the city rifles defeated every attempt against it. A Polish gentleman, after fighting long and bravely, fell there, mortally wounded; and, in falling, cried, I bequeath to you the independence of Poland!' The battle lasted thirteen hours; about two hundred and fifty citizens were killed, and twice that number wounded. It is stated, on high authority, that in the heat of the fight five honourable citizens pierced through the crowd to go in search of Bishop Neander, and to entreat him to repair with them to the castle in his pontifical robes. The people respectfully gave them passage, crying, 'Honour to the peacemakers! The deputation, admitted to the royal presence, implored the king to stop the effusion of blood. He replied,. that the people must first abandon their positions; that he would yield everything to entreaty, nothing to force. Then, pointing with his finger to the Rue Royale, where the fighting was going on, he added, "This street belongs to me. I can do what I please with it.' For some time longer the king resisted all prayers to withdraw the troops; but the people refused to retire ; and the aspect of the town became still more threatening. The troops were exhausted and feeble; the citizens held the gates; the crown itself might be endangered. He yielded, and subscribed to the required conditions:-the withdrawal of the troops; the arming of the National Guard; the liberation of all prisoners made during the troubles; an amnesty for political offences, and for the Chasseurs of the Guard, the battalion of the Tirailleurs of Neufchâtel,-who had declared for the people; the dismissal of the ministers, and the formation of an entirely new ministry. Next day, the 19th, to prove the sincerity of the professions of the 18th, he published a declaration that he had accepted, on the previous evening, the resignation of the ministers; and had charged Count Arnim with the formation of a new ministry, of which he was to be president. Count Schwerin received the portfolio of public worship, D'Auerwald that of the interior, Kuhne that of finance, Bornemann of justice, Baron d'Arnim that of foreign affairs, and Campthausen was minister of state. The next day the minister Count Schwerin, addressing the students in the name of the King, said, 'The King wishes to put himself at the head of constitutional Germany. He desires liberty and the constitution: consequently he has decided that a German Parliament shall be formed without delay; and he will put himself at the head of progress. The King counts on the protection of the people. We are the responsible ministers of the King; but our soul is,-the King and progress. Liberty is his thought.' After this, the King went out from the castle, on horseback, wearing the uniform of the first regiment of the

"

Language of the King of Prussia.

511

Guards, with the helmet and armlets of the German colours. He then made the following declaration to the people :

'It is no usurpation on my part, that I feel myself called upon to save the liberty and unity of Germany. I swear before God that I do not wish to injure the German thrones; but to protect the unity and liberty of Germany, by means of German fidelity, on the basis of a sincere German constitution.'-Vol. ii., pp. 145, 149.

To form an idea of the extent of the revolution accomplished in Prussia, and of the immense progress in the institutions of that fine and powerful country, it will be needful to refer back to the language of the King, on the opening of the Diet on the 11th of April, 1847

I am

"The inheritor of a crown, which I received unimpaired, and which I must and will transmit unimpaired to my successors,. anxious to make the solemn declaration, that no power on earth can ever induce me to change the natural relations between the sovereign and his people, which, by their perfect truth, make us so strong in conventional and constitutional relations; and that I will never permit a written sheet to come and intrude itself to play the part of a second providence between God our Lord from heaven and this country; to govern us by its paragraphs, and substitute them for our holy and ancient fidelity.' 'The crown cannot, and ought not, to bend to the will of majorities, unless Prussia is to be annihilated in Europe. The same frankness induces me now, in proof of the confidence I have placed in you, noble lords and faithful States, to give you my word, as a King, that I would not have convoked you, if I had had the least apprehension that you could dream of playing the part of soi-disant representatives of the people.'

On the 22nd of March, 1848, the King signed a declaration,published in the official gazette of the 23rd, and countersigned by the new ministers, in answer to a deputation from Breslau, which demanded an immediate electoral law, without waiting for the convocation of the re-united Diet:

'Having promised a constitution on the widest bases, I wish to give you a national electoral law, which, founded on the primary elections, shall produce a representation of all the interests of the people, without distinction of religion. This law will be submitted to the re-assembled Diet, whose prompt convocation I must regard as the general wish of the country. I should act contrary to this wish, if, according to your proposition, I granted you the new law without consulting the States."

་

In accordance with my known resolutions, I will submit to the new national representation Bills on the following points:

'1. Guarantee of individual liberty.

2. Right of association and of meeting.

3. National guard, with free election of officers.

4. Responsibility of ministers.

5. Introduction of the jury in criminal matters, especially for political offences and offences of the press.

'6. Independence of the judges.

7. Suppression of privileged and patrimonial jurisdiction. Besides this, I will cause the oath to the new constitution to be taken by the standing army."

On the contrast thus p

On the contrast thus presented M. Garnier-Pagès thus writes

Between the absolute King of the 11th of February, 1847, and the constitutional King of the 21st of March, 1848, what a distance! what difference of language! Is it really the same man ?......O! if it had been voluntary, what grandeur, glory, and renown! If from conviction Frederic William had said to the nation, "The times of regeneration are come. Take a large part in the direction of your affairs, through your representatives freely elected... Help me in the government of the state, and in the choice of ministers. Amelioration, progress, rights, industry, commerce, finances, instruction, education :-let us trace out together a broad way in which we may avoid the dangers of excess, and march onward with wisdom and with order!" Frederic William would have been great in this age, and in ages to But Frederic William was carried away by the movement, and he called on Germany to follow him. He yielded to the force of events; and he said that he could direct them. He obeyed; and he pretended to command. He was the slave of his people; and he aspired to be the head of all the peoples of Germany. He was kept under in Berlin; and he made of it the centre of national liberties.

Better still; after having bowed before his own people, he stood erect, and boldly declared Berlin the capital of the empire; convoked there, together with the Diet of his States, the representatives of all the countries of Germany; and possessed himself of the dictatorship of the German nation! It will be seen further on how Germany received this ambitious manifestation.'

We regret that our limits do not permit us to accompany M. Garnier-Pages through the history of the Germanic Confederation and the German Parliament, and to follow the track of the French Revolution in its influence on other countries of Europe, as developed in his second and third volumes. The rise, progress, and consummation of the Revolution of the 24th of February, will be found in succeeding volumes; and the relation of the stupendous events in which M. Garnier-Pagès took a leading part, will be anticipated with lively interest from the pen of so intelligent, impartial, and lively a narrator. Amidst the general subversion of old systems and combinations, it is edify

The Struggle in America.

513 ing to remark that none has been more thoroughly revolutionized than the 'Holy Alliance' itself. Its cohesion has departed; nor is there reason to believe that the cordial understanding of the three northern powers for the old purposes of policy will ever be revived. Upon one and all of them the Revolution in Paris has set its mark. We have seen Austria and Prussia proclaiming in their own capitals, and throughout their own proper territories, the revolutionary principles which it has been the business of the Alliance to neutralize and denounce; while Russia is introducing into vast masses of her population measures of enfranchisement, whose all-pervading principle must one day permeate every class of society and every order in the state. The Holy Alliance is already a thing of the past; and the functions arrogated by the three powers in the European system must henceforth cease and determine.

ART. VIII.-The Message of PRESIDENT LINCOLN to Congress, Daily News, Tuesday, December 17th, 1861,

THE lapse of three months has too mournfully confirmed our expectation of a long war. Writing while the shadows of Bull's Run were throwing greater obscurity on the path of the North than ordinarily lies before a country at war, we did not hesitate to say: The war is only begun; and we do not pretend to see its end. Many seem to think that a week or two is a long time in such a struggle. We fear that a year or two may pass before any one is entitled to form decided opinions as to how it may turn.'

This was thought bold, at a moment when the popular language of the press was, that the North had collapsed,' had 'broken down,' broken up,' 'failed," burst,' and so forth; when we were morning by morning assured in rotund phrases that the conflict must soon come to an end: to-day, because the people would turn in disgust on the government which had dragged it into the war; to-morrow, because the army could never be recruited; the next day, because loans would not be subscribed; the following, because New York would break loose from the yoke of the Lincoln Cabinet, and proclaim itself a free city; the day after, because the population would rise against the taxes ; and finally, because the great West would separate, and constitute itself an independent republic.

While thus we prophesied of the North, assurance equally

plump and downright came thence, that the efforts of the South were but a momentary spasm of desperate energy; that the Union party would soon rise to the surface; that provisions would fail; that funds would come to an end; that disaffection and disunion would set in; that the slaves would revolt; and, one way or another, that Jefferson Davis would be hanged within a mode

rate time.

We claim no credit for having breasted this tide of anticipa tions; for any one who undertakes to write in a Quarterly on of a great nation, ought to have some little knowledge of them; and the least possible amount was sufficient to satisfy us that events would soon tell another tale. No one who had been at the pains to digest a few of the simplest facts as to the numbers, resources, principles, and tempers of the American people, could have thought of deluding the British public by treating the war as a paltry quarrel, to be blown out by the sneers of foreigners. He must rather have prepared them for a gigantic struggle, worthy to be discussed with gravity, and certain not to be ended till it had left momentous traces on the history of man:

struggle which foreigners might view with wishes for the success of one side or the other, but which they could only embitter by making light of it, or by offering gratuitous counsels, which, as the Duke of Argyle wisely said, only showed the combatants that we did not understand their affairs, and might be told to mind our own.

They are great mischief-makers, though not deep observers, who abuse their access to the public ear by representing a nation as populous as Great Britain, and roused by overt rebellion to fight for the integrity of their country, not in its foreign dependencies, as we did in India, but in their own land, where their rivers ran, and their telegraphs flashed,-for the safety of the capital which bore the name of the nation's father, for the very existence of the government which they idolized, by representing such a people roused to such a struggle, as hurried to squabble for trifles, by a momentary petulance, which would forthwith expend itself. This was to come to pass, according to our daily teachers. Had it done so, it would have been proof that man had entered on a new phase, and that the history of the past had ceased to be useful in judging of the future. It was equally shallow to expect that a powerful oligarchy, believing both its ascendency and its property to be at stake, and fully committed to the struggle, with plenty of men, officers, and ability, would offer other than a long and mighty resistance.

Of all the magniloquent prophecies, not one has been fulfilled. The people of the North, instead of flying incensed upon