The Portland daily press., 1866-03-16
Friday Morning, March ls, 1865.
rms = % 90 per year In aduance.

o.
W Reading Matter on all -Four Pages.
President johnson and the Liberals Of Eu.
A' 'it4-- ~ '-' rope. ,.lc f0i JGo 7 ,-..
oa The people have been aroused during the
past five years as they have never been before.
They are standing on the verge of still great
er events than those which have recently hap
pened. Our late struggle for the nations life
Is but the opening to more momentous scenes.
1t has given an impetus to the world which
cannot be resisted. The Liberals of the Old
World have been watching the political wa
ters with deep and thrilling interest, and their
| eyes are now fastened on our President in a
steadfast gaze that shows what an intense
anxiety they feel In relation to passing events
in this country. No events have occurred in
their own country during the past generation
which have 30 deeply interested them as those
which have occurred here. They fee. as If we
were standing upon the Threshold of some
great epoch in the worlds history. l'a 'i II
Gasparin, Laboulaye, Martin, Smith, Bright
and hosts of others are gazing across the
ocean, and Kossuth, who has rung more
changes on the words Liberty and Equality
than any living orator, and with an eloquence,
too, far SURPRISING that of almost any states
man Of ancient or modern times, is looking
out Of his retirement in the great metropolis
of England, and watching the progress Of
events with an interest which he alone can
feel These patriots feel deeper and broad
er interest in our political affairs than we our
selves feel, if that were possible, for while our
attention is absorbed by our own affairs, they
are intent upon the spread OF republican
principles over the whole civilized world
Having lived under governments that oppress
the people, they are more deeply impressed
with the value of democratic institutions than
we had been previous to the great rebellion.
They know how the masses of Europe have
been oppressed ;they know how heavy the bur
dens are which aristocrats have fastened up
i on the people; they know how CALLING is the
yoke put upon the necks of the working cl S.
es Of the Old World; they know how the
spirit Of Liberty has been kept down by the
ruling classes, and they know, too, that it is
like "earth's central fires" which will break
out a. some time, although mountains press
them down. No wonder that they look away
to America and rejoice that the recent war
has been the destruction of human bondage
in this great Republic. That great moral stain
has been removed, and these Liberals began to
indulge the hope that our Republic would now
become power in the earth, and Its influence
| felt in its remotest corners where civilization
had begun its work. They knew and we
know, that slavery has heretofore greatly cir
cumscribed our influence on other nations.
Strange, inde ed, has 1t seemed to them thai
this Republic should tolerate chattel slavery
and keep in bondage four millions of human
beingsl @ ~ tat si 9G>is or 5na Pes {,
When the Southern aristocrats and slave
holders commenced the war upon our govern
ernment, the Liberals of Europe, free from
the prejudices that clouded our judgments,
and uniniuenced by that partizan feeling that
always ,weakens craftsmanship, saw more
clearly than we did that slavery must find a
grave in every battlefield. Their view of the
final results Of the war, so far as slavery was
concerned, was as clear as a sunbeam. Not
SO ours; and yet there were some who ventur-
ed to prophesy that it would 60 down amid
the clash of arms. But the greatest concern
Of our lawyers and statesmen was to preserve
the government and preserve our nationality
Even the lamented Lincoln, who had the
great Democratic party to placate, and who
watched the progress of public opinion and
sentiment with an insight that has never been
surpassed, was willing to let slavery alone
within its constitutional limits, provided by SO
doing the government of his country could be
saved. And the leaders of the party that
elected him to his high Office were willing to
adopt the same policy on the same conditions
But how short-sighted that policy seems to us
nowi There was a deep strong current of feel
| ing in the public heart, which could not be
tampered with nor be resisted In its course
it swept away all compromises and flowed or
like mighty river, bearing down all opposi
ton and blotting out forever the terrible stair
OF slavery which has always been the "damn
ned spot ON our escutcheon. aei1r i,
The great, all absorbing question now is
who shall be our lawmakers? Shall they bs
unrepentant traitors and rebels, or shall they
be loyal men and true patriots? This question
now agitates the public mind, and upon it hans
momentous interests. Men whose hands havt
been stained with the best blood of the natior
4 are now knocking at the doors of Congress fo
admission, and who shall judge of their quail
ifications for such q place ofpower? Are no
hundreds of minds more to be relied upo,
than one? With the evidence now before th
world, what is the opinion of the Liberals O
Europe upon this question? How does it com
pare with our Presidents? Under all the cir
cumstances. who has the least prejudice P
Whose standpoint is the more reliable? Thes
questions are not difficult to answer. -s-
1t has been said that prejudice against class
es and races of men often springs from tn
consciousness of injury inflicted upon them
and that necessitates the discovery of natur
al or divine occasion for its existence, an,
q kind shareholders of the South, and the Bish
op Hopkinses of the North, and Copperhead
generally--n they ever open the Bible-hay
resorted to Holy Writ to prove that slavery
divine institution. Tacitus says that human
nature is compounded of such stuff that W
. are too prone to hate those we have injured
and Pope has given the same idea in the 70
lowing lines: siH adi saa-- ..t,y M,
1 Forgiveness to the injured doth belong
He never pardons that hath done the wrong" :
There is more truth than poetry in thos
lines. And now is it strange that Presider
johnson should be laboring under such pre