weight and value of international arbitration seemed to be more doubted than ever. It was said that while the scheme had in that case avoided war, it had suggested the probability of claims so extravagant and inadmissible as almost to force the opposing party to break the treaty under the cover of which they were advanced, even at the risk of increased hostility and a resort to war; and that the escape of both nations from such a catastrophe by the action of the Genevan Court in dismissing without argument the American claims for indirect damages was but a happy accident. But this idea seems to have been succeeded by the happier thought that an appeal to international arbitration is an appeal to the fairness of the world, and that the question for the parties, judges, and spectators is so clearly one of honour, that no nation can afford to ask what the justice of the world candidly disapproves. In the case of the Geneva Congress, while the rejected claims were presented in the name of the President, General Grant himself subsequently denied their justice and approved their rejection. Sir Lyon (now Lord) Playfair, who perhaps appreciates the entire subject of arbitration as thoroughly as any living statesman, gave an interesting sketch of its recent progress, both in Europe and America, in a paper entitled, "A Topic for Christmas," in the North American Review for December, 1890. Three years before, Sir Lyon had headed a deputation of members of the English Parliament who came to present to the President of the United States a memorial from 234 members of the House of Commons, with delegates from English Trades Unions representing 700,000 workingmen. Congress in response concurrently resolved to invite from time to time, as fit occasion might arise, negotiations with any government with which the United States has or may have diplomatic relations, to the end that any differences or disputes arising between the two governments which cannot be settled by diplomatic agency may be referred to arbitration and be peacefully adjusted by such means. Although Europe is supposed by many to be awaiting a war of gigantic magnitude, Sir Lyon, referring to the approval of arbitration by the Pan-American Congress by continental parliaments and international assemblies at Paris and London, said that the legislatures which had already passed resolutions in favor of arbitration represented 150,000,000 of people, and remarked that the extension of that feeling would be a better force than an international police to secure the observance of treaties. The excess of war preparation already endangering national credit and threatening national bankruptcy is quoted as proving that the arbitration idea will be insisted upon, and in the anticipated movement the United States is described as fitted to be the leading champion of arbitration. Sheridan is quoted among others as saying: "I mean what I say when I express the belief that arbitration will rule the world." The scheme is now represented as likely to be accepted by thinkers who reject the thought of Kant, Bentham, and Mills for an international Congress; and Sir Lyon Playfair, in connection with the idea of arbitration, quotes the remark of Mazzini that "thought is the action of men and action the thought of the people."

"THE WAR WITH MEXICO," AND ANTISLAVERY PAPERS.

The "Review of the War with Mexico" stands among Judge Jay's volumes unexcelled by exactness of congressional, diplomatic, and, to some extent, military research; and by plainness of speech in regard to national outrages and perfidy without a name, perpetrated in the cause of slavery; and his writings generally on this subject show the same accurate inquiry and outspoken frankness. It was on the varied phases of our treatment of the coloured people, free and slave, at our own doors, the cruel wrong so full of injustice to the blacks, of scandal to Christendom, and of menace to the republic, that Jay wrote with deepest earnestness, the most exacting research, and a fearless pen. His inquiry into "The American Colonization and the Antislavery Societies" and "The Action of the Federal Government in Behalf of Slavery," developed facts which implicated prominent politicians of both parties, and aroused at once their surprise and indignation, while the disclosure directly appealed to the pride and conscience of the American people. The same judicial, dauntless, and defiant spirit marked the appeals which he prepared for the Antislavery Society against the calumnies of the press, and the dignified protest against the libellous charges so unworthily made by President Jackson in his message to Congress. The same spirit animated his address on "The Condition of the People of Colour in the United States"; the "Appeal to the Friends of Constitutional Liberty, on the Violation by the House of Representatives of the Right of Petition"; his supplement to "The Reproof of the American Church," by Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford; the exposure in the letter to Bishop Ives of the clerical efforts to sanctify slavery and caste; and his earnest demand for the equal admission of the coloured churches to the Diocesan Council of New York. So, too, with the critical analysis of Mr. Clay's "Compromise Bill," including the Fugitive Law and Mr. Webster's "Theory of Physical Geography"; his address to the inhabitants of New Mexico and California, so timely distributed in English and Spanish, and so happily followed in California by a free constitution, urging them to resist the domination of slavery with its ignorance and degradation, and to secure, by their own manly independence and just statesmanship, a glorious future of power and happiness; his address to the antislavery Christians; and his plain reminders to the Protestant Episcopal Church, and to the Tract and other societies, of the inconsistency and evil influence of their compromising pro-slavery policy.

CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES—AN HISTORIC PARALLEL.

The part of Jay's life pictured by Mr. Tuckerman not only exhibits these characteristics, but shows the Antislavery Society to have been founded by his care, in 1833, on constitutional principles so just and so clearly defined, that in 1839 sixteen hundred and fifty auxiliary societies had been established on the same basis, educating the rising generation, on whom was to rest the destiny of the country in the near future. It was an education of the quiet and effective influence of which the pro-slavery leaders seemed unconscious, although to some it may recall the thought of Dr. Storrs, when he said:—"When I think of a millennium in our time, in our civilization, my thought rests and fastens on the promise, 'a little child shall lead them.'" The charge had already been made against the opponents of slavery of a disregard of constitutional obligations—of a desire to dissolve the Union and to encourage slave insurrection. The society declared the exclusive right of each slave State to legislate in regard to slavery; the constitutional right of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, to prohibit it in the Territories and new States, and to control the domestic as well as the foreign slave trade; and it disclaimed the idea of countenancing the slaves in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force. And here is suggested, by the action and the anticipation of the Slave Power, an interesting historic parallel. The formation of the Antislavery Society in December, 1833, followed closely upon Mr. Calhoun's Nullification in South Carolina in 1832, when, as Mr. Pollard tell us, a medal was struck inscribed, "John C. Calhoun, First President of the C. S. A." A counterpart of this medal in gold is said to exist at Richmond, with the name of Jefferson Davis as the first