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    520 _ THE LEADER; [Saturday,

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    /2|>*X » jILtl^rilltrrw ————

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    rwir«i are not the legislators, but the ...

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    » Summer has set in with its usual sever...

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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.

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    520 _ The Leader; [Saturday,

    520 THE LEADER ; [ Saturday ,

    /2|≫*X » Jiltl^Rilltrrw ————

    Kftttumt .

    Rwir«I Are Not The Legislators, But The ...

    rwir « i are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not C l ^ ke ^ w ^ -they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Revtew .

    » Summer Has Set In With Its Usual Sever...

    » Summer has set in with its usual severity , " said Waupoi-e , with lugubrious wit ; and this primy month of June , associated in all minds with balmy winds , sunny skies , hawthorn blossoms , and birds

    Singing of summer in full-throated , ease , opens ominously . The rain falls steadily , soakingly .. The ground smokes . Long wreaths of mist wind amid the trees ; wild and wintry gusts shake from the branches those lovely chesnut blossoms ; the British bourgeois hurries along under a weight of gingham and muttered growls ; Betty clanks in her pattens as she goes on the imperious errand . It is the wettest of wet daysone of Leigh Host ' s wet days ! Nature oozes from every pore . We have just finished a morning ' s work , and the wettest of wet messengers arrives , bearing a damp parcel . We open-it—the Magazines of the Month sprawl upon the table , amusement and occupation for the longest , wettest day . Drawing the easy-chair near the fire , and giving that fire a preliminary poke , we take ° up our favourite of favourites , Fraser . A glance at the contents assures us of variety ; let us taste the quality . The opening article on " Administrative Reform" is apropos , and will be found full of excellent sughic

    gestion . It surveys the whole question in an impartial and philosop spirit . A sketch of the career of " Sir Robert Strange ' follows , abridged from Mr . Djbnnistoun ' s recent work ; a poor meagre paper on " Wine , its Usejmd Taxation , " in spite of its subject , lures us not through . " Six Sonnets" by Mr . Westwood we carefully skip , and alight on the " Possibilities of an Anglo-American Alliance , " written , as the initials point out , by Mr . Bkisted , who is always worth reading , and who has peculiar rig ht to be heard on America . He discusses gravely and cogently the pros and co ? is of this alarming possibility . He shows how the Americans hate Eng land , and especially how they hate Louis Napoleon" , who left a bad reputation behind him in America ; a hate , he says , which Louis Napoleon seems to recognise and resent , showing a manifest disposition to slight the Americans in Paris , both visitors and residents , both those in private and those in public capacities . The Empebob of Russia , on the other hand , is popular in America . The Americans have always been treated with marked courtesy

    by Russia ; and never once has there been any political ill-feeling between

    the nations . No American citizen has ever had a complaint to make against the Russians . No diplomatist in off in , or oi , ever gave an American statesman the opportunity of furnishing a pendant to the Hulsemann letter on the Kosta correspondence . And while the Allies have often either threatened to come , or actually come , into collision with the United States on their own side of the Atlantic , Russia has removed all suspicion of such danger on her part at the only possible point of contact , by voluntarily offering to sell her American territory at no extravagant price . Nor has the Sclavonic Empire ever interfered with the annexatory tendencies of the Western Republic . On the contrary , she has rather encouraged them . Division of the spoils is exactly her favourite principle . " You take Egypt , and let me take Turkey , " was her language to England . " Ton take Cuba , or whatever else you like in this hemisphere , and let me take what I like in the other , " ia her language to America . Russian agents are active in America , and largely subsidise her press . The strongest motive of all is the identity of sympathy existing between the

    slaveholders and the Russians . The position of this interest is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the political world . The number of American slaveholders , all told , is less than three hundred and fifty thousand . Thia oligarchy , placed amid a democracy of more than twenty millions , has directed and moulded the whole policy of the country , internal and external , for the last half century . It holds three millions of its countrymen in abject bondage . It has gathered around it twice that number as its accessories and abettors . It has almost invariably either bullied or outmanoeuvred the rest of the population ( fourteen millions and more !) on all disputed questions . In everything excepting the one point of admitting slavery into California—an absurdity too gross had their have

    even for them to insist on—the slaveholders have own way . They made the Northerners their slave-catchers by act of Congress . They have altered and realtered the compromises of their own devising to suit their increasing acquisitiveness . Their policy has constantly become more and more aggressive . Feeling that public attention has been recently drawn to the anomaly of so small a body exercising so great an influence in a democracy , their present aim is to increase their numbers . One of the desired means to this end is the acquisition of Cuba , itself only a etep towards the reopening of the African slave-trade—a measure unblushingly advocated within the past year by more than one southern newspaper . The Allies , who have abolished slavery throughout their dominions , are the' natural antagonists of the American slaveholder : and in Russia , with her corresponding " institution"

    serfage , he finds his natural support . Mr . Bbistbd ' s exposition of the reasons against the probability of an alliance with Russia is by no means so cheering ; but we must send the reader to the Magazine for those reasons . A review of " Recent French Memoirs" is interesting , but less so than a little more skill in seleotion might have made it . We can only allude to the biographical sketch of " Sir Henry de la Beche , " to the loving description of the little Thuringian capital given in Three Months at Weimar , " and to the " Political Crisis . " The pleasant criticism on " Some Pictures in the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1855 , " is just the sort of paper which will delight those who have soon the pictures , and excite expectation in those who have not .

    The writer of these lines , who , in obedience to a detestable established affectation , darignates his amall single self by the imposing pronoun " we , " i « no artist , and haa not sufficient knowledge of the technicalities of art to up oven for a connoisseur . H « is profoundly ignorant of what critics mwm'by " breadth of « ff « ot j" bo ia very

    dense on the subject of hnpasto , and by no means clear on that of chiaroscuro ; so that his knowledge of art is about on a par with that of nine-tenths of the public , if they had the candour to confess it .. He very much understates his knowledge ; and says nothing of the finelyflavoured taste which belongs to so highly-cultivated a mind , and which makes his remarks better worth listening to than columns of technical

    criticism . Btackwood opens with an article on Kingsley , giving hearty praise and hearty abuse on some of his obvious merits and obvious defects , but presenting no very profound appreciation of this strange man of genius . The next paper , " Aland—the Baltic in 1854 , " is very interesting , and by an eyewitness of the fall of Bomarsund . " Once upon a Time" is somewhat ponderous gossip from the pen which in this M agazine so frequently addresses his " dear Eusebius . " The rest of the Magazine is taken up with " continuations , " and a paper on the " Palmerston Administration . "

    The Dublin University has an historical essay , of singular ability and interest , on the " Birth of the American Constitution , " which those who read Mr . Bbisted ' s paper in Fraser will do well to study . It exemplifies in a striking manner the minuteness with which the American Constitution imitated that of the Mother Country , only here and there substituting improvements : an imitation which was the wisest procedure that could be adopted , for it not only produced the smallest disturbance in the political organism , it was also the best adapted to the genius and habits of the people . Constitutions are things of slow growth . They can be created—on paper ; but as Caklyi-e in his French Revolution sarcastically and constantly shows , these paper constitutions will not march . America separated from England , and formed into a Republic , had to choose her King , thinking with Ulysses that " a multitude of rulers was not good , there must be one ruler ,

    one King : " ovk ayaOov TToXvKoipavirj' «

    monarch and his confidential servants in such proportions as to leave to the former no personal power except that of choosing the latter , practically by and with the advice and consent of the Commons House of Parliament . Thus strictly limited in power , the king is properly relieved of responsibility ; but the president , held responsible for his acts , is permitted to exercise a real and direct influence over the patronage of the State . Under both forms the executive office is essentially elective ; the president being chosen by the direct vote of certain representatives of the people , and for a fixed term of four years ; while the king ' s ministers , in whom is vested the authority of " the Crown , " are practically elected and deposed by the House of Commons whenever it pleases the whim or seems good to the wisdom of that august assembly .

    Not only the King , but the House of Lords was adopted ; adopted , however , with a wise modification , for it is remarkable , as this writer notices , that no British colony , old or new , has a class from which an hereditary aristocracy could be drawn . Attempts to create a privileged order > ere frequently made in North America , but they failed as the Baronetship of Novia Scotia failed . How then could a Supreme Court be formed holding a position analogous to that of the House of Lords ? It was formed by the creation of a Senate : the members were elected not by the people , but by the state legislatures , and held office six years instead of two .

    No modification of the Senate could have fitted it to exorcise the functions of app « Uate jurisdiction , the permanent possession of which by the House of Peers is probably the mainstay of our crudely-mixed constitution ; yet , without a tribunal of final resort , it was manifest that the union could not bo permanently maintained . To fill up the deficiency , the Supreme Court was invented , and to this creation of the wisdom of the convention of 1787 , we venture to think , tho world is indebted for the proof that has been afforded it of tho practicability of a Republican Government , by the prolongation of its existence over three-quarters of a century . In the British system , tho constitution , unwritten , and practically but a mixed deduction from ancient usages and abstract principles of right , is declared and expounded , as occasion requires , m the judicial decisions of the House of Lords , by a body absolutely independent in theory , and , in practice , perhaps , as much guarded against undue influence us it is possible for human frailty to bo . Individuals are thus protected against each other , and against the crimes or errors of the highoat judicial functionaries ; and tho enjoyment of reasonable liberty is rendered possible to tho whole nation by the permanent endowed with

    oxistonco of an institution , venerable from its antiquity and elevation , power to prevent public or private injury from being inflicted , either by tho infringement or tho overstraining of tho law . Tho confidence requisite to a proper discharge of this high function could not bo created in tho now commonwealth by any modification of a non-permanent legislative chamber ; but it has boon freol y given and continued to tho judges of the Supreme Court , nominated by tho president , " with tuc advico and consent of tho Senate , " and secured during good behaviour in the tenure oi their office and tho onjoymont of salaries not to bo diminished without a violation ol tho ortiolcs of tho constitution . Tho jurisdiction given to thin tribunal was botU original and appollato , extending over all controversies , internal or external , in wlnca tho general government might bo involved , or one State in any way at variance w » ft another ; but tho power that gives tho institution its transcendent importance is , _ tnft of deciding betwoen tho law and tho constitution . An individual citizen , "gf ?" " ™ by tho operation of an act for legislation , correctly ( in rcforonco to tho lcttor of tn statute ) interpreted to his damage by an inferior tribunal , may look for redress to u Supremo Court of tho United States , and hope to obtain it , should it appear that uv > injurious law was enacted by a State legislature , or oven by Congress , in contr "

    vontlon of the articles of the constitution . - Very curious it is to trace the resemblance of our constitution in that ot a nation having abjured its king , having no aristocracy , and having ao grea a variety of septs that a national church was impossible . Tho writer of tlufl

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 2, 1855, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02061855/page/16/