The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-29 00:00:00

%vlitch are to be adopted, according to the circum-
stances of the times. In short, the object of sup-
pressing juries in these cases is to prevent the hands
of the Government and the Cortes from being tied
up, if the trial by juries in the offences of the press
should not succeed, and it should be found necessary
to have recourse to another mode of protecting so
precious a right against its own excesses and against*
the wandering which commences by discrediting, and
generally finishes by destroying it. Reasons similar
to those stated have determined your Ministers to
propose the suppression of the first of the additional
articles, in which it is said that the laws will deter-
mine the time and the mode of the establishment of
trial by jury in every kind of offence.' This point,
like the preceding, will remain, as is required by its
nature, to be regulated in the codes without its being
necessary that it should be announced in the consti-
tutional law of the State.
" The principal reform which the Ministry consider
necessary is in regard to the Senate. Since the pub-
lication of the Constitution in 1837, it has been dis-
covered that the institution of the Senate is vicious.
It could only give the advantage of the division of
the legislative holy into two branches instead of one.
However defective their organisation, it was in vain
that an attempt has been made to establish certain
differences between the two, by requiring that the
senators should be of more advanced age, and that
;hey should have means of existence and other qua-
lities required by the electoral law. These palliatives
could-mot remedy a radical fault in that body.
By the very fact the senators are elected by
the same persons who elect the deputies—the iden-
tity of origin destroys the basis of the
~institut-
ion. A body of that kind, to answer the intended
end, must have stability and firmness, must
be sheltered from the flux and reflux of popular opi-
nions, and must support the institutions of the state by
its conservative spirit, and, at the same time, serve as
a regulator and counterpoise to the renovating and
progressive spirit which animates the Chamber of
Deputies. The Senate, as constituted, offers none of
these advantages, notwithstanding the presence of so
many illustrious persons among its members. Thus
we have plainly seen, within the few years of its ex-
istence, the faults of the institutions, and it is fortu-
nate thit greater inconveniences have not arisen, as
might have been the case in a nation less grave and
reasonable than ours. Nevertheless, it is not the less
established that the time has arrived in which the
provisional Government was under the necessity, for
the public convenience, to renew the whole of the
Senate, thus giving a new testimony that the political
wheels are not constructed so as to run smoothly.
Without reckoning this and other extraordinary
cases, the frequent renewal of the senators
vitiates the very essence of the Constitution. It
is„ notorious that the Senate, by its . present
organisation, is by no means conformable to the cha-
racter of monarchical government, even with the re-
strictive faculty allowed to the Crown of choosing be-
tween the three candidates elected by the people—a
faculty which often, and especially in times of popular
excitement, may become rather a subject of derision
than the exercise of a noble prerogative. These rea-
sons, ancl others too long to enumerate, have con-
vinced your Secretaries of State of the absolute neces-
sity of completely changing the constitution of the
Senate ; a serious change, it is true, but for which the
way has been cleared by public opinion, for there
are few subjects upon which enlightened men
are more unanimous. The principle of po-
pular election, which is only applicable to
the Chamber of Deputies, being once put
aside, and the Senate being about to be established on
a different footing, your Secretaries of State have
gravely considered the basis to be adopted for this im-
portant institution. It could not escape them that the
most natural element of such bodies, conservative as
they are in their nature, is the hereditary principle,
the principle of order and of stability analogous to
the very spirit of the monarchy, and which unites to
fidelity to the throne the independence necessary to
guard and maintain the liberties and privileges of the
nation. Your Secretarks of State#.would not have
hesitated to propose to draw a portion of that element
existing in Spain. Rejecting for the Senate both
popular election and the hereditary elements, your
Secretaries of State are of opinion that the Senate
should be for life, and on the nomination of the
Crown. Without pretending that this new essay shall
not be without inconvenience, they can affirm without
fear that the giving of that dignity for life offers
pledges of independence and stability. In order to give
the institution a certain prestige, and to prevent as far
as possible tie hononr from being given to persons
unworthy of occupying so eminent a post, the nomin-
ation must be limited to certain classes. It is true

that this limitation may in certain cases be inconve-
nient, but upon the whole, your Secretaries of State
have thought this plan preferable to that of allowing,
the choice to be entirely free, and exposed to all the
influence of political passions, of favour, and of fami-
liarity. In the new organization of the Senate, those
will be allowed to enter who, by their high dignity,
by the services which they have renderei in their
respective • careers, by their characters, by
their illustrious names, or by their fortunes
can give weight and value to the resolutions of a body
which ought to be the reflection of the national
glories, and the depot of ancient traditions. The
Senate being thus formed, it is to be hoped that it will
fulfil its principal duty, which is to concur with the
Crown and the Chamber of Deputies in the formation
of laws ; but your Secretaries of State have thought
that they could also invest it with judiciary functions
in certain determined cases—as, for instance, when
Ministers of the Crown are to be put on their
trial who have been impeached in due form by the
Deputies of the nation, or when one of its own
members is to be tried, or when, as shall be deter-
mined by the laws, offences against the Crown, or
against the State, shall be submitted to that re-
spectable body. This prerogative is given to the
Senate, not as a privilege, but as a charge in favour
of society itself, which cannot confide those sa-
cred objects to a higher or more independent body.
" Your Secretaries of State propose one single mo-
dification to Title IV. of the Constitution. It is that
the Deputies be elected for five years instead of three.
This change has a certain harmony with that which
is proposed with regard to the Senate. Both are a
part of a system. In a nation in which municipali-
ties, provincial deputations, and Chamber of Deputies
are all elective, it is necessary to moderate to a cer-
tain degree this changeableness, so as not to trouble
the people too often with elections, for that is apt to
disgust them with the institutions themselves. It is
necessary, on the contrary, to endeavour to establish
a certain stimulus to system and order, which is dif-
ficult to reconcile with too frequent renewals. For
this reason your Secretaries of State think that five
years is more proper, to avoid the too frequent repeti-
tion of elections, while it does not go too much to the
other extreme of being too long a time without con-
sulting the national will.
" Your Secretaries of State will not stop to give their
reasons for suppressing the 27th article of the Con-
stitution, in which it is stated that if the King should
fail to bring together the Cortes before the Ist of De-
cember, it will assemble precisely on that day. The
very tenour of the article shows that as regards the
royal authority, it is inconvenient., and in every re-
spect useless for the defence of the rights of the na-
tion. When, to the misfortune of thrones and peo-
ple, a conflict of that kind arises between the powers
of the State, the articles of the Constitution, which
have already been destroyed, will not be appealed to.
" On examining the Bth article, relative to the mi-
nority of the Sovereign and to the Regency, your
Secretaries of State have found that the text
of the Constitution gives rise to serious in-
conveniences. According to the terms of the 57th ar-
ticle, in case of the vacancy of the throne, the im •
mediate successor being a minor, the Cortes ought to
name, to govern the kingdom, a Regency, composed
of one individual, or of three or five persons. Thus,
in all cases of minority of the Sovereign, it is for the
Cortes to proceed to the nomination of those who are
to be called upon to exercise, ad interim, the royal
power.
" Your Secretaries of State regard this provision as
not being in conformity with the character of an
hereditary monarchy. They think also that it may
expose the State, and often without necessity, to a
contest of parties, generally so excited and embittered
when it affects the conferring, even temporarily, the
exercise of the extreme power. They believe, in
short, that it is necessary to avoid as much as possi-
ble that the people should see immediately beneath
the
race persons making a display who are not of
race of their princes, to whom the march of and
habitual s d
"It consequently appears more
to call into
• les that we should confine ourselves
principles only when there is no
existence an elective regency,
te and venerationauthority. has given a t thec conformable
nsfaomr
me
with a monarchical
other resource more in harmony atbimleetao thosei3
that there ought to be called to the Regency the
father or the mother of the infant sovereign, who is
charged by the 58th article of the Constitution to
reg„iniTi;ue asn, dor
adviceeeos exposed
your inconveniences
Secretaries