The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-08 00:00:00

SUN, LONDON; FRIDAY_trEVENING, FEBRUARY 8, 1861.

Commons, we know for absolute certainty
that those incentives, that those inducements,
year after year, go just absolutely for nothing.
It is idle, therefore, to think of leaving
matters as they are, and to hope in this way any
ldnger. Our experience is too afflicting in reference
to this prolixity of the debates in Parliament to
leave us any faint shadow of an aspiration
that matters will in this particular somehow or
other very delightfully right themselves. A de-
finite " effort" at any rate must be made at length
to systematise in some reasonable manner the busi-
ness of the session, and without in any way inter-
fering with the perfect liberty of speech, to abbre-
viate the debates, to economise the time hitherto
vainly squandered upon the discussions of the popular
branch of the Imperial Parliament. How this may
be best accomplished the Select Committee for the
appointment of which the Leader of the House of
Commons and of her MAJESTY'S Government
moved last evening, will have now seriously and
energetically to take into its consideration.
Earnestly must we all hope that some practical good
may result from its deliberations. In which event
the House of Commons will say less and do more—
and when that double advantage has been secured,
depend upon it Mansard will be all the pleasanter
reading.

Another State, one which seemed to hesitate
for a while, Louisiana, has seceded from the Union.
It is one of the States in which the slaves nearly

equal the whites in number, there being according

,o the Census of 1850—whites, 325,000 ; free

coloured men, 18,164; and slaves, 303,800.1
Louisiana lies for a considerable distance along
the western shore of the Mississippi, but for some
distance from the mouth northwards it embraces
both sides of the river, commands its mouths,
and can boast of the large but unhealthy
city of New Orleans as its capital. In the
Act of Secession, therefore, it has prudently
declared that it holds the course of the
Mississippi to be free, doubtless intending to avert
the displeasure of the vast and strong North
Western States which have firmly declared that
they will not see the lower course and mouths of

the Mississippi, their great highway to the ocean,
in the hands of a foreign power. For, as foreign
power, and probably as more hostile than an ordi-
nary foreign power, will the Free States regard the
Slave States which have broken up the Union.
Louisiana is willing to enter, she says, into gua-
rantees or stipulations securing the free use of the
river " to all friendly states." The northwest, should
secession, however, prove permanent, will certainly
not stay to be catechised respecting their friendly
feelings; they are strong enough to carve a way for
themselves, and they will do it, even if they cut the
embankment of the Mississippi and submerged New
Orleans with a flood to which NOAH'S would have
been a trifle.

Georgia has completed her secession, and her
representative, Mr. HILL, has formally, withdrawn
from Congress. In the Houses no business has yet
been transacted beyond the tardy admission of
Kansas as a free state ; Mr. BUCHANAN having
thus the mortification of seeing that the atrocious
measures of Mr. PIERCE and himself to inflict
slavery on that State have all been frustrated,
their only result being to leave the obloquy of
almost Austrian treachery and cruelty for the sup-
pression of freedom, attached to their natnes
for ever. The CRITTENDEN Resolutions, of
which the important feature is the division of
of the territories of the United States into two
portions—one to be for ever free, the other to be
open to slavery if the States formed out of it desire
it—cannot get through the Senate. It must be
kept in mind by readers of the American discus-
sions that the main question between the Repub-
lican and slaveholding party is the right of Con-
gress to prohibit slavery for ever in all the
territories, and thus to limit this curse to the
districts already blighted by it. The slaveholders
resent the assertion that slavery is a curse, as well
as, for pecuniary reasons, desire to spread it over
new lands.

Mr. DOUGLAS—who proposed when candi-
date what he considers the mediating view—
now comes forward with resolutions which
he proposes to substitute for those of Mr.
CRITTENDEN. They come in the shape of pro-
posed amendments of the constitution. The
degree of amendment they would make may be
conceived if we state a few of them. Section
first provides that Congress shall make no laws
in respect to domestic servitude in any territory
of the United States, and that all territorial Go-
vernments shall be formed on the model and in
the terms of the Compromise Act of 1850, that
which prohibited slavery in the territories north
of 36 deg. 30 min. Section second declares that
Congress shall have no power to abolish or in-
terfere with slavery either in the States or in
any place under the exclusive jurisdiction of the
United States, and that Congress shall not have
the power to interfere with or prevent the removal
of slaves from one State to another. Section third,
the best of them, for ever suppresses the slave
trade. Section fourth gives greater emphasis and
_efficiency to the claim already in the constitution
concerning persons held to service or labour
escaping, 3:c. Section fifth prohibits the elective
franchise and the right to hold office, whether fede-
ral, State, territorial, or municipal, to persons of
the African race, in whole or in part. Section
sixth is in these words :—" The United States shall
have power to acquire districts of country in Africa
or South America, for the colonisation, at the ex-
pense of the Federal treasury, of such free negroes
and mulattoes as the several States may desire to
have removed from within their limits, and from
the district of Columbia, and such other places as
may be under the jurisdiction of Congress." The
seventh section provides for the payment for fugi-
tives, if the officers in search of them are prevented
from doing their duty by violence or intimidation."
Another section increases the President's term of
office to six years, but he is to be ineligible for
office during the next six years. There are
also arrangements for a new mode of elect-
ing the President, and which, though their
probable working is perfectly unintelligible to
Englishmen, we may take for granted are intended
to strengthen the wrong side. On the whole,
there is little real change of position. Symptoms
of a tendency to compromise still appear in the
North, as the repeal of the Personal Liberty Law
by Rhode Island, of all the Stateslin the world—the
State of ROGER WILLIAMS ! But March is ap-
proaching, and to the not yet avowed policy of the
new President all are of course looking. A paper
is, however, receiving a few signatures in the House
of Representatives, calling on them_all to resign,
and so necessitate an appeal to the people ! It is
little likely to be acted on.

It it rumoured that her Majesty, the Prince
Consort, and the Royal children will honour the perform-
ances of the Royal English Opera this evening) with their

presence.
The Duke and Duchess of ltoxburghe and Lady
Charlotte Innes Ker will leave town in a few days, to join
the company about to assemble at Reudlesham Hall,
Suffolk.

The Duke and Duchess of Argyll will arrive at
Stafford House to-day, from Trentham Hall, Staffordshire,