The Express.
London, England, 1850-12-18 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18.

PRESIDENT FILLIR011f• Sall Mgr to CongTese la
nbareeteristic of the man. It is the composition of
ewe who has attained the position he holds in his party
sad in the state by substa.itial hard work, by the eon-
fides°e he has inspired in his tact, judgment, and prac-
ticed good sense, not by showy declamation. It ',tem-
perate in language, perspicuous in conception and
siTangemi nt. From some of its views we utterly
dissent, es narrow and antiquated, but it is a docu-
ment such u could emanate from no one but an expe-
rienced statesman who sees clearly within the range
of his mental vision, though that range may be
somewhat of the narrowest.
In so far as the PRESIDENT'S views of foreign
policy are concerned, or the measures he recommends
with a view to complete the organisation of the terri-
tories recently incorporated into the Union, the
Message is unexceptionable. This is Mr. PILL-
MORE'S true and natural sphere of action. In the
routine duties of his high offi:e, in the practical appli-
cation of uncon•roverted principles and maxims, his
sound judgment keeps him right It is where he has
to deal with new phases in the political relations of his
country, or with doctrines which have not yet re-
esiveithe sanction of a time-honoured conventionality
that he is apt to err.
The tone of the message with reference to the
foreign relations of the United States is decidedly
pacific. The PREsIDENT congratulates himself and
the country that they are generally amicable, and inti-
mates • desire to maintain this satisfactory state of
affairs.
With reference to the new territories, be urges a
prompt adjudication on the Mexican land titles in
California, and prelims for the extension of the land
laws to Utah and New Mexico. He recommends
that the gold lands should be sold in small quantities,
sod that a branch mint should without lore of time be
established in California. He also cilia attention to
the neer silty that exists for organising one or more
regiments of mounted men for the protection of the
frontier. of New Mexico, and to help to repress the
predatory Indians. This part of the message is emi-
nently judicious and practical.
Closely connected with these topics is what the
PRESIDENT says on the heads of a Tehuantepec rail.
way and Niciraguan Ocean Canal. The accomplish-
ment of both these objects has a vital interest fur the
Americans. It is through them that they are to look
for maintaining a permanent connexion between the
Atlantic and the Pecitie states. The PRESIDENT in-
timates that Mexico is being importuned to grant •
more unrestric'ed right of way for a railroad across
the isthmus of Tehuantepec, and expresses a hope
that he shall be able to come toe satisfactory arrange-
ment with Greet Britain respictiog the ocean ship
canal through Nicaragua. Two preliminaries, he
rates, have yet to be settled before the canal conven.
tion can be regarded as complete : the designation
and establishment of a free port at each end of the
canal, and the fixing of the limits within which bel-
ligerent operations shall not be carried on.
These points are most important. Since the
first is still open, it is to be hoped that the
American and British negotiators will consider
the line of canal as well as the terminal ports an open
question, and extend their views to the whole isthmus
instead of narrowing them to the San Juan route
alone. The recognition of the common right of way,
and of the permanently neutral character of the canal
and its terminal ports and the adjoining waters, will
be ri most important and beneficial innovation in in-
ternational law, and the cordial disposition to promote it
evincid by the American PRESIDENT Is of good auger,
At the same time the terms in which he speaks of this
important principle as still unrecognised by any del-
uge coavention shows the recklessness of the aver-
meets that the whole matter was finally arranged.
pet forth for interested purposes, which we have
recently had r cession to expose.
The message contains important suggestions re-
specting the revision of the republic's naval code, ren-
dered necessary by the recent abolition of flogging ;
the establishment of lighthouses and improvement of
harbours ; and the app intment of a tribunal to
adjudicate all claims upon government Not less
interesting is the PRESIDENT'S recommendation
that an uniform rata of postage, of 3 cents for
prepaid letters and 5 rents for unpaid letters, should
be adopted, whatever the distance that they are coo-
fhe moat unsatisfactory parts of the message are
those which relate to Customs duties and to the Fugi-
tive Slave Bill.

Mr. Fitt SHIRE is of opinion that the federal reve-
nue should be raised mainly by import duties; that
these duties should be as far as possible specific, eid
raker/me rates when unavoidable be ing estimated on
the home instead of the foreign valuation; and that
those rates should be so levied as to benefit incident-
ally home industry by shielding it from destructive
foreign competitioc. In short, Mr. Filaments per
in the insidious policy by which his party seek
to recur to a system of protective duties.
Mr. Fittatoar. takes up his stand upon the Fugi-
tive Slave Act, the principle and policy of which be
unreservedly defends. This is the first topic to
which he allude*, and it is also the last. He main-
tains that the act hes contributed to rescue the coon-
try from a boundless agitation ; and yet, singularly
enough, he finds it necessary to deprecate in strong
language the mutual reproach and recrimination,
leading to useless irritation, among the several members
of the Union, to which it has given rise; and to de-
clare emphatically that all existing laws mud be
enforced and obeyed, whether obnoxious or popular.
We were quite prepared by Mr. Plumose* pre-
vious career to tied him entertaining the view. he ex-
presses with reference to free trade and slavery; and
we are neither depressed nor alarmed by them. The
maintenance of a free-trade policy in the Uoited
States depends upon the legislature, not the execu-
tive ; and we do not believe that the PIESIDINT can
obtain the cioncurrence of both houses of the legisla-
ture to the unsettlement of the existing tariff and the
principle* open which it is based. As to the Fugi-
tive Slave Aet, whatever may be the opinions or
wishes of the PRESIDENT and his party, it is working
its own core. The tactics adopted by the Bostonians
to counteract it are singularly adapted to American
tastes, and likely to be imitated throughout the Union.
An opposition which is perfectly pacific and orderly,
and which at ogee evades a law and renders it ridiculous,
cannot foil to pat down the obnoxious statute in the
end. Bat there is more than this at wink. Among
the letters (and they are not a few) which we have
received from our American correspondents, who are
hostile to abolition, or more correctly speaking, to
the abolitionists, there is one topic that is uniformly
dwelt upon with great glee. It is the fact that the
freedom of most of the negroes arrested in the
northern states on the allegation that they are run-
away slaves, has been purchased, and purchased not
by abolitionists, but by members of the political party
opposed to them. What is the boastful spirit in which
this fact, or alleged fact, is stated, but an admission
that there is an universal feeling throughout the free
states, that slavery is indefensible, and that the en-
forcement of the Fugitive Slave Law is an outrage to
humanity ? Partisan bias cannot long uphold a law
against which the sentiments even of its sapportere
revolt.

ONE of the strangest anomalies in the English
mind is the patience with which it submits to those
admitted social abuses which have once obtained the
prescription of custom aid the support of law. Ob-
servances and institutions which all candid and
rational man are everywhere load in condstaning—