The Express.
London, England, 1867-12-16 00:00:00

THE UNITED STATES.

GENERAL GRANT FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

At New York, on the 4th inst., an influential
meeting was held to promote the candidateship of
General Grant as the next President of th 3 United
States. It was a gathering more important from
the character and standing of those who participated
in it than from its actual numbers. A. T. Stewart
presided, and the names of Francis B. Cutting,
William B. Astor, John Jacob Astor, jun., William
N. Vermilyea, William T. Blodgett, Hamilton
Fish, Moses H. Grinnell, Paul Spofford, Cornelius
Vanderbilt, Moses Taylor, Robert L. Stuart, and
others largely identified with the commercial and
financial interests of the country, gave importance
and significance to the proceedings.
The New York Herald of the sth urges the
formation of " Grant clubs." Grant, it says,
unites the fame of the first soldier of the Union
with the reputation of one of the moat honest and
capable executive officers America has had since
the beginning of the war. "His courage and
generosity would insure to the South an honourable
and liberal settlement of the much-abused problem
of reconstruction, while his Jackson-like adminis-
tration of the war department is sufficient gua-
rantee of his desire and ability to carry out a
policy of retrenchment and reform that would
speedily decresse our present ruinous load of debt
and taxation. It is time for the respectable por-
tion of the people to give effect to the verdict of
the recent election by entering at once on the grand
conservative campaign of 1868. Push on the
ball!"

The New York Times says the meeting embraced
men of a large variety of shades in political senti-
ment, and gave indications of a community of
action such as can be called out by no public man
but General Grant :
This movement cannot be engineered by selfish party
politicians. If such men attempt to obtain control of it,
or to use it for their own purposes, they will be shaken off
at the outset, and will be defeated in their ultimate end.
If ever there was a political movement in this country
that had its spontaneous origin with the mass of the
people, and that was apart from the intrigues of wire-
workers, the schemes of place-hunters, and the projects of
narrow-minded partis►ns, it is the movement for elevating
Grant to the high position where his great practical
abilities can be fully called into play for the settlement of
those distracting public (questions which have thus far
failed of solution, and which even now are constantly
becoming more threatening and complicated.

The New York Tribune finds in the " platform "
put forward on behalf of General Grant " no word
of promise, even, that the loyal governments now
being organised in the Southern States shall
be sustained, or that the leyal people of those
States, who had the misfortune to be torn black,
are to be guaranteed any rights whatever. So far
as we can see, almost any life-long adversary of
republican principles and ideas might stand on
that platform, and be supported thereon as a
candidate for President. In the long catalogue
of names paraded as officers of the meeting, we
remark, among those of many good and true men,
those of several citizens who can only support
General Grant on the presumption that, if elected
he is not to be, nor to seem, a republican."
The Tribune purposes not to hold General Grant
in anywise responsible for the utterance or the
positions of those who choose to nominate or to
support him:
We assume that he wP 1 speak for himself, at what be
shall deem the proper time, with the frankness of a soldier
and the earnestness of a patriot. If he is on the right side
—the side of humanity, of progress, of equal rights
and equal laws—he will so declare himself, and
will thereupon be renounced by some of the noisiest
and most vehement of his present supporters. If he
shall see fit to fulfill the expectations of such supporters
as Montgomery Blair and General Torn Ewing, jun.,
he will render it impossible for sincere republicans to
support him. It is idle to hope that the gravest and most
imminent questions of the hour may be blinked, and a
candidate for president found who will satisfy the require-
ments and secure the votes at once of those who bold that
all men were created equal, and of those who, on the con-
trary, hold that blacks have no rights which whites are
bound to respect. The silent multitude, who do not figure
as officers at political meetings, but whose votes count
heavily in an official canvass, will be sure that they are
not betraying principle, in subservience to an office-
hunting expediency, before they deposit their ballots.

FRANCE AND PRUSSIA.
The Arenir National contains the following :

It was easy to foresee that the embarrassment which
the French government has thought it desirable to create
for itself in Italy would give fresh strength and boldness
so M. de Bismarck. In point of fact the Minister of
Foreign Affairs for the Grand Duchy of Baden spoke •
few days ago, clearly and explicitly, of • proxi-
mate annexation of that state to the confedera-
tion of the North. It Is too late now to say
to Prussia that she must not cram the line of the
Main. She has already crossed it. What does it signify
to us whether the people of Baden send deputies to the
parliament of the North or not, when we have already
implicitly authorised them to send their soldiers
and money to M. de Bismarck ? It was after
Bedews that our diplomacy should have been
active, and have checked the ambition of Prussia.
Instead, however, of protecting what remained of the in-
dependence of Bavaria and Wurtemberg, it looked for ter-
ritorial compensation, which, even if granted would have
been insignificant. Now, the mischief is done, and our
position in Italy would prevent us from undoing it, even if
it were in our power to repair it. Ourinterest and our duty
ia to resist—not German unity, but that military and
and illiberal form which Prussia has impressed upon it. But
the only means which the French government possesses of
exercising an action at once indirect and efficacious on this
point would be to restore to France so much liberty that
the liberal and democratic movement in Germany may
expand and become triumphant over the military party in
Berlin—the constant ally of Russia. Unhappily the
second expedition to Rome has not been undertaken
to inaugurate at home the restoration of liberal ideas, and
we have been carefully told that it has been directed
against the revolutionists at home and abroad. M. de Bis-
marck may therefore continue his work a :th the utmost
tranquillity of mind. 'We have once before been simple
enough to promote his designs. We are doing his business
still better to-day.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)
MALTA.

MALTA, DEC. 14.

The Orontes troopship has just arrived hero
from Portsmouth with 614 officers and privates,
women, and children belonging to various regi-
ments, and two naval officers.
The Leith steamer from London for Alexandria,
with stores for the Abyssinian expedition, has
broken her rudder, and is repairing hero.

The weather since the 2Gth November has been
very tempestuous. Many ships, with cargoes of
grain, have taken refuge here.

AMERICA.

SOUTHAMPTON, DEc. 16.
The North German Lloyd's steamer America,
from New York, has arrived here, with 109 pas-
sengers for this port, Havre, and Hamburg, 48
sacks of mails for London, 92,000 dole. in specie
for England, and 156,000 dols, in specie for France.

(Per the America, Till Southampton.)
NSW YORK, Dec. 5, Iroaxrso.
The Senate has passed a resolution, calling for
papers relative to the Alabama claims, and has also

passed a bill declaring five to form a quorum of the
Supreme Court. A resolution has been laid
on the table denouncing those portions of
President Johnson's message in which he con-
demned the course of Congress as a breach
of j official propriety, and recommending Con-
gress to express reprehension thereof. Senator
Sumner, in a speech opposing the printing of extra
copies of the President's message, denounced the
message as incendiary, and calculated w stimulate
rebellion and provoke civil war. It was evidence,
he said, of a coalition existing between Mr. John-
son and the rebels. Mr. Davis, whose successor
Mr. Johnson was, would have sent just such a
message.

Mr. Dixon, a conservative republican, defended
Mr. Johnson, and declared that Congress was mis-
representing the people, and that it should reflect
on the lessons taught by the conservative victories
in the recent elections, which were a rebuke to the
radicals.
A resolution has been referred to the Committee
on Foreign Affairs, declaring that no claim of a
foreign government over naturalised citizens of the
United States shall affect the right of such citizens
to Federal protection, and that the government
shall at all hazards protect naturalised citizens,
both at home and abroad.

General Hancock has reinstated several judicial
officials in Louisiana who bad been removed by
General Mower.

The Alabama Convention have passed an ordi-
nance suspending all civil courts, with the excep-
tion of the Supreme Probate and Criminal Courts.
General Pope has ordered the Convention to
adjourn, on the ground of its action injuring re-
construction.

The Virginia Convention has elected Judge
Underwood as president. He addressed the Con-
vention, advising it to exercise all Christian
charity consistent with future safety.
Governor Brownlow has published a card deny-
ing the evidence of Chief Detective Baker before
the Impeachment Committee, and declaring that
he never testified, and does not believe, that Pre-
sident Johnson ever corresponded with Mr. Davis,
or any other rebel, during the rebellion.
The negroes of Bullock County, Alabama, have
organised courts of their own. They were armed,
and threatened to seize the property of the whites.
General Swayne sent a detachment of troops, who
dispersed them and arrested fifteen of their ring-
leaders.

Mr. Hoffman, a Democrat, has been re-elected
mayor of New York by a majority of 22,000 over
the opposition Democratic and Republican candi-
dates. The Republican vote showed a decrease
of 7,000.
Intelligence from Mexico of the 20th nit., pub-
lished by the New York journals, mentions a
rumour that a messenger had arrived in that capital
from the Emperor Napoleon to President Juarez.