The Sun.
London, England, 1866-05-01 00:00:00

The American PresF.

The New York Tribune has the following :
The veto of the Civil Rights Bill is founded upon
arguments so shallow that they can be answered in
a very few words. The objections on the score of

policy merely are hardly worth discussing at all. If
there is any Republican who is opposed to granting
_ _

citizenship to the coloured race, we leave him Co
argue the question with the editor of the Times, who
introduced a bill for that purpose into Congress, at

an early period of the session, and enthusiastically
urged it in his weathercock columns. The con-

stitutional objections are all that we care to
notice. The objection to any interference by
Congress to secure equal civil rights to the negro
is sufficiently answered by the Message itself,
which expressly declares the President's will-
ingness to co-operate with Congress in securing to
him these rights. How can it be unconstitutional
to protect him in a part of these rights, as the vetoed
bill does, when the President offers (whether sin-
cerely or not) to protect him in all ? But, apart
from this, it is obvious that a man deprived of civil
rights is substantially a slave running loose, who
may be appropriated like a wild horse, by the first
man having rights, who may seize him. Liberty,
without the right to enforce it by suit or testimony,
is a hideous mockery of that sacred name. And if
Congress canna secure to the negro the simple
rights guaranteed to him by this bill, it cannot in
any way enforce the constitutional prohibition of
Slavery. A law against murder, which should
be construed as excepting throat-cutting, would be
as effective an interpretation of the great amend-
ment which should authorise Congress to prohibit
slavery, but deny to it the power to secure civil
rights to the enslaved. The objection to the section
giving to the United States Courts jurisdiction over
cases arising under the bill is fully met by the clause
in the Federal Constitution which declares that the

judicial power of the United States shall extend to I
all cases arising under the laws of the United States.
The objection that the bill makes it a penal)
offence for Legislatures to make or judges to ,
administer laws inconsistent therewith is wholly
without foundation. The penal clauses of the i
bill are so framed as to apply only to executive
officers, such as marshals, sheriffs and gaolers. The
bill, as originally proposed in the Senate, was thought
to be open to misconstruction upon this point,'and it
was amended for the very purpose of making it clear. 1
We shall not enter into a full argument upon this
subject, but refer our readers to the speech of Mr.
Trumbull for its further elucidation. The result of
our examination has been to satisfy us of the utterly
frivolous character of the President's objections to
the bill ; nor do we believe any respectable lawyer,
not a bigoted devotee of Slavery, will venture to
argue in its favour.
The New York Times, of April 10, says :—We
quoted yesterday some remarks from a Boston
periodical, pronouncing Republican institutions a
failure, because " first-class men," such as Phillips,
Emerson, Whittier, Lowell, Sumner, Stevens,
Wade, and Schurz, did not succeed in getting at
the head of the Government as our rulers. There
is no greater mistake than to suppose the flashy
rhetoricians, poets, sentimentalists, logicians;
scholiasts, dervishes, romancers, and transcenden-
talists, are the orders of men appointed by Divinity,
or fit to be selected by the people, as rulers. There
have been Emperors who were eloquent, and Kings
who were rhymsters, and Presidents who were
humorous; there have been rulers and law-makers
who were great, and at the same time devotees,
or sentimentalists, orlogic-choppers. But it is a fact
that when the professors of the intellectual
arts above spoken of have had opportunities of
trying their hand at the practical work of
government and administration, they have gene-
rally made the most melancholy failures. They
found it a much easier thing to shine in the placid
realms of thought than to master or to guide the
fierce passions, and conflicting interests, and
variant vagaries that rise, and struggle, and clash

in the soul of a great nation, and especially during
great politiCal• and social upheavals. In France, in
1848, after the expulsion of Louis Phillippe, a Go-
vernment of orators, and poets, and sentimentalists
was established—men who could turn the roundest
sentenc,es,spin.:the gayest fancies, and strike the big-
gest lyres—with Lamartilie at their head. But of all
the Governments that France has had during the last
century, it proved the weakest and consequently
the worst ; and the power was soon snatched
from their feeble hands by grim soldiers who had
neither elocution nor poetry in their souls _through
whom it quickly passed into the empire. It was
the same in the German revolutions of the
same period. In Berlin as well as other capitals,
they were led, and led to speedy ruin, by professors,
and poets, and sentimentalists. One
ablest of these professor politicians (who
ta the opinion of nearly all
since made the melancholy eon-
f them)
in
nfn dt
thish scholars,
e
o
freedom-spouters proved the de-
struction that the
_heaufdaecdtures,
and pr
rePasesen
the
end
Parliamentsth ath ad the hbey a
thed-
and mer-
mpearascutirceasl freedom,
urgedme
ni
n oft commerce, .
actical life been
vi c e an d theof
apparently
an
,governments would surely
apnardisenet,lyanddulml
brhed.
In the great
adopted, Republican
have been permanently esta is
through thepublic measures necessitated by
great
work of carrying on our own war, and carrying
it, the poets, and orators, and men of brilliant parts
were nowhere ; and it was reserved fora leather-
dealer like Grant, who can neither rhyme nor, so
far as the public knows, reason, and for a
" plain
man" like Lincoln, to be the agents for rescuing this
great nation from the most appalling perils, and
triumphing over military and political obstacles.
that appeared insurmountable. At first we were
inclined to look to the flashing orators and glitter-
ing intellects for our redemption ; but those of
this kidney who did attempt to do something iu
the practical line made such wretched failures, and
their acts of intellect looked so petty amid the
gigantic forces that swayed the nation, that we soon
ceased to look to them in any way whatever. Sup-

pose—to take the names mentioned by the Boston •
periodical— we had during the four years of war •
had Phillips instead of Lincoln for President,
Emerson instead of Seward for Secretary of State,
foro the
Treasury,Secretary
u rNavy,z toStevens
Whittier instead of Stanton for Secretary of War,
Sumnerf
leadSthe foranny
Secretary
and Wade to direct Schu —d rz oes any one fancy we
would have fought patiently through a four years'
war, and come out of the great conflict vic-
toriously ? Taking the utterance of the more
literary and intellectual of these men as the
guides, to what in great events, would have
been their action, and we may safely say that
they would have landed us in hopeless secession
before the war had been waged four weeks. The
truth is, the style of character, mind, and manhood
required for guiding the great practical movements
of nations, and wielding the great vital forces of the
world, is altogether different from that which or-
dinarily belongs to rhetors and rhymesters ; and in-
stead of being a discredit to our political system
that such men do not obtain control of govern-
mental and political affairs, it is this fact which se-
cures the very permanence and coherence of the Re-
public.
The New York Tribune, of April 10, says :
" The witty Frenchman, who portrayed the hour of
creation with a venerable Conservative tearing his
hair frantically and exclaiming, 'My God ! con-
serve Chaos !' was not nearly so extravagant as he
is commonly supposed. Witness the following
extract from the private letter from a venerable
and highly-respectable Texan, whose name we have
no right to print, who is seeking a home at St.
Louis, and writes confidentially to his agent as
follows :—' The , South is for years destroyed,
and a total change of the social and material
state of the country must inevitably ensue. At
present a seeming prosperity exists ; but that
must soon end. From habit, the negro now- is, in
the main, industrious ; but, as his natural traits
assume control over him, he will go from bad to
worse, till he reaches his natural level. That great
depreciation in the lands of this State—those here-
tofore and now reclaimed to cultivation particu-
larly—must take place, I think, is plain. They
already are fully 50 to 75 per cent. below the value
of 1860. Socially, too, society must greatly dete-
riorate. The emigration to be expected will be of
a low standard, and, combining with the negro,
will form the controlling public opinion of
the country. The Southern country gentleman,
so beautiful a character in the past, will totally
disappear. The mercenary trader, or the plodding,
boorish clodhopper, the daily companion of his
hired man, will take his place, and take from the
Southern agriculturist all his claims to respecta-
bility. He will be no more worthy of note than
will be the patent mowing-machine he will use in
his farm labour."
The New York Tribune, announcing the passage
of the Civil Rights Bill in the Senate over the
President's veto says :

So Mr. Stockton's presence would not have
changed the result, as Mr. Scovel's perverseness did
not. And several Senators who have been con-
fidently counted on to " sustain the President''
have voted to sustain the Rights of Man. Honour
to the noble Thirty-three !
Well, it is said, the President will refuse to
enforce the provisions of this Act. That is possible.
But the utility, the value of the act will not thereby
be destroyed. In the first place, so much of the
Act as recognises every one born in this country as
an American citizen asks no odds of the President.
The Courts will take care of its enforcement. And
then a law stands till it is repealed ; while a Pre-
sident's term expires by limitation. Let us be
patient, and trust that all will come right, while
we do our best to keep it from going otherwise.

ELECTION INTELLIGENCE.

WINDSOR:

•
Yesterday morning at an early bour addresses
were issued by Mr. Roger Eykyn, of the " Wil-
lows," Windsor, and Mr. Charles Edwards, of 12,
St. George's-place, Hyde-park-corner, London, the
two Liberal candidates who intend coming forward
to contest the borough at the ensuing election. Mr.
Eykyn says :

"I am a member of the Established Church, but at the
same time a friend of civil and religious liberty. lam op-
posed to Church-rates on principle, and to all tests which
shackle and obstruct the free working of the human intel-

lect, and exclude from the sphere of useful and honourable
labour many who are conscientiously opposed to subscrib-
ing to them. I should support all those measures which
conduce to the freedom of commerce and prosperity of the
nation. I consider that the time has arrived when the
great question of Reform must be fairly met and dispo3ed
of. I should therefore support any measure which extends
the suffrage on a fair and equitable,but not preponderating,
basis to the great producing classes of the country, so as to
secure to labour its rights, and to capital its just influence.
I shall not be content until the anomalies in our elective
system are removed, nor until representation and popula-
tiod, wealth and intellect, are rendered more in aceordance
with the British Constitution ; for it is impossible to allow
for a moment that small boroughs with some 200 or 300
electors should have asmueh weight in Parliament as great
constituencies numbering many thousands. Ihave confi-
dence in the present Government, and should give them an
independent and cordial support if I should have the
honour of being returned as one of your representatives."
Mr. Edwards observes :

"I am an earnest supporter of the present Government,
and believing that the time is opportune for a reform in
the representation of the people by a reasonable extension
of the franchise and by a redistribution of seats, I shall
support the Ministry in their desire to settle this great
question in an honest and equitable spirit. The financial
policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is too well ap-
preciated by the great voice of public opinion to require
me to say more than that I cordially approve of it, and
trust that the country may long have the benefit of his
wise and experienced counsel in the control of its revenue
and expenditure. I am in favour of the abolition of
Church-rates. Our relations with foreign Governments
have, in my judgment, been conducted by her Majesty's
present advisers with sound discretion, preserving to us
the blessings of peace, and maintaining unsullied our
national honour."

Both of the Liberal candidates have commenced an
active canvass of the vote of the electors.

The Windsor Express states that it had been
arranged between the representatives of the two
political parties in the Royal borough that there
should be no contest on the occasion of the coming
election to supply the vacancies occasioned by the
unseating of Sir H. Hoare and Mr. Labouchere,
but that Captain Bulkeley, a director of the
Great Western Railway Company, should go in
on Conservative principles, and Mr. Roger
Eykyn, whose name was so prominent during
the late investigation, should represent the
Liberals. A correspondent informs us that
this arrangement was probably to be considered in
the light merely of a truce, and that Mr. Vansittart,
the late Conservative member for the' borough,
looks forward to regaining his seat, either by
arrangement or contest after the next dissolution.
The Conservatives were evidently unprepared for
this sudden change in the programme. Steps were,
however, at once taken by the chiefs of the latter
party to meet the difficulty, and Mr. Long con-
vened a meeting of the electors, which assembled at
seven o'clock yesterday evening at the White Hart
Hotel, in order that Sir H. Drummond Wolff and
Col. Gardiner might be introduced to them. Both
candidates were present. Capt. Darby presided ;
and among those in the room were Capt. Bulkeley,
Dr. Elvey, Messrs. Long, Phillips, Batcheldor,
Nixon, Adams, and Hanson, the Rev. S. Hawtrey,
&c. Sir 11. D. Wolff and Col. R. Gardiner were
severally introduced and received with much ap-
plause, each gentleman evidently explaining his
political principles to the satisfaction of the audience.