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of Europe, long after this disastrous period, lay in a state of profound repose. The clergy, who alone carried the keys of knowledge, found ample employment in the conversion and edification of princes: but no ray of science shed its influence on the minds of the actors in these tumultuous times-no enlarged views of philanthropy, or of hu man improvement, arose to bless the age. The laity were sunk in the extreme of ignorance; while a succession of wicked kings, governed by a vicious priesthood, completed the degradation of all Europe. The cloud rested with equal darkness upon all the several institutions of society; politics, religion, and laws. The attempts to recover the Holy Land, which occupied the attention of Europe for nearly three centuries, can be regarded only as expeditions in which fanaticism and misapprehension of religious duty were the ruling notives. Wars, in these periods, were neither the resistance of unjust invasion, nor the assertion of the rights of men. Peace did not confine itself to the settlement of great principles of constitutional liberty, to reformation in the laws, or to the security of personal rights. On the contrary, brutal contests for territory distinguished them; while rude customs, strangely blended with incongruous fraginents of the civil law, presented the idea of a wild, unpruned vine encircling the remains of a finely sculptured column.

Very different is the state of political and legal ethics in the age in which we speak. The embers which were preserved in the ancient constitutions of Rome and Grecce, have been blown into a flame which illuminates both sides of the Atlantic. The rights and duties of the people, as well as of government, are as carefully studied by the laity, as by those who once claimed a monopoly of divine favor. An impulse has been given to the cause of well-regulated liberty on the American continent, which is reflected back on our ancestral homes, and gradually dissipates that cloud yet resting on her people. All this is the result of the spirit of nautical adventure which marked the close of the fifteenth century. A revolution, the consequences of which it will take ages to develope, succeeded the discoveries of Columbus; and the introduction of a new world to the acquaintance of Europe, essentially, and almost immediately, changed the face of all Christendom. The intellect of mankind, now relieved from trifling, monkish, and unsatisfactory pursuits, has received a direction more congenial with its elevated origin, and the immortality of its ultimate destination.

It ought not to be disguised, that with respect to the domestic institutions of the South, some sentiments of distrust and resentment are occasionally uttered. We will not permit our confidence in the patriotism and intelligence of the people of the United States to be at all impaired by the excitements of this controversy. We believe it grows out of the derangement of a few religious minds, and the corruption of designing office-seekers; and that the mass of the northern people, with all their moral principle, their love of the institutions of the country, their sacred regard for the blessed constitutional freedom of these States, never will sacrifice the Union for a mere abstract idea of individual liberty; which so far from freeing the soul from sin, or the mind from ignorance, or the body from want, will remain a frenzy of the brain, incapable of any application to

the duties or charities of life; for that there must be a servile race, is inevitable, while ever there is a division of labor, a distinction in avocations, a difference in intellect, and a disproportion in the conditions of men with respect to wealth. How otherwise would great public enterprises be carried on? or the intellect be devoted to the arduous pursuit of scientific truths, or, indeed, a refined intercourse in the social elegances of life be induced? Men's wants and vanities will force them to it; and to effect a change in the nature of it, with respect to ourselves, would be only to transfer the dependence from one species to another. But we have no fears of an interference in this matter, if the body of the people are permitted to act for themselves. Let northern and southern politicians agree to be silent on the subject, and our existence for the stake, the people will never disturb it.

The present state of what may be termed the local law of the times, is also in an advancing state. It is true that the systems of the several States, growing up alongside of peculiar habits and various constitutions, often appear, when considered in connection with the great code of England, incongruous and confused; but as the knowledge of jurisprudence increases, men see the necessity of harmonizing the law more with principle, and learn to value more highly the elements of a science which regulates the affairs of society, and protects the highest interests of its members. The reproach sometimes cast upon that peculiar system which exists in Louisiana, if not the result of ignorance, is certainly the conclusion of minds from which the prejudices of the old Protestant jurists are not yet expelled. With these, the civil law was always odious, because connected with the history of the Roman Church. The association of that clergy with the times, of which we have spoken in our review of the political affairs of ancient times, generated prepossessions against everything with which the name of Roman was joined; and yet, while the writers to whom we are indebted for the early works on the common law, were unwilling to have it known that a solitary principle of that code was derived from the Roman law, still they borrowed from the latter, and embraced in the former as original institutions, many of the provisions which effectually secured the liberty of the people, and guarded the several interests of the social circle. Numerous principles, therefore, now considered as modern assertions of government, many definitions of right, operating as securities of the person and property of the citizen, may be traced to the original fountain of all law-the civil code.

The civil law was the law of the learned: it had, therefore, the advantage of all other systems, of being settled on principles. It was born in the most intelligent age of ancient times: it was a system enforced by the sanctions of religion; while the common law, as derived from the Saxons and Normans, was but a collection of rude customs, established in times of savage ignorance, and gathered from many tribes, agreeing but in their barbarity. If, in these customs, as they have descended to our times, a ray of liberty or principle of justice is found, it is because connected with that more beautiful and harmonious system, which impressed its living characters on the unmeaning mass. The want of a just veneration for the civil

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law in England, at the time of the colonization of the other States, accounts for the general adoption of the common law, with all the prejudices of its jurists, in all the States except Louisiana. This last State came into the Union at a later period, and was a French colony. The civil law which regulated her affairs was, therefore, grafted on more genial and free institutions; and it speaks well for the system, that the jurisprudence of no State stands higher in the judgment of the learned; nor has the science anywhere reached a nobler elevation, than in Louisiana. The greatest of the interests of society are effectually protected in the ancient principles of this code; and while ever laws, governing the rights of persons and of property, of marriage and of contracts, shall have a relation to the social compact, the civil code must be looked to for their explication and decision. The common law, as a distinct system, cannot wear away, as is often predicted, the remains of ancient Roman jurisprudence. As learning advances, and the minds of our people become prepared to receive truth, in that proportion will the civil law be studied and adopted, and its principles diffuse themselves throughout all society. What could be more brilliant and imposing than that faith upon which this noble edifice was built? a faith which declared that reason is a general law to men-that virtue should be pursued for itself, without regard to rewards that might conclude that pursuit, virtue being sufficient to render men happy of itself—that there is nothing useful in life, but that which is also good and justthat a wise man should mix in public affairs, not less to oppose vice than encourage virtue that the administration of public affairs should be committed alone to wise men, because they being alone capable of deciding upon good and evil, can alone know the people's rights the only faith which recognized a class of intelligent and virtuous men as superior to the ignorant and vile-while all other sects of the time proclaimed the destruction of every system of honor. A system which influenced jurisprudence with sentiments of natural justice, and corrected its errors by a species of divine equity-which inspired the science of government with virtuous principles, and regulated the morals of the people by the most sublime truths.

3. But to what purpose would all these institutions flourish, if commerce did not exist for their support? History is full of instances proving to what a height the prosperity of a nation may be carried by the encouragement of a spirit of commercial enterprise among her people. To her merchants was Tuscany indebted for that tranquillity which she enjoyed for four centuries. Venice also became magnificent through trade, and the name of merchant was for centuries there identical with the proudest rank of Senator. While influenced by the counsels of commercial men, the State enjoyed a tranquillity which for ages exempted her from a single riot or sedition. Amid the prosperity which crowned these States, the sciences were liberally encouraged, and their cities became the depositories of the noblest monuments of ancient or modern art. One of these was enabled to furnish the Duke of Savoy with twenty thousand troops, without a tax upon her people; and the only two works of art which in the seventeenth century embellished Paris, were supplied by

another. In Florence the highest hereditary rank was that whien distinguished the descendants of Cosmo de Medicis; who, in the brilliant language of the great, and in many respects harshly con demned Voltaire, presented the admirable spectacle of citizens selling with one hand the produce of the Levant, and with the other supporting the weight of the republic - entertaining factors and ambassadors; opposing an artful and powerful Pope; making peace and war; standing forth the oracles of princes, and the cultivators of belles-lettres; furnishing amusements to the people, and giving a reception to the learned Greeks of Constantinople.

We discover, too, in Holland, the plainer but not less useful results of the labor and sobriety of the people. Devoting themselves to commerce as early as 1608, they had made the conquest of the Moluccas, and formed settlements in Java. Their East India trade in seven years had doubled, and Siam and Japan had sent ambassadors to solicit their friendship and trade. What higher compliment to a nation thus secure in her internal resources, could be paid, than that furnished by Spinola, who, seeing a company of plain men seated on the grass making a frugal meal, each the bearer of his own provisions, and being told they were the deputies of the States of Holland, said, "These people never will be conquered, we must make peace."

But however brilliant these instances of history, how much more splendid, because more beneficial, are the results to be attributed to the discovery and settlement of our own continent; an event opening a new arena for the exercise of the faculties of European nations, before that time contracted for want of a suitable space for display, and now the great field of the extraordinary enterprise of their descendants. When, turning from the declining regions of the East, we observe the ceaseless activity of our people evinced in the expansion of their commercial relations; their unbounded influence over every part of the globe; their advancement in every science which tends to improve the mind or benefit society; can we doubt but that while Christianity, industry and knowledge, continue to be cherished by us, this continent will become the radiating point of liberty and intelligence?

New Orleans, from her position, is certainly destined to discharge important obligations in this predicted moral and intellectual advent. She is the centre of a commerce whose wings protect the shores of the gulf, and stretch over the broad valleys of the Mississippi. She will soon be the key of the trade of one hundred millions of people, who, from their fertile fields, are to supply the bread and clothing of the world. Even now, from the impoverished population of Europe, comes an appeal to your godlike charities-"Give us this day our daily bread." The laughter-loving daughters of Erin, mirth, and poetry, who once from their golden lyres raised the song of gladness, to celebrate the union of Freedom with young America, now hang their harps on the withered willows, and weep when they view the desolation of their wasted isle. But from the munificent gifts of this city, to the humblest of the more lowly village, the appeal is being answered by our countrymen, and we trust may become a tional act. Astonished Europe will then behold the order of

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nature reversed, and the stream of benevolence pouring from the child's bosom and sustaining the perishing mother.

It is grateful to contemplate the evidences afforded in this city of the determination of its merchants to comply with the duties resting upon them-not confining their estimate of this duty to that selfish maxim, that the greatest possible happiness is to secure the greatest produce of labor-but who find their greatest possible happiness in distributing that produce to the advantage of their fellow-men. It was said of Tyre, that her merchants were princes; how much more elevated will the merchants of this city stand in the judgment of posterity, who are directing their immense wealth to the great objects of improving the country, and giving an outlet to its agriculturewho in their benevolent institutions, their public libraries, their systems of schools, are advancing the morals and educations of their youth; and who, as was voluntarily done in late instances, lay open their treasures to sustain those who are rushing to the support of their country in her wars.

Permit a brief reference to a neighboring city, with whose interests we may be supposed more closely connected. MOBILE should be occupying a very different commercial position than she does; and it is melancholy to see that an opinion of her decline, whether actual or imaginary, exists in the minds of her people. It would be valueless to inquire of its causes, unless that inquiry should prompt a remedy. For ourself, we believe that the causes lie less in the country, than in the want of a unity of energetic action in her people. No society can prosper by a merely transient trade. Each country possesses, in itself, a permanent source of trade, which must be developed fully before commerce can take deep root and flourish successfully. The profits of a trade, merely dependent upon the transient passage of produce or manufactures through the hands of agents, are but very partially distributed. They may make individuals rich, but will cause cities to become poor. Let Mobile open means of communication with the interior; let the interior give her a generous confidence; let it pour into her bosom the various mineral resources of that interior-the iron, and coal, which exist in such abundance; and instead of the cold, unnatural apathy which prevails, let the up-country regard her as our own outlet to the sca; and Mobile will no longer be looked upon as a place of mere deposit. We are sorry to say that, occasionally, a spirit of hostility has been displayed between the merchant and agriculturist. Without stopping to say how much the merchant is benefited by agriculture, It is certain that without commerce, the planter would be nothing. Without the merchant, as the agent of exchange, the land would be cultivated in selfishness, and for mere subsistence. In this condition we contemplatè a barren country, and the cultivators of the soil indigent and barbarous. With the merchant to receive and exchange products, a more cheerful aspect is given to society. The wealth accumulated by the merchant is returned to the planter in works of improvement. To whom, but to them, is agriculture indebted for the steamboats, the railways, and other works which contribute so essentially to promote intercourse, and advance the interests of men? Let us hope that a more generous intercourse may exist among the people of the interior and our Mobile friends; and

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