One of the earliest acts of the Federal Constituent Assembly was the abolition of slavery in Central America; and as this, among other acts, was repealed by the decree of the 22d of September, it was generally supposed the latter re-established slavery in Nicaragua. Whether this be a strictly legal deduction may be doubted; but the repeal of the prohibition clearly prepared the way for the introduction of slavery. The spirit and intention of the decree were apparent; nor did its author affect to conceal his object in its publication. By this act must the Walker administration be judged; for it is the key to its whole policy. In fact the wisdom or folly of this decree involves the wisdom or folly of the American movement in Nicaragua; for on the re-establishment of African slavery there depended the permanent presence of the white race in that region. If the slavery decree, as it has been called, was unwise, Cabañas and Jerez were right when they sought to use the Americans for the mere purpose of raising one native faction and depressing another. Without such labor as the new decree gave the Americans could have played no other part in Central America than that of the pretorian guard at Rome or of the Janizaries of the East; and for such degrading service as this they were ill suited by the habits and traditions of their race. The difference between the colonial system of the English and Spanish Crowns explains the different results of the English and Spanish settlements in America. The colonies of Great Britain founded their own forms of society; they made for themselves all the rules and regulations their new situation required, and hence they built firmly the foundation of a peculiar and original civilization. Their institutions sprang from their necessities, and were hence adapted to the climate and the soil they found on the new continent. But it was far otherwise with the Spanish possessions. The laws of the Indies were decreed by the Crown; and the regulations, sometimes for good but oftener for evil, were the result of monarchical will. In the case of Cuba the resolution of Isabella was swayed by the counsels of the benevolent Las Casas; and Spain owes her possession of the island at the present moment to the wise philanthropy of the simple-hearted priest. Negro-slavery is, without doubt, the cause of the present prosperity of the island as well as of its continued colonial government; and Cuba offers a fine contrast to Jamaica and St. Domingo, and displays to advantage the superior wisdom of Spain when compared with the false humanity of France and England. On the continent, however, Spain was not so fortunate as on the ever-faithful isle. Her conquest of force was there followed by no radical and permanent change in political organization. She carried thither the Roman law; but it did not inform the new society or breathe a fresh spirit into its institutions. The only real changes in Mexico and Peru, for example,