The Sun.
London, England, 1853-09-09 00:00:00

T.H. SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 9, 1853,

admit of doubt or dispute. But to whom is it
ascribable, to the railways, the steam-boats, or
the Government ? That is the question--and it
fortunately is capable of easy solution. The most
superficial examination will show that it is not,
and cannot in any way be ascribed to the construc-
tion of the railways. Nothing that science can
devise, or unbounded wealth accomplish, could
materially improve the lines of the London and
North-Western, and Chester, and Holyhead.
They are as near perfection as could reasonably be
anticipated, looking to the encouragement afforded
' to private enterprise in that department. The
extraordinary ability and lavish expenditure ap-
plied to the spanning of the Menai Straits, and
permitting the trains to be carried over without
delay or stoppage of any kind, prove, beyond the
possibility of contradiction, that the last-men-
tioned Company had spared nothing to perform
their part in the arrangements for obtaining the
most speedy means of intercommunication with
the Sister Kingdom. No complaint, then, can be
preferred against the railways—the means of ob-
taining the maximum of speed, at moderate prices,
are available. But how has this enterprise been
rewarded ? What inducements have been held
out to the Directors to persevere in the laudable
course on which they entered ? None whatso-
ever. Let any disinterested and unprejudiced
person peruse the Report of the proceedings at
the half-yearly annual meeting of the Chester
and Holyhead Company, and the able and
convincing statement of the Chairman, Mr. PETO,
and he must agree that it has been " the most
ill-used Company that ever existed in this coun-
try." He will find that when, at the instigation
of the Government, they had encountered an
enormous outlay, exceeding a million sterling, for
the Tubular Bridge across the Menai—an outlay
that could not be compensated by the ordinary
return—the promises previously made were scan-
dalously violated, the reasonable anticipations of
support unfulfilled. In pursuance of a cheese-
paring economy, of a," penny-wise-and-pound-
foolish policy," the conveyance of the mails across
the Channel was taken from the Railway Com-
pany and given to a Steam-packet Company, at a
rate that would not admit of the efficient per-
formance of the duties—given, too, for a time
that tied the hands of all parties for ten years.
Nothing more disgraceful to the Government
officia's implicated in the transaction can be ima-
gined ; and yet we fißd attempts made to transfer
the censure which they have so eminently de-
served to innocent parties, who have already too
many just grounds of complaint. These attempts
have been, are, and will be, wholly abortive.
The Government are alone to blame ; and if it be
desirable that the intercommunication with Ire-
land should be accelerated, it is by the interven-
tion of Ministers alone that the task can be
accomplished. The voice of public opinion has
proclaimed the fact, that it is a duty which
can no longer be shirked or evaded.

All Americans are loud in their praises of Capt.
INGRAHAM, and they have been echoed most
heartily in England ; and many a wish has been
felt and uttered that Lord ABERDEEN had shared
his spirit. The opinion is pretty general that a
reasonable measure of the INGRAHAM promptness
and decision would have kept Russian troops out
of the territory of our ally, and have given us an
honourable peace long before harvest. Our cordial
cheering of the American Captain, however, flags
a little if we attempt to unite our hurrahs with
those of our Republican brethren themselves. We
are compelled to feel that our cheers are more con-
sistent of the two, since British territory is the
inviolable sanctuary of every refugee from abso-
lute despotism. We are as far as our peace-loving
friend Mr. JOHN BRIGHT himself from wishing
to wound American susceptibilities. We trust,
however, that it will contribute rather to form
gradually a right feeling in America if we on this
side of the water frankly tell our transatlantic
cousins how things strike us. When we read
of the popularity of Captain INGRAHAM, and
saw it stated that, be his politics what they
might, ho would have been sure of the
next election of the Presidency had he
sent the Austrian vessel to the bottom, many
thoughts crowded upon us; the bare possibility
of a war between the freest modern Republic and
the quintessence of modern despotism ; between
a nearly land-locked State and a maritime one—
how we and other European States might become
implicated—what would be the consequences in
Lombardy and Hungary, and in other States too ;
chiefly, however, we could but think of the
cause of all this upstir ; it was to save from an
Austrian dungeon or scaffold a man who had fled
for his freedom. To every European, the very
next thought must be of Fugitive Slave Laws.
The contrast between risking collision with an
European Empire, to save a kidnapped fugitive,
and enacting laws to kidnap the fugitive them-
selves, by the same people, is too strong not to
occur immediately. It is hard to conceive that
such zeal and determination can be shown by a
whole nation to save one man from bondage, and
such alacrity, on the other hand, to send back hun-
dreds and thousands to a tenfold worse slavery
from which they have escaped, it may be for
years. Nothing but the delusion and infatuation
of fancied self-interest could prevent an intelligent
and freedom-loving nation from perceiving the
inconsistency as strongly as we do. It will be a
happy result of the implication of the United States
with European affairs, which the rapidly increas-
ing power of the Union, and its equally increasing
virtual proximity, must soon necessitate, should
it compel Americans to see Slavery and Slave
Laws with European eyes. In its last conflict of
the pen with Austria, Mr. WEBSTER, who seemed
triumphant at first, came off but second best,
when Mr. HULSEMANN retorted the republican
lectures on Austrian despotism with lectures on
the infinitely worse despotism of Slavery and
Fugitive Slave Laws. A few such lessons must
do much to open republican eyes to the enormity
of the system they cherish.

These thoughts were revived on reading, but
the other day, a most elaborate judgment, de-
livered by Judge WLEAN, of the Supreme Court of
the United States, in the case of WASHINGTON (!)
M `QUERE,Y, claimed as a fugitive slave (the very
name of the slave suggesting how insensible men
may become to that right of resistance to tyranny
for others, in which they glory for themselves).
This slave, who, not unworthily, bore the name
of the great American Liberator, escaped from
Kentucky into Ohio. For four years he was a
freeman, but, armed with the new law, his old
master, HENRY MILLER, ferrets him out. After
his arrest on a writ of Habeas Corpus, the case
is brought by his counsel before Judge WLEAN,
to ascertain whether this living WASHINGTON was
illegally detained or not ; and whether he ought
to be free in the country which his great namesake
redeemed from political bondage, and in the Re-
public whose Constitution declares that "all men
are born free and equal." The master, to do him
justice, does not appear to be one of the worst ;
he was willing to sell WASHINGTON his liberty for
1,200 dollars, and to subscribe 50 towards it.
The Judge intimated very plainly that all his
feelings were against returning a man to slavery ;
but, after canvassing most fairly every legal point
in WASHINGTON'S favour, he was compelled deli-

berately to decide that WASHINGTON was a slave !
It struck us in reading the judgment, however,
that there still appeared to be room to dispute the

constitutional character of the Fugitive Slave Law.
The celebrated clause that "persons held to ser-

vice or labour in one State, &c., must be delivered
up," was drawn in that form because MADISON

stitution. It appears, then, that the constietttin
-
legis-
late
Unpootn recognisei t
? A n.ai it
Again,
,a nmdA,
Di
IfsO so,N denied can
the right
of property in man. The acknowledgment of
such a right deprives the human being of a per-
sonal character at once. He is the mere instru-
ment of another's will,
--..a thing, not a person ;
persons, atzltio thatih
however,
t
r,wand as the law is made for persons, it might be
fairly argued that goods and chattels were not
edviednot apply to them. As
the
ti
treats all men as free and
no man could be fairly claimed
aesquaal,chaasttpeelr.soisLlegal quibbles are, however, out
of the question. The stronger have made the J