The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

THE " ANGLO-AMERICAN TIMES.—An article
in the Times of Saturday last, regarding the
present position of parties in America, may be
taken as a fair sample of moderate opinion in
this country under the influence of Democratic mis-
representation. Yet the imputation conveyed is most
unjust to the Northern people. Between them and
the South President Johnson is described as:having
stood with a nobility and courage which will bring
him honour when his failings are forgotten. The
North is represented as thirsting for blood and
plunder; blood, to satiate a craving for revenge—
confiscation, to enrich the Northern politician at the
expense of the Southern planter. It is by such
misrepresentation the sympathies of this country
are enlisted in favour of the suffering South. We
freely confess that a colouring of truth is given to
the imputation by the exaggerated language habitual
with the extreme politicians of the Union. Talk
goes further than acts in influencing the mass of
mankind. Were the talkers silenced, and nothing
but acts recorded, the Democratic party would not
be able to deceive European judgment so success-
fully as they have hitherto done. The history of
the breach between the North and South is a
record on the one part of the most unjustifiable and
persistent attempt to dismember the Republic, and
a still more persistent effort on the part of the other
to maintain the integrity of the nation. The sole
object of the Northern people has been to reunite
the severed Union on a permanent basis of equal
rights. They have no other object whatever, and
those who attribute to them other motives speak
without regard to truth. There may be differences
of opinion as to the best manner of accomplishing
the object, but there is none as to the object itself.'
No nation has ever yet, after suppressing so disas-
trous a rebellion, acted with such conciliation and
generous forbearance towards the rebels. This is
not due to Mr. Johnson or any other man. It is
due solely to the distinct expression of national
feeling. It is most unjust to the Northern people
to represent the President as standing between
them and revenge on the South. He acted simply
in accordance with the wishes of the people, which
no President—in this matter—would have dared to
outrage. But how has the South received the for-
bearance and magnanimity of their Northern con-
querors?—by the massacres of Memphis and New
Orleans—by a terrible prescription of the freedmen,
and perils to the lives of the white loyal inhabitants
—by the fiercest denunciations of the Press—and
by the inauguration of a political campaign, aided
by their Democratic allies, which threaten all the
principles for which the nation so long and ardently
contended. Suppose Ireland were to raise the
standard of revolt, and fight for four years a san-
guinary war with Great Britainsuppose the re-
bellion to be then totally crushed, with the National
Debt of England doubled, and a quarter of a
million of her sons buried under the green sod of the
Emerald Isle—suppose the first step taken by the
rebels, after the suppression of the revolt, was the
murder of the Prime Minister under whose auspices
the war had been successfully closed--would the
vengeance of England have been satisfied by the
judicial execution of one man, after a fair trial,
which proved him to have been the guilty instru-
ment of the death of thousands of British soldiers
when confined as prisoners of war in Irish dunn geons?
We hung Indian princes without mercy, ad wi.h
scarcely a shadow of a trial during and after the
Indian mutiny. We suppressed a paltry revolt in
Jamaica by shooting and hanging, without regard
to law or guilt. Yet we can moralise about the
vengeance of the North on the South after this most
treacherous revolt. If Ireland, after being defeated
in her appeal to arms, recommenced the battle in
the political arena, demanding her fair share of re-
presentation, and insisting upon returning for
seats in the Imperial Parliament those who ha led
in the war against us, how would England meet
such a demand? To complete the parallel fully,
we must have the wilder parts of that island in such
a state that it was dangerous to express sentiments
of loyalty. We must have a massacre of the loyal
inhabitants by a Cork mob, led by the Mayor, and
aided by the police. We must have a proscription
of a portion of the inhabitants for whom England
had demanded equal rights, and a portion of the
newspaper press full of sentiments of uncompro-
mising hostility. How would England meet such
a position? By handing over the Imperial Parlia-
ment to the very men guilty of having before so
grievously betrayed their trust--by relinquishing all
the principles for which they had fought at so fearful
a sacrifice of blood and treasure? The idea is pre-
posterous, and would never be acted on by sane and
wise men. All that the North requires is a security
for the future—a guarantee that the objects gained
by the war shall not be nullified within the walls of
Congress. And from this position the people will
not and cannot be driven, however skilfully the
true points involved may be obscured and clouded
by those whose object is to defeat the national wish.
Nothing is more easy than for people to falsify the
bearings of foreign national questions. No country
has suffered more from misrepresentation than Eng-
land herself. The Irish at this moment are sup-
posed to be the most down-trodden people in
Europe. Many believe that English rule iu India
is a selfish and sanguinary hold of a feeble people,
by the most usurping and tyrannical race in Chris-
tendom. We know all this to be untrue. But the
English cannot complain for being themselves mis-
represented, while they are so ready to misrepre-
sent the actions and motives of other peoples. The
indiscretion with which the President has avowed
his policy of hostility to Congress has inflamed the
leaders of the party who support the legislative
body. The President uses the power confided to
him by the nation unscrupulously to defeat the
national wish. Yet the English are called upon to
condemn the extreme measures threatened by Con-
gress in support of the policy they hold to be so
essential to national interests. If the President
takes advantage of the adjournment of Congress to
" kick out " all the office holders who oppose him,
it is most unfair to represent the threat of Congress
to impeach him as the violent and unscrupulous design
of a " rump" Parliament. To both the Constitution
delegates certain powers. If the Executive stretches
its authority to an extreme verge in support of its
own opinion, surely the Legislature has an equal
right to counteract such an exercise of authority by
the full stretch of its own power. To denounce the
action of Congress when following the example set
them by the President, and yet to uphold the
measures of the latter, is to take a biassed and one-
sided view of the subject. Both branches profess
to be mere servants of the people, engaged in carry-
ing out their wishes for the benefit of the nation.
To Congress is given the supremepower, as Congress
is supposed more directly to represent the national
sentiment than the President. Congress has as
clear a right to impeach or depose the President
as he has to "kick out" any office holder, and it
would become him as little to resist that Constitu-
tional power as it would any office holder to refuse
to be " kicked out " by the President. The plea
that Congress only represents 26 States—the repre-
sentatives of the others having voluntarily withdrawn,
and having engaged in open rebellion against its
authority—would be similar to a plea of the Irish
members, after such a-revolt as we have supposed,
declaring the acts passed in the Imperial Parliament
without their sanction to be illegal. We can see

TIMES.—The Reform Question is just now re
ceiving some very apt illustrations from the other
side of the Atlantic. Without passion or prejudice,
and with evident impartiality, our American Cor-
respondent describes the actual operation of the
very system to which England is now hounded on
by the chief agitator of the day. We also can safely
say of ourselves that we are without passion or pre-
judice in the matter, and that as to political impar-
tiality we have not the slightest doubt that Whigs
and Tories, Liberals and Conservatives, Church and
Dissent, will always use the directest and most
efficient means to power. Our Correspondent ob-
serves that the American Conservatives are now only
doing for the support of President- Johnson what
the Radicals did for his election to the second office
in the Union, and that at this moment there is
nothing to choose between the tactics of the two
sides. The President and his friends are doing
what all their predecessors have done before, and
what is now sanctioned by the prescription of an
entire political history. They give all their employe's,
from the highest to the lowest, to understand that
their continuance in office depends on their vote.
Every postman, every tidewaiter, every Government
shipwright or dockyard labourer knows that he must
vote for his present masters or be sent to tharight-
about. Six vessels have been ordered to Philadelphia
for repairs, and 4,000 carpenters are kept in tow by
the job. On the other hand, the municipalities in
the Radical interest are employing legions of men in
the streets, taking up the roads, watering, laying
gas and water pipes. The manufacturers lay their
commands on their operatives and dependents, and
under one screw or another the entire population
suffers an equal pressure. It is hard to say who
there is that can call his soul his own—so far,
at least, as regards a question believed to be
of the highest moral and political importance.
All this, of course, we can understand in
this country, where personal influence and
even intimidation have prevailed time out of
mind, and where they have been met with con-
stitutional guarantees and the much more important
practice of bribery. The disposition to abuse power
is universal, and so far there is nothing to boast in
the comparison between the new and the old country.
But here comes the difficulty which somebody is
called on to explain. In this country all this takes
place—at least, we will admit for the present that it
does—under a system of open voting, and among
electors who may consider the franchise a privilege
to be turned to account. In the United States it
takes place—but that it might raise a needless con-
troversy we would sayi
that it is far surpassed—under
the ballot and manhood suffrage. But while ntimi
-
dation and influence are features common to the two
countries—very accountable here, but very unac-
countable in the United States—the new country has
a few things peculiar to itself, as new as its own
institutions, and, except in a few isolated and extra-
ordinary cases, unknown in this country. The elec-
toral districts are there very small, which is a great
convenience for the electors, and still more for the
bold and clever men who conduct the election for
them. In every district there is a committee—of
course there is; so there is at home. But the Ameri-
can committee has a much larger field of enterprise,
and far more choice of weapons, than the little body
of respectable humdrums or fiery partisans that meet
at the Blue Boar in one of our country towns to fur-
ther Mr. So and So's election. In American Utopia,
it seems, the- election committee has to conduct a
system of " colonisation," and to supply itself for
that purpose with a store of army clothing. Be-
sides the 500 or GOO real and legitimate voters
whom it has to organise and train, it has also to
create and manoeuvre another force, who, by rapi-
dity of movement and some decency of disguise,
are to vote several times over, by presenting them-
selves at so many polling-booths. As both parties
do the same, the election thus far is reduced to a
trial of courage and skill—no slight elements in all
political struggles. Just now the best disguise for a
" colonist," or, as we should call him, a "personator,"
is a worn-out uniform, as people don't like to ques-
tion the honesty—that is, the identity—of a man in
that garb. There are plenty of old uniforms to be
got, and it is evident that whole armies of impostors
will march up to the ballot-box, proving nothing
but the superior audacity and cunning of the party
which brings most to the field of battle. Whatever
the constitutional securities for the proof of identity,
they are found much more ineffective than our own
against bribery; and as to the provisions for secret

✓

voting, they are clearly a myth altogether; The the full force of this absurdity when we bring it
Americans either do not wish to conceal their votes, home to ourselves. Nor does this ridiculous asser
or are not able, for they are whipped up to the poll, tion end here. Mr. Johnson succeeded to the
and made to do their employers' bidding as effec- Presidency as President of the. Senate on the murder
tually as if My Lord's steward had sent them a cir- of Mr. Lincoln. If the Senate was no Senate, but
cular, or as if their names were to appear in a House an illegal body, then Mr. Johnson is no President,
of Commons' division list. The Anglo-Saxon race but an usurper. There are no other means known
has carried with it to the New World its old open- to the law of ascertaining the result of an election
air court for the final adjudication of political ques_ of President or Vice-President than through the
tions, and the petty trickeries of constitution- Senate, on whom devolved the duty of receiving,
c
mongers have not been able to wall it in and roof it counting the votes, and declaring the names of those
over. Whether the doing be good or bad, it is done duly and legally elected. If Mr. Johnson, there-
before the suu. It is impossible not to ask whether
fore, insists on the illegality of Congress as at pre-
our own people would, or would not, do the like sent constituted, we cannot see how he can maintain
h*
under the same electoral system. If they would his own position to be in conformity with law.
S
not, that could only arise from their being trained Such questions, once broached, will lead to endless
under a better system, and under a higher sense of absurdities, and we .can only hope with our con-
social honour and public duty. But we have to temporary that Mr. Johnson will accept the recent
consider that very large parts of our population elections as the verdict of the people and bow to 3
were but recently composed of materials very simi- force which he cannot oppose, but which he may in
lar to those, we will say, of New York and l'hila- a large measure control.
delphia, and that nobody here would like to be an-
swerable for their behaviour under temptation. Nay,
truth compels us to go even further. The story of
corruption disclosed not only by recent or pending
commissions, but by many a former disclosure,
proves the fatal rapidity with which masses of men,
whether large or comparatively small, will yield to
that influence, or that corruption, which is sure to
present itself on every adequate occasion. Power is
a prize which is always and everywhere appreciated;
and.in this country the prize is further associated
with great and unique social advantages, as well as
the opportunity of furthering political views. There
are, and always will be, plenty of men in this
country both ready and able to employ for the
acquisition of a seat in Parliament any means that
are tolerably safe, and that are tolerated by opinion
or custom. It is vain to allege that there still exists
a high and honourable class of English gentlemen
who would not connive at the practices described
by our correspondent, even for the sake of a seat in
Parliament. There are plenty of others who would ;
and wherever they presented themselves they would
find ready instruments and accommodating elec-
tors. But that would only begin a struggle in which
the challenged and the challenger would use the
same weapons. The good men, as they might think
themselves, would not allow the power and the
government of the country to' fall into bad hands,
and they would have no other way to avert that fate
and arrest that ruin than in the old corrupt fashion
--doing evil that good may come.

* The same States that elected the Congress elected Lim
as Vice-President, and if their action, without the South-
ern States, was illegal in forming the Congress, it was
equally illegal in filling the Vice President's post.