n the
administration of their goods, entail upon them, with new duties toward
society and themselves, the obligation of justifying the protecting
designs of the law by a loyal and judicious use of the rights which are
now accorded to them. "For," says the Autocrat, "if men do not labor
themselves to insure their own well-being under the shield of the laws,
the best of those laws cannot guaranty it to them." These are "noble
sentiments"; but the shrewder portion of the serfs will probably attach
more importance to the declaration, that, "to render the transactions
between the proprietors and the peasants more easy, in virtue of which
the latter may acquire in full property their homestead and the land
they occupy, the Government will advance assistance, according to
a special regulation, by means of loans, or a transfer of debts
encumbering an estate."

Such are the principal details of this great measure, the most important
undertaking of modern days, whether we refer only to the measure itself,
or take its probable consequences into consideration. That forty-five
millions of human beings should be lifted out of the slough of slavery,
and placed in a condition to become _men_, would alone be a proceeding
that ought to take first rank among the illustrations of this age. But
we cannot consider it solely by itself. Every deed that is likely to
influence the life of a nation that is endowed with great vitality and
energy must be considered in connection with its probable consequences.
Russia stands in the fore-front rank of the leading nations of the
world. In the European Pentarchy, she is the superior of Austria, the
controller of Prussia, and the equal of France and England. The growth
of the United States in political power having received a check through
the occurrence of the Secession Rebellion, the relations of the great
empires, which our advance had threatened to disturb in an essential
manner, will probably remain unchanged; and so Russia, unless she should
become internally convulsed, will maintain her place. Assuming that the
work of emancipation is to be peacefully and successfully accomplished,
it would be fair to argue that the power of the Russian Empire will
be incalculably increased through the elevation of the masses of its
population. The Czar is doing for his dominions what Tiberius Gracchus
sought to do for the Roman Republic when he began that course of much
misunderstood agrarian legislation which l