Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1852-03-30
POPULAR RIGHTS.


earth, only two exist in which the principle OF
popular representation is recognized and carried
out. Out of the four hundred millions who in |
habit Europe and America, less than sixty mill
ions have any voice in making the laws under |
which they live. Ia Great Britain and the |
United States alone--in hatcountry where rank,
birth, and wealth, have the greatest power, and
in that where they have the least--are the peo-
pie permitted to take any part in creating the
statutes which control their pursuits, their prop
erty and their lives. Three hundred millions of
people, upon these two continents, act, speak,
and exist under the direction of Individuals
holding all they have at their mercy, and by their
grace--having TO liberty but what is granted as
a boon; enjoying the products OF their labor
oaly as they are permitted; pursuing happiness
only in paths and by ways devised and dictated
TO them by others. They are taxed, imprisoned,
plundered, executed, their families are scatter
cd their estates confiscated, their children BAN
ished, ut the pleasure Of men to whom they
have delegated no power, and whom they have
not chosen to be either their governors or their
guides.
We, in the United States, do not, and cannot,
fully understand this kind of existence. We
have had no experience of it. Except that por-
ton of our people who have come hither from
Europe, expressly to escape from it, we know
nothing of such deprivation of rights, and such
a restriction of active energies. Our Govern
ment rests upon the principle that the people are
the only source of rightful sovereignty; that
their will is the only just law; and that beyond
and aside from that will, there can be no righIful
civil authority. All our notions of Government,
all our experiences Of authority, rest upon this
foundation. We know nothing of any other;
and we cannot, therefore, adequately appreci-
ate that state Of society where this principle
finds no place. 1t is only the naturalized por-
ton of our people, those who have lived under
Absolutism, who have felt its parayzing oppres-
sion, and who have come hither expressly to es-
cape it, who can sympathise fully with the op-
pressed of Europe.
Popular participation in civil sovereignty has
been crushed every where but in England and
the United States. The progress it seemed to
be making in various European countries, has
been suddenly checked; the power of the peo-
pie has been seriously impaired partly by their
own discussions and by the infusion of social
radcalisms into their political creeds; the
strength Of dominant families has been increas-
ed; and, by sudden exercise of stratagem and
force, Absolutism has been re-established in ev-
cry great nation upon the continent. Popular
representation has been destroyed, or made
the tool of power. Personal rights, Jury trial,
freedom of speech, have been annihilated-
And every where except in Great Britain and
in the United States, all the forms as well as
the essentials, of free Government have been de-
stroyed.
Widely rs they disagree in many most impor-
tant respects, this isolation among the nations
of the earth will form a new bond of union be-
tween England and this country. 1t will not
blind us to the faults of the English Govern
ment. 1t will not command admiration from US
of her distinctions of rank, her monarchial forms
or her illustrious crimes against other nations.
1t will not incline us to excuse or to palliate her
oppression of Ireland, her religious persecu-
tons, her Indian aggressions, or her manifold
faults and crimes of administration. But it may
well incline us to a more considerate estimate of
her relations to freedom and to popular rights,
and of the community of principle between her
Government and our own. Popular sovereign
ty,-the principle of the supremacy of the peo-
pie, and of the responsibility to them Of their
rulers,-lies at the basis alike of her Constitu-
ton and of ours. The House of Commons is
the real ruling power in England, and the House
of Commons is chosen, substantially, by the
English people. Many are excluded from shar-
ing in this choice; property qualifications are re-
quired as a condition of suffrage, and corruption
controls, to very large degree, its exercise
But these are incidental faults, and prevail in
the United States as well, though to less de-
gree. The revolutions of time, and the jnevita-
BILE progress of free principles, when once they
are allowed fair play, will remedy or remove
them. The property qualification in England is
growing less. The tendency of the English
Government is towards the people. Power is
gradually and slowly, but with inevitable certain
ty, ascending to this its rightful source. And
if the moral influence of this Republic is exer-
cised aright--if we maintain that steady devo-
ton to the fundamental principles of our insti-
tutons which their inherent justice deserves
if we continue to show to all the world, that in
freedom alone, can national strength be reconcil-
ed with national safety and growth, England
will inevitably become thoroughly Republican in
principle and in the practical operation of its
Government, even though its present forms
should be preserved. And local self control will
be established also as an essential feature in all
just and free Governments. Ireland, as well as
her distant Colonies, will have her own Parlia-
ment for purposes of local legislation even
though she should maintain close connection
with the Republicanzed British empire.
IN. Y. Times.
The MAINE LIQUOR LAw--The operation of
this law, in some of its bearings is decidedly
apainst Soma of tho old usapes Tho citv of