Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1859-02-02

~ For City News, see first page.
! For Market Reports and Marine News, see
fourth page.
Ma. SUMMERS LECTURE ON SPAIN.-A good
audience assembled last night at the Melodeon, to
meet G orge Sumner Esq, and to listen to his Ell.
oquent and instructing discourse npon "Spain."
Mr.. Sumner, in announcing his subject, marked
its limits by saying that he proposed neither his
tory nor sketch, nor treatise on national charac-
ter, nor book of troves: but his hope would be,
in the hour in which he was privileged to address
them, to present something partaking of all these,
which should body forth TO the general apprehen-
sion an idea of Spain-cf that ancient, peculiar,
interesting, debiitated country. Conducting his
audience into Spain by the Pyreneess, he described
the first impressions of the traveller, who finds
sOmbre cloud of melancholy brooding over the
land, through which, occasionally, as in Andalusia
break bright electric flashes of inordinate gayety
A burning sun and the absence Of lakes cause q
parching heat, and deprive the heavens of those
grand masses of rolling vapor, and those ever vary
ing tnts which make the glory of an Italian or en-
American sunset. He reaches city like Burgos,
and finds in the month of July crowds of strong,
able bodied men walking solemnly on the Alameda,
wrapped to their chins in thick brown cIoaks, and
if he ventures to suggest that this winter garment
is needessly warm, is told, in apology for wearing
it, that there in Spain it is customary Again and
again will he hear this answer, which is the con-
cuding word of all arguments in favor of improve
ment Some Of the Spsnisrds, conscious of the un-
changing state of things, tell story, at their own
expense, of visit which old Father Adam paid TO
the earth. He wandered through many countries
of Europe, but was panied and saddened by all the
improvements which he saw. Nothing, he said,
looked right until he came to Spain, when he threw
up his hands in delight, and exclaimed, "Ah,
this now looks natural; there's the very same old
plough used when l last worked here"
Where once was population of forty millions
the traveller finds only twelve milons-sees an i'm
mense extent of fertile country without roads or
canals, except those for irrigation, legacy of the
enlightened Moors-goes to the seaports, and finds
few small coasters, with eargoes of trihing vslue
and few old hulks, memorials of the naval gran
deur of Spain, rotting in their desolate waters
comes to the capital, and fluids neither art nor in
dustry, but host of hungry Office hunters and
holders, whose language and appearance at their
daily turn out in the Puerto del Sol, remind him.
if an American, OF Pennsylvania avenue during
certain months of March. Pennsylvania avenue,
however, in two things surpasses the Puerto del
Sol-yIz., its fumes of bad whiskey and its floods
of tobacco juice.
Seeing land to which nature has given the most
prolific SOIL the richest mines, and magnificent sea-
coast depopulated and degraded; seeing pride,
laziness and poverty around him, the traveller asks
if this really be the land which, in the days Of
Phillip II, extended its possessions more exten-
sively than did ever the Roman Empire and whose
sovereign could boast that the sun set his
domains! Whence comes this slddening change
What causes have produced this fall Is Spain TO
remain thus low, or is there hope that she may yet
arisel These are the points which the lecturer
proposed to examine.
The primal cause of the downfall of Spain is the
/ oss of liberty, through the successful efforts of
leIe iDe to ecrodeh upon the Legislature branch Of
| the gOoeTnnle7lt. The means employed weIe-lst.
The creation by the executive Of a Supreme Court
1.-THE nquisiton) to act its ally, aud the use Of
this gine to frighten the timid ID The bri-
berry of representatives by offering places in the
gift Of the executive to them TO their friends as
the price OF their votes. Thus Spain became NOR
ally degraded, and msterial degradation soon fol
lowed; but this was hastened and completed by the
constant policy of the court to make productive
labor disgraceful. Liberty and labor h0Hored Gad
cherished, Spain tras prosperous, poPELous, polo-
ertul. Liberty and labor neglected and deSPISed,
SpdSH became tchdt she Is.
The origin Of the iuquisition was attributed by
Mr.. Sumner not to religious, but political motives,
Iiuasmuch as the constitution, which forbade the
King to confscate the property of the condemned,
and which secured to all certain rights, was over
ridden by this new tribunal Af.er showing how
it became at later day an instrument ofthe church,
be continued What it was in the days of its strug.
giles with the freedom Spain, best told in one Of
the dispatches, or RslaSer0Hi, sent by the Vene-
tan Ambassador in 1888, to the Council OF Ten,
manuscript copy of which is in the Royal Library
at Paris. After describing the tribunals and the
councils Of the King, the Ambassador continues:
1.-THE Inquisition is, however, the greatest means
Of government in Spain. It is, in fact great ST.
preps Court, with which the King can accomplish
much, for its judges are under his control, and it
does not hesitate to PROFOUND DEGREES and judge
matters not brought before It By any Of the recog-
nized forms Of Judicial procedure.
The course pursued to destroy the Cortes was
sketched by Mr.. Sumner from original documents
copied by him from the Spanish archieves. Il leGs
full of 1pdTIEg to every constitutional g0rsT1deHt.
No sooner had the executive, by menaces and by
| offering places TO members and their friends, in
duced the Cortes to vote the army bill before grieV
ances were redressed, than it launched into poll
cy of foreign war, which loaded Spain with debt ;
debt led to oppressive taxation; these oppressive
taxes led 10 crime and misery titles of nobility
were sold to raise money hosts of mobiles sprung
up--lazy, but proud and poor. These mobiles and
disastrous example, and their opposition to all
progress depicted. In treating of the crushing tax
alton of Spain, Mr.. Sumner corrected popular er-
ror in regard TO the amount of gold and silver re-
ceived from the conquest Of Mexico. Humboldt
had already shown the statements of Robertson,
Rayno. and others to be fabulous and absurd for
the first fifty years after the conquest Humboldt
based his statements, as he says, "partly facts
and partly on conjectures" Mr. S. was able from
authentic documents to complete the series Of facts
and to reduce the amounts much lower even than
" Humboldt, giving them at the same time with pre-
cision. While admitting the large sums received
by Spain after the working Of Potos, and after the
process of extraction by quicksilver was discovered,
Mr.. S. said he had now only to deaf with the spe-
cial period when Spain was losing her constitution
Al liberty, and therefore her glory and power. The
whole amount received during that period by The
King, as his royal fifth, from Mexico, would coin
at our mint into only S2S3 600 and, after the con
quest of Peru all that reached the spanish treasu.
q ~ from the ransom II the Inca Atahualpa would
e coin into S450OOO The spOis ofyictory were eat
T en- up by the despoiler.
We can only hastily follow the lecturer in his
exposition of the development of parties IN SPAN,
Of the destruction of the converts the reform ol
: : the courts the founding normal schools, the chaf
eeter OF the queen, the bloody career Of Narvaez
d the revolutions which placed him in power, those
OF two years since, and the last move attributed to
q the nnuenee OF Louis Napoleon. jealous OF seeing
more liberty in Spain than he permits at home, and
u his predictions o. further movements which will
touch the throne itself In this part Mr.. Sumner
was able to draw upon his own personal recoIIec
tions, and to enliVen his lecture BY Characters
tic anecdotes. The hope of Spain for the future
he placed In her municipal organization; 2
r. ax-1 rawaNrw