The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1858-02-18
THE FRrrMAs's JOURNAL ON LEcoxrros.-

|! : THE FREEMAN's JOURNAL ON LEcoMProN.-
The most reverend and highly respectable Able
McMasters Of the Frecmdn's Jornal-the papal
and purgatcisi organ of Archbishop Hughes
has thought fiji to discharge an unusual quaint
ty Of bile upon the head Of the national ad-
nlnstration, in connection with Mr.. Buchanans
efforts to settle the Kansas trouble. The most
reverend and truly pious Able McMasters was
unctuously jubilant over Mr.. Buchansn's first
Kansas message, which he pronounced master
piece Of political writing, and a miracle of
statesnanlikc wisdom (the Abbe's forte is the
superlative); and yet the last message is but an
echo of the first, the first was the prelude to
the last both are identical in sentiment, tenor,
view and doctrine. Whence this startling
change of opinion in the devout and retiring
Able? How comes he now to spit upon that
which he so recently lickeds
The secret is very simple. Our austere and
virtuous Able perceived some time since that
he had mission in this world, which was to
represent the United States as Charge at the
Court of Rome. His claims were strong I'M
doubleday. The pure and truly Christian Able
pfONcO tHdt QuilUR thc last IICeiuObtiui Sou-
vars he had published in his paper base for
geries about Mr.. Fremonts religion, tending to
divert from him the votes Of bigoted PrOtes-
| tants-unhappily an abundant sect; and that
| whether he forged the letters himself or got
| some one else to forge them) he had by their
| publication drawn down upon himself so huge
volume of public contempt and ridicule, and
| lOofhinU hat II ayirou,alv lilo hot
he should leave the country. Hence the lovely
and amiable Able entreated of the President to
send him to Rome.
| Instead of sending him to Rome, Mr.. Bu-
chanan sent OUT poor Able to-Jericho; from
which distant and lonely place he now pens
| those doletul jeremiads about Kansas which
sound like the disappointed croak of carrion
crow. Pity the miserable Able Don't think
any the worse Of him. Let him try ever so
hard, be couldn't make himself more contempt-
bic than he dm last summer.
Mr.. SEwARD's New PLATFORM FOR His PAR
TY.-The Hon. William II. Seward is causing a
good deal of unhappiness just now to few mi
nor politicians of the party to which he belongs.
They are considerably exercised by his vote in
favor of the increase of the army; on which
question, as the reports show, he took opposite
ground to the other republican Senator's and
voted with the friends of the administration
They think he should have sacrificed everything
to party and voted as his friends did
The chances are that William II. Seward I'M
derstands his position better and is better poll
tician and deeper statesman than any of his cri-
tics. III likely that he considers the Kansas game
| played out, and the prospect of rearing an oppo-
sition party on the Mormon issue quite hopeless
| A vote against the increase of the army is evil
dently-now that circumstances have proved
! that increase to be essential to the subjugaton
| Of the Mormons-a vote in favor of Brigham
Young, and in favor of polygamy; and the re-
| publcans who voted against the increase Of the
army in order to distress the administration,
simply gave the lie to their Philadelphia plat
form, and proffered their aid to the polygamsts
| of Salt Lake City. Mr.. Seward apparently
does not consider that Mormon alliance will
pay; and, seeing further into the future than
testers like Hale, or village politicians, he bold
ly cuts loose from his POLITICAL associates. and
sustains the Committee on Military Affairs.
At the same time Mr.. Seward. who, as he has
told us in one of his late speeches, considers the
Kansas question practically settled and refusest to
take up the Mormon question, is not so thought
less as to leave his party without platform.
He has accordingly started the new scheme of al
tering the mode by which the Supreme Court of
the United States is now constituted, and of
trammelling the freedom of choice which the
| II n = ~.
lection of Judges. He proposes that the Judges
shall be chosen sectionaly, and distributed, like
Congressional representatives among the people
Of the republic according to numbers. He
wants each Judge, in other words, to be the
fanatical and sectional representative Of 20
many men from the North or from the South.
This ingenious plan for converting the Su-
| peme Bench into q scene Of endless strife and
contention, and Of lowering the Judges Of the
Supreme Court OF the United States to the level
of small party politicians, is of course i'll calcu-
lated to command the respect of a majority of
either house of Congress But il will do pretty
| well az peg 10 hang the republican party on,
a. soon as the Kansas excitement has thorough
ly died out This. obviously. !. Mr.. Seward $
calculation. Reasoning from the jealousy and
sellishness of human nature. Mr.. Seward counts
upon rousing the North by proving that the
South happens to preponderate on the Bench;
he calculates that the excitement which the
bred Scott case lately aroused may thus be
turned to some purpose.
II will be strange it time do not prove Mr..
Seward a better politician than his colleagues
who are now snarlins at him. The idea of ict-
tering the Presidents choice In the selection of
Judges Of the Supreme Court is of course alb