On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (6)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
'•* -' •• ' /tfVH-iVtv riPtmt*i4f QPflPU QbJUUlll.l* r
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Untitled Article
ettvr sBsroNsiuut fob somi . ]
Untitled Article
MR . BUCHANAN . ( To the Editor qfthe Leader . " ) New York , July , 1856 . Sib , —In your paper of June 21 st , you announce the nomination of Mr . Buchanan , by the Democratic party , for the Presidency of the United States , and you give your cordial approval to that nomination . You approve of it because he is a statesman of intelligence , conscience , and experience ; because he is a man of peace , favourably inclined towards your own country ; and because he is a just man respecting « the independence of the Southern States , " and " the difficulties thrown upon them by the existence of
a slavery which they did not create , " while he is " the vindicator of Northern rights and Northern opinions , " and " one who exactly fits the actual position of the Union at the present day . " At the same time you condemn unequivocally the " madmen" who " positively identify the defence of slavery with the defence of Republicanism , invade states to enforce their views with the bowie-knife and revolver , assail individual statesmen for the expression of opinion , and actually threaten to divide the Union by civil war . " And their madness you compare to "the bigotry of the Abolutionists in times past . " and
I am an attentive reader of the Leader , appreciate its ability ; and I know how great and deserved an influence it exercises over liberal minds in Europe . I regret , therefore , that it should itself fall , or lead others , into the fatal error of believing that Democracy , in this country , means the liberty or the rights of anybody . It is only another name for that which " bigots" with you call tyranny when they allude to Francis Joseph or Louis Napoleon . I should like , as far as it is possible in a few brief words , to tear off this livery which covers a service to the devil . Whether Mr . Buchanan possesses ability , conscience , or experience , is not a matter of much moment , as neither is now considered a necessary qualification for the Presidency . We shall see presently , however , what sort of a conscience he
possesses . You are quite right in predicting that , should he be chosen President , we shall have no war with England . Every slave state in the Union will vote for Mr . Buchanan without doubt . The cotton you purchase of us is the great staple of a part of those states , and the slaves that raise it the staple of the rest . As a general thing one year ' s expenses are paid by a mortgage of the next year ' s crop . To lose your custom for a single j'ear would reduce the South to bankruptcy and beggary , and the starving Blaves would rise in insurrection against their miserable and imbecile masters . So long as slavery exists , and cotton grows , and Manchester spins , we shall have no war with England . And least of all shall we break the peace with a President over us of the South ' s choosing .
But whether we shall have no war in the reign of Buchanan is another question . You cannot have forgotten the Osteml Conference of American Plenipotentiaries , and the manifesto it published to the world , signed by Messrs . Buchanan , Soulc , and Mason . The doctrine oF that famous paper , stripped of its verbiage , is simply this : —We must have Cuba both to increase the number of our own slave states , and to prevent the emancipation of her 800 , 000 slaves . We must get it by right of honest purchase if we can ; if not , by right of might . But do not think that that need involve us in a war with England or Franco , as tho protectors of Spain . Wo shall avoid that by permitting
emigration—filibustering , the censorious cull it—to Cuba , The island will be revolutionized , and declared independent . Then wo shall re-annex it to this continent . Some of our New York capitalists hope that the next step "Will be to render legal the foreign slave trade . Perhaps bo , but that is not certain . The main dependence of tho Atlantic slave states ia slave breeding for the newer states—the v ' intial crop , they cull it in Virginia , because at twenty years men and womon reach their full market value . Tho slave-breeding statoa will naturully aim at a monopoly of tho now demand which will arise when Cuba is ours . It is to this , probably , that Governor Wiso refers when ho says that tho election of Buchanan would enhance the price of slaves two hundred , and perhaps threo hundred per cent .
What may liavo been Mr . Buchanan ' s relation to tho North and tho South in times past , is of little cons equence , though it would be easy to show that ho has always been what ex-President Van
Burenanother Democrat-Police declared himself to be , a Northern man with Southern principles / ' But how far he is the vindicator of Northern rights and opinions , and how far he deserves the credit of merely defending the South against unjust » &P »» u" » ? £ * his independence , may be seen by his present
po-The two parties which dividothe country at thia moment are strictly sectional . The Republicans are , to a certain degree , anti-slavery , and therefore Northern . The Democrats aTe thoroughly proslavery , and therefore Southern . True , they have great strength at the North , but it is among that class who , like Mr . Dickenson , a notorious Democrat of this state , consider it their misfortune that they were not born in a slave state . The one issue between these two parties is the establishment or the prohibition of slavery in Kansas . The " madmen you allude to are the whole Democratic party , with your wise , moderate , and conscientious Mr . Buchanan as the chief Bedlamite . all readers
You are evidently aware—as your may not be—that Kansas is a part of that region which thirty-six years ago was solemnly devoted by a national compact , called " The Missouri Compromise" to freedom for evermore . Again and again , in subsequent acts , has that compact been reaffirmed . For thirty-six years has the South enjoyed its halt of the bargain . When the time came for the North to enter into possession of its half , it was declared unanimously by the South—aided by their Northern allies , the Democrats—Mr . Buchanan ' s associatesthat the compromise was unconstitutional . In other words , they made a bargain , took their pay , kept and enjoyed it , and when the consideration was called for by the other party , declared the bargain a fraud ! Kansas is doomed to be a slave state . All the citizens of the territory in favour of freedom are
driven out at the point of the bayonet , or murdered , or arrested for treason , under a fraudulent law , by United States troops , their presses destroyed , their houses burned , their farms laid waste . All along the border a cordon of five thousand men prevent any immigration from the free states . By force and fraud combined these "border ruffians" will complete this work , aided , as it has been thus far , by the legislators and executive power of the Democratic party . Intimidation is a part of the system . The initiative at Washington has been taken by that brutal coward Brooks of South Carolina , who nearly murdered Senator Suruner when incapable of defence . That deed commands universal approval and admiration at the South , and is defended by the associates in Congress of the ruffianly perpetrator , who are all Democrats—all " Buchaniers . "
Such is the position of the Democratic party of this country at this moment—the party which has made Mr . Buchanan its chosen leader—the party from which the slaveholders find protection and aid . The slavery which you affirm they did not create , they have , since the formation of the Union , extended over eight new states , covering nearly the whole of the valley of the Mississippi , a large part of Mexico , and the peninsula of Florida , and which they now mean to extend over a country nearly as large as the British Islands . The " bigotry of the Abolitionists " consists in this—that they demand without cursing , sometimes , perhaps , with indignation , and in language of unmistakable plainness , the annihilation of a system which is an insult to God , and an outrage upon man .
I do not write , it is proper to say , as a partizan . In tho election I shall take no part , not even that of voter . The man or the party that " fits the actual position of the Union at the present day" is the man or the party that can dissolve it , free tho North from the dospotism under which she suffers , and save , for tho sake of tho world , tho cause of Republicanism where alone , within the limits of tho United States , there is any hope of its existence . Your obedient servant , G .
Untitled Article
BISHOPS AT LARGE . ( 7 * 0 the Editor qfthe Leader . ) Boston , July 29 th , 185 G . Sin , —If tho history of England in Church and State is hereafter to bo read in the statute books , then the act providing for tho resignation of the Bishops of London and Durham will be noticed as a wiso and liberal measure . But should tho student extend his researches to tho parliamentary debutes , or tho contemporary journals , ho will see reason to doubt whether a beneficial result has not been dourly
purchased . Tho amount of the retiring allowances is nothing comi > arcd with the displiiy of ignorance and recklessness on tho part of tho authors of the bill , Tho subject has long occupied attention , though nover before did tho legislature attempt ; to deal with it . The net of 1843 confessed tho difficulty which environed it , but the provisions for tho resignation ot Colonial BisViops indicated that there was nothing impracticable . Parliament might at any time enable Bishops to retire , mul receive a maintenance ) us matter of right , not of bargain . Lately it Boomed
understood a measure , when two invalid prelates anticipated it by tendering their resignations , on condition . It is objected that this transaction bears the taint of simony , which the legislature cannot obliterate , though it may exempt , from the penalties incurred . Certainly the law has been very peremptory for three hundred years against the legality of conditional resignations of Church preferment , and it cannot readily be credited that the prohibition attaches solely to the inferior clergy . The acceptance of a bishopric is ( morally ) conditional , depending on the proper discharge of the duties belonging thereto . The lawhas provided no means for ascertaining when these duties are neglected , and the penalty of forfeiture incurred .
But the bishop cannot prescribe new conditions to his superior , nor offer to sell him all his duties and a portion of his emolument . That would be treating as a pecttlium what was committed to him as a trust , an offence not discernible from simony . The bishop ' s letters read like a plea of guilty to this charge , nor can the act do more than relieve them from the secular consequences . True that they are clear of any moral stain , though they have compromised their official aud constitutional character . Their error is in attempting for themselves what Parliament would have blamelessly done for them , and the result is that they are placed beyond the operation of the law , which is severely exerted against minor and more excusable offenders . . ..
The argument about " the succession was judiciously waived—in truth it is altogether out of place . The bishops form part of the clergy , and the same power is committed to every one of them . An ex-bishop is still a priest , and a bishop quoad his consecration . The office is merely an order in the Church , to which he is called nominally by election , actually by royal designation . Your obedient , H . C . The Gun Trade . —The members of the military gun trade of Birmingham have presented Mr . Muntz , M . P ., and Mr . Newdegate , M . P ., with testimonials to mark their sense of the important services which those gentlemen rendered to the trade , and to the country at large ,
in the Small Arms Committee , which sat two years ago . This presentation took place at a dinner given at the Royal Hotel on Friday week . The testimonial to each gentleman took the form of a piece of plate , and of a double-barreled fowling-piece and a Minie " , specimens of the latest improvement in this arm . The inscription on the rifle of Mr . Newdegate makes special reference to the exertions of one of bis ancestors , Sir Richard Newdegate , who , in the reign of William III ., exerted his influence to get the military gun trade introduced into Birmingham .
The Bishop of Exeter and the Torrtngtom Burial Boakd . —The vexed question between the Bishop and the BoaTd , which was brought before the notice of the House of Lords shortly before the prorogation , is not yet settled . The Bishop of Exeter refuses to consecrate that part intended for the members of the Established Church , on the ground that one end—that which comes close to the Dissenters , although the whole ground is surrounded by a high substantial wall—is open , and that the burial-ground is not fenced according the
to the canons . A few days since , Bishop ' s secretary informed the burial board that the Bishop would consecrate the ground in accordance with the report of the select committee of the House of Lords on the Burials Act , dated the 4 th ult ., and recommending a railing as a line of demarcation ; but the board , witb . but one dissentient , declined the terms , and prefer waiting till next session in tho hope that an effectual and general alteration will be made in the law , rendering unnecessary the consent of tho Bishops as to tho finished state of tho ground before consecration .
Newspaper Prosecution . —A verdict has been given against the Scots 7 na 7 i newspaper for a libel on Mr . Duncan Maclaren , who , in 1852 , put up for Edinburgh , and was severely handled by the paper in question , which published several articles now complained of as libellous . The defendants contended that all tho papers at the time used excited language , and that Mr . Maclaren himself was very violent in . his choice of words . One thousand pounds damages wore claimed , but tho jury only gavo 400 £ Ragoisd or Reformatory Scitoot-s . — Tho Committee of Council on Education have cancelled all former minutes and agreed to grant substantial and permanent aid to reformatory and ragged schools . Tho minute by tho of
which thia resolution is inatlo known to managers theso institutions provides that no Hchool shall be admissible to aid " unless it bo industrial in its character , and unless tho scholara bo taken exclusively from tho criminal and . abandoned classes . " A portion of tho expense ia to bo borne by tho schools themaelvea . Thoteachers are instructed to have a special oye to tho morality of their pupils . LiauujITY ov Hotkl .-1 £ Kkfbus . —It haa been decided by an action at law at Manchoator that hotel-keeper . * are liable for losses sustained by thoir guests owing to robberies committed on them while in tho hotel , unless tho portion robbed has neglected to take ordinarily prudent precautions .
'•* -' •• ' /Tfvh-Ivtv Riptmt*I4f Qpflpu Qbjuulll.L* R
d&jttit CirattriL
Untitled Article
that such would be introduced MM 1 ^ ^ V Atrerosr 9 , 1858 . ] -
Untitled Article
There is no learned man but -will confess he hath much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . If , then it be profitable for him to read , why should ltnot , at leaat , b © tolerable for his adversary to write I—Mii-tost
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 9, 1856, page 759, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2153/page/15/
-