We have no space left to fulfil our first intention of taking such extended notice of Professor Loomis's paper as its importance claims. It is elaborated with remarkable care and ingenuity, and to give it a high praise is worthy of its author. We trust we shall hear soon of the removal of this able inquirer to some university in the Atlantic cities, where he may take his proper place in the front rank of American science. To the subject before us, our scientific countrymen may turn with just and honorable pride. It has revealed new and valuable facts, and these facts are of that class which lead to the knowledge of general laws. It has served the great cause of civilization and humanity, by giving fresh security to navigation, and by imparting to the seaman new and useful guides, when he fearlessly steers his ship into the hostile regions of storms, "And through the shock ART. V.—1. An Address to the People of Rhode Island, delivered in Newport, May 3, 1843, in Presence of the General Assembly, on Occasion of the Change in the Civil Government of Rhode Island. By WILLIAM G. GODDARD. Providence: 1843. 8vo. pp. 80. 2. A Concise History of the Efforts to obtain an Extension of Suffrage in Rhode Island, from the Year 1811 to 1842. By JACOB FRIEZE. Providence : 12mo. pp. 171. 1842. 3. The Affairs of Rhode Island: a Discourse delivered in Providence, May 22, 1842. By FRANCIS WAYLAND. Providence: 1842. 8vo. pp. 32. 4. Charge of the Honorable Chief Justice Durfee to the Grand Jury, at the March Term of the Supreme Judicial Court at Bristol, R. I. 1842. 8vo. pp. 16. 5. A Review of Dr. Wayland's Discourse on the Affairs of Rhode Island; a Vindication of the Sovereignty of the People, and a Refutation of the Doctrines and Doctors of Despotism. By A MEMBER OF THE BOSTON BAR. Boston B. B. Mussey. 1842. 8vo. pp. 30. 6. An Address to the People of Rhode Island on the approaching Election. By JOHN WHIPPLE. Providence 1843. 8vo. pp. 16. 7. Considerations on the Questions of the Adoption of a Constitution and Extension of Suffrage in Rhode Island. By ELISHA R. POTTER. Boston: Thomas H. Webb. & Co. 1842. 8vo. pp. 64. 8. A Reply to the Letter of the Honorable Marcus Morton, late Governor of Massachusetts, on the Rhode Island Question. By ONE OF THE RHODE ISLAND PEOProvidence : 1842. 8vo. pp. 32. PLE. The new THE disturbances in Rhode Island are ended. form of civil government, the establishment of which created a revolutionary scene of the most exciting character, actually kindling a civil war within the limits of the State, and menacing the tranquillity of the Union, has gone quietly into operation, hardly a show of opposition being maintained against it. The friends of law and order, as they styled themselves, have achieved a signal victory, and they have not made an ungenerous use of it towards their vanquished opponents. They have wisely tempered justice with mercy, and not allowed the angry passions, which were somewhat stifled by defeat, to be again exasperated by privation and punishment. These passions, therefore, have in a great measure subsided, although a bitter recollection is left in the minds of many, which is kept alive by the evident exultation of the triumphant party. The fire has burned out, though the ashes are not yet cold. It is a good time, then, to take a calm historical view of the matter, and to extract from it whatever lessons of political wisdom it may be calculated to afford. The question which lies at the bottom of the controversy is one of absorbing interest for every inhabitant of this country, and for every student of the nature and effects of a free government. It is of a speculative character, so far as it involves the problem respecting the origin and rightful existence of every form of civil polity; and it is practical, so far as the changeable nature of our political institutions allows it to come up from time to time, and to be discussed with especial reference to proposed essential modifications of the fundamental laws of the States. The recent occurrences in Rhode Island afford a precedent and an illustration to be used in all future controversies of the like character. The decision in this case must exert an important influence on all future decisions of similar questions. It is well, therefore, to consider it now, when the excitement immediately attending the affair has ceased, and before the points at issue are obscured, and the discussion perplexed, by the passions aroused by another incipient revolution in State politics. The question has little bearing on the present strife of parties in the United States. Whigs and Democrats were arrayed indifferently on either side of the contest in Rhode Island, and in the eagerness with which they engaged in this local warfare, they seemed to forget or to spurn the ties which bound them to the two great parties that divided the whole country. The civil war severed all attachments to parties in national politics, just as, in many cases, it ruptured all family ties, and arrayed brother against brother, and father against son. Not till a comparatively late period in the struggle, did the managers of the old parties in the other States attempt to lay hold of this local contest, and to convert it into what is now usually termed, in the jargon of the day, "political capital" for their own purposes. With this attempted application and management of the dispute, we have nothing to do or to say. The question does not concern a tariff, or a bank, or internal improvements, or the distribution of the public lands. It relates solely to the extension of the right of suffrage, the duty of obedience to existing forms of government, the stability of our political institutions, and the right of revolution. We have a right to consider it, therefore, without abandoning that neutral position in respect to the politics of the day, which this Journal has always studiously maintained. When the connexion between Great Britain and her American Colonies was broken by the Declaration of Independence, the people of this country did not at once abandon all their civil institutions, and fall back into a state of nature, there to begin the process of forming a government anew and from the very foundations of social life. They adhered closely to their old usages and institutions, their attachment to them appearing from the very fact, that it was only the violation of these ancient forms and privileges by the arbitrary conduct of the British ministry, which produced the separation from England. The people availed themselves of their newly acquired freedom, not to pull down their old houses, and build new ones, but to restore and repair the ancient homestead. The Colonies retained their independent position with respect to each other, the old boundary lines being in every case preserved. The only difference was, that as they were formerly united only by the tie of common allegiance, so they were now held together only by concert and agreement upon measures for mutual defence. New England maintained her primitive divisions into townships, and the established forms of transacting business in them, through the primary assemblies of the people. The inhabitants of the Southern Colonies preserved their old county lines, their parishes, and their more centralized forms of civil administration. Over the whole country, the great body of the common law was preserved intact, merely the unnecessary adjuncts being cut away, by casting off allegiance to the crown, and no longer acknowledging the supremacy of parliament. The courts of law remained open, and the general organization of the judiciary was left undisturbed. In those Colonies to which the crown had not expressly granted a charter of liberties, or to which the grant was so narrow, that the local government was constantly checked and controlled by English authority, and the administration of affairs was made quite dependent on the action of the English ministry, the dissolution of the union with Great Britain created a necessity of organizing the government anew, so that it might be administered by itself. A new establishment was needed for the exercise of the new powers acquired by the assumption of independence. The necessity was perceived, and measures were promptly taken to meet it. While the war still raged, and the issue of it was yet uncertain, while the smoke of battle still hung over the plains, and the cannon thundered in the distance, the people went calmly to work to appoint delegates, to hold conventions, and to form and establish new constitutions of government. Never was manifested a more sublime confidence in the ultimate triumph of a just cause. The people never doubted the issue of the struggle. While every limb was yet braced and every muscle strained in the contest, they quietly made preparations for the state of things that was to ensue, when Great Britain should acknowledge her defeat, and the Americans should take their stand among the independent nations of the earth. Peace was not declared till 1783; New Hampshire formed a constitution in 1775; New Jersey, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and North Carolina, in 1776, the first three before the date of the Declaration of Independence; Georgia and New York, in 1777; Massachusetts, in 1780. The forms of government thus established were not arbitrary and novel, created by mere speculation, and dependent for success on future experiment. They were founded on existing institutions; they recognized preëxistent rights; they authorized ancient customs. They supplied omissions, it is true; but they made no unnecessary innovations. They were the old forms of polity, adopted by the first settlers on this continent, with such modifications only as were rendered necessary by the transition from a state of partial, to one of perfect, independence. They were not made by philosophers and theorists, but by practical men. It would not be a difficult task to analyze the constitutions first established by each of the thirteen Colonies, especially those of New England, and to trace almost every important enactment in them to provisions in the old charters, or to privileges tacitly granted by the crown, or to customs founded on long prescription. We shall have occasion hereafter to consider more particularly the doctrines and the practice of the men of the American Revolution. Our only purpose here is to point out the unanimity of opinion and conduct, in this respect, of all the Colonies at the time when they emancipated themselves from British rule ;- to show, that while some adopted what we are accustomed to consider as new" constitutions, and some did not, all adhered, with greater or less fidelity, as the case required, to the forms and institutions with which they were familiar from long experiment, and which were endeared to them by old associations. We can characterize their practice in a word, by saying, that it was the very opposite of that of the French theorists, who, from 1789 till 1800, successively formed and annihilated VOL. LVIII. No. 123. 44 |