The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-26 00:00:00

FREEDOM NOT LICENSE OF SPEECH.

There might be some excuse for an Irish Protes-
tant in introducing a little rancour into the debate
in the House of Commons on the disestablishment
of the Irish Church, and we are not surprised that
Colonel Stuart Knox was betrayed into a course
which raised a storm in the assembly. The Times
last Saturday, commeuting upon this, observed that
the debates are falling into what has usually been
described as the American level. " The observ-
ance of rules, whether written or not, and the
mutual deference of men who respect each other,
preserve order and have prevented a good deal
of bad legislation. Things done in an uproar
are pretty sure to be bad, and the worst designs
are often baffled when it is impressed upon their
authors that they shall proceed with gravity and
deliberation. We speak in the interest of all when
we beg that the utmost possible order and pro-
priety may be observed in the course we are now
entering on. Some tell us we arc about to shoot
a cataract. Very well. At all events, keep your
places, gentlemen, and don't disturb the balance of
the boat. Others say we are treading the treacher-
ous snows of a mountain slope, with unknown
masses hanging over our heads. Then tread softly,
and do not even utter a sound more than you need."
In the evening papers of that day was published a
debate in the House of Representatives at Wash-
ington, brought by the Java, which, in all humility,
we are bound to confess, justified the Times in its
allusion in at least as far as that House is concerned.
Elibu Burritt Washburne, of Illinois; the watch-
dog of the Treasury, so termed from the attention
he has given and the trouble he has taken in
exposing and denouncing Congressional jobs,
belongs to a family which more than any other
has furnished members to Congress. One repre-
sents
Massachusetts, another Indiana, a third Wis-
cousin, while Elihn Burritt has been returned
by Illinois, Mr. Ignatius Donelly, of Minnesota,
an Irishman by birth, prepared a bill for the
grant of public lands to a railway company
in Minnesota, to which Mr. Washburne ob-
jected. Mr. Donelly wrote to a person in-
terested, sharply criticising Mr. Washburne,
and the latter becoming aware of the contents re-
plied in very severe terms, stigmatising the member
for Minnesota as a Jesuit, a swindler, a double-
dealer, a coward, and a falsifier; adding that every
corrupt measure in Congress had been supported by
Mr. Donelly, and this letter was published in a
newspaper. After the close of the Impeachment
proceedings on the 2d inst. the Representatives
hurried to their hall, as it was known that Mr.
Donelly intended to call Mr. Washburne to account,
and that a row was anticipated. Having caused
Mr. Washburne's letter to be read, Mr. Donelly
said it contained twenty-three distinct falsehoods,
observing that the writer could not tell the truth
even when it would best serve his turn. He de-
scribed the gentleman from Illinois as a small
headed, big-chested, loud-voiced, blatant, little-
hearted demagogue, belonging to a family of office
beggars, born into the world with the letters M. C.
stamped on their shoulders, and out of office t hey were
God-forsaken, as miserable as a snub tailed ball in fly
time. After wading in imagination in pursuit of the
member from Illiuois through places so filthy that we
decline to follow him, he continued in the following
strain :—" I cannot think that he (General Grant)
will degenerate into becoming a puppet to be
played by wires held in the hands of the gentleman
from Illinois, or that he will degenerate into a kind
of a hand-organ to be toted around on the back of
the gentleman from Illinois, while his whole family
sit on the top of the machine grinding and catching
pennies like a troupe of monkeys. (General and
continuous laughter.) Why, Mr. Speaker, the in-
tellect of Grant is like some of those ancient ware-
houses in the great cities of the older world, where
floor rises above floor, and cellar descends below
cellar--all packed full to overflowing with the
richest merchandise. The intellect of the gentle-
man from Illinois is like some of those establish-
ments that we see in Pennsylvania Avenue, where
the whole stock in trade of the merchant is spread
out in the front window, and over it a label, " Any-
thing in this window for one dollar." (Laughter.)
Ile is the " cheap John " of legislation. If there be
in our midst one low, sordid, vulgar soul, one barren
of, mediocre intelligence, one heart callous to every
kindly sentiment and to every generous emotion; one
tongue leprous with slander; one mouth which is
like unto a den of foul beasts, giving forth deadly
;.Mourn; if there be here one character which, while
blotched and spotted, yet raves and rants, and
blackguards like a prostitute; if there be here one
bold, bad, empty, bellowing demagogue, it is the
gentleman from Illinois." Mr. Washburne, in re-
ply, said :—" Every assertion made in that letter
is true, and whoever says it is not true, states what
is false, If I were called upon, and I desire only to

say that if .1, under any operation of circumstances, '
were ever called upon, to make a personal explana-
tion in reply to to a member, it would not be to a
member who had committed a crime; it would not
be to a member who bad run away ; it would not
be to a member who had changed his name ; it
would not be to a member whose whole record in
this house is covered with venality, corruption, and
crime. I repeat, if I were called upon to make a
personal explanation, I should make it with a mem-
ber who is not covered over with crime and in-
famy—whose record is stained with every fraud—
whisky and other frauds—with a man who bas
proved false alike to his friends, his country, his
constituents, his politics, his religion, and his God."
Although the language was allowed, Mr. Wash-
burne vigorously, while he spoke, shook his clenched
hand under Mr. Donelly's nose, a proceeding de-
clared to be out of order ; but, after a slight iuter-
ruptiou , the Representative from Illinois was allowed
to conclude. Mr. Donelly in his retort became
positively blasphemous, picturing the representative
as haranguing the hosts of heaven, routing them,
horse, foot, and dragoons, attacking their motives,
and flinging insinuations at their honesty, declaring
for economy, and urging that the wheels of the
universe must be stopped because they consumed
too much grease.
On the 4th instant the discussion was resumed,
every one who could get a place crowding to hear
it. Mr. William Winclum, the other Representa-
tive for Minnesota, thought, if the charges were
well founded, his colleague should be expelled.
Mr. Rufus P. Spalding of Ohio pronounced Mr.
Washburne's letter a hard one, full of the abuse
of the fish-market, and Mr. Dawes expressed
the same opinion. Mr. Mullins of Tennessee
wanted to know what all the " slang-wanging”
was about. Mr. Donelly, while apologising to the
House, demanded au investigation of the charges
made by Mr. Washburne; and the latter, in ten-
dering an apology, said he courted an investigation,
and a. resolution was adopted for the appointment
of a committee to investigate the charges of fraud.
When the debate concluded, one of the Democratic
members moved for the withdrawal of those
charges in the Articles of Impeachment founded
on the President's indecorous speech ; which, for
the sake of consistency, after these exhibitions, the
House ought not to press; this motion it refused
to consider, but approved the suggestion of Mr.
Donelly, who asked "if it was not advisable to imi-
tate the illustrious example of Secretary Stanton
and General Thomas, and go and take a drink." So
long as such scenes are of common occurrence in
the deliberative assembly, elected by universal suf-
frage to represent a leading nation, the enemies of
popu;ar government will not be at a loss for the
strongest illustration of the unfitness of the masses
to choose representatives. Abroad the principles
on which the Republic is founded are brought into
contempt and disrepute as pretty theories inap-
plicable in practice. Nor is there a stand-point
from which such a scene can be viewed in a light
other than degrading to the House. If the mem-
bers describe each other truly, the vilest scum in
the United States sit as Representatives ; if not,
they have ready tongues for libel, and a surprising
volubility in slander. But it is even more humili-
ating to the national reputation that the floor of the
House should be permitted by the body of Repre-
sentatives to be made the arena of such disreputable
brawls. The United States claims as a nation to take
the foremost place, and as the freest of all, the elected
are declared most fully to represent the electors. The
electors profess to be the most enlightened and edu-
cated of peoples, and the oligarchical factions of
Europe, admitting these premises, point scornfully to
Washington and say—there is the result! A specimen
such as Mr. Donelly is of no earthly account, and
would be better employed in. digging turf in his
native bog than legislating in the halls of the greatest
of nations, but in bringing the assembly into dis-
repute he is lowering in the eyes of the world re-
presentative institutions and degrading the citizens
of the Republic. It is easier to spread abroad an
evil reputation than to wipe away the slur. It is
no difficult matter to pitchfork sheaves of Donellys
into the House, for they grow in thousands without
care and culture as rank weeds, but who is to
undo their work ? But it is hard that American
gentlemen should hear the great Republic, of which
it.is their proudest boast to be citizens, sneered at in
that unconscious way which most galls, and to feel
the truth of the remark the more painfully because
the speaker had no intention of giving pain. Mr.
Donelly in a ridiculous way shows the Pat, for he
piles all manner of epithets on the head of his
antagonist, and after having made him out to be a
liar, a thief, and (soaring into the wildest flightS of
Hibernian fancy) one whom it would be base flat-
tery to call a coward ! winds up by stating that
such is the " gentleman" from Illinois, using the
word—not sarcastically—which means the very re-
verse of all he had said. It would be easy to apply
terms to Mr. Donelly which would be more inju-
rious to the Anglo-American Times than to the
individual thus vilified. But we are not in the
habit of degrading our pages with such senseless,
unmeaning abuse. Nor have we the slightest in.
tention of allowing ourselves ender any provoca-
tion to be betrayed into ungentlemanly epithets,
however annoyed and ashamed we may be at the
disrepute into which even an Irish emigrant may
be the means of bringing institutions yet destined
to regenerate manhood. There is a proneness to
exaggeration in the American mind which often
leads to extravagant expressions, and it is a well-
known fact that the Representatives are not fair
specimens of the best classes of American society.
To become " a mere politician" is to fall in Ame-
rican opinion from the high esteem in which their
best citizens are held—to pit themselves against the
low and the unscrupulous, and to truckle to un-
washed and whisky-perfumed mobs for support.
Fortunately from the rural districts enough sound
honest Representatives are returned to give weight
and stability to the House, but they are not the culti-
vated gentlemen who through the sifting process have
reached the Senate. An exciting squabble in the
House appears to them a sound merely echoing from
the walls of the Chamber, for they do not see through
these walls aver a wide world, nor hear the
jeers of laughter and the scornful descriptions
carefully conveyed to every nook of the globe
by those who hate their institutions. To gratify
the paltry but natural feeling of listening to
a row, they play the very cards their adversaries
desire. From abroad we regard them as the spec-
tator does yaust, guided by Mephistopheles, the con-
temptible victim of momentary gratification, with
the spirit of evil at his elbow, using hirA as an in-
strument to degrade and destroy others. The grati-
fication is so paltry, the loss so stupendous, that the
proceedings appear almost like those of idiots, or of
beings wholly unaware of the effect they are produc-
ing. Now, what has Mr. Donelly gained but the
small addition that a person of so little weight
can give to the degradation of the English
language, if he be a Fenian, and bent on
lowering the standard of everything English.
Words in such mouths lose their meaning
and force, being available only to convey to other
minds disgusting pictures. Like children gambling,
they may play for coppers ana fret over the lofts
within their means of payment, but by degrees
they extend their operations till the world is staked
and the heavens ransacked for a wager. The
coppers were a reality—the wealth of worlds a
farce ; the one had a meaning, the other none. So
it is with such epithets, and when a man declares
it to be " base flattery" to call a man a coward he
raves, giving utterance to nonsense—words without
force or meaning. Had Mr. Donelly confined himself
to a clear statement and a logical conclusion, showing
the acts and motives of Mr. Washburne and explain-
ing his own, men would not have supposed--as they
cannot fail to do now—that he has been engaged in a
transaction which it is his object to conceal under a
cloud of dust and smoke. No gentleman would con-
descend to use such epithets. Gen. Butler does; so
does Thad. Stevens; the member forlllinois has; yet,
we maintain, however high may be the position of
these individuals, that no gentleman uses such epi-
thets, and it is because they shrink from such con-
tact that so few of them are to be found in the
House of Representatives. It is the fault of the
people generally, and in particular of the Press.
Reformation is hopeless so long as editors substitute

coarse abuse for argument, and notably when such
a man as Horace Greeley writes and publishes in
his piper such articles as that headed " Horatio
Seymour as a Liar," the smaller fry, of course,
following suit, and torturing their brains for terms
of opprobrium. But the best papers in the United
States have condemned, in the strongest manner,
the senseless and childish system, which accomplishes
nothing but the degradation of those who use such
language,r,and of the language itself.—Anglo-Ame-
rican Times.