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    March 28,1857.] T H E X E A D E R. 301

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    PRESIDENT BUCHANAN AND HIS POLICY. In th...

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    THE SCANDINAVIAN IDEA.. Br the Scandinav...

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    Who Keeps Up. The Pope? The Kind Of Cont...

    troops . Pros IX . never attempted political reform . The Italians are quite capable of the monarchical principle : they have shown that they are so in 3 STaples under a better King , in Tuscany under Leotold VII . ; they are showing it now in Piedmont and Genoa . M . de Raynevaij does not deny that the Genoese are Italians ; and the Piedmontese

    are so , notwithstanding his denial . Their race is not more mixed than that of the Italians in other parts of the peninsula . It is , "however , a great admission that the Ita- lians throughout Italy are actively desiring a constitution a VAnglaise . let us see , then , what the confession of M . de Ratneval amounts to . It is this : If the Papal Government were removed , constitu- tional government would extend throughout the peninsula ; the Papal Government would fall if it were not maintained by French and Austrian troops ; the French and Austrian troops , therefore , preyent the extension of constitutional government . It is a form of government desired by the Italians , and incompatible with despotic tyranny , the imprisonment of multitudes , the torture of prisoners , the infliction of torture and death without trial , the embezzlement of the revenue for the advantage of the court officers , the universal suspension of municipal institutions , the impotency of the police , or the impossibility of reforming abuses . Our own Ministers have admitted that the fleets did not go to Naples , because they apprehended that the arrival of the fleets would cause an insurrection . The English Government , therefore , confesses that it has retained the present Iting of Napxes on the thxone , in preference to the government which the people might substitute . M . de Ratnevaij tells us that substitute would have been a constitutional government . Throughout the Austrian dominions the priests are exercising the most intolerable tyranny—displacing the Roman Catholic clergy , preventing marriages between Catholic and Protestant , except on the condition that all the children be Catholic ; and thrusting the priest into the family with the most insolent and insulting investigations . | M . de Rayne-VAii tells us that the Roman priesthood would lose , not its doctrine and spiritual truth , whatever that may be , or its zeal , but its " unity , " its " temporal organisation , " if the Poi ? e were removed . There is a child ' s toy made of glass which has the property of breaking into minute fragments if the point be snapped off : according to M . de

    Rayne-VAii , the Roman Catholic clergy throughout the world is like that toy , of which the Pope is the point . But this instrument of tyranny in despotic governments , this obstruction to constitutional government ia Italy , this conservatrix of abuses , exists only while the Pope is kept in his place . The Pope is kept in , his place by French bayonets . Our Government has sanctioned that French military j

    support ot the 1 ope , and has abstained trom tlie step which would have displaced the Pope ' s coadjutor , the King of Naples . Such are the disclosures made or rendered complete by the report which M . de Rayneval has written for the information and guidance of Count WaIiEWSKt , and which the Daily News lias published for the information and guidance of the English public .

    March 28,1857.] T H E X E A D E R. 301

    March 28 , 1857 . ] T H E X E A D E R . 301

    President Buchanan And His Policy. In Th...

    PRESIDENT BUCHANAN AND HIS POLICY . In tho very first words that ho has uttered officially , President Buchanan has inado tho force of his character felt , not only by tho Republic but by foreign states , and has marked out tho policy by which ho intends to bo guided . Those of our readers who

    will take the trouble of comparing the inaugural address of the new President with our own sketch of the policy that we ascribed to him on his election , from a knowledge of his character and views , will perceive that our account is but the anticipation of the address .

    ] j i < i i . '< < " : "We expected that Mr . Buchanan would prove to . be President of no section of the Union ; and now from either section he appeals to the whole Republic . "W " e expected that the agitations by which one party or the other has endeavoured to filch the sanction of the Union for its own excesses would be met by calling forth the loyalty of the citizens in all parts of the Union to their own institutions ; aiid he has done so . He has announced that to defend the Republic against extreme sections on either side , he will appeal to the Constitution as it was established by the Father of the Republic and his glorious fellow labourers , and as it is interpreted by tho Supreme Court of the United States . It is not by stretching the powers of the Federal Government that Mr . Buchanan intends to enforce his own policy , for he knows that the true strength of democracy lies in a generous conservatism . ' ^ ° repeat his own words , ¦ " a strict construction of the powers of the Government is the only true as well as the only safe theory of the Constitution ; " but a strict construction of the powers of the Government soon brings to light the fundamental fact , that the federal authority is based upon state sovereignty . Each state is sovereign and independent in its local Government and institutions . At the formation of the Republic the separate and independent states delegated to the aggregate of the whole the powers to act for the whole , in certain matters . No one state lias ? snffifiifinfc anthorifcv to undo that bond of

    union , or to withdraw itself from the federated republic ; but each retains , unimpaired , the sovereign rights which it possessed before the delegation . It was a condition in the compact , that " a peculiar institution" should be left to the free choice of the several states . Congress has not acquired , and cannot acquire , power to predetermine the institutions of any state . In that respect the new state , or the new state in its preliminary form as a " territory , " must be free to adopt or reject the institution of slavery , without the interference of other states or of the Federal

    Government . This view of President Buchanan-, drawn from the consideration of tho institutions of the Republic , is confirmed by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Dbed Scott . An appeal , therefore , to the charter of the Republic settles the question as to the right which any states Had to interfere with the others on that subject . The Missouri compromise which attempted to dictate slavery to states south of a particular line , and absence of slavery on tho north of that

    line , is inconsistent with the fundamental charter of the Republic ; and any attempt to obtain the emancipation of slaves , or the exclusion of the negro race , in the form of n " Missouri compromise" or nny other statute of Congress , must necessarily be a failure ;

    because any attempt to enforco it in tho last resort will ngain bring forth the conclusion that it is beyond the power of Congress . If , then , the friends of tho Negro desire to obtain any improvement in his condition , any restraints upon tho extension of slavery , they must do it through tho Government of tho several states . They must work iu accordance with tho dominant opinion of each state , and they can . only obstruct their endeavours by any defianco of state authority . Tho attempts of tho Abolitionists to arouso civil war , or of any one slave stato to push a

    peculiar institution upon a territory or state which does not spontaneously adopt ifc , is equally an invasion of the state sovereignty , of federal order , and of republican law . In laying down these principles with a firm hand , Mr . Buchanan shows the limits into which the agitation for social improvements must be kept , unless the agitation is to become anarchy , and states are to be worked into civil war by the very instinct of

    selfdefence . The same principle is applied to other abuses of the Union . Too productive a revenue has already dictated a new tariff" calculated to give a greater freedom to trade , while accutrmlating less of the wealth of the citizens in the public treasury . Mr . Buchanan purposes to take the surplus out of the hands of those wko might employ it for corrupt purposes , and to expend it in the strengthening of the navy and sea-coast defences . He also protects tho lands against a corrupt appropriation . That land should be given for railway purposes is most natural , where the rail itself is to pass over the land conceded ; but that lands in one part should be given for sale to increase the capital of a line in another place is an evasion of the law . Yet that abuse has been carried out in several states ; and those who know how the railway is the high road to jobbing can understand the manner in ¦ which the evasion has teen , worked . The new President does not intend to flatter either the State ot citizens by an indulgence of corruption , but he is for progress and improvement ; a military railway straight across the Union to the Pacific states is the shortest cut to a binding of the extreme west with the east . It may interfere - with some enterprises for establishing a more circuitous route ; but it is politically , as well as geographically , the most direct course , and we know from the experience of all parts of North America how it will open the Union for settlement , agriculture , and the internal commerce of the United States . In order to that pacific conquest of the desert , ifc is

    necessary that the great army ot the settlers should be recruited . Some citizens , unduly jealous of any influences in the Union but their own , have set up the idea of deferring the citizenship of every emigrant until some very distant date—say twenty years . President BuonANAN" declares against this innovation ; and his declaration will rally around him all the vast emigrant interest of the Union ; while it will strengthen his army for the pacific invasion of the interior . His foreign policy is marked by the same self-possessed energy . He will cultivate " peace , commerce , and friendship" with all

    nations , not merel y iis the beat means ot promoting material interests , but as tho true loyalty to the spirit of Christian benevolence . Directness , of conduct , frankness of diplomacy , and obedience to public law , are his rules . Forcible conquest ho repels ; the only territorial acquisitions which ho will admit are those of spontaneous annexation , sought by tho citizens of a kindred state , or

    acquisition made by honest purchase . On the strength of these principles , we believe that President Buchanan will

    override sectional parties , by tlie overwhelming force of a united republic ; as he will override foreign intrigue , by the overwhelming force of the American progress .

    The Scandinavian Idea.. Br The Scandinav...

    THE SCANDINAVIAN IDEA .. Br the Scandinavian Idea ia meant a project for the union of all tho Scandinavian nations in ono monarchy so poworful as to bo independent of every foreign influence . Tlio plan in not new ; it had its origin not many years after the ratification of tho settlement

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 28, 1857, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28031857/page/13/