The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-26 00:00:00

ROYAL SURREY THEATRE.

Immense attraction. Mr. T. P. Cooks and Mr. Collins the
same Evening. the last week of their appearance. Poor
Jack " and another nautical drama, in conjunction with
" Paul Clifford."

THIS EVENING, MARCH 26.
Will be acted a Nautical Drama in Four Parts, called
POOR JACK ; OR THE WIFE OF A SAILOR.
In which Mr. T. P. Cooke, and th• entire strength of the

Company, will perform.
After which,

BEN THE BOATSWAIN.
Ben by Mr. T. P. Cooke.
To conclude with
PAUL CLIFFORD.

Paul Clifford, with tia;gongoi hurrah for the Road," Mr.
Collins.

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LONDON:
FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 1641.

The Lords met yesterday only to receive a
few patitioas, and immediately adjourned.
In the Commons Mr. COLQUIIOUN introduced
his Bill to put an end to Maynooth College,
which was read a first time.
After a little opposition from Lord HOWICK
and some others, the motion of Mr. T. DUNCOMBE
to print the petition we mentioned yesterday was
carried.

Sir E. KNATCHnum. was not so successful with
a motion to print the petition
of a i\duties, which w. HasEON;S:
LOW relative to the legacy
posed by the CHANCELLOR of the EXCRE
4ER
and Sir R. PEEL, and withdrawn by the Right
Hon. Baronet.
Mr. LABOL
TcIIERE gave notice of a motion for
Thursday, April 1, for a Committee to inquire
into the state of the law regulating Joint Stock
Companies.
Mr. H[,TME having asked a question concerning
Lord WALDEGRAVE, was assured by Mr. Fox
[Wawa: that no compromise in the case would
be allowed, that both the Marquis of NOILMANBY
and the Police Commissioners set their faces
against any such proceedings, and that Lord
WALDEGRAVE would be brought up for judg-
ment next term.

In reply to Lord FITZA LA N, Lord JOHN Rus-
SELL stated that he considered the proposed ap-
plication of the parish funds of Marylebone to
send females to South Australia, about which a
good deal has lately been said in the newspapers,
as most improper.
In answer to Mr. E«; ART, Mr. STANLEY stated
that one-half of the Regent's Park was to be
thrown open, but that no alteration was to be
made in Richmond Park ; upon which Mr.
EWART gave notice of his intention to move an
Address to her MAJESTY on the subject.
In a Committee of the whole House on the
Copyright of Designs Acts, Mr. TENNExr moved
resolutions which were agreed to, and a Bill ac-
cordingly ordered to be brought in.

Mr. GROTE then moved resolutions tending to
secure to the colony of New South Wales a
portion of the Land and Emigration Fund, to
provide in part for the expense of police and
gaols in the colony ; but before the Hon. Gen-
tleman could complete his speech the House was
counted out, and at Seven o'Clock adiburned.
The Iy

ne inaugural Address of General HARRISON,
Which we received yesterday, has very much
disappointed us. Instead of a brief, clear enun-
ciation of his views, such as we looked for from
-an old soldier—such as we are accustomed to
hear from the Duke of WELLINGTON—we find a
very long and very obscure address, so over-
loaded with words, that we are made to feel at

"T::.

2
/

every sentence that the General wishes rather to
conceal than express his thoughts. He appears
to have been afraid to dazzle the Americans with
the excess of light that was in his own mind,

and he has darkened it by transmitting it
through a dense medium of words. As it is of
some consequence, however, to ascertain, as far
as possible, what is to be the policy of the
new Government, as contradistinguished from
the farmer, we shall endeavour to gather from
the Address what are General HARRISON'S
principles.

The most interesting point for us foreigners
is fortunately despatched in the fewest words.
The General assures his Tellow-citizens that—
It is my intention to use every means in my power to
preserve the friendly intercourse which now so happily sub-
sists with every foreign nation; and I see in the personal cha-
racters of the Sovereigns, as well as in the mutual interests of
our own and the Governments with which our relations are
most intimate, a pleasing guarantee that the harmony so im-
portant to the interests of their subjects, as well as our citizens,
will not be interrupted by the advancement of any claim or
pretension upon their part to which our honour would not per-
mit us to yield. Long the defender of my country's rights in,
the field, 1 trust that my fellow-citizens will not see in my
earnest desire to preserve peace with foreign Powers any in-
dication that their rights will ever be sacrificed, or the honour
of the nation tarnished, by any admission on the part of their
Chief Magistrate unworthy of their f.rmer glory.
That is all which General HARRISON says
about his foreign policy, and every right thinking
man amongst us will hail with pleasure, and do
his utmost to enforce, the intention of preserving
the friendly intercourse between England and
America. The late American Government did
not, however, make any different professions—it
was not dismissed on account of its foreign
but because its domestic policy was unpopular,
and we, therefore, were anxious to learn what
General HARRISON is to substitute for the mea-
sures of Mr. VAN BUREN.

Chosen by a majority of the electors, he can-
not do otherwise than recognise, as did his
two immediate predecessors, the broadest demo-
cracy as the foundation of the whole Government.
" The whole Constitution," he says, " rests upon
the people ; a breath of theirs having made, a
breath can unmake, change, or modify it."
So far he does not differ from them; -but he im.
mediately afterwards sets up as above the living
democracy the " national compact," which set-
tled the Constitution. " The majority of our
citizens posseSs a sovereignty with an amount of
power precisely equal to that which has been
granted to them by the parties to the national
compact, and nothing beyond." He distinguishes
the American Republic from democracies in
which the people lay claim to a power limited
only by their own will, and above that will he
places the will of those who drew up the Consti-
tution. We fancy we see in this passage a dis-
position in the new President to place bounds,
if he can, to the power of that majority which
elected him, fearing, probably, that it may de-
sert him as it has deserted his predecessor.

He certainly may mean by sovereignty the
functionaries which the will of the sovereign
people has constituted, for he also says—" The
Constitution of the United States is the instru-
ment containing this grant of power to the
several departments composing the Govern-
ment." But if he only means to confine the
several departments of the Government within
the bounds marked out for them by the Consti-
tution, what can be said for the clearness of the
address? We admit that from these contradic-
tory passages we do not know whether General
HARRISON means to regulate the departments by
the Constitution, or to use that to place bounds
to the power of the living democracy. He has,
however, a purpose in view a project of
reform at heart which seems to us alike
incompatible with the duties of the Pre-
sident, which are merely to administer
the Executive, and the principle he subsequently
lays down in his address, that it was " not intended
to make the President the source of legislation."
A reforming President is, we are inclined to
think, not required in, the United States. He
should leave changes to be initiated by the Con-
gress ; but, true to the principle which carried
him into power, he declares what he himself will
do, to comply, we presume, with the wishes of
the party which elected him.
He apprehends that the great danger arises to
1 the American Government, not from a.,usurpa-
tion by it of power which the people has not
granted, but by one department taking to it-
self the power granted to another. He
attributes, in common with others, a tendency in
the President's office to gather the power from the
subordinate and separate department to itself,
and he proposes, as one of the objects of his re-
form, to arrest that tendency. He thinks that it
is a part of the wisdom of the Republic to limit
the service of the President, and he proposes to
give this principle the sanction of his example
by declaring that " under no circumstances will
I consent to serve a second term."

Mr. VAN BUREN and Mr. QUINCEY ADAMS,
we believe, are the only Presidents who have
not served two terms, and we cannot see any
reason for the limitation on the people's free
choice, which General HAnnisoN would pro-
pose. Suppose that at the end of his own term
his country were engaged in war, which
he was prosecuting to a successful issue,
might it not be most unpatriotic and most dan-
gerous for him to adhere to his resolution, or for
his country to be compelled to entrust the con-
duct of affairs into other hands ? In General
]'GARRISON'S ease—who is supposed to have been
placed in the Presidential Chair as what is called
a warming-pan, because his party could not se-
cure the election of either one of two powerful
rivals, who would have been preferred to him—
the resolution may be a wise one, but such a
single instance cannot justify a general prin-
ciple. Nor is its enactment necessary ; for
supposing Mr. VAN BUREN'S Government to
have accumulated power by being a kind of
heir to General JACKSON, the people, by their
choice of General HARRISON, have shown that
they know how to correct the error. In Eu-
rope it is generally said that the Executive Go-
vernment of the United States is not strong
enough, and the new President would diminish
its power. In this we think the General has
mistaken the principles of his party, whose object
is the very reverse of that which he has stated it
to be his intention to perform.
The General discusses at great length the veto
principle, on which he is more than ordinarily
verbose; and, deciding that it was not intended to
constitute the President a part of the Legisla-
tive power, he concludes that 64 the veto power
NsNo'aiiy
scgivaestl
a tcootnhseerEvaxteiNe
Executive of theto be
UniutseeddSotnatlyes,
first, to protecttlieCons h
Constitution from violation;
sl
ee g osnl da
tl
iyo,n
,thNhere their ev people from
has
sects
beenof hasty
legislation, where their will has been pro-
bably disregarded, or not well understood ;
prevent the effectsniinoofritcioems.;
violative o of the
bainnda,tiotnhsirdvliyoi
rights of
Of course he condemns that •
exercise of it by
General JACKSON by which he destroyed the
Charter of the United States Bank.
Considering the tendency in the Executive
power to augment itself, he is strong against the
"unhallowed union
• of the Treasury
with the
Executive Department, which has created such
general alarmTo this and to the danger to
Republican ins • titutions, created by the influence
proposes to apply
all to the Executive through the instrumen-
tality of the federal officers, he
all the remedies at his command. " 4 I have de-
termined," he says, " never to remove a Secre-
tary of the Treasury without communicating all
the circumstances attending such removal to
both I-louses of Congress. Never, with my con-
sent, shall an officer of the people, compensated
for his services out of their pockets, become the
pliant instrument of Executive will."
On the same principle of reducing the power
of the Executive Government, General HAR-
RISON declares that the mode of keeping the
public treasury should be prescribed by Con-
gress, and " the fUrther it is removed from the
control of the Executive, the more wholesome
the arrangement, and the more in accordance
with Republican principles." General JACK-
SON :was the advocate of a t me a ic currency,
that he might make
of the monied
interest. General HARRISON re-
gards the idea of making the currency exclusively
metallic as fraught with more fatal consequences
than any other scheme, h • having no relation to the
personal rights of the citizens, that has everbeen
devised. He will, therefore,
renew and extend the

power of the banks, and raise up a monied aris-
tocracy to control the Executive Government.
It may be that, instead of a blunt old soldier, Ge-
neral HARRISON is a consummate politician, and
he means by all these remarks against increasing
the Executive power only to throw his fellow-
citizens off their guard, and more securely ac-
complish some plan of increasing it which he has
conceived. If it be not so his Government will
be a terrible disappointment to the aristocracy
and the Tories of Europe. They have run down
the Government of General JACKSON and of Mr.
VAN BUREN as too democratic; our Tory and
aristocratic Journals teem day after day with tirades
against the want of power in the Executive and Ge-
neral Government of the United States; the Tories
have led the public to believe that when the Whigs
—as General HARRISON'S friends are called—suc-
ceeded to office, they would improve this and
strengthen the Executive; but the one pervading
principle of Gen. lIARRISON'S Inaugural Address
is that the Executive is too strong, that it gathers
too much power to itself from other departments,
and it must by all possible means be checked and
weakened. Such an Inaugural Address was, we
apprehend, little looked for on this side the At-
lantic.

A strange prospect is opening, on the world.
The Examiner and the Globe have proclaimed
their adhesion to the Tory creed, that the "pre-
sent constitution of the United States must even-
tually fail." It may, therefore, be inferred, as
the leading organs of both parties adopt the
same views, that they are correct. But if the
magnificent political experiment which has been
made in the new world fail, on what can the
hopes of mankind rest ? Can they fall back on
the monarchies of Europe and be contented to
look for nothing better than a series of French
Revolutions, conquering Emperors, Reform
Bill agitations, and Court intrigues?
Comparing the effects of the United States,
Government in the prosperity of the people,
with the effects of the Governments of
Europe, during the last fifty years, we can-
not believe that the monarchies of Europe
have any thing to boast of. The institutions of
the Republic have been in all respects as little
changed as the institutions of any country of
Europe. It has the same form of Government
now as when it threw off the English yoke, while
every European monarchy has in that period
undergone great changes. Europe may be said
to have a federation of Governments as •well as
the United States, but it has been continually
exposed to wars, while the United States have
had only some verbal wranglings one with
another. Though they have received into their
bosoms the offscourings of Europe, they have en-
joyed much greater tranquillity than the prouder
federation of European monarchies, which has
had, as it were, a common police, and has refused
an asylum to those whom it thought dangerous.
The passions, too, which have here found vent in
great and organized legal warfare, have had no

other outlet in the United States than private
broils, and yet individual assassinations have not
been more frequent in the United States than
in Ireland or in Spain, or, perhaps, even than in
England.
If the Government under which the propitious
effects we witness in America is to pass away,
and if nothing better can be hoped for than the
monarchies of Europe, which are, in the opinions
of some persons, hastening to decay, on what
can the hopes of mankind, as to future govern-
ment, be based? The prospect seems to us a
dreary void, and, lest all faith in the future should
become extinct, it may be advisable in those
philosophers of the journals, who seek to extin-
guish the hopes which the rising Republic of the
West had excited, to sketch out some aristocrati-
cal or theoretical Utopia, to realise which should
be the common object of all who act, write,
or think, for the public welfare.

The news from the United States, brought by
the Patrick Henry, is exceedingly pacific. The
substance of this intelligence, including General
HARRISON'S Inaugural Address, as President of
the United States, will be found in another part
of The Sun. The Patrick Henry sailed on the
Bth, and on the 3d the steam ship President
arrived with despatches from Lord PALMER-
STON to Mr. Fox, British Minister at Washing-
ton, the contents of which were the subject
of general speculation throughout the Union.
The report abroad was, that the British Govern-
ment had authorised Mr. Fox to demand the im-
mediate release of Mr. M'LEOD, and in the
event of a refusal, to demand his passports and
quit the country. This Report, however, does
not seem to us to rest on any sure foundation.
It is one of the countless conjectures of many-
tongued. rumour. Mr. M'LEoD was still a pri-
soner at Lockport, but the Government were
about to order his removal to Albany, the capi-
tal of the State of New York, where less excite-
ment prevailed, and where, if tried, there would
be at least a chance of his finding an impartial
Jury.

On the Ist inst., Mr. BUCHANAN, the Chair-
man of the Committee on Foreign Relations,
brought the question of the relations between
Great Britain and the United States under the
notice of the Senate. The speeches of the Hon.
Senators and of Mr. CLAY, who took part in the
discussion, form a gratifying contrast to the in-
temperate Report of Mr. PICKENS to the House
of Assembly, which has already appeared in our
columns. As this discussion places in a clearer
light than has yet appeared in England, the real
sentiments of the first Statesmen of America re-
specting the whole question in dispute, we here
quote it, without abrigement, as reported in the
columns of the New York Courier and Enquirer.