THE NEW YORK 144896 ASTOR, LENOX AND 4902 1460 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight, by Frederick Grimke, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Ohio. CINCINNATI: MORGAN AND OVEREND, PRINTERS. NOTE. THE following work, commenced in 1840, was finished eighteen months ago; a very considerable time, therefore, before the late revolutions in Europe. Nor has the author thought it worth while to make any additions or alterations in consequence. These events constitute an episode, and a very important one, in the history of civil society; but they exert no disturbing influence upon fundamental principles, if we are sure we are in the possession of these. Nor, if this were otherwise, could the events of a few months have power to instruct us in a lesson which should have been previously learned from a wide and diligent survey of man's history. Doubtless, the human mind has never been stirred more deeply, society was never in a state of so great fermentation. The revolution of 1789 has, at least, taught us one lesson,-not to confound immediate consequences with general and permanent results, not to pronounce France, or any other European state, "blotted out of the map of Europe," if the framework of society is not immediately adjusted, if all classes do not instantly fall into their proper places. In times of great public commotion, the minds of very many become really disordered, and not merely excited and exasperated. The effect is similar to that which sometimes ensues the keen anguish occasioned by domestic afflictions of one kind or another. Delirium is considered by physicians a favorable symptom in some cases of disease; the patient recovers more certainly in consequence. So, in great political troubles, the mental horizon clears off the more thoroughly after the struggle has ceased. But this struggle may be of longer or shorter duration, since the life of a nation is not limited, like that of the individual. But although the late events in Europe cannot overturn principles, they may afford matter for the illustration of principles. Nor could any one turn aside from them, if opportunity was allowed to decipher them. But these events have not been sufficiently developed, in order to answer this auxiliary purpose. The most advisable course, therefore, is to be silent concerning them for the present. CHILLICOTHE, May 22, 1848. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE. CHAPTER III.-Nature and operation of elective government. CHAPTER IV.-The principle of equality; to what extent can it be |