TABLE OF CONTENTS. Dr. Lieber's Introductory Lecture to his course on Politics,.. The Exile-a Ballad,. The Actress in High Life, (Chap. 17,).. Sonnet, Epistolary Gossipings of Travel, (Nos. 15 and 16,).. To Lucy, (from the German,)..... A Disconsolate Widower,......... Thoughts of Heaven, (from the German,)... The Death of Peter the Cruel,..... The Little Girl's Lament for the Fairies,..... Lines, (from the German,)............. History of the South-Carolina College,. The Siege of Metz, in 1552,.. 193 205 207 217 218 229 230 236 237 242 244 253 254 268 EDITOR'S TABLE. The “Cassique of Kiawah;" Running into Extremes; A Touching Incident; Italy; The New York Saturday Press. LITERARY NOTICES. Leaves from an Actor's Note Book; Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India; Henry St. John, Gentleman of " Flower of Hundreds ;" Books Received. STEAM POWER PRESS OF RUSSELL'S MAGAZINE. No. III. DECEMBER, 1859. VOL. VI. [The following lecture was promised to us previous to its delivery, and although its publication in our columns has been anticipated by the full report which appeared in a Northern paper, we think that the nnmerous Southern friends of the distinguished professor will be glad to see its re-publication revised by the author.] -EDITORS. DR. LIEBER'S INTRODUCTORY LECTURE TO HIS COURSE ON POLITICS, DELIVERED IN THE COLUMBIA LAW-SCHOOL, N. Y., OCT. 10, 1859. WE are met together to discuss the State-that society which, in infinite variety, from mere social specks of political inception to empires of large extent and long tradition, covers the whole earth wherever human beings have their habitation that society which, more than any other, is identified, as cause and as effect, with the rise and fall of civilization-that society which, at this very period of mingled progress and relapse, of bravery and frivolity, intensely occupies the mind of our whole advancing race, and which is the worthiest subject of contemplation for men who do not merely adhere to instinctive liberty, but desire to be active and upright partakers of conscious civil freedom. In the course of lectures which has been confided to me, we shall inquire into the origin and neces sity of the State, and of its authority is it a natural or an invented institution ?-into the ends and uses of government, and into the functions of the state is it a blessing, or is it a wise contrivance, indeed, yet owing to man's sinful state, as many fathers of the church considered all property to be? or is it a necessary evil, destined to cease when man shall be perfected? We shall inquire into the grandeur as well as into the shame of Political Man. We shall discuss the history of this, the greatest human institution, and ultimately take a survey of the literature appertaining to this enduring topic of civilized man. This day I beg to make some preliminary remarks, chiefly intended to place myself before you in the position which, so far as I can discern, a public teacher of politics in this country and at this period, either occupies of necessity, or ought to occupy. spheres of knowledge, action, or production, the philosophizing inquirer into antiquity makes his appearance when the period of high vitality has passed. The Greek and Roman grammarians inquired into their exquisite languages when the period of vigorous productiveness in them, of literary creativeness, was gone, or fast going; when poets ceased to sing, historians ceased to gather, to compare and relate, and orators ceased to speak. Antiquity differs from modern civilization by no characteristic more signally than by these two facts, that throughout the former there was but one leading state or country at any given period, while now several nations strive in the career of progress, abreast, like the coursers of the Grecian chariot. The idea of one leading nation, or of a "universal monarchy," The jurists collected, systematized has been revived, indeed, at several modern periods, and is even now proclaimed by those who know least of liberty; but it is an anachronism, barren in every thing except mischief, and always gotten up, in recent times, to subserve ambition or national conceit. It has ever proved ruinous, and Austria, France and Spain have furnished us with commentaries. and tried to codify, when a hale and energizing common law was giving rapidly away to the simple mandates and decrees of the ruler, or had ceased to be among the liv ing and productive things; the aesthetic writer found the canons of the beautiful, when the sculptor and the architect were stimulated more and more by imitation of the inspired master-works created by The other distinctive fact is the the genius of by-gone days, and recuperative power of modern Aristotle founds the science of polistates. Ancient states did not pos- tics-we can hardly consider Py sess it. Once declining, they de- thagoras as the founder-when clined with increasing rapidity un- Athens and all Greece were drifttil their ruin was complete. The ing fast toward the breakers where parabola of a projectile might be the Roman wreckers were to gather called the symbol of ancient lead- the still glorious wrecks, and Cicero ing states a curve, which slowly writes his work of the Republic rises, reaches its maximum, and when that dread time precipitately descends, not to rise proaching, in which, as a contem again; while the line of modern porary President of the French civilization, power, and even free- Senate has officially expressed it, dom, resembles, in several cases, the Roman democracy ascended those undulating curves which, the throne in the person of the having risen to one maximum, do Cæsars-rulers of whom we, speak not forego the rising to another, ing plain language, simply say, though they decline in the mean- that Tacitus and Suetonius have time to a minimum. Well may described them-people, whether we call this curve the symbol of we call them democracy or not, our public hope. If it were not broken in spirit and so worthless, so, must not many a modern man that they rapidly ceased to know sink into the gloom of a Tacitus ? how to work for their living, or to Now, closely connected with fight for their existence-rulers and these, and especially with the se- people whose history bears the imcond fact, it seems to me, is this pressive title, Decline and Fall of observation, that in almost all the the Roman Empire. was ap It is different in modern times, light, I must point to the fact that, thank God! Modern critics, phi- in spite of all this arbitrariness, the losophers and teachers in almost question,-Do the people wish for every branch, have lived while this or that government, this or their age was productive, and fre that dynasty? forces itself into quently they have aided in bring. hearing, and is allowed to enter as ing on fresh and sometimes greater an element in the settlement of naepochs. In the science of politics tional affairs. It may indicate an this fact appears in a strong light. imperfect state of things, that this England has advanced in power, fact must be pointed out by the freedom and civilization since publicist as a signal step in adThomas More, Harrington, Milton, vance; but it will be readily acBacon, Sydney and Locke, William knowledged as a characteristic Temple, and even Ferguson, wrote change for the better, if we conand taught. France, whatever we sider that in all those great settlemay think of her present period of ments of the last century and of imperial transition and compressing the present, by which the territorabsolutism, had far advanced be- ies of the continental governments yond that state in which she was were re-arranged, reigning houses from the times of Bordinus and were shifted and states were made Montesquieu down to Rousseau or and unmade, Italy was consulted the Physiocrats, and will rise above about herself no more than the the present period, in which Guizot princely hunter consults the hart and de Tocqueville have given which his huntsman cuts up for their works to her. Italy, however distribution among the guests and disappointed her patriots and fellow-hunters. This century may friends may be at this moment, and yet see an united Italia, when at however low that country which is length it will cease to be di dolor loved by our whole race, like the ostello of that song of woe. favorite sister of the family, had once sunk, stands forth more hopeful than perhaps she has done at any time since Thomas ab Aquino and Dante, or Machiavelli, Paolo Sarpi and Vico, and all her writers down to Filangieri, that meditated on the State. If there are those who think that I have stated what is not warranted by the inadequate settlement of Northern Italy, if, indeed, it prove a settlement, and by an arbitrary peace, which, in its sudden conclusion, by two single men, unattended by any counsellor of their own, or representative of any ally, in behalf of near ninety millions of people, presents absolut ism and foreign rule more nakedly than any other fact in modern Europe that I remember if the affairs of Italy be viewed in this Germany, with whatever feelings he that loves her may behold that noble country, robbed as she is of her rightful heirship and historic adumbration, as a nation in full political standing among the peoples of the earth, for her own safety, national honour, and the benefit of general peace and civilization, has, nevertheless, advanced towards unity and freedom since the times of Grotius and Spinoza (I call them hers), and Puffendorf, Wolf, Schlötzer and Kant, and will advance beyond what she is in these days of Zachariae, Welker, Mittermaier and Mohl. Truth forces the philosopher to state the fact, such as it is, although as a patriot, he finds it difficult to acknowledge the pittance of national political existence as yet doled out * De Rebus Publicis et Principum Institutione Libri IV. † De Monarchia. Few public teachers of public by modern history to that country, judge whether I am accustomed to whose present intellectual influence do the one; I think I occupy the vies with the political she once other. possessed under the Hohenstaufen. The teacher of political science, law may have occupied a freer in these days, without amusing him. position than I do here before you self with shallow optimism, has then I belong to no party when teachthe encouraging consciousness that ing. All I acknowledge is Patria his lot is not necessarily the mere cara, carior libertas, veritas carissumming up and putting on record sima. No government, no censor, of a political life of better and of no suspicious partisan watches my by-gone days, never to return, not to be surpassed. The historian, whom Schlegel calls the prophet of the past, may, in our days, also be the sower of fresh harvests. The teaching of the publicist may become an element of living statesmanship; he may analyze essential fundamentals of his own society, of which it may not have been conscious, and the knowledge of which may influence future courses; he may awaken, he may warn and impress the lesson of inevitable historic sequences, and he may give the impulse to essential reforms; he may help to sober and recall intoxicated racers, hurrying down on dangerous slopes, and he may assist the manly jurist and advocate in planting on the out-lying downs of civil life those hardy blades which worry back each aggressive wave, when walls of stone prove powerless against the stormy floods of the invading sea of power; he may contribute his share to the nautical almanac, and the sailing directions for the practical helmsman; he may pronounce truths which legislators quote as guiding rules in the parliament of his own country, or states men when met in a Congress of entire nations; his teaching may modify, unconsciously to the actors themselves, and even in spite of their own belief, the course of passion, or set bounds to the worst of all political evils, public levity and popular indifference if he will resolutely speak out the truth, and if he occupies a free position. Others must words; no party tradition fetters me; no connections force special pleading on me. I am surrounded by that tone of liberality, with that absence of petty inquisition which belong to populous and active cities, where the varied interests of life, religion and knowledge meet and modify one another. Those who have called me to this chair know what I have taught in my works, and that on no occasion have I bent to adjust my words to gain the approbation of prince or people. The trustees of this institution have called me hither with entire trust. Neither before nor after my appointment have they intimated to me, however indirectly, collectively or individually, by hint or question, or by showing me their own convictions, how they might wish me to tinge one or the other of the many delicate discussions belonging to my branches. I can gain no advantage by my teaching: neither title, order, rank or ad vancement on the one hand, not party reward or political lucre on the other-not even popularity. Philosophy is not one of the roads to the popular mind. All that the most gifted in my precise position could possibly attain to is the reputation of a just, wise, fearless, profound, erudite and fervent teach er. This, indeed, includes the highest reward, which he who addresses you will endeavour to approach as near as lies within him.' But if the modern teacher of political science enjoys advantages |