ENGLAND'S RECORD ON THE SLAVE QUESTION.
303
LITERARY.
THE ROSE
About her casement, high in air. There climbs a rose; Like to herself it blooms full fair. Oft in the night of her raven hair Its crimson glows.
To me she has given many flowers,
But ever on my suit she lowers
When I propose;
And vainly I have pled for hours
To gain that rose.
She turns the verse I fondly plan,
To plainest prose ;
So now I find I'm not the man
Who'll win the rose.
ENGLAND'S RECORD ON THE SLAVE QUESTION.
Human slavery, as a social and political institution, recognized by the laws and fostered by the policy of civilized nations, has within the present generation, become a matter of history. The transformation of millions of slaves from a condition of absolute chattelism to one of perfect theoretical freedom, not only in the United States but in other nations, is one of the most rapid and wonderful social transitions on record.
This transformation must in the very nature of things-by the very condition of society itself-have been preceded and occasioned by a corresponding change in the views and policy of the dominant classes. The turmoil and passion engendered by half a century's bitter struggle for freedom, have not yet completely subsided; but the true details of the momentous conflict are
gradually and surely becoming better known.
In the present stage of the world's progress the transactions of yesterday become the history of to-day. And in justice to themselves; in justice to those whose lives were spent a willing sacrifice in liberty's service; in justice to the patriots whose best blood glutted the turf on a hundred battle-fields, the American people should take good care that the true record of freedom's struggle should "go echoing down the corridors of time."
A speaker, generous, patriotic and unusually well-informed on most subjects, addressing an audience not long ago, instituted a comparison between the policy of England and that of the United States in reference to the question of slavery and its
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