Southport telegraph. [volume] (Southport, W.T. [i.e. Kenosha, Wis.]) 1840-1850, 1842-05-31


in India, furnish employment for England, without
aging. in hostilitics with the United States
| A resolution has been introduced into the leois-
lature of the State of Connecticut, providing for
the appointment of Joint Committee of the two
Houses to offer the mediation of that State in set
Ting the difficulties existing in the State of Rhode
Island. This shows an admirable spirit on the part
! Connecticut legislature, in evincing desire to
| restore peace between the two contending parties
in Rhode Island. That hitherto peaceful State
| presents most lamentable picture before the
word-the day has gone by when questions of po-
lltlcal right and wrong, should be settled by re-
sort to physical force, especially in of the en-
lghtened states fthis Union. Cool and dspassionate
reasoning, is the only true method of settling con-
trovcrsies in which great principles are involved
the triumph Of physical force is not always the
triumph of human ght or the establishing of JUS
! tlcc.
Both of the present contending parties in Rhode
! Island are doubtless too uncompromising and too
much intent upon carrying out their peculiar pur-
| poses. One thing, however, is certain; there has
been great torbearance in past years. on the part of
the majority of the people, for can hardly be sup
posed that majority of the people of Rhode Island
during a number of years past have been satisfied
with the government founded on the charter grant
ed by King Charles. 1t was doubtless owing to
the peculiar state of things, and the extreme diff
fcuy OF obtaining any legal authority from the GOV
eminent, by which the majority mi ght be enabled
TO express their wishes at the ballot box, that the
people have not long since put aside the old charter
and formed a government better suited to the genius
! OF Republlcanism Rhode Island, unlike every
| other state in the Union, has not a constitution
formed and adopted by the people; but still retains
the charter granted to the Inhabitants while in
! condition OF tealty TO foreign power. 1t has often
been expressed matter of SURPRISE that the peo-
| pie of that state during period of more than half
| century, since the declaration of National indie
! pendence, should have exhibited so little apparent
dissatisfaction under the old charter. During the
last half century liberal and Republican principles
/ have spread with great rapdity throughout the
world; the ensigns of royalty have become less res
pected, and the "divine authority of Kings less
regarded. Free institutions have made great ad-
vances,a and the lights of science have dispeled mucl.
of the darkness which surrounded the political des-
But as we have already said, the people of Rhode
Island did not so long remain without a change in
their institutions, from deliberate choice of the
majority; but rather because the government had
never provided by statute, to allow the people to
express their sovereign will in the matter All
measures on the part of the people, to revise the
government, without the sanction of legislative
acts, were of course regarded by the authorities as
illegal and disorderly. The great body of the peo
pie therefore, have submitted the governed under
the old charter, ever since the freedom of the Amer
lean Republic, has been acknowledged, from
seeming necessity imposed upon them by mi.
norlty. The landhoders control the reins of gov
eminent under the old ckarter-they have held the
power (under law through a number of generations
gone by, and evince disposition to hold it through
out future time. What then must be done? 1t
the fate of republic, that the majority may be OBJ
hged to submit TO the will of the minority, from
generation TO generation throughout an unlimited
series of years. Certainly, none bu. bigoted aris-
tocrats will say that the majority of the people who