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    894 tRtie $L$a%et. [Saturday,

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    .sgs matT ^

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    y SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1851.

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    ^tthltr UFoiwf.

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    There is nothing so revolutionary, becau...

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    ENGLAND, EUROPE, AND AMERICA. The leadin...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    894 Trtie $L$A%Et. [Saturday,

    894 tRtie $ L $ a % et . [ Saturday ,

    .Sgs Matt ^

    . sgs matT ^

    Y Saturday, September 20, 1851.

    y SATURDAY , SEPTEMBER 20 , 1851 .

    ^Tthltr Ufoiwf.

    ^ tthltr UFoiwf .

    There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Becau...

    There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing 30 unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . —Dr . Arnold .

    England, Europe, And America. The Leadin...

    ENGLAND , EUROPE , AND AMERICA . The leading journal , taking Cuba as a text , discourses edifyingly , and with sententious gravity , on the " rules of international morality . " The topic and the occasion subdue the style of the writer to the " very quality " of a sermon on the " comity of nations / ' and on the most sacred obligations-of all civilized communities . The Times belongs no more to that " sanguine class of politicians " who abet and defend the atrocities of Ferdinand , Haynau , and Filangieri , till the indignation of the public opinion they have distorted and abused rises to

    shame and silence the organ of its own passions and interests , and compels it to muffle , if not to change , its tones ; but rather , for the moment , at least , to that calm-blooded and rational class of the apostles of universal peace and universal cultivation , for whom , but a little while ago , it had found no ridicule too cruel , no sarcasm too pitiless , in a well-stored arsenal of arrogant abuse . Perhaps , like many other monitors , it has various moralities for various spheres ; and , like some parson of a country village disporting himself , minus the white neckcloth , in the vortex of a huge city , where only one man . is " known , " it confines the " sanguine " politics to poor old decrepit Europe ; and , refreshed

    and renovated by Atlantic gales , appears in the New World the mild and gracious preacher of " rational behaviour , " not only among individuals , but among " states " ; a firm believer that the dictates of prejudice and passion will have a constantly decreasing influence upon the policy and conduct of mankind ; and that the . rapid means of intercourse between all parts of the earth which we now providentially possess will lead , in truth , to a real comity of nations , making of the different kingdoms and states into which men are divided one great commonwealth , in which general opinion will have great sway , and the unbiassed judgment of disinterested parties will eventually acquire the force of an almost imperative , rule of conduct .

    Very fine and very delightful words in truth ! A prophecy of better times worth recording , when we find it in the columns of the most powerful organ of European diplomacies , " right divine " congresses , Vienna treaties , parties of order , counter-revolutionary intrigues , and of all the material interests whose God is the money market , and whose church is 'Change . A new disciple of Kosinos , of the " idea of humanity , " of a gospel of peace , freedom , and enlightenment that shall knit all nations in closer bonds of sympathy than ever king-made treaties forged or broke .

    lint we mark that our leading journal has one gospel for the old world and another for the new one for Europe , another for America . In Europe let Nicholas break Polish charters , and people Siberian solitudes with the survivors of a decimated race of exiles ; let Metternich ( that great high priest of paternal Government , whose second advent to the scene of his " deluge" we have just been chanting ) preside over ( ialician slaughter ; making murder a sacred ofliee , and spoliation a rewarded duty ; let Haynau scourge women and torture men ; let him set fire without mercy to capitulated towns , dishonour wives , cut children ' s throats , and force prisoners of war to

    " swallow the mangled entrails of their dearest friends " ; let Ferdinand of Naples steep his perjured throne in blood and tears , and Jet his viceroy of Sicily make a desolation and a ruin of a lovely and fertile island ; it is all done for the hncrc . d cause of " international morality ; " it is all in strict accordance with what is " commonly denominated the Jaw of nations" ! Or is young America only , and not old Europe , " most strictly bound by all the higher sanctions which can alone influence the conduct of sovereign communities , to net an cxainplo of the mo | t ready obedience to thi « exalted morality" ? J « this your comfortable creed ? la our king , and priest , and army-ridden

    Europe to stick religiously to her tyrannies , and shams , and anomalies , and mystifications , whilst America , the fresh , the vigorous , the emancipated youth of the world , waxes ever freer , ever stronger to redress , on her boundless and virgin soil , and beneath her unpolluted skies , the balance of our worn-out sins , and miseries , and servitudes ? Be it so . But how , with the " constant interchange of thought , " and With the rapid means of intercourse

    between the hemispheres whereof you speak so forcibly , will you prevent the son sympathizing with the father , or avenging the father i How will you prevent the sons of the emigrants , of the involuntary exiles of discontent and starvation , the descendants of the hard step-mother who gave her chiWren neither bread nor work , from vibrating with the shock of great ideas and burning with the sympathy of vital principles ?

    We do not care to discuss , nor do we pretend to vindicate the attack on Cuba . Call it , if you will , a buccaneering expedition , a marauding incursion of reckless and desperate adventurers . Granted that it was a gross infringement of international law and amity to attack and invade the possessions of a friendly power . It is certain that not onlv in the Southern

    and Slave States , but in the Northern and Abolitionist States of the Union , there exists a fixed determination to have Cuba : a deep and settled conviction that Cuba is thrown away upon the imbecile , corrupt , and oppressive Government of the rottenest of European powers : that the resources of the island are wasted , the energies paralyzed , and the treasures embezzled by a succession of bankrupt governors , whom the mother

    country sends like locusts to vex , devour , and tyrannize : that to the great Democracy , keen of eye , strong of hand , firm of will , resolute of purpose , ready to seize and able to defend , belong the gifts that Providence reserves not for decrepit and debauched tyrannies . And so America will have Cuba ; we affirm without the gift of prophecy , and without fear of future refutation , Cuba will be annexed to the United States .

    Yet , here a principle steps in , and it is impossible to deny that Spain might have averted the blow by decreeing the immediate Abolition of Slavery . She would have had the whole black population armed as one man to repel invaders , who come , not to abolish , but to maintain this profitable and odious iniquity . The Southern States , who have cast an eye on Cuba as a new slave state , would be glad enough to have nothing to say to an island in which slavery had been

    abolished . It is true that , sooner or later , the will even of the Abolitionist States would take Cuba , simply from a spirit of annexation and conquest ; but the loss to Spain would be adjourned . It is thus that Slavery itself would be the Nemesis of the Slave States , and the crime of inhumanity would punish its abettors . But Spain has not the strength nor the honesty of principle to proclaim Abolition ; and so she is content to lose her only title to the sympathy of the world .

    A word about this same institution of slavery : vile , and odious , and inhuman as it is , there is much of tuneful cant and low charlatanism abroad . We do not deny that the " stripes" are a deep disgrace to the " stars " ; but , in taking out the mote from our brother ' s eye , let us not forget the beam in our own . It is not because the Southern States are slaveholders , that the whole Democracy of the West is to be taunted with the sin of a part ; and it is not so long ago that we of this land of freedom , whose ancestors had fought and won the battles of liberty at home , were as active and busy

    slaveholders us the Carohnas are now . And yet we then spoke of England as the " land of liberty . " For , to speak calmly , the slavery of the blacks , who have never tasted freedom , is not to be reasonably compared with the slavery of your white Hungarian , and Russian , and Italian , under harder and more cruel taskmasters ! The slavery of the blacks is not to he reasonably compared with the slavery of English pauperism ! Far be it from us to write a word that may be distorted to a palliation of slavery , white or black ; but we warn the wholesome sympathies ojf our readers against trading and oilieious Abolitionists !

    Hut . it is not of Cuba , nor of any trumpery quarrel between Spain and the United States , that we desire to speak . We read in official paragraphs that France and England—represented , the one by thut high-minded and honest gentleman M . Baroche , the other by that most accomplished member of the " Inner Circle , " the most liberal of statesmen , Lord Pahneruton , —have come to a resolution to

    interfere in behalf of Spanish rights in Cuba ami in defence of international law . That M . Baro h should prostitute his brief grasp of office to a meanness or to any hypocrisy we neither care nn wonder ; but what have we to do with Spain * quarrels ? with the rights of Spain , which in th " very indolence of weakness buffeted our ambassa dor only three years since ? Verily your " acc om " plished members" of the "Inner Circle" forget these insults very soon ! But what does it profit England that Cuba should be Spain ' s ? And Cuba will be American .

    The fact is , and m this the Times at least is faithful to the instincts it represents , there i 8 a natural dislike in England to an active aggressive policy in any sense or direction . «« g 3 cept , " whispers the public conscience , " in India " in British Caffraria , " & c . & c . We believe this state of public feeling to be not altogether sound nor healthy . We regret this paralysis of a nation ' s will at home and abroad . There is the same apathy the same atony ( we may almost say ) in our domestic as in our foreign political sensitiveness . We discover a branch of the Austrian police in the pay and employ of our Foreign-office—•• Let it pass !" After a long delay we are promised an Australian mail once in two months— " So be it !"

    We have a Metropolitan Commission of Sewers composed of men of rank , science , influence , in various degrees . They do little or nothing from want of money ; and their powers stop short at the point of serious efficiency ! " Give them time " ! We call for extramural interments . The Board of Health gives us hearty best wishes , but their powers are unavailing against local and vested interests!— " They mean well" 1

    So it is ! a sort of blind Irish helplessness , a mere fatalism , has crept into the very vital forces of our political and public existence . It is as if the nation had lost its will ; and the Government , a blind reflex of the national nowill , burks all that it pretends to adopt . We talk again of Peace , and non-intervention and abstinence from meddling in the affairs of other Peoples . As if there were no despotisms awake and armed to the teeth and threatening , like a cloud : no barbarism of reaction in the very heart of Europe ; no Cossackism looming sullenly on the northern horizons !

    Laissez-faire will not do to meet coalitions of Ischl and Verona . We protest against the idea that a foreign power has no right to intervene in favour of one portion of a nation against another . The great authorities on international law are our authority . The time is coming when nations which refuse to stand up for great principles will have to fight them out on their own borders . We repeat , then , that for a quarrel between Spain and the United States we care not a jot : the issue cannot be

    doubtful ; but for the coming war of great principles , of positive truths and negative fictions , of bureaucracy and democracy , of despotism and liberty , we care infinitely . We see that great young Power of the West asserting its spirit of conquest : whilst in the East , Austrianism is rampant . Political Anglicanism bending over its counters , hugging its respectabilities , intent upon stocks , and shares , and prices current , supply and demand , profit and loss , going to its " Established " Church twice o it is the

    Sundays , with a laborious conviction that " right thing to do , " discerns not ( how should a mole discern ?) the rising gale of revolutions , and the last conflict of Force and Freedom . We appeal then to our brothers and sons of the West : a nobler battle field than the shores of Cuba , and a nobler death than in the square of Havannah , await them in Europe . Let the ship that bears away Kossuth be the herald of the new idea that shall never rest nor pause till it has accomp lished

    the annexation of the world . B L () O M E It I S M . A Bloom Kit has appeared in London , upon a public platform , boldly vindicating her right to wear the costume invented by the Transatlantic journalist , Mrs . Bloomer , and advocating itn convenience and utility . And she has certainly a perfect right to be heard . Putting together certain accepted axioms , such n « the " Nude is always pure "— " when unndornctt adorned the most . "—and coupling them with the expressed repugnance of the malt ? sex to their charming partners " wearing the breecheB , a . ili ' il'iHttnW miclit conclude that the costume ol

    kvc was the fitting costume of woman , and that Madam Wharton was " very fashionably dressed .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 20, 1851, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_20091851/page/10/