The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1838-07-17 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

THE ADVANTAGES OF DEMOCRACY.  In a charge delivered to the grand jury of the county of St, Louis, in the United States, in which the republican judge clearly expounded "that whether thegrand jury should act at all (in the case of a negro who, in a moment of popular excitement, had bee❑ chained to a tree and burnt alive) depended upon the solution of this preliminary question—namely, whether the destruction of the negro was the act of the few or of the many."  ..._..,. " lf," said the republican judge, "the destruction of the negro was the act of the many—of the multitude in the ordinary sense of these words—not the act of numerable and ascertainable malefactors, but of congregated thousands, seized upon and impelled by that mysterious, metaphysical, and almost electric frenzy, which in all ages and nations has hurried on the infuriated multitude to deeds of dcath.and destruction—then, I say act not at all iu the matter. The case transcends your jurisdiction : it is beyond the reach of human law ! • * I repeat, if the thousands congregated round the fire were the actors in this fearful tragedy it would be impossible to punish, mid absurd. to attempt it. * * * It seems to me, as 1 have already recommended, that, it' you arrive at the ultimate conclusion that the death of M'lntosh (the negro) was the act of the multitude you will pursue the safest and the wisest course in declining all action with it."  The moral distance between the democratic axiom that the populace can do no wrung and the bold exhortation addressed to our British juries to allow nothing out of court to influence their verdicts, is greater than that which separates' us from the antipodes. If from the bench of justice the passions of people are declared to be stronger than the powers of the law, the irresponsible populace soon repudiates all government except the tyranny of its own will. Thus, when the American General Scott, lately sent by the federal government of the United States to recover, if possible, the cannons and muskets which had been plundered by citizens of the United States from the American arsenals, appeared before the inhabitants in Albany, he was, as the American press termed it, " honoured by a public entertainment," at which the following toast was given :—" The Sovereign People, may their will be at all times implicitly obeyed by their servants." Again : when General Renseilaer, commanding the American citizens who invaded Upper Canada, was asked at Yongston under what pretence of justice he could attempt to make prisoner an individual in the British service whom the American government was bound to respect, his followers indignantly replied, " D—n our government! the people are the government! the government are the remnants of the people 1" The law in the United States of America being unable to restrain the passions of the people, it has naturally enough followed that the licentiousness which is admitted even from the bench to be the privilege of the people, is claimed by each individual who composes the mass, and accordingly in several of the states every male inhabitant above the age of 14 or 16 carries in his own bosom a bowie-knife to enable him to be the judge, jury, and executioner of his own law. The American people are by nature no more addicted to the crime of assassination than we are, but they are driven to commit open murder because their laws have not sufficient power to protect them. • When once a populace take to the knife, the horrors they perpetrate are beyond description. In public as well as in private society there is nothing which makes an Englishman recoil so suddenly from his American brother as a glimpse of the shining hilt of the dagger which the latter carries halfconcealed between his waistcoat and his shirt. For instance, the tragedy ofAssembly lately performed on the floor of the Commonswas House of the state of Arkansas, where the speaker, Colonel Wilson, taking offence at an olsiervation made by Major Anthony, suddenly drew from his bosom his bowie-knife, rose from his seat, walked towards his antagonist through the members, who made way for him as lie passed, until, reaching his victim, he deliberately stabbed him (Major Anthony) to the heart !—Kentish Observer.  John Frampton, a citizen of Bristol, was imprisoned tiro years at Seville, and had his cargo confiscated, " becam he pronounced Ave Maria in the Sornersetshire dialect,"