The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-20 00:00:00

Zile ./13-1,4

LONDON:
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, IE4I.

We yesterday made a few observations to illus-
trate the opposite effects of the centralizing and all-
Tcgulating Government of France, and the localizing
and comparatively little-regulating Government of
England. 'Fire Journal des Debuts of Friday
last has an article from which we may gather sup-
port for thes2 views.

The Dchals justly connects the democratic party
in the United States with hostility to a national
debt. Nothing higher could be said in its praise.
The practice in the monarchical Governments of
Europe of pledging the resources of posterity has
been found pregnant with mischief and ruin. If
no other reproach can he heaped on the principle
of dunocracy than hostility to a national debt, the
ablest financiers and most honest councillors in
Europe will regard it with reverence ; for they, like
Dr. 11AmILTON and Mr. M'CULLOCU, have ad-
vised that every nation should rain within the year
a sullicient revenue to cover the expenses of the

year.
The Dcoats imputes to democracy, as an offence,
an aversion to a national bank. Its disadvan-
tages are not yet so clear as those of a national
debt, but ADAM &mull, no mean authority, pre-
ferred private banks. Every establishment ap-
proaching the nature and character of a national
bank in Europe, not even excepting the Bank of
England, has made something like a bankruptcy ;
and the manner in which the monarchical Govern-
ments of Europe have degraded the paper they have
issued has brought misery 'and ruin on thousands
If it be characteristic of a democratic, or mercantile
spirit to hate a national bank, we reckon that to its
honour.

The Journal des Debats, ignorant of the nature
and sources of mercantile credit, and of the paper
which it puts into circulation, which, as BUIiKE
says, is " of value on 'Change, because it has no
value in Westminster Hall," which is defiled by
the sanction of the law, because the Legislature
creates no wealth, and has no goods on their way
to market, like the merchant, wherewith to take up
its bills--the Journal des Debars, has a short me-
thod of overturning the careful observation of S Nt I T H
and the shrewdness of B u RK E. "From the moment,"
it says," when a system of banking is admitted into
the country, from the moment that it is acknow-
ledged that the United States cannot dispense with
paper money and eredi, it is not only useful, it is
absolutely indispensable to the national welfare, that
a great institution of credit and circulation should
he placed above all the banks." In that passage

the spirit of NAPOLEON domineers over trade,
and as certainly crushes it as the same kind of
Imperial spirit has lost France her colonies, and
ruined her commerce. The Debats might as well
assert that from the time that London could not
dispense with gas light, and Manchester was
obliged to have recourse to cotton spinning, that a
great gas and spinning establishment should he
placed by the power of the Government above all
the manufactories of gas and cotton twist. Bank
promises and credit notes are as much the offspring
of commerce and division of labour as gas lighting
and cotton spinning, and the Government might as
well undertake the management of the latter as of
the former.

It is amusing at present to find the Journal Iles
Dcbats, which seems to misapprehend the nature
and effect of the democracy of the United States,
ascribing to it " a savage national and personal inde-
pendence." " Its perfection" is said to destroy every
bond between individuals in each country, and be-
tween each portion of the human race. This is
amusing, at a time when France is almost isolated
by her absurd political system, though she be in
the heart of Europe ; and at a time when the
United States has by its commerce more connection
with England and with the continent of Europe
than any one of the great monarchies of Europe has
with England or with the rest of the Continent.
The democratic system, which requires co-operation
to elect a wardman as well as to elect a
President—which puts no obstacle to the
division of labour, and thus makes every man
dependent on others, and which allows of free trade
with every other nation, is the very reverse of a
system of isolation either of individuals or of
nations. No, the proud monarchy where man has
no occasion to commune with man to attain a com-
mon end, but where the whole herd is driven by a
common master—where the apprehensions of some
rival monarchy interdicts traffic, and cuts off a nation
as France is now ahnost cut off from the rest of
Europe—the proud monarchy, elate 'with vain glo-
rious conquest, utterly regardless of the millions
who live in it, is the Government for isolating a
nation front other nations, and isolating the indivi-
duals who compose it. As France is now separated
from the rest of Europe, so the inhabitants of Paris
and the distant provinces of France, the luxurious
idlers of the Chaussee d'Antin, and the hard-
working, hard-living artizans of the Faubourg St.
Antoine, are more estranged from each other, and
have less sympathy with one another, than any class
of American citizens.
When the well-informed Journal des De-
bats writes on France or on the continent of
Europe, it is worthy of much respect, but its re-
marks on the democracy of America are tinctured
with the spirit of the Imperial Guard. For that
body BONA PA RTE was a divinity—for the
Dcbats, the Government of France, at present, is
perfection. We prefer the activity of the demo-
cracv which has called into life " a multitude of
cities, an incredible extent of canals and of rail-
roads," to. the inertness of a monarchy of which
the cities, except one or two, are not flourishing, in
which not above one canal has been made for up-
wards of a century, and which has not yet con-
structed more than a single railway of very short
extent.

Some of the Scotch clergy have assumed a bold
attitude of defiance towards the law which is worthy
of notice, if not of imitation. The Rev. Gentlemen,
however, will probably find imitators. They teach
the laity a lesson, and set them an example. They
are our authorised teachers. They claim a higher
authority than lawmakers, and their pretensions
tend to overthrow either the law or themselves.
Careless or superficial writers and thinkers may turn
up their eyes with astonishment, and wonder whi-
tl►er this will lead ; but they live in times such as
never were before, and strange events are every day
the parents of strange doctrines.
At a meeting of the Presbytery of Edinburgh on
the 6th instant, that body adopted this resolution in
reference to the Strathbogie case, which has been
decided adversely to the principles of the Presby-
tery, first, by the Court of Session, and subse-
quently, on appeal, by the House of Lords :
" That the Presbyterycontemplate this decision of the
Court of Session with the deepest regret and alarm, as
involving the exercise of jurisdiction by a civil court in
an ecclesiastical matter, and as being thus inconsistent
with the word of God, the standards of the Church,
and an encroachment upon the acts and liberties secured
to the Church and people of Scotland by the Revolu-
tion settlement, the Act of Security, and the Treaty of
Union."

The Presbyterian clergy, then, not to be
behind the priests of the Romish and the Anglican
Churches in claiming a power derived from a higher
source than the law, set up the " word of GOD," in
opposition to the jurisdiction of their civil court.
When it suits their purposes every " authority" is
said to be of GOD, and men are commanded to
"obey fot the LORD'S sake ;" but now another
authority is set up against the law—the word of
GOD " in opposition to the authority of law," which
is also of GOD, and, therefore, according to the clergy
GOD'S authority is in conflict with GOD'S authority.
It will require some of the mystical and holy con-
juration in which the priesthood deals to remove
the discrepancy between their demands on the laity
to obey the authority of the law as of divine origin
and their claims to set aside that authority because I
it is opposed to the word of GoD.
When the Court of Session lately ordered the
Presbytery of Strathbogie to induct Mr. En-
WA RDS, if they had no reason for refusing, the LORD
PRESIDENT said, the Act, 1592, provided that the
Presbytery " were BOUND and astricted to admit
and receive whatsomever qualified person" who
was presented to them ; " so the Court," adds a
Commentator, " simply declared that a Presbytery
could not refuse, without any reason whatever, to
perform a duty, and to repudiate an obligation laid''
on them by statute." But a Mr. C UNINGHAME,
a leader of the most-holy-of-all men, and therefore
very little lower than an angel, has found out that
the Act of 1592 has not provided any means for
enforcing on the Presbytery the duty it requires the
Presbytery to perform. He said at the meeting—
" I have further to state, that there is no statute in
the land which professes to give to the Court of Session
the power to. order a Presbytery to receive and admit.
They can produce no principle from national law ; they
can produce no dicta trom distinguished writers on law ;
they can produce no decisions from the Court of Session
itself, since the era of the Revolution, which affords
them the slightest vestige of countenance for this order.
The question then occurs, on what ground does the
Court of Session found their claim to this power, or on
what principle do they defend it? Why, we all know
that there is an Act of Parliament binding and restrict-
ing Presbyteries to receive and admit qualified persons.
It is quite true that there is an Act of Parliament con-
taining these words, and that by that Act an obligation
is imposed upon the Church to receive and admit.
may
But
then there is
inz no provision
in giving
authority
to
by vhi which that t
the
obligation
Court 7
ofay
be enforced, 0
•h
Session to interfere to enforce it. . • •
" There may be a deficiency in the statute--that
is
no business of mine ; but if the Court of Session supply
that deficiency by a contrivance of its own—and that, in
this case, they have done—they break the law, they
set themselves above the law, unquestionably they set
themselves above the law ; they assume to themselves
the part of legislators ; they make laws for themselves,
in support of which they cannot point to any statute or
former decision of their own. But it may be said, is
there no way of enforcing this civil right ? We say,
they have no right to invent modes which the law has
not sanctioned ; and they have no right to break other
laws under the pretext of enforcing this one:'
" It is not expressly said that the supreme civil Court
is to interpret and enfbrce the statute. The right of
the Court to enforce statutes against all the rest of the
subjects is not expressly given to them as to us Church.
men. Hence We may violate the statute with perfect
impunity.
" This I will say, that the decision pronounced in.