The Express.
London, England, 1847-08-30 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, A UG. 30.
ONE of those periodical revulsion of popular feel-
ing in the United States, by which the shuttlecock of
political power is bandied front one to the other of
the great leading parties, appears to be at present in
progress. The general opinion throughout the Union
is that the congressional elections at present in pro-
wess will give a decided majority to the whig or
federal party in the House of Assembly. If the elec- '
toral body throughout the Union remains in this
mood till the approaching presidential election comes
round, another step in the transfer of power to other
hands will probably be thee made.
In the senate, however, the democratic party retains
a powerful majority. This state of affairs reminds one
how little the actual working of political constitutions
corresponds with the theoretical views of those who
frame them. The founders of the United States
government looked upon the senates or upper houaes
of the legislatures as a means of imposing a check
upon the precipitancy of popular legislation. They
were to be the tempered aristocratic, or conservative
element of the state and congressional legislatures.
How it may be in the state governments we are not
prepared to say; but in the congressional the senate
is at present the democratic, as the House of Assem-
bly appears to be in a fair way of becoming the quasi-
eolservative, body. American conservatism is so nearly
akin to European radicalism, that many of our
readers might scarcely recognise the claim of
the whig or federal party to the former epithet, but in
the United States it is considered, and considers it-
self, as less intensely popular than its rival. It is not
difficult to discover how the ultra-radical party comes
to preponderate in the senate, and the less extreme
party in the House of Assembly. The states Bend
members to the latter in proportion to their popula-
tion. In the former every state has an equal number
of representatives. Consequently the opinions which
preponderate in the densely peopled states of New
England, New York, and Philadelphia (in the settled
parts of the two latter), with their large capitalist and
highly educated classes, are represented in the House
of Assembly; the opinions which are most favoured
by the hardy backwoodsmen, among whom self-re-
liance and equality are the order of the day, are en-
tertained, or professed, by the majority of the
senators. As a conservative body the senate has been
a failure. Its real use in the constitution of the
Union is to maintain the equality and independence
of the smaller states against the greater.
In so far as the general policy of the United States
is concerned, the periodical transfers of power from
the democratic to the whig party produce little effect.
Both are in reality democratic republicans in prin-
ciple ; both are loyal to the Union, and take for their
motto—" Our country, right or wrong." A whig pre-
sident, even were he backed by whig majorities in the
Senate and Howie of Assembly at Washington, would
find an excuse for persevering in the policy of the
present government towards Mexico. Indeed, even
if the next president is to be chosen from
the leaders of the present opposition party, he will
have to deal in all likelihood not with the Mexican
question, but with its results upon the internal or-
ganisation of his own country. There can scarcely
be a doubt of General Scorr's reaching the city of
Mexico almost unopposed and there dictating a peace.
The United States will obtain a cession of California
and New Mexico, which the arms of United States
emigrants will make good. The arrangement which
will be adopted respecting the coast towns on the
Gulf of Mexico, at present occupied by American
troops, is more problematical. But the difficult ques-
tions for the next presidential government will be
those which relate to the organisation of the new ter-
ritory. The peculiar views of the ;southern states on
the one hand, and of New England on the other, will
here interfere to complicate party relations, if not, in-
deed, to break up and entirely change those which at
present exist.
These are matters which concern the citizens of
the United States alone. If any other nation
could be conceived to have any interest affected by
the Mexican war, all of them have tacitly waived its
consideration. And as for the after-consequences of
that war in the domestic politics of the Union, they
are no concern of foreigners. The only way in which
the transfer of political power in America from one
party to another could affect Great Britain in parti-
cular, would be by placing in office a body of men
lees imbued with the principles of free-trade than
its present occupants. Of this, however, there is
little danger. The senate, at Washington, is decidedly
friendly to the commercial policy of which the new
American tariff is one of the first fruits. And the
senate can defend that tariff against all assailants
until its beneficial operation enables the more en-
lightened (on economical questions) of the whig
party to reconcile their associates to free trade.

Ws have often intimated our opinions on the effects
of general subdivision of land among a peasant pro-
prietary. The present distress in Belgium, and the
incessant struggle by which the rural population of
France extract from the soil an amount of nourish-
ment which in England is produced by half the
labour, sufficiently show that our economic views on
the subject are not unsupported by experience. It by
o means follows, however, that we are disinclined to
Fee an increase in the number of small landowners, or
an admixture, when it is practicable, of small free-
holds with the farms and larger estates into which the
country is generally divided. The natural desire of
almost every man,
new gene dome= feeisie Ismer,
is displaying itself at present in several methods
among those classes who have hitherto had least to do
with the ownership of land.
The necessity of a comm6n idea, not wholly selfish,
where men are to be combined even for the prosecution
of their own direct interest, is curiously shown in the
political theories and excitements which have been
connected with all the associations formed for the

..
thoroughly practical and extra-political purpose of
procuring land for their members. The various
attempts of the communists and socialists to occupy
land in common—an experiment which, however,
has never yet been fairly tried—have always been
made under the influence of religious and political
doctrines which have essentially little to do with the
principle of co-operation, but which might for a time
further the common object by the enthusiasm which
they excited in their supporters and the attention
which they attracted from others. The scheme of the
Norwich Registration Society and of similar bodies to
purchase votes in particular counties is more directly po-
litical. The first object kit° influenceelections; the second
is supposed to be the providing of a convenient invest-
'— small capitals; ono therefore our remarks
meat ' economical movements to assume
on the tendency u. • ,:,2plicable to these undertak-
e political colour is le.. speculation conducted
ings than to the very singe,_. „ems to be _
by Mr. FEAROUS O'CoNNOR, whica •
gs
moat serious attempt yet made to apply ,""•r_le
of the poorer classes to the object of establnaing a
portion of them on the soil as owners.
though
Mr. FRAROOB O'CONNOR'S scheme, chartist
it calls itself, and forwarded as it evidently
Lave
been by democratic zeal, mete
to os to
nothing whatever to do with polities in us. intrinsicis i 4
character. We can see no noon ,
association might not have assisted of the most
aethulaatically loyal and seekiesizirthodox po!ti.oor
of tho people. His alleamNlgisin ore settle*
lifs on dub potobso of with e hope of ittae-
-11.11110!•if they ineeeed,earl starvation before them,
'"h•Volu fa their speettlation, will have many points
as aka& is wtrisiwZß;.teevet them more than the
teepsialad tho eitartee. No doubt they will vote
1.11141• ~ Iso4ll Ma their wise, as they have a right
lie veto l bat the aegis= ot the scheme meet be quite

independent of their political power, though, if car-
ried out to the extent of their present hopes, it would,
as' far se mere votes are' -eenoerned, enable
them to dictate their own plane to the
legislature. If we foram, the results which the
chartists seek to realise, as-likely to follow from their
scheme, in the removal of poverty from a large clams
of the community, it would not be any contingent
political changes which would determine as to oppose
or discourage it. At present, moreover, we are satis-
fied that the scheme could, even based on sound prin-
ciples, only be carried out to a very limited extent;
and as we have said in the commencement, thon:ti
opposed to a general subdivision of the land, we have
no disinfai^•,...-- increase in the