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Bui there will be no failure . Those -who chuckle look only to the present day , or to the objects before their eyes , forgetting what is behind . "We must remember that the Government at "Washington , necessary as it is to regulate certain proceedings , is not essentially necessary to any one of the scoreand-a-half of states , all of whom , have their Governments quite efficient within their own territories , and capable in some degree of carrying on the business that would otherwise be conducted "by the federal Government .
THE CONSOLATIONS OF CAYENNE . For a long time the political prisoners at Cayenne were represented as a horde of bloodthirsty desperadoes , bent on the destruction of society . In addition to their chains they wore that stigma . Imperialist writers in Prance affected towards these state criminals a more pitiless austerity than towards ordinary felons and malefactors , and English journalism took the tint of the French . Not only were the prisoners
dragged to a horrible exile ; they were abandoned by hurnan sympathy , or at least by all but the sympathy of those men , the conscience of a state , wlo refused to be fascinated by immoral triumphs , or by illegal power . The incendiaries , enemies of order , Socialist malcontents , incorrigible ^ conspirators , were left to their fate , and London thronged around the chariot-wheels of Na .-PQii ^ ON precisely as Moscow -will throng abound the Czaxl .
But now , the necessity of adulation appearing to "be past , justice is done , andthB political antagonists of Louis Napoleon" are restored to the good opinion of Europe . So profoundly had they been forgotten , that their very existence has seemed a discovery . " We are 'told by the Times , that among the remaining colonies of France is a tract of that uncultivated region of tlie South
American coast known as Guiana , situated almost under the Equator : a fiery sunburns upon sluggish rivers , muddy shores , thick swampy forests , jungles , and masses of festering vegetation—" one of the most fatal regions of the earth . " The land swarms with poisonous and disgusting reptiles , insects and vermin , and in the most poisonous and disgusting district of the whole , " a vast number" of French citizens have been
confined for several years . The British Government , in its worst period , never treated homicides or burglars with the severity that has been applied to these unfortunate men . When Botany Bay was' selected as a penal settlement , it was recommended as a ' healthy' station . Xet to the members of various political parties—Bourbonists , Orleanists , [ Republicans—this territory , brooded
over by death and ' hideous misery , ' assigned as a place of exile . All attempts to soften the picture have broken down ; the correspondent at Paris , who now takes his inspirations from poHce-officeB , himself , in 1852 , expressed his abhorrence of the merciless spirit displayed by the courts-martial of December . The subject admits of no doubt . Nor is it less unquestionable that these lu'enchmen are forced to labour amidst
marshy forests , or blistered rocks , flogged upon the slightest pretence , insufficiently fed and clothed , and loaded with , cannon-balls attached to their ankles . Among them are men of letters , artists , barristers , physicians . Whatever may bo urged to discrodit the charge , the astonished writer in the Times suggests a proper answer : " When we Bay Cayenne , we say everything . "
We need not apologizo for recurring to this subject . If wo pit y Ebajtkliit perishing amidst thePolar desolations , sliall wo not much more pity these unhappy men punished for no crimes whatever ? Wo havo been furnished with an xmexpected justification of all we have written since tlie coup d ' etat . There arc no Catiunes at Cnyemie—the Catiline is at -tho Tuilerics . The exiles are men
" conquered in apolitical strife , " and" guilty only because they wcro unsuccessful . " H follows that Louis Napoltsoh is innocont only because ho succeeded—that being tho moral measure of tho age . But when it it suggested that the defeated politicians stood on a moral equality with their antagonists , J direct contradiction is xiuavoidablc . A ma )
the foundation document aa should favour their own particular views ; and should thus , although not positively decreeing the decision , yet impede the one decision and facilitate the other . The slavery party is stronger in the Senate than it is in the House of Bepresentatives , for the obvious reason that -the states are represented in the Senate , and that the great bulk of the people
is more proportionately represented in the House of Hxepresentatives . The two bodies , therefore , are naturally at issue—the House for the free soil , the Senate for a ' free choice' in Kansas , meaning a slave choice . The House passes bills for the appropriation of the public moneys—that is , bills granting moneys as we should call them here—on conditions which tend to secure freedom in Kansas . The Senate cuts off
those conditions j the House reannexes them . ; and in that state o £ inexorable dispute the session of Congress is terminated by the date of the day according to law . Congress has separated without granting the public moneys necessary for the maintenance of the public service . This is the dead-lock at which lEnglish politicians are laughing . Their exultation , however , shows at once their ignorance , their short memory , and a foresight as short .
We have had exactly the same kind of contest in this country . We need not go further back than , the Beforin Bill time , when the House of Commons , under the pressure of a distinct and palpable necessity , persevered in passing a measure which the House of Lords , uiicler the pressure of an overruling superstition , and an arrogant presumption of its own power to arrest the progress of events , as obstinately rejected . - The question of a constitutional reform was not less important than that of slavery . It was in some respects more calculated to change the political condition of the English people ; but it certainly did not search so
deeply into the social state of a large part of the United Kingdom . It infringed the established feelings , the supposed rights and privileges of an important class , the class of the oldest birth in the community ; as the slavery question touches the privileges and position of the class most xesembling an aristocracy in the Union . The Crown , advised by its public servants , referred -the question to the constituencies . In America , all questions are constantly and periodically before tlie constituencies , and there is not the same power of reference . The President has resorted to another expedient . Exercising a power vested in him . for
extraordinary emergencies , he has summoned an extraordinary session of the Congress , to begin sitting immediately after the termination of the session , by the force of a standing law . In other words , lie has told the Congress that they must go on ' with their debates , until they can manage to agree upon the business necessary to bo transacted . Congress , therefore , reassembles , notwithstanding the reluctance of individual members to continue hi the capital of the Union during vacation time . Again tho Englishman chuckles .
To us there ia nothing so agreeable in the spectacle of a community unable to conduct its own . affairs peaceably , that it can dispose us to merriment . If wo were to imagine a failure of tho American constitution at the presont day , we should foresee a disaster that must involve half of our own commerce in confusion , and deprivo Great Britain of much moral weight in Europe , by romoviug from the civilized world that great Republican state between whoso extreme Liberalism and the centralization of Europo England finds an equipoise .
But , as in our own country , all questions will ultimately be determined by the constituencies . Indeed , this reference is more complete than with us , not only because the suffrage is coextensive with tke . resident male population , but because the great body of the citizens are more in the habit of managing their own affairs for themselves . Ib is here that the true stability of the Union lies . In America the sovereignty of the people is not only a theoretical principle , or a toast at public dinners , hut it is a fact .
Public questions , therefore , are determined b y that which proves after all to be the abiding and dominant conviction of the great body of the people . Here is the safety , here is the hope , —the power of firmly establishing the law of the present day consistently with repealing it to re-establish the law of the future . Some years ago , much perplexed by the intricate and difficult subject of Slavery , which sectarian and alien agitators had rendered more perplexed and dangerous than it is in its own nature , the sovereign people " of the United States , advised by its best
men , determined that the question should to a certain extent be referred to time , and that in the meanwhile the status quo should be distinctly affirmed . The Slave states were not content to accept the guarantee thus offered to them ; they encroached upon the territory of the opposite party ; they broke the compromize ; they violated the treaty . The consequence is that the whole question is flung- open ; the political . conflict has been used by political adventurers . There is a gigantic scandale . Congress has not received its instructions from the sovereign people . The President is bewildered in the conflict of
popular tides ; tlie authorities of the Union are perfectly incompetent to deal with the question as it is now agitated before themthey only . want to get through ; while the different parties in the Presidential election increase the hubbub by eaeli endeavouring to turn the crisis to his own advantage , and the disadvantage of opponents . But whatever may be the chatter , the jargon , tho uproar of the day , there is a deep' conviction gradually
forming in the minds of the American citizens ; and sooner or later , before many years are passed over , that conviction will fiud its way into the shape of a distinct law upon tho subject . What that law is to be , we do not venture to affirm ; wo only say that no temporary agitation can depose tho American sovereign , consisting of so many millions of courageous , independent , public spirited men . And after the small delay , which tho dofeets inherent in all human
institutions interpose , tho decree ot the sovereign will bo registered by an obedient Congress . In the moanwhile , discreet men , who love their country , will do the best they can to maintain the peace of the Union j to caiTy on its business without hindrance or loss ; and to preserve its influence abroad during tho Ivubbub . During the interregnum , tho electors will , if they are wiso , look less to extreme opinions or foregone conclusion , than to tlio experience , the discretion , and the fidelity of thoso public servants whom it wants for tho immediato purposes of the clay .
Untitled Article
September 6 , 1856 . 3 THE IiEABEK . j ^
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 6, 1856, page 851, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2157/page/11/
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