The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-10-30 00:00:00

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

L—IN AMERICA we behold an extraor-
dinary spectacle and unrehearsed effect in the
history of its so-called "free institutions."
Andrew Johnson, the Democratic President,
literally stands at bay against the Radical
Congress, now howling against him like a
pack of wolves. Momentarily, we may
expect to see repeated in America an episode
similar to that notorious one in our own
Commonwealth, when Oliver Cromwell and
his Ironsides entered the House of Commons
and commanded them to " take 'away that
bauble," thus, with the removal of the
Speaker's mace, effectually dissolving the
Rump Parliament. It has not yet come to
this beyond the Atlantic, but the crisis is
fast approaching Johnson's party has been
signally defeated in the elections for Congress
in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and lowa,
with the prospect of similar discomfiture in
New York, and the other northern states in
November, and the Radical party thus in the
ascendant, will inevitably put into execution
all its threats against the President, on the
assembling of Congress in December. Our
readers are perhaps aware that for attenmt-
ing to remove the disabilities and alleviate
the miseries of the South, to heal in fact the
great breach in American nationality by
restoring to the prostrate South some share
of political privileges, Andrew Johnson is
branded by Congress as a renegade and a
traitor, Ana that, aw the consequences of their I
victory, impeachment and ejection from his
office stare him in the face. In this predica-
ment, as a man of unwonted nerve, it remains
to be seen whether he can or cannot render
himself master of the situation? The only
thing that is actually known to have taken
place is that the President has been urged by ,
many of his friends to effect a compromise
with the Radicals by endorsing the Constitu-
tional Amendment on which they carried the
late elections, and partially disfranchising the
South. He listens to them, it is said, listens
but gives no sign of assent. Andrew John-
son is bold, brave, and resolute. Ile will
adopt a course and fight it out, even to the
death; he has Scotch blood in hint sufficient
for that. And, according to prevailing anti-
cipations, the course he will adopt, will be.to
question whether the present Congress. with
ten States excluded, is a legal Congress of
the United States? Already—although it
seems to have been by way of einiani---some
American journals, indeed, have stated that
the President had propounded three questions
to the Attorney-General, with a view of
founding on the replies, which might be
expected to be favourable to the President's
policy, something like a revolution or a coup
d'etat. The alleged questions were—lst,
whether the present Congress composed of
Northern States alone, was not illegal and
unconstitutiomal ; 2nd, whether the President
would be justified in bending his next annual
message to such a Congress; and 3rd, whether
the Constitution gives the right of exclusion
of ten States, and the imposition upon them
of dishonourable terms? There are, indeed,
two other questions alleged to have been put
respecting the duties imposed under such
circumstances upon the President by his oath
of office; but it is unnecessary to particularize
them, as both the President and the Attorney.
General repudiate the whole assertion,
and deny that any such questions have been
put. Still the majority in America are said
to cling to the opposite belief, and for this
reason, that Andrew Johnson is by no means
likely to avow his real intentions, which, when
they do find words, may be couched in words
like these :—" In annulling this unconstitu-
tional Congress, I am obeying the law."
One thing appears certain, the President
is setting his house in order. He has re-
arranged the military commands throughout
the couetry, the navy is at his beck, the
, dockyards in a state of activity, and several
armed vessels are kept in commission. He has
collected 10,000 troops around Washington,
enough to keep it iu defence, and at the same
time to hold in check such places as Philadelphia
and Boston, within eight hours' distance by
rail. Such are the blessings of a model
republic ! The worst of all is that the
balance in the late elections, which have pro-
duced all this uneasiness, is alleged to have
been turned by the concerted action of the
k'enians ; and thus these commotion. have,
even for us, who ought to have the least
to do with them in all the world, their evil
aspect—although this Anianism is a little
burlesqued by Stephens convoking a mass
meeting in New York, to make his parting
address to the brotherhood, previous to re.
embarking on the conquest of Ireland—or
perishing in the attempt! Trul) we live
in strange and perilous times ; and however
lightly we may Judge of the threatening symp-
toms, we would do well to conclude with
Sancho Panza that "there must always be fire
where there is smoke."

ll.—Tai itavitaawn Lord Sydney Godol-
phin Osborne is" Peter the Hermit' of our
day, and is preaching a new crusade, directed
not against infidels, but against Churchmen,
not against those who believe too little, but
against those who believe too much; not
against the false prophet and his religion of
the sword, but against the High Church
party of England—its ritualism and its
vestments. As in modern warfare too,
compared with ancient, or what is, per-
haps, more to the point at present--
inediceval—the means and appliances are
infinitely more crushing and fatal; so S.G.O.
brings into the field an Armstrong gun in
shape of that heavy metal which constitutes , the leaded type of the Times newspaper,
whilst his own elegant periphrastic sen-
tences may be regarded as weapons of greater
precision—as needle guns. Some few of
these last we have selected as specimens of
the conflict now waging, and have presented