The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-24 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY EVI24TNG, JANUARY 24, 1867.

AMERICA.

(PROM OUR SPECIAL COIMPONDENT.)
NEW YORK, JAN. 8.

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, who is neither weighty, nor
learned, nor eloquent, nor popular, nor judicious,
but has the invaluable gift of persistence, has,
after much striving, got a resolution into the house,
where it has been referred to the Judiciary Com-
mittee, directing an inquiry to be made into the
President's conduct, with the view of discovering
whether he does not deserve to be impeached.
Mr. Ashley made a desperate effort to introduce a
resolution directing his impeachment forthwith,
but this he was unable to accomplish. The house
shrinks,and naturally enough, from anythingwhich
is likely to add to the existing financial disturb-
ance which an impeachment would be sure to do,
as it would greatly complicate the reconstruction
question, which is now weighing heavily on
11 the commerce and industry of the country. The
reference of the resolution to the Judiciary Com-
mittee is a convenient way of disposing
of it for the present. Once there, it
can either be allowed to lie, or be brought
forth, as the policy or inclination of
the party may dictate. The real red-hot im-
peachers, however, do not sit in this Congress.
They are yet to come, and will not take their seats
till next March. Foremost amongst them is, of
course, General Butler, who is straining on the
leash. Very damaging things about Mr. Johnson
come to light every day ; some of them would
fairly warrant the worst things his radical enemies
say of him ; but until they are better established,
or more public than they are at present, I prefer
not to repeat them in detail.
He has sent in his veto of the bill giving the
suffrage to the negroes in the district of Columbia.
This has been long expected, and its appearance,
therefore, surprised nobody. His argument is that,
although Congress has the exclusive right of legis-
lation for the district, it is nevertheless morally
bound to put the same limits to its exercise of this
authority which the constitutions of the various
States impose on their legislatures—that is, for
instance, make no change in the organic law
as the admission of a new class to the franchise
without taking the vote of the " people," meaning
by " the people" those who are already electors.
He says also that the negro population of the dis-
trict bagmen than doubled since the outbreak of the
war, having risen from 14,000 to 30,000, and thatl
there is reason to fear that if the franchise be
bestowed on the blacks now in the district, large
numbers of others will be thereby induced to crowd
in, and the white population be thereby over-
whelmed,
and the Eovemment taken out of their
hands. The white population of the district has,
however, risen during the war from 60,000 to
100,000, so that the original inhabitants are over-
whelmed by strangers already— most of them
Yankees, too, so that the real poison of the bill,
according to Mr. Johnson's theory, lies not in the
fact that it puts strangers in power, but that it is
likely to put power in the handed black strangers.
His third point is the great ignorance of the blacks,
which, he says, renders it dangerous to intrust
them with the suffrage. The rest of the message
is pleading and rhetoric.
Perhaps the greatest defect in all these argu-
ments in the eyes of the body to whom they were
addressed is that they are stale, and in the present
state of the radical strength it is hard to believe
that he expected them to produce any effect. He
probably now composes these elaborate sermons
rifler by way of " putting himself right on the
record," as politicians call it, than by way
of convincing anybody. It is, of course, im-
possible to expect Congress to be so grossly
inconsistent as to urge upon the Southern States,
or any States, a policy with regard to the
negroes which they refused to carry out in the only
bit of territory over which they have exclusive
jurisdiction. As long as the majority take the
stand they are now taking with regard to the orga-
nization of the South, they must enfranchise such
negroes as they have power to enfranchise, or for
ever after hold their peace. Moreover, as far as
the whites of the district are concerned, it is im-
possible for Congress to recognise the forced sur-
render of a monopoly based on colour as a real
grievance. It is true they are not represented
in Congress, but neither are the negroes, and
if the case of the whites in being legislated for by
men whom they have not elected be a hard one,
how much harder is the case of the negroes, who are
not only legislated for by a body for whom they
have not voted, but are ruled in every walk of
civil life by neighbours who despise and hate them.
The worst that the whites can suffer from the
change is the loss of a privilege ; what the blacks
gain is exemption from every form of oppression to
which men are exposed under the government of a
superior caste. In fact Congress could not act
otherwise than it has done on any theory of its
position ; and yet this never seems to have dawned
on Mr. Johnson. The only thing to be regretted
in the bill, which will of course be passed over the
President's veto, is that it has not exacted any
educational qualification. The ignorance of the
blacks really is to be feared, at first at least, though
it could hardly prove more mischievous
than the ignorance of the Southern whites
has proved. And there was at the outset a strong
disposition on the part of a considerable portion
of the majority to prescribe some intelligence test
for coloured voters. Bpt the scheme was aban-
doned for several reasons. One was the fear that
if voting was, in the case of coloured men, depen-
dent on the possession of a certain amount of
knowledge, it would furnish a strong inducement,
to the whites to imitate the Jamaica planters, and
refuse to establish schools, and throw other ob-
stacles in the way of negro education. Another
was that the exaction of education from coloured
men, while admitting ignorant white men to
the polls, would be, in fact, a discrimination based
on colour, and as to subjecting all to the same rule,
I doubt if you will ever see any large body of men,
already in possession of the franchise, as the
Southern whites are, deprived of it for any reason
whatever. Even if the thing could be done, no
legislative majority will be found bold enough to
attempt it.

The last reason is, that the fixing of an edu-
cational test which shall be stringent enough to
prove real intelligence, and yet not stringent
enough to shut out the great body of the blacks, is
no easy matter, or is, at all events, so difficult that
Congress will not bother their heads about it. In
fact, the prevalent eagerness to secure the enfran-
chisement of the negroes is leading Northern poli-
ticians, in many instances, to do what Southern
politicians used to be reviled for doing before the

war—pooh-pooh education as a political necessity,
and hold up " plain common sense " as the only
needful qualification for the proper exercise of the
suffrage. The country, however, does not respond
very freely, and nothing but the desperateness of
the crisis, I think, causes people to at:Kitties° in the
plan of enfranchisement without education. The
message is naturally giving great satisfaction at
the South, and has raised Mr. Johnson higher than
ever in the estimation of the secessionists.
"Caligula" is turning out a very pleasant monster
after all.

The discussion which the Supreme Court's deci-
sion is provoking reveals more clearly every day
the depth of the change which the public mind has
undergone during the war with respect to the con-
stitution. It is quite clear that it has lost its old
sanctity, and that its ordinances and prohibitions
have little of their old force. Orators now rarely
attempt to show the constitutionality of a thing as
a strong argument in it favour. The Northern
public seems to have set its heart on the effacing of
all political distinctions, and the establishment of a
republic democratic in reality as well as in name,
and it is quite plain 40 me that tha constitution
will not be allowed ie stand in the way of this
being done. The President's impatience with the
Supreme Court, and Me-threats which are freely
uttered against it, are not to be explained on any
other ground than that the people are so bent on a
great political change, that the application to the
conduct of the government of the old legal maxims
strikes them as puerile or impertinent. They
feel that they are passing through a great
revolution, and the efforts of the bench to
stem or divert the torrent seems as absurd
as the launching of an order to show cause
against an army on the march. They reverence
the Supreme Court, and want to retain it, but
seem disposed to insist on its interpreting the con-
stitution in the new light, and not in the old one.
How the court will weather the storm it is hard to
say. Much will depend on the conduct of the
radical leaden. If they press it too hard, and are
too violent in their modes of procedure, they will
very likely, as I hinted in a recent letter, cause a
reaction that will shear them of much of their
power, and stay the tide for a few years more.
Even the moderate men, however, are just now
stimulated by the decision of the court into graver
opposition to Mr. Johnson than ever. Two of the
judges are very old and invalid, and now that the
leaning of the court on the great constitutional ques-
tions of the day has been revealed, the fear that
these two places may fall vacant during Mr.
Johnson's term of office inspires his enemies
with fresh vigour, and stimulates, I think, the im-
peachment movement. It is a pet theory of General
Butler's, and I believe it is also Wendell Phillips's,
that the minute the President is put on hie trial
before the Senate his office becomes vacant, and
remains so as long as the trial lasts. Now an im-
peachment trial, well managed, may be made to
last for an indefinite period, so that impeaching
Mr. Johnson would, if this view of the law be
sound, answer the purpose of his enemies just as
well as convicting him. The danger is, however,
that neither he nor his supporters would acquiesce
in this conclusion, said that he would refuse to sur-
render his position till formally convicted ; and if
force were resorted to in order to secure his
obedience to the order of the Senate, on an ex-
tremely doubtful point, we might have wild
times.

COLONIAL BISHOPRICS.—The Toronto Globe copies
our statement that Lord Carnarvon had adopted the legal
opinion that a mandate from the crown is not necessary to
enable colonial bishops to perform the right of consecra-
tion, and that the consecration of the new Bishop of
Toronto will now take place by the authority of the Metro-
politan of Canada, given under his seal, and without any
intervention of the civil power, and adds, " The Colonial
Secretary has taken exactly the right ground, and deserves
peat credit therefore. This actions consistent with the
legal position of the Anglican church in Canada, and we
may add consistent with the true interests of that
church."

THE New LORDS. —" His Grace the Archbishop
of Westminster" and" the Lord Bishop of Birmingham"
have been bolding a meeting in the last-named town on
the subject of education. We observe that the " Lord
Bishops,' as " his Grace the Archbishop" calls them, of
the Roman communion in this country are assuming a
certain stately attitude. Shall we congratulate them
upon an attempt which, if it succeeds, will make them
look in newspaper print almost like archbishops and
bishops of the establishment! " His Grace the Archbishop
of Westminster" cannot write himself inch " in any bill,
quittance, warrant, or obligation," because such
a signature would deprive such documents of
their legality ; but newspaper rank is some-
thing, if no better secular dignity is to be had.
We know nothing of Bishop Ullathorne, except that Dr.
Newman somewhere says that he is an honest and sensible
man. If he is, he will not thank "his Grace the Arch.
bishop of Westminster" for the questionable grandeur
which " his grace" has conferred upon him. The title of
" Lord Bishop" is undoubtedly associated in this country
with a high temporal dignity and station with the peerage,
with palaces, and with other honours. The public as-
sumption of it, therefore, by Roman catholic bishops will
doubtless be interpreted by society in this country as a
move in the direction of secular rank, as grasping at a
name which puts them in print upon • par with the
bishops of the established church. We cannot but ex-
press some surprise that, with their great pretensions to
peculiarly sacred aims and objects, they should show
any solicitude about such an external piece of pomp.—
Ustaralian.

RATING OF SCHOOLS AND CHARITIES. —A depu-
tation from the National Society, consisting of Aschdeacon
Sinclair (treasurer), Sir Thomas Phillips, Mr. J. E. Gorst,
M.P., Mr. P.S. Powell, M.P., Rev. Canon JORWinl, M.A.,
Rev. Robert Gregory M.A., Rev. Alexander Wilson,
M.A. (secretary), and 'Mr. W. Holgate (secretary of the
Church Institute), had an interview with the Right Hon.
Gathorne Hardy, at the office of the Poor-law Board,
Whitehall, on Tuesday. The object of the deputation was
to represent the difficulties entailed by the recent practice
of rating schools and charitable institutions, although
there is not in them a beneficial occupancy to the relief of
the poor. It was urged by the deputation that as
churches and chapels are exempt from rating, there
is no reason why schools for the poor should not be
equally exempt, and that the law on the subject
WAS uncevain as to what buildings were rateable. Shire
halls, prisons, and police offices, it was stated, were
exempted, and, therefore, that schools for the poor,
equally as useful as these establishments, should be
exempted likewise. A member of the deputation sub-
, mittod a cue in which the sum of 29/. had been paid as
rates for a national school—a sum which, in a large num-
ber of instances, would make just the difference between
the solvency of a charitable institution and its bank-
ruptcy. In reply, Mr. Hardy said he did not admit that
the We was uncertain ; the decision in the case of the
Saffron-hill School had decided it; and quoted an opinion
given by Lord Westbury, and • recommendation in favour
of rating charitable institutions made by a committee of
which the late Sir G. Cornwall Lewis was chairman. At
the same time be must say that certain cases would
shortly be made the subject of legal decision • and until
the decision was come to, it would be premature to speak
decidedly on the subject. He would point out that the
rating of schools and charitable institutions would always
be low, because they would be always assessed at a very
low yearly rental.
The inauguration of the statue of the late
Prince Consort, erected in the centre of Albert-square,
Manchester, took place yesterday. A committee was ap-
pointed to undertake the work in January, 1862, and the
offer of the then mayor, Mr. Goadsby, to present • marble
statue, on oondition of the city affording a suitable site,
and finding money for • pedestal and covering, was ac-
cepted. The statue, which is by Mr. Noble, of London,
and is of Sicilian marble, 9 feet high, representing the
prince in the robes of the Order of the Garter, has been
completed some time. The memorial building in which
the statue is placed, and the rich Gothic canopy over it,
were designed by Mr. Worthington, of Manchester.
The Succentor of Hereford Cathedral writes
that the Dean of Hertford, though dangerously, is by no
means hopelessly,