. Grund has remarked, is in strong contrast with the monotonous work-day character which belonged to them in the earlier stages of civilization. The spirit of chivalry, which once possessed a single class of society, is now diffused, with considerable uniformity, through

all sorts of men; and its manifestation, in the enterprise and generosity of the merchants, is not more noticeable than it is gratifying.

For the North American Indians, the melancholy relics of the powerful races, who once occupied the valleys and hilltops where we have fixed our seats, Mr. Grund has little or no sympathy. He speaks of them with a cold indifference, which might well become a speculator in their lands, but which we should not expect from an accomplished foreigner, in whose bosom the springs of justice and humanity were still to be found. His views with regard to them are fully expressed in the following extract.

"Let no sensitive European, therefore, complain of the barbarous cruelty of the Americans in chasing the Indians from the soil of their fathers, or in forcing them to flee from the approach of civilization, to the unhospitable woods of the western territory. The American aborigines, with but very few exceptions, never possessed the soil on which they trod, any more than the air which they breathed. They never cultivated it to any extent, nor had they, individually, any distinct title to it arising from actual labor. They held it in common with the beasts of the forest, and it was useful to them only as it afforded them the means of prey. The English had as good a right to call the ocean their own, because they moved on it, as the American Indians to claim possession of their continent because they roamed in its woods. There was barbarity in the conquest of Lima and Mexico, the inhabitants of which were already in possession of many of the arts of peace; but there can be none in the quiet progress of civilization in the United States, except what is provoked by the Indians themselves, and for which they alone must remain accountable. The American settler takes possession of a soil which has never been cultivated, and which, therefore, has had no owner. He builds his log-house in a country in which there is room enough for the support of millions, and in which there are hardly a few hundred stragglers to follow the track of the deer Is this robbery? Is it cruel to civilize and improve a country, and to open a new road to wealth and comfort to thousands of intelligent beings from all parts of the world, who would otherwise starve or be reduced to poverty, because in so doing they cannot avoid intruding on the favorite hunting-grounds of some wandering tribes, and disturb their game? This, however, they do; and, with the deer, the American aborigines disappear from the soil.

"It is in vain to talk of civilizing them. If it could be done,

which is more than doubtful, (considering the many unsuccessful attempts which have already been made,) they would hardly be able to compete with their teachers in any one human occupation calculated to secure a livelihood in a civilized country, and would, therefore, from necessity, become outlaws to society, and incur the punishment of the law. We cannot but regret the fate of that doomed people; but we can hardly think of rescuing them from it, without being guilty of the most flagrant injustice to the rest of mankind.

"The power arising from the actual cultivation of the soil, and the establishment of fixed habitations in a country, is so irresistible and unsparing, that it must eventually triumph over all obstacles, and resist even the destructive consequences of wars. This is the reason why the British colonies in America prospered so rapidly, and finally finished by swallowing up Canada. The military force of the French settlements was vastly superior to that of the English; their lines of fortification extended from the mouth of the Mississippi to the river St. Lawrence; but they had no possession of the intervening territory by virtue of actual settlements, and the result soon convinced them, that where the most property is accumulated, there also will be the strongest means of defence; on that side, consequently, must eventually incline the victory. But if the policy of the Anglo-Americans was sufficient to destroy so powerful a rival as the French, what can be expected from the unconcerted, ill-advised resistance or attack of the aborigines, unskilled in military tactics, and not sufficiently strong, on any one point, to offer a serious impediment to the grasping power of the settlers?

"Neither is it reasonable to suppose, that the quitting of their favorite hunting-grounds can give the American Indians the same pangs which an everlasting farewell to the paternal soil, the scene of all early attachments, and the habitation of all that we love, fraught with the memory and tradition of centuries, can cause to a civilized nation. The Indians quit what never was precisely their own; they leave no object of memory or tradition behind; and, although the loss may be felt by the tribe, no individual is actually despoiled of his own. But it is the feelings of individuals which we must here consider; not that of the tribe or nation. A people cannot be said to feel the wrongs and pains inflicted upon it by another, except in proportion as the sufferings of the whole are felt and responded to by individuals. This, however, presupposes a degree of moral developement, and a pitch of national enthusiasm, of which even history is sparing in furnishing us with examples, and of which