The Sun. — 1844-03-05 (London, England)

STANDARD.—In the House of Lords last night, Lord Brougham called the attention of the House and of the public to a late trial and conviction of an individual in the state of Louisiana (United States), for aiding in the escape of a slave. For this offence the law of Louisiana imposes the penalty of death, and the unhappy convict has been ordered for execution on the 26th of next month. The Noble and Learned Lord disclaimed any purpose of interfering with the independent authority of the country in which this frightful and most disgusting tragedy is impending, or even of censuring the laws which lead to consequences so hideous ; his only object, he said, was to save the threatened victim, if possible, by presenting to the people of Louisiana the view which would be taken in Europe, of his destruction. Lord Brougham, in the part, he has taken, has acted with judgment and good taste • worthy of his humanity. True, we as Englishmen have no right to question the authority of an American Government, or to censure its laws ,whatever may be the private opinion of each of us upon those laws. But as men,  lwe have a right to protest against an act of barbarous • nhumanity, wherever threatened, or wherever perpetrated. " Homo sum, et humani nihil a me alienum puto," said the heathen poet ; and as Christians we owe a peremptory duty to exercise all the means that lawfully me can to prevent the commission of an atrocious crime. Now a strong and indignant expression of opinion presents means within our reach, and means which we are bound to use ; and to such an expression Lord Brougham's notice summons the country, at least summons the press, which reflects the public feeling. Public opinion, according to Mr. Locke, possesses an influence upon the actions of men more powerful than the sanctions of religion and of law, and it is certainly more prompt than either in the exercise of its influence ; but there is, if we may so speak, a public opinion of the conduct of nations, as there is a public opinion of the acts of individuals among nations ; and if the United States will maintain a respectable character in the family of civilised nations, they must respect thi opinions which foreigners form of their proceedings. We readily imitate Lord Brougham's wise example, in abstaining from all offensive topics, while considering this particular matter; but we cannot help congratulating the nations which have expelled the use of slavery upon their escape from temptation to cruelty of the most terrible kind, which they owe to that expulsion—a temptation which has unfortunately most force whrrever the freemen are most free. An indifference to the lives and happiness of fellow crreatures, is the blackest stain upon the Roman character—a stain from which the brightest names in Roman history are not free ; but this had its origin in the use of slavery—for when men are once made familiar with bloodshed in the murder of slaves, they will soon redden their hands in the blcod of fellow-citizens. We will not ask whether this progress to cruel barbarism has taken place to any extent in the southern and western States of the American commonwealth, because we would avoid every offensive allusion ; but we point with pride to the freest people in the world, and the people who for the longest period have been free in themselves, and free from the contact of slavery—we point with pride to the people of England, distinguished above all other people on the face of the earth, by a horror of bloodshed, that we would think instinctive to the Anglo-Saxon race did we not unhappily see that some of that race, when thrown into the society of slavery, have lost the glorious distinction Let us hope that Lord Brougham's notice will have its desired effect, and that we skall not have to add to the proofs of the degrading influence of slavery one more odious, because proving a cruelty more deliberate and more diffused than any we have yet witnessed.