The Sun.
London, England, 1856-10-03 00:00:00

;pirit of the Public Journal,.

(Prom the Daily News of this day.)
Every week now unfolds new aspects of the
Presidential Election—the most important Presi-
dential election for half a century. All the illus-
trative incidents are fresh, and some of them are
very strange.
The most important move perhaps is the revival
of the Bull of Gregory XVI. against negro slavery,
which we publish textually in another part of our
columns. The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Mrs.
Stowe's brother, edits the most flourishing religious
newspaper in the United States—the New York
Independent. In a number of that paper, of 28th
August, the editor relates an anecdote of a wealthy
citizen finding to his surprise that his Irish coach-
man, a Catholic, was not going to vote on the De-
mocratic side on the present occasion. It has been
so completely a matter of course for the Catholics
to vote on the " Democratic'' side, and it usually
takes so long to convince a body, like that of the
European immigrants, that a change of principles
is covered by the old term, that all the world con
chided that the entire Romanism of the Union
would go for Buchanan. The citizen inquired his
coachman's reasons for intending to vote for Fre-
mont. The man replied that it was contrary to his
religion to vote on the pro-slavery side. The Catho-
lics who did so, he declared, were ignorant of the
Pope's Bull • as they well might be in America,
since the Bull is omitted from the Prayer-books of
American Catholics. He brought his Irish Prayer-
book to his employer, who handed it to Mr. Beecher,
for the publication of the Bull. It appeared in the
Independent of August 28, headed by a woodcut
representing the Pope blessing a kneeling negro.
Of course, the Ball was known to American Catho-
lics when first issued ; but Bishop England, of
Charleston, took upon himself to decide that the
slavery denounced was that of Mohammedan coun-
tries, and the trade of the African coast, and the
Bull was suppressed in religious books, and allowed
to drop out of sight and out of mind. Its applica-
tion to American slavery is so clear that it required
the audacity of a political priest to ignore it. Its
publication in the Independent produced so strong
and so immediate a sensation that an edition, in
pamphlet form, of 40,000 copies was issued as soon
as it could be got ready. ' Of course, the Indepen-
dent is reviled in the religious world of the South
as having become a political newspaper; but there
is no excluding a Papal Bull from the range of
ecclesiastical topics, whatever may be its political
effect. The Catholics have in this case learned
something new within the pale of their own
church ; and the immediate effect is carrying over
the Catholic body in the United States to the side
of Fremont. The last American census gives the
number of Cathol'...c churches as 1,112, and the
accommodation in them as for 620,950 ; explaining
that this retarn gives no idea of the real numbers,
as worship is held in school-room; private houses,
and public halls, where churches do not yet exist.
At the lowest computation, the accession of the
bulk of the Catholic body may probably suffice to
turn the scale is; 'Fremont's favour.
Another iwaication is the vehemence excited in
both particr,s by the result of the Main elections.
An nide:Lai dependent of the President's had con-
fidelitiy betted on a majority of 6,000 against the
Re :publicans. The first move, under the impulse of
Disappointment, is to organise means for disallow-
ing the elections, if Fremont should be the success-
ful candidate. Absurd and incredible as such a
proposal appears, it is certainly entertained at
Washington. Some of the Southern leaders say
openly that " Fremont will not be allowed to take
his seat." We shall see presently how his exclusion
will probably be attempted. His friends, mean-
time, are regretting the exultation with which the
Maine elections have been received. It is true,
they say, that no single symptom could be so
favourable as this demonstration of the sound re-
publicanism of the State which opens the electoral
movement in New England : but it is too soon for
confidence. Failure in Maine would have caused
despondency - and success must not induce secu-
rity. The Maine elections were the topic of the
day when the last mails were made up.
Another fresh and timely disclosure is that Fre-
mont was offered and refused, at this time last year,
an authorisi3d and deliberate offer from the Demo.
cratic party of nomination for the Presidentship.
Governor: Floyd, of Virginia, was deputed by the
leading 'men of the party, rorth and South, to
offer tKeir services to Col. Fremont, and two inter-
views took place at New York, in September, 1855,
whiela resulted in Fremont's replying that, regard-
in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as he
d=id—as an infamous breach of pledged faith—he
could not accept nomination by the voices of its
supporters. The fact is now elicited by circum-
stances from a friend and fellow-traveller (at that
time) of Fremont's—the Hon. George Bates, who
made his statement at a public meeting. The de•
light of the one party and the fury of the other at
this disclosure may be imagined.
Another incident is the wide circulation of a
chronological record of Mr. Buchanan's votes, put
forth by the Richmond Enquirer, under the head-
ing, "A Record without a blemish." It is a sign
of the blindness and imprudence of Southern poli-
ticians that such a panegyrist should not see that
his record must injure his candidate more in the
North than it could benefit him in the South. The
dates given are twelve :
In 183% Mr. Buchanan supported the Gag Bill—(the
act whi•ch prohibited the transmission of anti-slavery
documents through the Post-office).
1n.1836 he voted for the admission of Arkansas 48 a
slave state.
In 1836-7 he voted to reject petitions for the abolition
of slavery in the district of Columbia.
In 1837, he voted for Mr. Calhoun's construction of
state slavery, by which the South engrossed federal
ll'Aterity.

In 1338, 1339, and 1340, he voted with Southern
members for the suppression of anti-slavery petitions.
In 4844-5 he voted for the annexation of Texas.
In 1847 he sustained the Clayton compromise.
In 1850 be proposed and urged the extension of the
Miahouri compromise to the Pacific Ocean, for the en-
largement of slave territory.
In 1850 he voted for the repeal of the compromise ;
also for the enlargement of slave territory ; and urged
strict enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law.
Ia 1851 he opposed the action of the Pennsylvania
Legislature for contravening the Fugitive Slave Law.
In 1354 he negotiated for the acquisition of Cuba.
In 1856 he supports the principle of the Kansas
Nebraska Act—that is, the extension of slavery over
free soil.
To sum up, " he never gave a vote acainst the rote
rests of slavery, and never uttered a word which could
pain the most sensltive Southern heart."
Such is Mr. Buchanan, by the • ony of his
supporters---the same men who vvui testimony
at this time
last year, have been glad etn ftllpielSio'bo rn
Fre,-Jnt for their candidate. lat douth t ern-
hey pro-
P°se in case of the success of the one or the other?
Such proposals as the following are strong- signs of
t he time.
If Mr. Buchanan succeeds he is pledged to the
carrying out of the Cincinnati programme_
Tlan—that is,
" ascendancy in the Gulf of Mexico," the annexa-
tion of Cuba, and the "settlememitnosO; the slavery
question" by swamping the freen tates—a thing
more easily proposed than ach. If, on the
other hand, Fremont succeedsillzie.ovinsdie be excluded
all withdrawn
from the chair by its powers
before be can grasp them. Ia tellinegwords of Buch-
anan's supporters, "it is erranged
Carolina
to call the legis-
latures of Virginia, South
arolina, and Georgia
from the Union
to concert measures to withdraw
before Fremont can get p,eosesfesosi)on. of the army and
Geyer-
navy and the purse-strint
nor Wise is actively at workparlerid7yniranett matter.
th© erner-
The South can rely on the
gency contemplated. The question
wllqnsou7staiiii wthieeir.
ther the people of the South
leaders." This is Washington
dispose
to New
Orleans. It is of itself enough to
PA)mtsheerOrielcathnes
assertions made, through the Times, byls
orgy the
ofat of
in England, that disunion is merely tit!,
a few fanatics. But the Virginia or„
Buchanan party express " their hope that the
e
pious South, with its law-and-order-lovine plan-
ters,
will, through Mr. Buchanan, make
such
an impressi on on the middle States as to induce
them to join for the exclusion of the North
from the Union- Au extension of the slave-
holding territory to the neighbourhood of the great
lakes, so as to include Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and
Pennsylvania, an alliance with Russia and Brazil,
and the possession of Cuba, will, it is supposed,
serve the purpose of stemming and turning back
the torrent of infidelity, materialism, sensuality,
agrarianism end anarchy that threatens to, over-
whelm.' us freiu the prolific hive of northern
Europe." On thin Virginian manifesto in favour
of disunion follows one from South Carolina, no
less emphatic. The Charleston Mercury sap:—
" There is not a single public man in the limits of
our State, not one of her present representatives or
senators in Congress, who is not pledged to the lips
in favour of disunion. We have had enough of the
'glorious union.' . . . Athoroughly organised
disunion party is the desideratum, and until such
be formed at the South, all time devoted to poli-
tical discussion will be time wasted."

Such is the constitutionalism, the political mo-
rality of the Slave Power. If it can obtain its own
candidate 'it will enforce its sectional Policy on the
free North by the help of the Czar, and a buccaneer-
ing foreign policy. If it loses its candidate it will
cornit treason ; and it is now preparing to do so.

(From the Times.)

virot a man of leisure Lord Stanley must be,—
senteniber at any rate ! And what a fund of
,atn
inrce be must possess ! Where does he spend
his vaoatioa 9 We have several acquaintances we