The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-13 00:00:00

fib rutt ift _int.4

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1847.

A Legislative Assembly has never opened more
ominously than the Spanish Cortes for the session of
1847. With a reckless audacity altogether without
any parallel in the records of constitutional monarchy,
the Isturitz Administration has wantonly violated
one of the fundamental principles of the national code.
In causing Senor OLOZAGA to be arrested on his way
to assume his place as leader of the Opposition in the
House of the Legislature, the Government of Queen
ISABELLA has offered a heinous insult to all the
most sacred and eminent institutions of the Peninsula.
By thus violently seizing the representative of the
electors of Albacete, the Ministers have committed an
unpardonable offence to the electors throughout the
Spanish dominions ; they have bearded the Opposition
beyond forgiveness by thus incarcerating its avowed
chieftain ; they have contemned the supreme autho-
rity of the Cortes in regard to one of its most dis-
tinguished members; they have exceeded the autho-
rity allowed them by the moderate regulations of the
Constitution ; they hare trampled upon the privileges,
and the prerogatives, and the holiest rights of every
citizen in the empire. It is now absolutely impossible
that any other reparation can be made to the Penin-
sula for this enormous political offence saving the
retirement of the present Administration from the
offices which its members have so shamefully abused.
Even supposing the most treasonous and fla-
gitious acts were " brought home" to the im-
prisoned Deputy, even supposing that Senor
OLOZAGA were proved to be guilty of some pro-
digious treachery, whereby the very existence of the
Constitution was endangered, the Ministers of her
Catholic MAJESTY have shown themselves too liable
to exceed the administrative authority reposed in their
hands, they have shown themselves too capable of in-
vading the powers solely intrusted to the representa-
tives of the sovereign people, they have shown them-
selves too capable of obeying the most arbitrary plea-
sures of royalty, to be permitted to continue with
impunity their course of shameless and contemptible
obsequiousness.
So many acts of oppression have recently been
sustained by the population of the Peninsula, either
from the Cabinet of the Tuileries or from the osten-
sible agents of that Cabinet, that it is a comparative
satisfaction to discover, in the arrest of Senor OLo-
ZAGA no single evidence that that proceeding has
occurred either with the connivance or approval of
the French Government. Indeed, the Parisian press,
Ministerial as well as Opposition, has been unani-
mous, almost without a solitary exception, in its indig-
nation at this daring violation of the popular preroga-
tives of the Spanish peninsula. Beyond this, it would
appear that the Count DE BRESSON has expressed his
displeasure at an act so calculated to destroy the cha-
racter of the Ministry under Senor ISTURITZ, and
thereby to militate against the interests of France in
those territories. It is manifest from this, if from
nothing else, that the occurrence to which we are re-
ferring cannot possibly have originated in the council-
chambers of his Majesty King Lours PHILIPPE. We
appreciate the sagacity of that extraordinary man too
thoroughly to conceive for a single moment that he
could have been so preposterously short-sighted as to
instigate Senor Isruarrz and his colleagues to the
commission of a crime little less than the crime of
Ministerial suicide. We are consequently disposed to
acquit those Gallic politicians who have hitherto
striven to jeopardise the independence of Spain from
any participation whatever in the seizure of Senor
OLOZAGA-a seizure which is more likely than the
most flagrant pandering to the ambitious avarice of
the French Monarch to arouse the Iberian people to
a consciousness of their own perilous and degraded
condition, and simultaneously to rekindle in their
hearts the smouldering fire of patriotism.
Before the Cabinet of Madrid had taken, or had
probably even conceived this most hazardous experi-
ment upon the patience and`forbearance of the Spanish
community, vs e looked with curiosity and interest
for the commencement of the sessional labours of the
Cortes. That interest is enhanced, that curiosity is
redoubled. Jt now remains to be seen whether there
is still sufficient dignity in the new assembly of re-
presentatives to prompt them to vindicate their cha-
racter thus perilled, their authority thus thwarted,
their individual and corporate prerogatives thus con-
temned and usurped. It remains to be seen whether
the electoral inhabitants of the Peninsula are still
sufficiently impressed with the responsibilities accu-
mulated upon their shoulders, and the solemn immu-
nities ensured to them by the decrees of the Consti-
tution, to incite them to the publication of some
spirited protest against the official robbers of those
responsibilities and the official violators of those
immunities.

Either Senor OLOZAGA must be convicted of some
extraordinary offence against the law, or against
the sovereign Lady regarded as the representative of
the law, or against the fabricators of the law—the
Spanish people; or the Government themselves will
ipso facto stand convicted of an extraordinary and
treasonous offence—namely, the causeless assumption
of despotic power. Among the various living states-
men of Spain who have attained any degree of emi-
nence, the name of OLOZAGA has acquired a conspi-
cuous position. With a mind enlightened beyond
the average enlightenment of his class—with a heart
prone to cherish all the attributes most calculated to
reflect creditably upon the social condition of his
countrymen—with an ardent loyalty, and a patriotic
enthusiasm, and an immaculate character, and an in-
dependent disposition, and an eloquent tongue, OLO-
ZAGA has ensured to himself the affection, and com-
manded the respect. of a very considerable majority
of the Spaniards. His influence in the Cortes may be
at once recognised in the fact of his having been
chos
en leader of the Opposition. In attacking
suarnoaorie; therefore,
peculiarly
and
contumeliousi n attaching
himan
dmi
insolent,
he Ministers have assailed the entire community
upon a point the. most certain to arouse all their
sentiments of indignation and all their passions of
revenge. The colouring of
thewhole transaction is
to enhance
so peculiarly villanous as rather than to
mitigate
population.
ofo the
of three entire years llt er at n he
intery wrath
al
the enmity I,
proceeding.
OLOZAGA A
o is
On
of the Court faction towards Senor
gratified by this unconstitutional
applying to the Ambassador in Paris for
passports to
enable him to revisit his native country, he is, at the

instigation oC., the Afrancesado Cabinet, positively re-
fused. Ult imately he obtains the requisite passports
from the Syanish Consul at Bayonne, but then, only
after first producing for his inspection the certificate
of his eleotion as Deputy for Albacete, and,
secondly, after referring to the enactment 'of
the 25th of April, .1846, whereby the impeding
of any popular representatives by any functionary
whatever is rendered punishable by death. Never-
theless, in spite of that stringent and explicit enact-
ment, Senor OLLNZAGA is arrested on his way to
Madrid, and immured in the citadel of Pampeluna.
It actually becomes a question whether in violating the
sacred office of a Deputy selected by the people, and a
member of the Spanish Cortes, the Ministers have not
simultaneously violated the law of the 25th
April, 1846, and thereby committed a crime
expiable only by capital punishment! Under similar cir-
cumstances a monarch would be sheltered under the
shadow of that august dogma—" The King can do no
wrong." Such protection an Administration is alto-
gether without; for we have yet to learn that " Mi-
nisters can do no wrong." There is no loophole, in-
tied, through which ISTURITZ and his colleagues can
e„:*.tse; iiiiere is no subterfuge by which they can
be scrt:;ql==fl ; there is no excuse which can be
Qn. Aker ministering to the
accepted as a palliak.
ruthless ambition of a foreig2 potentate ; after bar-
tering the liberties of their country for the favour of
a French Sovereign and the presentati-0 of a few
gaudy ribbons; after rendering their post as Di.(:!lis-
ters to Iberian royalty a mockery and a shame ; after
bowing like vassals to the will of a Gallic Ambas-
sador, and winking at the rapacity of a regal concu-
bine, the Government of the Afrar.cesados has now
rendered itself for ever odious and detestable by an
unparalleled violation of the laws of the empire.

We regret far less that our Contemporary, the
Morning Advertiser, cannot concur in the views we
have offered in opposition to the immediate abolition
of capital punishment, than that we cannot coincide
with those which they have embraced in its favour.
The primary instincts of humanity rest undoubtedly
with their side of the question—and it is impossible
to divest oneself of great respect for those who enlist
their feelings and energies in aid of philanthropy.
But while we honour their sentiments we arraign
their judgment. We hope and believe that the day
will come when extreme punishment may safely be
blotted out from the statute-book. They think the
time is already come—and herein lies the chief point
of difference between us. On the other hand, we are
glad to perceive a union of opinion in other respects.
Our opponents agree with us that polemical contro-
versy had better be left to professed theologians, and
therefore that civilians especially would do well,
when addressing public meetings on this question, to
avoid referring to the Scriptures; and they further
agree with us when they state, that "it is not by the
gallows that men or governments are to reform and
improve society, but by a moral, religious, and
Christian education." When the blessings of such
an education shall have been universally diffused
among the people, then, in the natural order of things,
will the black apparatus of death become obsolete in
practice ; but when we are urged, by those desirous of
prohibiting forfeiture of life by law, to infer and be-
lieve, that the people are already tufficiently educated
in, and imbued with, the principles of morality and
religion, we grieve to think they are in error in
drawing such flattering conclusions.
We concede to our Contemporary that the abstract
merits of the question of the expediency of abolishing
capital punishment are not, and indeed ought not to
be, affected by the unskilful arguments and infelici-
tous illustrations in which the speakers at public
meetings have recently indulged. But these speakers
look to win over public opinion by the conviction
which, as they conceive, they ought to work in oppo-
sition to the existing law; and therefore they ought
to have been more painstaking in the selection of
their materials for accomplishing the end which
(however mistakingly) they humanely hold in
view. The unhappy juxta-position in which they
placed murderers with lunatics, objects of real com-
miseration, and still worse, with the honourable pro-
fession of the British soldier, is revolting to common
sense.

The hypercritical argument, that the word
" sword," historically considered, is, in the text, " the
magistrate beareth not the sword in vain," as em-
blematical in its signification as the word "sceptre "
would have been, is altogether devoid of weight.
The sceptre has always been an, emblem of regal
power—the sword, from time immemorial, an instru-
ment of destruction. " The sword " may, or may
not be used in an emblematical sense ; " the sceptre "
can only be used emblematically. But, granting the
word " sword," in the passage alluded to, to be purely
emblematical, then it is an emblem of magisterial
power, absolute, or restrained by law. If the law
warrant punishment by death, as is the case in this
country, then does capital punishment certainly seem
to be authorised by the text ; for we are told that the
sword shall not be borne "in vain." If the magis-
trate's power be absolute, and merely dependent upon
his 'will, the case becomes still worse for the view
contended for by the abolitionists. With all due de-
ference, then, we must adhere to our original stric-
ures upon the speech of Mr. ALFRED STEVENS.
t Our Contemporary asserts, that if punishment does
not prevent crime, it should not be sanctioned. But
the fact, that murder is still committed does not
make good the truth of his assertion ; because no
punishment, hitherto invented, secondary or justly,
proportioned as it may have been to the offence per-
petrated, has had the desirable effect of extinguishing
that or any other particular species of crime ;
whereas, if our opponents' proposition be sound, it
would, when pushed to its legitimate results, lead to
the abrogation of all punishment whatsoever. Let
us try our Contemporary a little further. He con-
tends life ought not to be taken away under any
circumstances. Suppose a man to enter his room,
and threaten his life with a loaded pistol
at his breast, and the alternative to be that
he must either kill his assailant, or be killed him-
self. We apprehend the answer to be, that he would
be justified in taking the life of the assassin in self-
defence. Precisely upon the same principle does so-
ciety act, in its collective capacity, as he would do in his
individual. If' it be rejoined that it is not a necessary
act on the part of the State to take life, when the prisoner
in safe custody, we answer that the purpose of the
law (which is never one of vengeance) is not only
adequately to punish the criminals, but so to punish
as to act as a warning to others, and thus to
defend society at large, as far as it can, from the
inhuman sacrifice of innocent blood.

Again, we are challenged " to account for
the decrease of some kinds of crime since
the substitution of secondary for capital punish-
ments." In the first place, we would observe that
executions are comparatively rare to what the—y
were, and so far we have a reasonable presumption
that the present law is working favourably. In the
next, we might deny that crimes, to which secondary
punishments are attached, have decreased. And here
we would remark the complete absence of all statistics
in the numerous speeches that have of late been made
upon this momentous topic. Our adversaries are bound
to furnish their statistics. We could then analyse them,
and discover what they are worth. However, crimes
may have been lessened on account of secondary
punishments being more justly proportioned to the
respective gravity of offences, and that, as a conse-
quence of this, parties have been more willing to pro-
secute, whereby a prompt and certain punishment
now overtakes offenders, who formerly escaped with

impunity from the severity of the law. Another
reason may be, that by the enactment of better law 3,
incentives to different crimes have been removed.
Such was the case with respect to forgery, when the
ore-pound notes were done away with. Such
has likewise been the case by better understood laws
of revenue leading to the extinction of smuggling,
formerly the prolific source of so much shedding of
human blood. These are suggestive reasons which
we advance to convince our opponents that they
ought to produce their statistics. We do not yield
to them in sentiments of humanity, but we feel we
best appreciate this sentiment when we evince a dis-
inclination to the extinction of a law, framed for the
protection of our lives, being carried by unsupported
dicta, and reasonings, which, however specious, are
nevertheless feeble and inconclusive.

The memorial from the noblemen, gentlemen, and
landed proprietors of the county of Kilkenny, which
has recently been presented to the Lord-Lieutenant