Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1854-02-11

there is; and it is by letting them alone most Sc
verely, to use the phrase Of an English wit. This
is the only mode which regard for law and order
will tolerate We not, the representatives of
freedom, to show our hatred of oppression by turn
ing oppressors ourselves when we have the power;
neither are to show love Of liberty by violat
ing it in the persons of its enemies.
We may seem, perhaps, to be uttering truisms;
but the charge, if valid only serves more strikingly
to reblke those occurrences which have made it ne
cessary to revert to the first principles which lie at
the basis of all constitutional government And it
is no reproach to the teacher if he repeats again and
again lesson which seems imperfectly learned.
morbid disrelish for old and simple truths would
seem, indeed to be of the evil symptoms of our
times, while every cacklng novelty is sure to find
great vulgar" to appreciate it. II, therefore, we
have only collated few axioms of selfgovcrnment,
they may still perchance seem. new and paradoxical
to those who have become mbued with the tenets of
what is ambitiously called the modern evangel of
liberty"
We have thus far pursued our line of argument
on the suppositon that all which the accusers of NJ
Bedini have alleged against him was true; or, ra-
principles without respect either to the truth or
falsiy of these charges In order, however, to pre-
clude all possibility Of misconception, we may be
permitted expressly to disclam all intention to i'm
ply our belief in these allegations. We neither de-
ny.or affirm in u case where we have no personal
knowledge, and where we have as little inclination
as right to constitute ourselves as judges of the mat
tiers in controversy. Certain of our contemporaries
have expressed their surprise that NJ Bedini should
have left our country without making any attempt
at rcfutation or explanation of the grave
tons which laid at his door by certain Germans
and Italians residing chiefly at Cincinnati and New
York. It may be that NJ Bedini thinks Gas we
certainly do) that he is not responsible to any
or set of men in this country for what he may have
deemed it his duty to do as Papal Commissary at
Bologna during the disasters of the year ls4S. He
may have thought, besides, that an excited mob
would not be tribunal disposed to render justice to
his proestaons and as in his daily intercourse with
the American people without the sphere Of this for
oign hostility, he received that courtesy which was
due to him as an illustrous stranger, he may not
have deemed it either becoming or necessary to
cupy himself with acts for which, here at least no
man could claim to call him to account
If any thing else were needed to show the un-
American character of these assaults on an molten
sve gentleman, we might advert to the plot which
is asserted to have been formed by certain persons
for the execrable purpose of assassinatng the object
Of their hatred Deeds of violence are unfortunate
ly but too frequent among us but from the steathy
tread of the assassin and the secret blow of the st
L I II. T. L
pracsed sicarios to indoctrinate the American peo
pie in any such bloody Instructions
It is Roman moralist and poet who has inquir-
ed, "of what avail are mere laws without manncrs?'
Republics no more than monarchies can afford to
dispense with those great public proprieties which
/ so charmed the generous soul of Edmund Burke,
and to the praise of which he has consecrated more
than single tribute of his splendid dction. There
ought to be, he remarks, in every nation, system
of manners which well-formed mind will be dis
posed to relish. There is nothing in genuine re-
publicanism which should inspire its patrons with
contempt for those conventions of civilized social
life which "make power gentle and obedience libe-
raj, which harmonze the different shades of life,
Fand which, by bland assimilation, incorporate
into politics the sentiments which beautfy and
soften private society" Outrages such as those
upon which we animadvert are as indefensible when
tried by the code of American manners as by the
precepts of American law. And, should it become
an established precedent that portion of our ct
zens residents may deem itself entitled to hold
offensive espionage over those whom Il pronounces
suspected culpable we may easily picture to our
minds the social and moral evils which such an
odious custom could not fail to introduce, destroy
ing, as it inevitably would, the amenity of our
tona manners together with the security Of our
tonal law.
We assured, for example, by that thoroughly Pro-
estant Journal the Journal Of Commerce. of last We'd
nesday speaking of the good fortune of M Bedins hav
ing escaped from the United States without having expe
renced personal violence, that: "not than half
dozen individuals had any knowledge of the affair until
was comparatively trifing act of indiscretion
might have been productive Of serious mischief Per-
sons had been heard to openly make threats Of criminal
character but, before they suspected the fact their
: tended victim was beyond their reach"
! VIM. PITT FEssENDEN (Whig) was yesterday
elected Senator in Congress by the Legislature of
Maine for six years from the 4th of March last.
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| VERY LIKE A FRAUD.
4 hox ~ Cav