New-York tribune., 1868-10-13
THE NFV ERA IN SPIN.


Ii requires an effort to grasp tho magnitude
of tho forward strides in political rights and
social freedom which Spain is making under
the guidance of tho Provisional Junta. The
vast latent power of the Catholic Church IN
Spain tho almost unchecked sway OF the
priesthood over the cOnsciences and votes OF
the peasantry, the lower classes, and nOta few
of the nobility and grandoes and its success
in oycrturning the attempts heretofore made to
inaugurate few of the reforms now under
taken en- ndSSe. must occasion solicltude ana
distrust as to whether, on the broad basis OF
universal suffrage now proposed, the people
of Spain will firmly sustain the
innovations and reforms announced by the
Junta. Very much depends on the mode in
which the appeal to Universal Suffrage is to
be made. When Napoleon permitted France
to vote on the question "Will you have the
Empire or-you know not what y the people
had really no choice but to vote for the En-
pire. The Junta, in announcing new and
grand Charter of Liberties for tho Spanish
people, more advanced than any European
nation can claim, or than even our Own
country has possessed until within the past
two years. show that they are determined
to work q radical reform in the Consti-
tuition of Spain before submitting any qucs-
ton whatever to the people. Having done
this, the people viii be called on TO sustain
their action, aided by all the rights and
powers which tho new Constitution con-
fers, or, perhaps, assuming it's fundamental
validity, to vote into power the officers who
are TO enforce il. In procaiming the essential
elements of the new Constitution in advance OF
the vote of tho people the leaders show at
once the ripeness and maturity OF their own
convictions, and their determination to mold
the future institutions of the country with n
firm hand, and after the most perfect models.
The people of Spain, to whom the ballot, un-
Ill very recently, has been as strange rs the
bayonet has been familiar, are TO emerge sud
denly from petty dcspotism to universal suf-
frage. The land of the Inquistion, where
throned kings have put on the garb of monks,
and cowlcd monks have swayed the power of
kings, claims perfect religious liberty for mcE
Of all faiths and of no faith. A country of
whose chief literary work it has been said that
it was written to prove how ridiculous were
all the others, and where journalism has
scarcely begun TO influence political affairs,
proclaims freedom of the Press. Where, of late,
the highest officers Of the Government were
exled or banished for questioning the policies
of the Queens favorites, or for being sus-
pected of contempt for royal RIGHTEOUSNESS,
full liberty is accorded to all to meet in public
assemblies, and agitate, if there can be any
ground of agitation when every con-
ceivable liberty has been granted. A sys.
tenn of education presided over by the priest
hood with the single end of preventing the
growth of popular intelligence on all vital
points, and thereby strengthening the hold of
the priests npon the scepter of power is to be
superseded by radical and popular system like
the systems of Prussia and the American States
That first great levelcr, the right of trial by
jury, is to be instituted to terminate the Op-
pressions which without ii the powerful, through
the courts, may always practice Oh the weak.
Finally, the equality of all men before the law,
which the so-called Democratic party in Amer
lea is even now eontesting, has been proclaimed
by the hitherto most conservative and retro
grade power in Europe rs the cornerstone of
its new Constitution. BY irresistible inference
it involves the speedy abolition of Slavery in
Cuba. 1t remains to be seen whether the Spanish
people will sustain changes SO sweeping and
radical. They involve a more dangerous inva-
sion of the supremacy of the priesthood than
the secularization of the property of the Church,
which was not accomplished without several
cOunter-reyolutions. In Spain, as in Mexico,
such measures will be met by a mighty spirit
ual Oligarchy, backed by the whole ignorance
of the peasantry and the superstition of the
women. II is glory enough for the present TO
find that the intelligent and powerful leaders
of opinion in Spain believe that the Spanish
people are prepared to receive that universal
suffrage from which England shrinks, that
freedom of the Press which France dare not
confer, that absolute religious liberty for which
Germany still waits, and that political equality
of man which is not yet realized in our own
United States.
Americans of culture have always taken a
warm interest in Spain. TicAlor, irving, aud