The Sun.
London, England, 1863-03-11 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT

HOUSE OF COMMONS.---Monday.
THE TICKET-OF-LEAVE SYSTEM.
Mr. ADDERLEY rose to move that an humble address
be presented to her Majesty, thanking her Majesty for hav-
ing issued a commission of inquiry into the operation of the
acts relating to transportation and penal servitude, and
into the manner in which sentences under the provisions of
those acts have been carried out; and praying that, pend-
ing that inquiry, the conditions on which any remission of
punishment, or licences to be at large, are given, may be
strictly enforced according to the intentions of those acts.
The hon. gentleman proceeded to say that, notwithstand-
ing the assertion of the Secretary for the Home Department
that our police system was the envy of the world, it was a
fact that last autumn it was scarcely possible to walk in the
streets of the metropolis after dark with safety. Fortunately
the garrotters had selected a member of that house as the
, object of their experiments—(laughter)—and on that account
attention had been aroused in their regard more speedily
than it would otherwise have been. During the autumn
the outcry had become so great that the Government were
compelled to issue a Royal Commission. to inquire into the
operation of our penal system. No doubt there was a good
deal for such a commission to inquire into, but the Govern-
ment ought to have done much more ; they ought in the
meanwhile to have put the existing law into force. (Hear.)
Let them, at all events, try the existing law before they
altered it; and he could show that the existing law had
never been put in force. He might almost say that. consi-
dering the great powers vested in the Government, they
were responsible for the state of things which were witnessed
last autumn. Every member of the house would admit that
it was a most serious thing that the principle of this im-
portant criminal law should be utterly at variance with the
practice. This state of things was quite sufficient to ac-
count for the increase of outrage and crime, and enough to
make people tremble for the security of their lives and pro-
perty. The law said that a man guilty of a crime, just
shot t of the penalty of death, should be subjected to penal
servitude, and, under that sentence, might ultimately be
removed out of the country, or if not—and that was what
occurred in the greater number of cases—that he should be
subjected to imprisonment, in the first place, for a rigid un-
remittable term of imprisonment, varying from one-half to
two-thirds, and afterwards to a further term, which was
capable of being reduced from one-sixth to one. third by
the good conduct of the criminal while in prison. The con-
dition upon which that remission was given rested with the
Secretary of State, and it was easy to show that neither the
remission nor the conditions upon which the remissions
had been granted, had been carried out by the Home Sec-
retary at all in accordance with the terms of the act, but
rather in direct contravention of them. The remission of a
sentence was meant to be a suspension and not a pardon.
The suspension should be granted on a guarantee of good
conduct and a certain test of labour which the criminal
might perform in person. Nothing could be clearer than
the act, which was based upon the sth, 12th, and 16th reso-
lutions of a select committee in 1856, which stated distinctly
that the remission was recommended as an abridgment of
the second part of the term of imprisonment, the first part
being rigid and incapable of abridgment, and that such
abridgment should involve the sentence still being held
over the head of the criminal. The practice, however, for
the first two years after the passing of the act was to let
prisoners out of prison with the minimum term of deten-
tion, as if they had all entitled themselves to the largest pos-
sible abridgment, and as it the rigid term of imprisonment
was the whole term of the sentence. This course of pro-
cedure rendered the part Parliament had taken in passing
the act an absolute farce, and rendered the sentences passed
by the judges an absolute lie. The terms of a ticket of
leave were that the holder should consider himself out
of prison upon trial ; but the practice had been the reverse,
for the ticket-of .leave holder did not have his license can-
celled unless he committed some new infraction of the
law. The hon. member referred to the conditions under
which licenses were held in Ireland as being very superior
to the same conditions in England. There every convict
had to report himself on his arrival in a district, and sub-
sequently once a month. Ho could not change his locality
without notice; and any infringement of these rules en-
tailed revocation of his license. There was no reason why
the same system should not be carried out in England.
.) His simple request to the Government was, that the
Toevaerrnment,pending the inquiry of the Royal Commission,
should put the existing law in force. (Hear, heat.) He
would not have asked the house to press this upon the Go-
vernment if he had seen any indication on their part to alter
' the existing state of things. The hon. gentleman concluded
by reading his motion.
t.• ir G. GREY thought it would be extremely inconve-
nient for the house to agree to the motion of the right hon.
gentleman before the commission appointed to inquire into
the operation of the Acts relating to penal servitude had
mdwraaedss
senwot htocouinlrdl rye
bpveoa rgt tou.
vague.
pledgeii Inei
ttsh
ttoehuregmhhs t:
butushetawtt
otioac h
ra:gwsrohel eiul
et ti
oognot
ihwneghailcd-
ahr
beyond what the right hon. gentleman h
intended, would still
The ri ht hon. gen-
not effect the object he had in view. g
tleman had referred to the crimes that had of late disturbed
the public mind, and which be had attributed entirely to
the mode in which the law as defined by the Acts of 1853
and 1857 had been administered. He might observe that
others who were in a good position to form an opinion took
a different view ; but, at all events, the operations of the
police (the particulars of which he did not think prudent
to describe in detail) had led to the principal offenders
being brought to justice, and they were now suffering the
penalties of their crimes. He was bound to say also
that in his opinion the present law was sufficient, and
that no change was necessary. The conditions endorsed
upon a license to be at large (commonly called a " ticket-
of-leave") expressly stated that the convict was liable to
be sent back for his whole term if he associated with
`thieves or led a disorderly life. (Hear.) The great diflloulty

tion.

with the authorities was to prove those facts judicially. It
had been found that a second conviction was the safest
proof ; and the rule had been, that in all such cases (except
a few minor offences of hawking without a licence, drunk-
enness, &c.), the license had been revoked wherever a cri-
minal had been a second time convicted within the term of
his license. The right hon. gentleman having denied all
knowledge of the circular alleged to have been issued from
the Home-office to the mayors of all the towns of Great
Britain, asking for a list of ticket holders residing within
their jurisdiction (and which he supposed must have come
from the Royal Commissioners), said he feared the right
hon. gentlemsn (Mr. Adderley) had been imperfectly in-
formed both in his law and his facts; and for the reasons
he had given, he thought it better that the house should not
agree to the motion.
Mr. H. D. SE YMOUR was glad to rind the subject had
been Lrought forward, and was surprised that the right
hon. gentleman had not given a more sufficient answer to
the speech of his right hum friend. He apprehended the
reason whit the right hon. gentleman opposite had brought
the subject before the house was, that the Home Secretary
had not carried out the conditions attached to the ticket-of-
leave. It was well known there was a large number of
convicts dismissed from prison who were creating terror all
over the country; and there was no necessity for an act of
Parliament to deal with them, as there was power already
existing in the ticket-of-leave itself ; the conditions of which
were that the holders, as soon as they showed auy signs of
relapsing into crime, should be deprived of the license to
be at large. The Home Secretary was the supreme head
of the Irish system as well as the English system, and
how was it, if the former one had been found to work so
well, that the latter was not assimilated to it ? The
may upholders of the English system were the Home
Secretary himself and Sir Joshua Jebb ; and he sub •
mitted it was in the right. hon. gentleman's power, with-
out any fresh act of Parliament, to place the whole of
the ticket-of-leave men under the surveillance of the police.
He could not see anything which the commission had to
inquire into that had not already been fully investigated by
the committee of 1856; unless, indeed, they were to inquire
into the whole question of secondary punishment. But
the case was not ripe for so large an inquiry, as the Home
Secret try had not carried into effect his own orders.
Mr. HENLEY said he would not follow the hon. gentle-
man who spoke last into the extraneous matters to which
he adverted, but would confine himself to the terms of the
motion. He thanked God the commission had not to in-
quire into the "whole question of secondary punishment,"
which was a field so wide that he should not wish to traverse
it. Nor would he go into the question of giving the police
greater powers of surveillance. There were many people
who thought the police already possessed powers enough.
He should also abstain from entering into a comparison
between the Irish and English systems ; but would simply
say that he knew of nothing which could lead him to the
same conclusion as the hon. gentleman opposite. He be-
lieved when the facts were accurately examined into, it
would be shown that, if the recommendations of the com-
mittee of 1856 were carried out, there would be considerable
difficulty in following out the Irish system. He believed
his right hon. friend who introduced the motion made some
confusion in his mind between the Acts of 1853 and 1856 ;
for he told them there had been a wholesale discharge in
1856 of the worst kind of criminals, and that the system had
become more lax after a couple of years. Well, what was
the result? It was this, that from 1857 to 1860 there was a
more remarkable diminution of crime than they had ever
known. They enjoyed the greatest security for life and pro-
perty at the very time when his right hon. friend com-
plained the greatest abuse of the system was going on.
Why, in 1860, the gaols were nearly empty ; and for 30
years there had not been such an absence of crime. He
admitted things were going wrong again, and that there
was a tendency backward ; hut they were not yet quite so
bad as in 1857. He believed the increase and decrease of
crime did not rest upon the treatment of criminals, hut that
there were other and deeper causes at work to account for
it—(hear, hear)--and if they were to change their laws
with every ebb and flow of crime the statute book would
become a greater mass of confusion than it was at present.
For his part he thought the right hon. gentleman was not
exercising an unsound discretion when he required more
than a simple statement of the guilt of the holder of a
ticket-of-leave; something approaching to a judicial in-
quiry. He was not one of those who thought any man
should be condemned unheard. (Hear, hear.) He should
vote against the resolution, but he hoped his right hon.
friend would not divide the house upon it.
Sir S. NORTHCOTE thought, whether his right hon.
friend went to a division or not, that he had reason to
congratulate himself upon the results which his motion had
produced; and looking at the feeling out of doors he
thought it would not be satisfactory if the session were
allowed to pass without having some discussion upon it.
All his right hon. friend asked was that, pending the report
of the commission, the Government should carry into effect
the recommendations of the committee. It was the inten-
tion of the committee that the ticket-of-leave should be a
reality and not a sham. These tickets had been shams
from the great difficulty attending their revocation without
proof of further misconduct. It was reasonable, under the
circumstances, for the Home Secretary to ask the house
not to press him to take steps that would involve the
necessity of action ; but at the same time they must all
feel good service had been done by the right hon, gentleman
bringing forward the question to enable the house to give
expression to what was the prevalent feeling of the country
upon the subject. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. HADFIELD considered the present system had
been successful. During three years, out of 6,000 persons
discharged 90 per cent. of that number had not offended a
second time. In Ireland, out of 724 only 51 men and 20
women had offended a second time. He regretted that no
provision was made for persons when discharged, but that,
having lost their character, they were let loose upon society
without a friend in the world. He considered the Govern-
ment had acted with, great propriety. The system was a
good one, though no doubt it was capable of modification
and improvement.
Mr. NEWDEGATE said that the majority of the magi-
strates of Warwickshire were opposed to the right hon. gen-
tleman (Mr. Adderley's) plan, and highly approved of the
appointment of the commission. He could not condemn the
Government for not carrying out a law which they believed
t be imperfect, and he considered the feeling of the majo-
rity of the people was that the abandonment of the trans-
portation had been a great misfortune to this country. The
lamentable condition of discharged prisoners from their
difficulty in finding employment appeared to him to be proof
of the high tone of morality in the country. It had been
over and over again admitted that prisoners when removed
from the country had a greater chance, and frequently be-
came better members of society than under any other sys-
tem. He expressed a hope that what had been said in the
course of the debate would not prejudice the question with
the commissioners, but that they would be able to dis-
cover a new sphere for transporting our criminals.
Mr. BENTINCK objected to the resolution, The Home
Secretary had committed a great error in referring the mat-
ter to a Royal Commission, and he was at a loss to under-
stand on what grounds it had been done, as it was impos-
sible for any commission, however able, to become possessed
of better or more information than that already in the
Home-office. Nothing was more mischievous than the
practice which was now becoming general with the execu-
tive of evading their proper responsibility by shelving a
question for months, by referring it to a Royal Commis-
sion. The Executive Government ought to be able to
deal with such a question at once, and it was
one of those cases in which the right honourable
gentleman was bound to act on his own authority
and responsibility. It was the rapid and sudden increase
in a particular description of crime, and by a particular
class of men, and not a general increase of crime, had
aroused public feeling. They would never arrive at a good
result until they again resorted to transportation. (Hear,
hear.) That afforded the only possible chance of reforma-

Mr. CAVE considered the manner in which ticket-of-
leave men were treated in Ireland better than the English
system. The ticket-of-leave was looked upon in Ireland
more in the light of a good character, whereas it was con-
sidered a bad character in England, which he attributed to
the fault of the Home Secretary from the manner in which
We tickets were endorsed. It was extraordinary that a
man having been condemned for a crime must actually
commit another before his ticket could be revoked. Such
a state of things was likely to cause men to commit the
acts of violence they had lately heard of—(hear, hear)—
and if the question had been discussed in that house a few
months since, the benches would not have been so empty
as they were. (Hear, hear.) There was a most unfortu-
nate stagnation in those crimes—(laughter)—now that
they wanted the law to be put in full force. (Hear, hear.)
Colonel SYKES said that unless some means of employ-
ing the ticket-of-leave men were discovered, they must be
always a prey upon society, He believed it was quite
possible to fix upon some one of our colonial possessions to
which our criminals might, with propriety and advantage,
be transported.
Mr. P. URQUHART pointed out that in Ireland there
was no professional criminal class, and that it was much
easier to maintain a surveillance over the ticket-of-leave
men there than in England. At the same time, he did not
think that the English police exercised a sufficient surveil-
lance over the ticket-of-leave men. He entirely condemned
the maudlin sentimentality which would permit our sol-
diery to go to any climate in the world, while it called out
against sending convicts to any but the healthiest. (Hear,
hear.)
The motion was withdrawn.
ARMY ESTIMATES.

Sir G. LEWIS then rose to introduce the army esti-
mates, Ile stated that the estimate exhibited a reduo.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
BALTIMORE, Feb. 21.
Remaining in this city for a couple of days on
my way to Washington, I have been a spectator of
the reception given by the people to Benjamin F.
Butler, the model General and gentleman of the war
faction. The journals published under the auspices
of the military Governor represent the welcome as
most enthusiastic as well as nearly unanimous ; those
under the patronage of the Baltimoreans them-
selves scarcely condescend to notice it at all, or nar-
rate it in a paragraph of a few lines among their
local intelligence. The people of Baltimore, properly
so called, kept entirely aloof from the proceedings.
Not a single citizen of any note, character, wealth,
or position was present to do him honour. The only
persons who figured in the celebration of the day
were the Mayor and members of the city council,
who were appointed some time ago under military
dictation, when the old civic functionaries were
compelled to resign their offices or take an oath
against their consciences, and the military and
naval officers and other dependants of the Govern-
ment. The Mayor is an Englishman, who keeps a
shop for the sale of crockery, and the city council
is composed of persons entirely unknown to the
merchants and professional classes. The General
was invited to a dinner, the cost of which was to be
defrayed out of the city funds ; and the invi-
tations were limited to 150 persons, comprising
the members of the municipality and the mili-
tary officers of the garrison and the sui round-
ing forts that keep the rebellious city in subjec-
tion. The General, on his arrival, was hailed
with shouts of welcome by a mob of about 300
people, among whom the Irish hackman and car
drivers were conspicuous, and conducted by these
in triumph to his hotel. Thirty-four young women,
dressed in white, each supposed to represent a State
of the Union, were stationed in the drawing rooms
to receive him. It may be surmised that they were
not known to the society of the city, and such was
the fact. There was not one of them who would be
acknowledged a lady b 3 the ladies of Baltimore;
and if hereafter any of them, by marriage or other-
wise, shall take rank with the educated and wealthy
classes of their city, their appearance at this cele-
bration will be remembered against them as a bar-
rier to exclude them from the society of all who
sympathise with the ladies of New Orleans and con-
sider Gen. Butler the reverse of a gentleman. In
Baltimore this class comprises at least four-fifths of
the whale population, and all the ladies, except
those of the Federal officers and other strangers in
temporary residence in the city. Gen. Butler made
a short and characteristic speech, in which he pro-
claimed the United Statss to be a young giant,un der-
going the painful but necessary agonies of teething
—agonies that would speedily pass away, and leave
it strong—to bite as well as to feed, If Gen. Butler
is himself a specimen of the teeth that the young
giant is so painfully producing, the teeth are not
handsome front teeth, but strong molars, well cal-
culated to grind into aliment any New Orleans
plums that may happen to excite its appetite for
sweet plunder. The dinner in the evening, which
was to have concluded the day's festivities, and at
which the General was to have made his principal
speech, was abandoned in consequence of a melan-
choly casualty that occurred in the afternoon. Com-
marder Maxwell Woodhull, of the Federal Navy, a
relative of Gen. Schenck (pronounced Skenk, and
by the Baltimoreans wickedlyperverted into Skunk)
was walking on the ramparts of Fort Marshall,
along with Gen. Schenck, Gen. Butler, and others, '
and lingered a little behind the rest of the party. The
gunner charged with the duty of firing a salute in
honour of the distinguished guest, imagining that
the whole party had passed, discharged his gun,and
the wadding unfortunatelystruck Commander Woo-
dhull with great violence, tearing away the calves of
both his legs, and dashing him along the ground a
distance of 30 feet. The unfortunate gentleman
never spoke, and survived but three minutes after
the accident. The occurrence threw a gloom over the
whole city; and though it was, no doubt very cruel
and very wicked in people at such a moment to
harbour such a thought, there was an all but univer-
sal expression of regret that the wadding had struck
the wrong man. Gen. Butler left the city this morn-
ing en route for Massachussetts. It is not positively
ascertained whether he is to return to New Orleans
or to be appointed to some other command. He
stands higher in the President's favour than any
other General in the service, and it is known to be
Mr. Lincoln's wish that he should resume the ad-
ministration of affairs in Louisiana, from which, in
Mr. Lincoln's opinion, he ought never to have been
removed. Gen. Banks is not sufficiently a Couthon,
or Fouquier Tinvil le, to satisfy the Jacobins of
Washington. They think a "reign of terror" essen-
tial to reduce the South to obedience, and that•
Banks is not the man to enforce it. Thera are symp-
toms, however, in the disposition of the ruling party
to try a " reign of terror" in the North as well as
in the South. And after the 4th of March, when
Congress separates, it may perhaps be found that
New York, and not New (Means, is to be the
scene of Butler's future operations, and that the
quasi rebellious and very troublesome democracy
of the North may find him installed among them
to re-enact all the atrocities of New Orleans, except
the crowning atrocity against the women, which
Gen. Butler, whatever else he may be, is by far too
good a tactician to repeat.
WASHINGTON, FEB. 24.
emnitnatonts, satisfy
an Ay
df
swp
ads
saiyosn
ai nt e tihn icisu
icriet
ry
has grown desperate, and that,. having failed to
subdue the South, it is directing t
that a r e
theau sufficient
dominant
its remaining ener-
gies to the subjugation of the North. The infatua-
tion of the Republicans is almost inconceivable:
They are, and always have been, in a minority. All
the Conservative feeling—all the instinct of race—
all the interests of commerce—all the glorious tradi-
tions of the Republic are against their party. In

its favour are the corruption of politicians, con-
tractors, and swindlers ; the baseless assumption of
a nationality that exists but in theory ; the passion
that is fed upon bloodshed ; the insolent tyranny
that would assimilate conflicting opinions by the
agency of the sword; and the still more odious
tyranny of the pulpit, that would crush out the last
remnant of civil liberty by the establishment of a
sanguinary theocracy which would rather the white
race should perish than that liberty, in the name of
God and for the advancement of His glory, should
not be given to the black. Mr. Lincoln was elected
by that party, and has made himself its organ and
its instrument. It has always been a defect in the
working of the Constitution that the "spoil." of
party were of necessity redistributed, on every Pre-
sidential election, among the needy professional
politicians by whole agencies the success of the
party candidate was assured. In the days of peace
and prosperity comparatively little harm was done.
One set of greedy, venal, and incompetent public
servants was displaced to make room for another
with the same defects, and in a minimized central
government, such as that implied in a Federation
of self-governing States, the evil was neither very
extensive nor very oppressive, except in so far as it
impaired public morality, and debased the character
of the citizen. But in a time of public peril, when
the whole fabric of society was shaken, a too rigid
adherence to the old system of party administra-
tion has brought the Northern half of the Republic
to the very verge of a second disruption. The Re-
publicans are new to power, and do not know how
to wield it. There is not a man of any grasp of
mind in the councils of the President. There is
not a man of the least range of thought in either
House of Congress who is not accused by the domi-
nant faction of being a traitor and a rebel, because
he sees, feels, and knows that the Union is at an
end, and that it has been ended by the very means
taken to restore it. The Senate is led by an ex-
shoemaker of the most violent opinions, who can
neither write nor speak grammatically, and who
differs so far from the President and his Minis-
ters as to believe that the Union can be restored
by force of arms, and that the bitter memories
of the war can be softened or obliterated by a re-
morseless coercion. The House of Representatives
shares the hallucination. No man belonging to the
Conservative party is trusted in civil or military
life by the rampant revolutionists who are fast
usurping the Government, and driving Mr. Lin-
coln into their own groove. General M'Clellan
was dismissed, not because he was an inefficient or
unpopular officer, but because he had rendered
himself obnoxious to the Anti-Slavery and ultra-
Republican party by his cautious Conservatism on
the question of the Southern negroes. Mr. Cassius
Marcellus Clay was made a Major• General, not be-
cause he was a soldier, not because he knew any-
thing of the art or science of war, not because
he had rendered cr could render to the State
any military service that could not have been
better performed by the rawest recruit from
Kerry or Connemara, but because he agreed with
Mr. Henry Ward Beecherlon Emancipation, and
with Mr. George Francis Train in hatred of Eng-
land. Generals M'Dowell, Fitz-John Porter, Sum-
ner, Franklin, and other professional soldiers have
been set aside, in the very agony of the public dan-
ger, because the weak President was over-per-
suaded by the theorists who manage him that it
was more essential that a commander should agree
with Mr. Wendell Phillips on the social and poli-
tical status of "Americans of African descent"
than that he should be as good an engineer as
Vauban or as admirable a strategist as Wellington.
The President is a party President, and has become
less of a national President every day the war has
lasted. 'the fact alone is sufficient to explain the
deplorable failure which he has made. Were he a
thousand times as sagacious as he is simple ; were
he not a joker of irreverent and irrelevant jokes;
were he possessed of all the qualities of head and
heart that qualify men to lead their fellows,—he
would have been equally a failure if he had
attempted, at such a crisis, to govern a practical
people on the principles of a philosophic and ductri
more minority, whose notions of the negro are
derived from England, where there are no negroes,
and whose ideas of Government would seem to be
inspired by the Austrian administration of Venice,
or the policy of Russia towards Poland.
The Republican party cannot restore the Union.
The fact has become palpable to itself. The Presi-
dent knows that he is not fighting at this moment
for the sake of Union, but for the sake of being in
a position, when peace is imposed by the dissatis-
fied Northern people, by Southern arms, or by the
mediation of Eur ope, to secure the Border States
and the best available frontier. Mr. Seward and
Mr. Chase, and all the men in power who have any
pretensions to statesmanship or sagacity, know it
also, though they have not the courage or the
patriotism to confess it. But worse even than that
—the Republican party cannot restore or preserve
American liberty, and does not wish to do so. Its
principles are not the principles that lie at the base
of the Constitution, but principles that are in-
compatible with the mild and diffused Govern-
ment of the States, and which have made America
what it is (or was). Republicanism, in the sense
attached to the word by the Republicans as dis-
tinguished from the Democrats, is incompatible with
liberty. It ignores the right to disagree. It will
not tolerate adverse or hostile discussion. It pro-
tests against personal liberty. It sets the theory
above the fact It would render the drinking of a
glass of wine in the State of Maine as great a social
sin, or public treason, as the holding of a black man
in bondage in South Carolina. It loudly asserts its
own freedom to do what it pleases, but will not
allow a dissentient the same privilege. It would
thrust its principles down the throat of recalcitrants
at the point of the bayonet. With all its faults it
may succeed in the effort to make a nation of the
Northern people, but if it do, it will be at the ex-
pense of every constitutional right which Americans
up to the outburst of this miserable war were proud
to uphold. Leaving out of view the negro question
and all that relates to it, the principles of the Re-
publican party are simply those of a despotism ; and
the despotism is coming. Mr. Lincoln is in reality
a more imperious autocrat than the Emperor of
I Russia, and will be the precursor of a second despot
more iron-handed and intelligent than himself if
the war be much longer protracted. A strong war
and a weak Government cannot coexist on the same
soil., To carry on a great domestic war there must be
a strong Government. A strong Government must
be a centralisation. A centralisation must be a des-
potism. The Republicans, true to their despotic
principles, are wilfully engaged in doing their ut-
most so to centralise the Government as to eliminate
the question of State rights from all future contro-
versy, and to convert the North into as homogenous
a unity as France.
Democraticmoment
Abraham Lincoln shall
the Government when Mr. A r
letd
haotp
et
sh e proscpuercet
Theand n otap too soon. party
y issanla.m
Dever to have quitted ; but
it does not know what may happen in the interval.
havreturn
which returned
h to
e oupractisegiit law in the little Western
village havee
lie cannot be dethroned for two years without a
coup d'etat, and such violent measures are not
(yet) to the taste of the Americans. Daring those
two years events may totally change the character
of the people, as well as of their institutions. In
this Congress the Democrats are in a helpless
minority in consequence of the secession of the
South. The Republicans are doing their utmost in
the few remaining days of its existence to cut from
under the feet of the democracy all the planks of its
platform. They justify the President in every ar-
bitrary act which he has committed or sanctioned,
especially in the suspension of the writ of habeas
corpus, and yesterday passed a bill through the
House of Representatives which makes him virtual
master of the personal liberty of every man
in the
country. One of the shining lights of_the Senate