The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-03-27

"A DEMAND FOR MORE LIBERrY IN
FRANoE.-M. THEIRS, the eminent
French historian and statesman, made
a great speech in the French chambers,
on the 26th of February, for an extern
sion of liberty and free institutions in
France. 1t is one of those speeches that
may become waymark in French his
tory, if the public opinion of the nation
is kept up TO the tone of the orator. we
quote a few of the striking things said
by him:
Since 1852 we have lived in the hope,
founded on whatseemed an assurance,
that the concentration of power in the
hands of the emperor would only be
Temporary. The general feeling has
been that ms soon as calm should return
the institutions which the country had
enjoyed at other times would be res
tored. This expectation was founded
ON the constitution itself, which can al
ways be modified by the initiative of
the emperor, with the consent of the
senate. IL resulted from the memoirs
BILE declaration of the 18th of january,
1852, that if liberty We're not in the foun-
dntions of the editice it would one day
be its completion, and also from the de-
cree of November "a, which re-estab-
lished political discussion here. En-
couraged by those acts and declarations
the nation looks wisttully for those. in
stitutions which the whole civilized
world acknowledges alone capable of
assuring libertysa and security, and is
naturally impatient to see them res
ltored, now that the government itself
every year acknowledges that the calm
has returned. Hitherto the restoration
of liberty was onlyla question of time;
not one of principle, which it now seems
to have become.
'.When nation Pounds dynasty it
has not exhausted its rights, but is en-
titled to demand that its will shall be
embodied in all the acts of the govern
sment. Thus monarchy in France, as
Europe, is founded on the
principle of national sovereignty. The
form of government may change, but
public opinion ought ever to inspire
the acts of the government, and must,
therefore, have the means of forming
itself. For this certain liberties are
necessary = first, individual liberty I;
then that publicly expressing thought
both by speech and by the press. Abuses
of the press can only be properly re-
pressed by moral means. That experf-
ment has yet to be made. When will
it be commenced? The citizen ought
to be free not only in his person and
thoughts, but also in his preferences,
when called to elect his representative.
It's highly improper Tor the govern
ment to designate candidates interrup-
tion); and in employing, to insure their
triumph, the funds granted for the pub
lie service, it deviates from the path of
rectitude.
"feal liberty is that which places n
nationlin possession of its own desti-
Mes Decentralization is not liberty, or
all the nations OF the middle ages would
have been free, for the royalty aban=l
donetl to them all local affairs. Free
trade is not liberty; for Turkey has not
single protective duty, while the uni
ted States is the country the most at
suffrage, which is one of the means of
liberty, is not liberty itself, for England
has only restricted suffrage, and GER
tainly no one will say that England is
not free. Which are those not free2-
We need not say. We must pain no
one. OF the former two may be mem
toned as incontestably free; a monar.
chy and a republic; England America"