Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 13.djvu/343

 342 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Given under my hand and notarial seal, at Charlestown, West Vir- ginia, this 25th day of April, 1882.

(Signed) CLEON MOORE,

Notary Public.

NOTE. Mr. Cleon Moore's certificate above is stamped with his public official seal.

A. C. HOPKINS.

"The Republic of Republics." By Honorable R. M. T. HUNTER.

We think few impartial readers will dispute the assertion that this is the most remarkable book which has been written and published in this country for the last twenty years. It is, perhaps, not extrav- agant to say that if it had been written in 1833, about the time of the celebrated contest between Webster and Hayne, the civil war, which subsequently rended the American people into hostile factions and drenched the land in fraternal blood, could hardly have occurred. And yet, it is hard to believe that it was not a predestined event. The abolition of slavery, the concentration of power into fewer hands and in a more powerful form, would appear to have been prede- termined, when we consider the number who made no effort to correct the evil. Their earnest desire for far more potent political machinery than they had been accustomed to handle, and the zeal of those who openly pursued the path to abolition without regard to the consid- erations of justice, of good faith, or even of kindly feeling, seem to have inspired a settled design. Paper restrictions upon power rarely seem to operate as restraints when the opportunity for gratification occurs. Arguments in favor of the title of Austria to Silesia would have proved a small obstacle to Frederick the Great, when he stretched forth his arm to seize it from the feeble and the failing grasp of a puny neighbor. Nor would the North and the East have been persuaded to forbear, by consideration of good faith or of fra- ternal obligation, when they were once shown that the abolition of negro slavery, and a political revolution favorable to their sectional power and to the increase of their share of Federal wealth, in its distribution amongst the people, were at last within their grasp. The Athenian people are said once to have rejected a proposition of Themistocles because Aristides, to whom it was submitted, said of it,