The United States during the War. By Auguste LaugeL (Bailliere.)
—We are glad to find that M. Laugel has found a competent translator. No more interesting work than his appeared during the whole course of the American straggle. A little uneasy, we imagine, under the Colossus that bestrides his country, he visited the United States, and describing the surface phenomena that he found there with the ordinary felicity of his nation, he astonished the world with a diagnosis of American 'character, and an appreciation of American institutions, that were as acceptable from their accuracy as such exercitations of his countrymen very often are from their delicious absurdity. Thus his book is worthy of attention, both for its amusing descriptions and its philosophical *math; and to those for whom the French tongue constitutes a diffi- culty, we can conscientiously recommend this translation. We cannot resist the temptation of quoting two or three of his dicta, from which will be seen at once the quality of his thought and the justice that has been rendered to him by his translator. Speaking of the unnatural alliance between the uncontrollable New York democrat and the slave- bolder, he says, "The American democrat gave with the same hand to 'his-adherents the joys of liberty and the pleasures of tyranny." Again, referring to the denial of human rights to the negro, he exclaims, "Can a nation he at peace with itself when it is not at peace with humanity?" Finally, we recommend to the notice of some of our Radicals the fol- lowing sentiment of this French democrat, who is also an ardent admirer of the democratic institutions of America, "The great skill, and per- haps also the great good fortune, of the founders of American demo- cracy, consists in having at once discovered something to oppose to the simple and brutal domination of numbers."
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