large legacy on his father's death. He had £500 a year by his living at Foston, which latterly rose to £700 or £800, and he also held the living of Londesborough for some years as a prebend of Bristol. He was well off with his £2,000, besides the interest of his invested money. He retained the rectory of Combe-Flory when he became canon presidentiary of St. Paul's, where he had the income without the inevitable expenditure of a bishop. Later still, he succeeded to £34,000 of his brother Courtenay's money, and left £80,000 to his family at his death in 1845. The personal appearance of Sydney Smith has been often described. He was extremely stout in his latter years, and his ecclesiastical costume (knee-breeches and black gaiters) exhibited his rotundity. In the Gallery of Illustrious Living Characters, given in Fraser's Magazine, and drawn, with a clever pencil, truthful but rational, by Maclise, the eminent painter, is a full-length portrait of Mr. Smith, which is excellent. ART. V.-Veto of the President, and other Public Documents February, 1866. NEVER did fanaticism assume a more dangerous form than it has recently done in this country; nor can we remember any form that had less common sense, truth, or political wisdom for its basis than that which would perpetuate the disaffection and discontent of the whites of the Southern States, while it would give privileges and immunities to the blacks never before enjoyed by any race. The chief advocates of this double project have a certain reputation for intelligence and knowledge, but they evince neither one nor the other in this controversy. As for statesmanship, their recent speeches in favor of the Freedmen's Bureau, and against the admission of the Southern representatives into Congress, are a burlesque upon it; they are not a whit less extravagant or less absurd than the speeches and conduct of Don Quixote in vindication of knight-errantry and chivalry. We are quite aware that in making this assertion we may seem ourselves to discard the language of moderation, but those who accompany us in our remarks will soon admit that such is not the t. Indeed, it requires but little thought and reflection to see that only the most narrow-minded tyrants have acted on the policy advocated by Messrs. Stevens, Sumner, and Wade; that, is the policy of excluding millions of people from the political rights and privileges they had formerly enjoyed, and of subjecting them to martial law for the benefit and satisfaction of their former servants, as a punishment for having rebelled. It is in fact the Machiavellian policy in one of its most odious forms, if, indeed, it does not embrace in its tendency what is most revolting in it. If those men who talk so much in praise of liberty and civilization, and have such a pious horror of despots, forget in their intemperate zeal that in oppressing the South we should be guilty not only of inhumanity; that we should also be guilty of violating the law of nations, as expounded by the most eminent jurists, and of doing so in such a manner as to render the South a cause of weakness and danger to us rather than a source of strength; if they cannot remember this or understand it, are others to be equally insensible to the injury which they would inflict on the Republic? None were more uncompromising than we in our opposition to the rebels as long as they were in arms; but it was then just and lawful to weaken and subdue them. Now it is entirely different. It is neither just nor lawful, but the reverse, to oppress them, or to continue to withhold from them their former rights; and accordingly we are decidedly opposed to those who would do so. Even if the Southerners were a foreign people and an alien race whom we had conquered, we should not be justified in treating them as recommended by these gentlemen. Mr. Sumner especially is very fond of boasting of the great progress made by the Anglo-Saxon race in all that contributes to a high civilization, but particularly in the art of government; yet he would have us adopt a system which pagan nations rejected thousands of years ago, as cruel and unjust to the conquered, and dangerous to their own power. Nay, even the barbarous Goths allowed the conquered Romans more liberty than our demagogues would allow the subdued white people of the South. These are no mere assertions, but facts, which we will prove to the satisfaction of every unprejudiced, intelligent person, before we make any comment on the Veto of the President against that sort of legislation of which our soi-disant reformers are the champions. Historians tell us that when Cyrus conquered the Assyrians he told them not to be discouraged, that they * See Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacis, lib. ii., c. ix. would continue to enjoy all the rights and privileges which were most dear to them, and that he would punish any one who would attempt to injure them.* The Lacedæmonians, as well as the Athenians, sought to render themselves masters of those they subdued only so far as to oblige them to adopt their own form of government, and to aid them in foreign wars. Among those who testify to these facts are Demosthenes,† Thucydides, Isocrates, and Aristotle.|| The Roman historians are full of similar testimony. Sallust tells us that the ancient Romans, being the most religious people of their time, deprived their enemies only of the means of injuring them. "It is more difficult," says Livy, "to retain provinces than to conquer them: conquests require but force; but justice only can preserve them."** Elsewhere the same historian remarks that it is easier to conquer several countries, one after the other, than to attach them to us when they are conquered.tt Nor do the more recent historians render any different report. Tacitus makes Petilius Cerealis address the Langres, on the part of the Romans, as follows: "Whatever provocation you have given us by your frequent revolts to treat you rigorously, all we have sought to do in right of victory is to cause you to keep the peace." In taking a retrospect of the power and glory of Rome, Seneca, the philosopher, exclaims, "What would our empire have been to-day, had not the conquered been permitted to mingle with the conquerors, as the result of a salutary policy? Romulus, our founder, showed wisdom in pursuing this policy, to such an extent that he made citizens of his enemies the same day that he conquered them."§§ But we need not multiply citations from the classic authors; suffice it to observe that this is the spirit which pervades them all; it is the report which all give, except in their descriptions of barbarians. And now let us see what are the views of the most eminent modern publicists on the same subject, commencing with Grotius, who devotes the whole of the fifteenth chapter of his third book to inculcating that moderation which, in his opinion, should always be observed Xenoph., De Cyri Inst., lib. iv., cap. 4, sec. 3. +Oral. De Cherson. § Panathen, p. 243. Neque victis quidquam præter injuriæ licentiam eripiebant."-Bell., Catilin, cap. xii. ** Lib. iv., cap. xii. tt Lib. xxxvii., cap. xxxv. "Nos, quamquam totiens lacessiti, jure victoriæ, id solum vobis addidi mus quo pacem tueremur."-Hist, lib. iv., cap. lxxiv. $$Quod hodie esset imperium nisi salubris providentia victos permiscuisset victoribus," &c.-De Ira, lib. ii., cap. xxxiv. towards the vanquished. "It is not humanity alone," he says, "which requires that the conquered should be allowed to retain their rights, but the interests of the conqueror often require it quite as much."* Further on he quotes the maxim of Hesiod, that “half is better than all," adding that great conquerors have known how to avail themselves of it. "Even in those cases," he says, "in which the vanquished have to be despoiled of their sovereignty, it is best to allow them to manage their own private affairs, and their less important public affairs; to let them retain their own laws, their customs, and their magis trates." But Grotius thinks that even despots should be careful not to perpetuate the resentment of those whom they subjugate. However absolute and despotic," he says, "may be the power acquired over the conquered, it is necessary treat them gently, and in such a manner that their own interests may be combined with those of their conqueror. This," he adds, "is a new triumph, and a nobler one than that which preceded it."‡ If we turn to the pages of Vattel, we shall find him still more opposed, if possible, to a vindictive or rigorous policy towards the conquered, whether they be foreign nations, or subjects or citizens lately in revolt. "The conqueror," he says, "who takes a town or province from his enemy cannot justly acquire over it any other rights than such as belonged to the sovereign against whom he has taken up arms. Accordingly, care is usually taken to stipulate, both in particular capitulations and in treaties of peace, that the towns and counties ceded shall retain all their liberties, privileges, and immunities." Now, will it be denied that the people of the late rebel states are as much entitled to consideration on those grounds, since they laid down their arms and agreed to renew their allegiance to the Federal government, as a foreign people would have been had they been overpowered in a similar manner? In speaking of the right of conquest-that which it is boasted we now possess over the SouthernersVattel asks, "What are his (the conqueror's) rights over the conquered country? Some have dared to advance this monstrous principle, that the conqueror is absolute master of his conquest, that he may dispose of it as property, that he may treat it as he pleases, according to the common expression * Grotius, Lib. iii., c. iv., s. vii. +Ib. +1b. sec. ix. of treating a state as a conquered country, and hence they derive one of the sources of despotic government.' After discussing claims not unlike those made by our demagogues against the South, Vattel proceeds to say: "But let us not dispute the point; let the man who holds such principles of jurisprudence keep them for his own use and benefit; The well deserves to be subject to such a law. But men of spirit, to whom life is nothing, less than nothing, unless sweetened by liberty, will always conceive themselves at war with that oppressor, though actual hostilities are suspended on their part through want of ability. We may, therefore, safely venture to add that, if the country is to be really subject to the conqueror as to its lawful sovereign, he must rule it according to the end for which civil government has been established."+ It may be urged that this applies only to a foreign conquest, or to the conquest of a people who had formerly been subject to another sovereign; but it will be seen that he is still more emphatic in counselling moderation and clemency to those who have rebelled against the government of their own country. "A civil war," he says, "breaks the bonds. of society and government, or at least suspends their force and effect; it produces in the nation two independent parties, who consider each other as enemies, and acknowledge no common judge. Those two parties, therefore, must necessarily be, as thenceforward, at least for a time, two separate bodies-two distinct societies. Though one of the parties may have been to blame in breaking the unity of the state, and resisting the lawful authority, they are not the less divided in fact. Besides, who shall judge them? Who shall pronounce on which sile the right or the wrong lies? On earth they have no common superior. They stand, therefore, in precisely the same predicament as two nations who engage in a contest, being unable to come to an agreement, haye recourse to arms. This being the case, it is very evident that the common laws of war-those maxims of humanity, moderation, and honor, which we have already detailed-ought to be observed by both parties in every civil war."‡ Instead of counselling, like our demagogues, that those who have rebelled should be subjected to martial law until they learn to repent of their evil doings, Vattel strongly urges the opposite course. "The safest," he says, " and at the same time the most just method of appeasing sedition * Law of Nations, p. 388. |