It is time that the South should learn, if they do not begin to suspect it already, that the difficulty of the Slavery question is slavery itself,—­nothing more, nothing less.  It is time that the North should learn that it has nothing left to compromise but the rest of its self-respect.  Nothing will satisfy the extremists at the South short of a reduction of the Free States to a mere police for the protection of an institution whose danger increases at an equal pace with its wealth.

It was the deliberate intention of Mr. Calhoun that the compact should be broken the moment the absolute control of Government passed out of the hands of the slaveholding clique.  He was willing to wait till we had stolen Texas and paid a hundred millions for Cuba; but if the game seemed to be up, then secede at once.  In a hasty moment, he started his revolution, when there was a stronger man than he to confront him.  South Carolina was to all appearance as united then as now.  But a few months brought a reaction, and no one was more relieved than Mr. Calhoun that matters stopped where they did.  Whether the stirrers of the present excitement, which finds vacillation in the Executive and connivance In the Cabinet, will be wise enough to let it go out in the same way, remains to be seen; but the greatest danger of disunion, would spring from a want of self-possession and spirit in the Free States.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

Collection of Rare and Original Documents and Relations concerning the Discovery and Conquest of America, chiefly from the Spanish Archives.  Published in the Original, with Translations, Illustrative Notos, Maps, and Biographical Sketches.  By K.G.  SQUIER, M.A., F.S.A., etc., etc.  New York:  Charles B. Norton. 1860.

No.  I. Carta dirigida al Key de Espana, por el Licenciado Dr. Don DIEGO GARCIA DE PALACIO, Oydor de la Real Audiencia de Guatemala, Ano 1576.  Being a Description of the Ancient Provinces of Guazacapan, Izalco, Cuscatlan, and Chiquimula, in the Audiencia of Guatemala:  with an Account of the Languages, Customs, and Religion of their Aboriginal Inhabitants, and a Description of the Ruins of Copan.  Square 8vo. pp. 132.

This tract is the first number of a series of Rare and Original Documents, relating to the first settlement of America by the Spaniards, which Mr. Squier proposes to edit and publish.  The undertaking is one of interest to all students of American history, and deserves a generous encouragement from them.  Its success must depend not on the usual machinery of bookselling so much as on the ready support of individuals.

Mr. Squier’s proposed collection resembles in its scope the well-known “Recueil des Documents et Memoires Originaux” of M. Ternaux-Compans.  Familiar, by long residence and longer study, as few men are or ever have been, with those portions of our continent of which the Spaniards first took possession, acquainted with their antiquities and former condition, and a curious investigator of their present state and prospects, Mr. Squier is peculiarly fitted to select and edit—­with judgment such documents of historical interest as his unrivalled opportunities have enabled him to collect.