iter shows also how Johnson felt that in case
of secession the Federal Government could not coerce a State, yet
believing that this government, the best and freest on earth, should
be preserved, he undermined his own anti-coercion doctrine by
denouncing the right of secession and urging that although the Federal
Government could not coerce a State, it had a right to guarantee the
loyal citizens representing it a constitutional form of government.
Some space is given to the discussion of the exception of Tennessee
from the Emancipation Proclamation, the growing tendency of Johnson to
ignore slavery to preserve the Union, how the opponents sought to
weaken him by saying that he was opposed to the institution and
finally how he suffered it to be sacrificed to save the Union. Passing
mention is given the working out of the problem of abolition and the
proposition as to what relief and what privileges should be given the
emancipated Negroes.

J. O. BURKE

* * * * *

_The New Negro._ By WILLIAM PICKENS, Dean of Morgan College,
Baltimore. Neale Publishing Company, New York, 1916. Pp. 239.

"The New Negro" is a collection of speeches and essays through which
this well known orator has endeavored to present his views on the race
problem in the United States. Primarily polemic and ex-parte, this
work will hardly attract the attention of the investigator. But when
an author like this one, a man of reputation and influence among his
people, writes on such subjects as the "renaissance" of the Negro, his
constitutional status, and discusses Alexander Hamilton, Frederick
Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, the serious reader might well pause to
give this work more than ordinary consideration.

The book does not bear the stamp of research; the aim of the work is
to defend the Negro and laud those who have championed his cause. The
bold claims which Negroes have been making from time immemorial are
set forth in brilliant and forceful style. In this respect the book is
a success. It goes over old ground, but it does its work well.
Although not historical, some valuable facts of Negro history are
given from page to page. It contains, however, a few statements which
are not essential to the establishment of the Negro's claim to great
achievement. It is very difficult to demonstrate to a thinking man the
advantage to the Negro of such a contention as the much mooted
connecti