Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1855-08-10

tention and consideration of every civilized
people and government.
The plan, as we understand it, is to 90 up the
Atrato river some fifty miles from its mouth,
with depth of from six to ten fathoms, and
from thence to the Pacifc-a distance of some
sixty miles more--without a single lock or
other obstruction in the contemplated canal
A liberal grant has been made by the Gov
eminent Of New Granada to the persons en-
gagged in this grand undertaking; and the
whole route, from one ocean to the other, has
been accurately surveyed, and the facts de-
veloped are beyond doubt or question, so far
as the feasibility of the work is concerned.
Nothing of which we are advised can equal
the Importance of this project, and the facts
presented to us are clearly presumptive of the
practicability of the enterprise. When we get
the report in full of the engineer who survey
ed and measured the route, we will present it
to our readers.
The R1iingspirit ofthe Days much like
that which distinguished the era in American
public affairs that signalised the admins
tration of the elder Adams. The only point
Indifference is, that, then, the cry was against
| infdelity, so far as religion was concerned;
while at this time it is against Catholieity, the
! religionists who take part in. the crusade of
the hour, hugging to their hearts not only
those who most shamelessly deny the existence
| If a Supreme being in their habit of life, but
those also whose infdelity is matter of every
lay Boosting The state of popular senti-
| ment that enacted the alien and sedition laws
broke out in riot and bloodshed, wherever
specious demagogues of position in society
stepped forward to countenance such demon
STATIONS against the foreign born in our coun-
try, not more than against the letter and spirit
Of our constitution and laws, and the eternal
principles of justice, liberty, and right on
which they (the constitution and laws of the
United States) are founded 1t required but
some two years for the people to come to their
senses, as was manifested not only in the re-
peal of the dangerous class-legislation to which
we refer above, but in ostracising nearly all
the public men who were conspicuous in the
work Of leading the popular mind astray for
their own selfish and unprincipled ends, and
IN such reaction in the popular mind as that
from that day to the era of the burning of the
church Of st. Augustine, in Philadelphia, all
were, with great unanimity, considered ene-
mics to the principles ON which the constitu-
ton of our country is based who countenanced
TIE idea that it was just, legal, and patriotic
20 make distinctions among citizens of the Uni.
ted States on account of birth place or religion
The existing phase of popular opinion to
which we refer, owesits origin, in great mea-
sure, to the increasing habit of Office seeking
among our countrymen. Where one man
sought office forty years ago, at least one hun
dred, If not five Zines that number, seek Office
now. AS it is impossible to crafty all, and as
many of the disappointed are mere blather-
skiting, small-beer politicians, without either
character or true patriotism, they cast around
them for some means of obtaining revenge Oh
the party whose election they aided, but
who preferred to entrust the business of the
Government in other hands than theirs: and
being most of them, cunning demagogues,
they essayed to play ON two elements of
the history of the progress Of man, from the
barbarism of the remotest times of which
we have record, shows that man is weak
est. That is, to play on the religious pre-
JUDGES and the natural antipathies of race
mate in the ignorant and passionate through
out all time and in every cline. The latter
clement, by the by, may not fairly be pro-
nounced weakness of humanity alone; as it
never yet has happened that strange dog APP
preached lot Of ours without instantly being
set upon, unless the latter, on carefully sur
veying the stranger, became satisfied that in
the fight they might possibly come off second
best
But leaving this, our episode, we have to
remark that portion of the politicians of the
other party, ambitious of place at any sacrifice
of American institutions and principles, at
once seized upon the burning hate and anti
American schemes Of the disappointed Demo-
SIutc, VII NLlCa W Iiuc iiltO poHcE' IOScIutT.
almost from the date of the last presidential
Inauguration to this day, they have been pros
ecuting their plans; collecting large bodies of
the ignorant, brutal, vicious, bigotted, fanati-
cal and demagogush in the secrecy of midnight,
inducing them to forswear their integrity and
allegiance to the laws of the land and its con-
stitution, by specious appeals which are success
fal with even such persons, only because honest,
patriotic, truthful, experienced and well in
formed men are not permitted to be present to
expose, in the hearing of the masses, their
dangerous and really revolving tendency In
such secret meetings they are taught that to
lie is virtuous; that to perpetrate frauds
against their opponents is justifable; and that
to commit violence under cover of the dark
ness Of the night, is patriotic. That this has
been done for some time past all over the
United States, is proved not only by the ritual