North Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1850-1852, 1851-02-08
"THE LONDON TINES ON AMERICA. ~

The London Times has some interesting comments
on the speeches of Mr.. Webster and Sir Henry Bull
wer, at the recent anniversary dinner of the New
Englanders in New York, from which make the
following extract:
81 That the Americans owe to their ancient stock
the qualities which enable them to found and preserve
their system of Commonwealths, is fact which they
may acknowledge without disparagement of their
intrinsic powers. They carried with them across the
ocean, not only the forms of good government but
the principles of good citizenship They never built
upon political theories, affected any change except
upon sound reasons and by sober means. They did
not substitute Republic for Monarchy in difference
to any imaginary code of rights anecedent to record
ed laws, but when, in pursuance of settled convic
tons, they had reluctantly renounced all allegiance,
they made the best provisions in their power for adj
minlstering the Government themselves. Little
changed beyond the form of the Executive. They
devised no new relations between man and man,
did they deem themselves competent to recast the
frame of civil society. They retained every instiu-
ton and practice which could be accommodated to
Congress-, instead of King. Far from extemporis-
Ing new laws, they preserved, In their reverence
even the least desirable attributes Of the DID, and have
only just now reformed their system of procedure
when we, the older brethren, are confessing like
necessity, and acknowledging the goodness Of their
example.
These were the principles which preserved them.
Amid variety of temptations, apparently infinite
when viewed from this side of the Atlantic but perhaps
less serious when more closely contemplated. they
have always nowledged that private opinions must
that community maintain political existence
where every citizen claims the right ofpromoting by
violence his own speculative conceits.
We believe Mr.. Webster was substantially usti-
fed in treating already exploded the recent agia-
ton for the dissolution of the Federal Union. There
is, indeed, something unprecedented in this
nous aggregation of States and Territories that it is
impossible to arrive at any probable conclusion
speeding the future destinies of America. The
weights on the two seaboards are now so immense
that the Constitutional fabric needs be exposed
to severance from its own gravitation alone. The
thirteen States of the Union have already become
oneand-thirty, If not more, for they increase as
write, and there is space and verge enough for con-
verting the number into hundred.
1t is beyond all human power to calculate the
prospects of government to which one continent
supplies territory and another population. What
California is to America, America is to the whole
world. No example has yet been seen of such
mighty and nerminable conhux of people, Ireland
alone supplies yearly this extraordinary State the
population of first class city. San Francisco has
Increased more in two years than Brighton in fifty.
The treasure OF the new territory has attracted imm
grants in equal numbers from the two proverbal ex-
tremes of the word-trom China and Peru; and vet
by some wonderful process the system of the Union
appears to absorb and assmiate its constitution
these various and conflicting elements. No specula-
Tor can prognostlcate the end of such prodigious
experiment. or prophecy the eventfu decisions of
chamber in which the delegates of California and
New Mexico will meet the representatives of Florida
and Maine. But this much we NAV at least saw
that the American Union is disclIarg ing prov
dental part in the progress of the world and that if
the possible notifications of its political constitution
are but effected in obedience the principles which
have hitherto maintained it. there can be no reason
why either America or England need look with appre-
hension to the results