The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-02-21
ENGLAND AND AMERICA.
,ndon Saturday. Replelp.

ENGLAND AND AMERICA.
From the London Saturday RcUisC.
General Schenck, who is expected in Eng
land few days hence, may be supposed to
enjoy the confidence of the President and the
Secretary of State. He will probably be care
full to avoid the mysterious errors of manner
or conduct which caused the dismissal of Mr.
Motley; and he will not be held responsible
for the misdeeds of Mr.. Sumner or any other
Senator. After the reputation by the Senate
of Mr.. Reverdy Johnson's treaty, it was an
nounced that the negotiation was only to be
renewed at Washington; but it seems that
General Schenck is empowered to make some
kind of overture to the English Government.
If he repeats the complaints which have been
founded by General Grant and Mr.. Fish on the
unfriendly spirit attributed TO England dur
ing the civil war, Lord Granville might perhaps
ask him in return for his opinion on the
recent vote of the House of Representatives.
1t would be scarcely courteous to add that a
sillier and more shameless act of rudeness
was never perpetrated by a deliberative
assembly. On the motion of General Butler,
the House has resolved, by majority of 172
to 81, that q welcome shall be offered TO
ODonoyan Rosa and the other discharged
Fenian convicts. When General Butler
lately proposed at Boston that O series of
insults should be offered to England for the
sake of reuniting the Republican party, few
respectable American writer's and speakers
protested against the proposal, and declared
that General Butler had no pretension to
represent public opinion. The effusive ad-
vocates of the United States in England
eagerly accepted the assurance; and the
expression of doubt whether the lowest
American demagogue is not the most popular
of political leaders was not unnaturally de-
nounced as invidious and indiscreet. Never
theless it was known that General Butler had
been twice elected by a district in Massachu-
sets, and soon afterwards the President re-
produced in his message to Congress several
of the arguments and suggestions which had
been spplauded at Boston. 1t now appears
that the House of Representatives. at the in
stigation of General Butler, almost unani-
mously agrees to offer a gross and wanton
affront to the English Government and nation.
The Democrats have united with the Repub-
licans in the approval of rebellion against the
English Government as an act intrinsieally
meritorious. 1t is not necessary that the
Fenian conspiracy should rise to the dig
nifty of political enterprise, or that its
ringleaders should have a reasonable
prospect of success. The convicts are
offenders against English law; and therefore
at Washington they are heroes and martyrs
Two of the three members of the Federal
Government have now displayed bitter hos
tility to England. 1t remains to be seen
carping of the President and in the ill-bred
malignity of the House of Representatives.
Unluckily the majority of the body consists
of the partisans of General Grant and of the
followers of Mr.. Sumner. The self-respect of
the Senate will secure it from the degradation
incurred by the House; but the President of
the Senate, when he was Speaker of the
House of Representatives, invited the Fenian
leaders to take places on the floor.
UhaFa hos haa mn cixTil lxuar in fha NIL tn1
Kingdom, nor were the Fenian conspirators
supported by any constituted body or by any
respectable section of the community. When
the Southern States seeded from the Union
they carried with them the whole machinery
of government, as we'll as the titular sove-
reignty which they had retained for them
selves when they first entered the Union.
Their right to secede was acknowledged by
nearly all American statesmen and iursts,
and it was scarcely disputed by the President
himself. Nearly all the army and navy
officers of Southern origin thought it their
! duty to hold their State allegiance paramount,
| although many of them disapproved of the
| policy of secession. The Confederate Govern
ment raised great armies, and for two
years maintained superiority in the field; and
during that time few of the friends of the
Union deemed it possible to reclaim the
| Southern States by force. From the begin
ming of the war to the end both houses of the
English Parliament steadily discountenanced
the passage of any resolution, and even the
delivery of any speech, which might be un-
acceptable to the United States. 1t was i'm
possible wholly to silence the expression of
the sympathies of private members, but the
leaders of parties succeeded in preventing,
not only an obnoxious vote, but a formal dis
cussion of the merits of the belligerents. The
courtesy and caution which are nurtured by
traditions of political responsibility have met
with little appreciation, but not even the
Shermans or the Buffers have been able to
discover a grievance in the Parliamentary
proceedings of four years. In the early part
of the war, when foolish naval officer had
committed an outrage on the English flag,
the lower house of Congress hastened to pass
q vote of thanks for an act which the Secre-
| tary of State was soon afterwards compelled
to disayow. 1t is not surprising that such
body should be regarded by intelligent
Americans with merited disrespect, but the
| House Of Representatives is elected by uni
versal suffrage, and, Notwithstanding the in
difference of the people to the qualifications
! of the members for share in the government
Of the country, the House must be sup
posed to express the opinions OF the con-
| stituencies Unless General Schenck is au-