POLITICS OF THE MONTH.-THE MINISTERIAL CRISIS.* Ar length a Cabinet is formed. We are assured that its principles are broad, sound, enlightened. It is to be a Free Trade Cabinet. It is to propose the repeal, the complete, the instant, the irrevocable repeal of the Corn Laws. It is to attack monopoly in all its strongholds. It is to wage war on all protecting duties. It is to make Lord John Russell's letter to the electors of London its | creed and its commandments. It is to be the representative of the "Common-sense doctrine," that labour and capital have a right of access to the cheapest markets for what they want to buy, and to the dearest for what they have to sell. All this is pre-eminently excellent. These are principles which it is delightful to find recognised as the groundwork of future legislation. sacrifice of official patronage, how much influence might have been added to the administration! soil which allowed it to perish,-confidence may attend their footsteps hereafter. The waters of oblivion may be allowed to roll over pages of their past history. The shoals upon which the Whigs are likely to be wrecked are high above the waves; visible to every body but themselves. They fancy that national enthusiasm is to gather around them, because it is they who form the government. They dwell upon-they doat upon the idea of their own popularity. They fancy the people are bewildered with joy because they are got back to office. They drink to intoxication the adulation of the servile press, which hails them as the saviours of their country. And, spite of all the lessons they have received, they still will cherish this dear and dangerous delusion. Let them no longer mistake the support which will be But, as if in striking contrast, and flagrant contradic- given to a free trade ministry for confidence in Whig tion to the popular principles upon which the new ministers. Support, energetic and encouraging, will not ministry is to rest, stand a section of the persons who be withheld; and, if faithful to their engagements, conare to give effect to those principles. The self-seek-fidence, that plant which grows not easily again on the ing, place-hunting family clique of Whiggery; the old, decayed, broken-up tools of one of the sections of aristocracy, are the instruments that offer themselves, self-nominated, self-elected, to do the people's work. No new infusion, no fresh vitality: the same men who were startled at the shadows of the Reform Bill; who used their Parliamentary majorities, not to advance, but to control the demand for more securities against abuse; for more guarantees against bad government the same men who, when they were powerful, did so little for the emancipation of commerce, and only proposed to do something when they were weak and helpless: these are among the rulers who now demand the public confidence, the public affection. A mighty machine has been constructed. By genius, by labour, by devotion, by sacrifices, by exertions unparalleled in their energy and their disinterestedness, a power, a majestic power, has been called into action. What no political faction ever did, the League has done. With its conception, with its creation, the Whigs had nothing to do. They looked upon it with distrust and with dislike. It was no vassal of theirs ; no subservient slave to do their biddings, or to further their intrigues. Its work was that of independence. Its operations were directed wholly and entirely to popular ends: in these it sought, in these it found its strength. Of this great machine the Whigs have now seized the handle. It is surrendered to them with many misgivings, but with a determination, that if they will not wield it for the great purposes which its constructors have at heart, other, and bolder, and better men, will wrest it from them and we wait the event. Disposed to lend every co-operation to honest and zealous intention, the nation will rejoice if the Whigs but do the nation's behests. Circumstances have justified Lord John Russell in accepting office. Yet that acceptance is the least favourable of the many contingencies of the present crisis. Incomparably the best solution would have been, that the Ultra-Tories, the out-and-out protectionists, the avowed monopoly party, should have been called to form an administration. This would, indeed, have brought matters to the desired and desirable consummation. This would have compelled every man to say Yes! or No! to the great question of the day. This would have put an end to the shufflings of the timid, the hesitating, and the insincere. Every member of parliament would have had his vote recorded for or against an anti-freetrade cabinet. The separation between Sir Robert Peel and his colleagues would have been irrevocable and complete. The differences of opinion which had exhibited themselves in the councils of the cabinet, would have involved the votes of every member of the legislature; and the extreme Conservative party, shorn of its most able members, would have shattered in pieces by the onslaughts of the deserters from its ranks, aided by the combined forces of the Liberals. For it must not be forgotten, that the really efficient men of the Peel administration, and the only efficient men, with the exception of the Duke of Wellington, have sided with the Premier in the free-trade controversy. Lord Aberdeen, whose direction of the Foreign Office entitles him to the hearty commendation of all lovers of peace and justice, and Sir James Graham, whose talents for business and ability in debate, no one can gainsay, were notoriously the prime minister's allies. And the resistance of the Duke of Wellington himself, was of a very moderate and qualified character. The monopolist faction felt their incapacity to govern the country, or even to command a parliamentary majority. They shrank from the responsibility of a step which must have been a prelude to a disastrous downfal. A government whose stamina should be the illustrious Dukes who represent the "agricultural mind," would be one that (as Mr. Cobden said in the Guildhall of London) would make Gog and Magog themselves tumble down from their pedestals, with side It is not, therefore, our object to fling reproaches upon the labourers who, coming in at the eleventh hour, carry off the riches of the harvest: we promise them earnest and cordial aid, in so much and so far as they shall carry out the great mission they have undertaken. It would, no doubt, have facilitated their own objects, if they had associated themselves, openly and boldly, with the men whose measures they now propose to adopt and patronize. This would have been welcomed as evidence of honesty and sincerity. At a very small *We need not say that the first part of this article was written while Lord John Russell was engaged in his abortive task.-E. T. M. splitting laughter. For the public interest, nothing could | to persuade them, than Sir Robert Peel. He woul be more desirable than that the experiment should have say that, for personal objects, he had not increased their been made. It would have removed many delusions,- | numbers; that he had invariably resisted the claims put it would have unveiled to country gentlemen, and "the forward, even by his most influential friends and folleaders" of country gentlemen, the infirmities of their lowers, to be admitted to the Upper House; that he position; it would have swept away much of the rubbish had been the most zealous advocate of their privileges; which now impedes, and is likely long to impede the the restorer of their 'constitutional influence; the minisonward march of reform; and, above all, would have ter, in a word, of the House of Lords. And from him, driven public men into intelligible and defined posi- the assurance of the necessity of the case would, pertions, and have enabled both the advocates of free- haps, not need the additional hint, that the Queen had trade and of monopoly to fix on the most fitting instru-given him powers-powers to carry his measures through ments to carry out their different objects. their august tribunal; and, with such powers, as a matter of course, he would be furnished if he undertook the task we are assigning him. From this task, though he could have been engaged in none so honourable, Sir Robert Peel has withdrawn. With all his ability, and all his ambition, he is miserably wanting to himself and to his country. He knows well what is right, but dares not separate himself from what is wrong. He is prostrate before the work of his own hands. He gropes about in the twilight with wonderful sagacity, but dreads to walk boldly forth in the broad light of day. He has courage enough to march into the field, but a panic seizes upon him at the moment when victory waits upon his will. He has been again and again on the very threshold of greatness, but will die, as he has lived, a little man. It is quite understood that "the Dukes" have been seriously discussing whether, in the eventualities of an epoch so eventful, they," the farmers' friends," the patrons and protectors of the "landed interest," might not be called upon to form an administration, and to rescue the Government from its entanglements and embarrassments. But they shrank from the conflict at the first suggestion. They told the Premier that they would not buckle on the ministerial armour of which he had divested himself: and having got but cold comfort from "the hero of a hundred battles," their discretion soon subdued the small outbreak of valour which some of their more venturous partisans exhibited. What, indeed, could they do, but submit with sublime resignation to the necessities of their condition? Their reasonings despised, their eloquence exhausted, their indignation wasted in vain, deserted by half of their followers, noting to unravel. It will be recorded to the honour of Lord daring any where to encounter public opinion, without even decent advocacy in pulpit or in press, how could they assume the direction of public affairs? The entanglements of his position the Whigs were will John Russell and his friends, that they did strongly press upon Sir Robert Peel the desirableness of his being the introducer of his own project; and they engaged to lend him a cordial and a zealous support. They urged him to resume his position as Prime Minister, to give to his views the benefit of his official patronage, and they promised a disinterested and hearty co-operation. But Sir Robert could not be moved. No alternative then remained: Lord John Russell undertook the task of organizing a Free Trade Ministry. He has had to contend with grave difficulties; the primary difficulty being, that many of his Whig colleagues were unwilling to accompany him quite so far as he was determined to proceed. The Free Trade party are satis London shall be the programme of his ministry; and after long debate, that letter is become the standard around which the new cabinet is to rally. The principal functionaries of the administration are already chosen. But if impossible, and it was impossible, to induce the Duke of Wellington, or any other" Dukes," to form a government of absolute and unqualified resistance to the claims of the free trade party, -- a government which should maintain in its integrity the present cornlaws, with the sliding-scale, and the whole system of restriction and monopoly, the next best arrangement would have been, that Sir Robert Peel himself should have been called upon to constitute such a ministry as would give effect to his own projected measure. Of that measure, in truth, nothing is known; but it must have been of a tolerably sterling and substantial cha-fied with his assurance that the Letter to the Electors of racter to have awakened such an amount of resistance, and to have compelled the breaking up of the cabinet. This measure, itself, would lose its best chances when transferred from the hands of Sir Robert Peel to those of his rivals. Sir Robert Peel, in office, could probably command a hundred parliamentary votes, more than would follow the course marked by him when out of office. Nobody better than the premier himself knows the value of a minister's presuasiveness; and there never was a minister whose personal influence depended so much on his official position. The number of members of parliament grouped round Sir Robert, and who are willing to stake their fortunes upon his, and to follow him with equal devotion from the bright sunshine of patronage to the chilling gloominess of opposition, is wretchedly small, and not likely to be increased until power, as a coming event, shall "throw its shadow before." Under the guidance of Sir Robert Peel, as minister, the free-trade question would have been safely steered through the House of Commons. A hundred-and-fifty members on the ministerial side, allied with two hundred-and-fifty of the liberal party, would have brought the repeal of the corn-laws to the doors of the House of Lords in safety. In such a state of things, would" hereditary wisdom" have ventured to resist? And if " hereditary wisdom" should resist, would there be no powers of conviction, or, if need were, of coercion? The probability is, that on a matter so unpopular, not to say so perilous, as the maintenance of the Bread-tax, the Lords would have consented to a surrender. In the present temper of the public mind, they would certainly hesitate, ere they obstructed the progress of measures which the representative portion of Parliament, and the clamouring voice of the people, and the known disposition of the sovereign, were combined to accomplish. And let it not be forgotten, that no one could address the peerage in terms more likely There is, however, an appointment in the new Cabinet which causes us much anxiety and even alarm, and to which we must take exception. It is that of Lord Palmerston to the Department of Foreign Affairs. The interests of Free Trade are so immediately associated with those of amity with other nations, and his lordship has been so much in the habit of exasperating rather than conciliating foreign governments when topics of discussion have arisen, that we fear much of the good which the advent of a Free Trade Ministry may produce abroad, will be counteracted and checked by the noble lord's almost universal reputation as a maker of mischief rather than a healer of wounds. That reputation, at all events to the extent in which it exists throughout Europe and America, Lord Palmerston does not deserve. It has been our duty on more than one occasion, to animadvert with severity on two dark pages of Lord Palmerston's political history-namely, the Affghan and the Syrian war. Wishing to see Lord Palmerston in the Free Trade Cabinet-for he has rendered many services to the Free Trade cause- - it would have been desirable that any other post should have been assigned him than that which he is now called on to fill. P.S.-We have been wasting words. In the midst of these our lucubrations, the Whig ministry has fallen to pieces. The germs of its dissolution were in its very bud, and what precedes may have prepared our reade s for the event. h Two causes have led to its overthrow. The Wy hig aristocracy were not prepared to make official adva towards the leaders of the Free Trade movement. The y bad half resigned themselves to do thework, providedtheyalone were to be the doers, and that the monopoly of place and power were kept in their hands. This would have been consented to by the Free Traders; but the wiser and the honester portion of the Whigs thought that it would be a graceful and a useful step to call Cobden, and through Cobden, the leaders of the League, to co-operate in the settlement of the great question of the day. They might have safely done this; for Cobden has a nobler ambition than that of becoming a government placeman. But they were afraid of the experiment. Next, Lord Palmerston insisted on being Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nothing less, nothing else, would satisfy him. No matter how much of additional embarrassment such an appointment would create, he was inexorable. And of course it was more important in his lordship's eyes, that he should rule the external relations of the State, than that Corn-laws should be repealed, or monopolies overthrown. Happily, the popular cause has won something in the strife. The Whigs are pledged to Free Trade. The Tories are broken up. THOUGHTS ON THE CRISIS. THE first attempt of Lord John Russell to reconstruct a Whig Cabinet having failed, some remarks, which might have been out of place in a time of action, may be useful for history. The resignation of Sir Robert Peel did not take all the Whig party by surprise. It may have happened a little sooner than they looked for; but they thought it was coming. The manifestoes in favour of entire free trade in corn, were promulgated with a prescient eye to this event. One section of the Whig party had, for a month or two before, entertained hopes of being invited to return to office, and had made up their minds to try again. This section may, now that Holland House is no more, be termed the Lansdowne House Whigs, for want of a better name. The deaths of the late Earl Grey, of Lords Holland and Spencer, have left the Marquis of Lansdowne almost the sole representative of the old Whig party. Lord John Russell is of a second generation, and Lord Morpeth of a third. The Marquis, with his own special retainers, combined with Lord John Russell, Young Holland House," to reorganize their party. Lords Auckland, Clarendon, and Palmerston, gave in their adhesion; the Whig Baring was friendly; Cottenham attended the muster, though he proved little better than a mere destructive, and Labouchere was ready. But this left the Whig muster-roll still defective. Where was the House of Grey? 66 Since the memorable Edinburgh dinner, perfect cordiality has never been re-established between the Grey and the Holland House sections of the Whigs. There were personal grudges, as well as public principle, at work to precipitate that explosion. As to which party was in the right on public principle, little doubt is now entertained; as to the precise nature of the personal grudges, much is still, and probably ever will continue, obscure. Enough-there were faults on both sides: and it would be invidious now to advert to them, were it not that they explain some otherwise unaccountable vacillations in the policy of the House of Grey, since the event referred to. Sometimes the Conservative feeling of the late head of the House prevailed; sometimes the generous boldness of Earl Durham would overcome the indolence of his own natural disposition, augmented by disease, and assert its influence; sometimes the bold jobbing star of Ursa Major was in the ascendant. The present Earl is likely, for some time to come, to give the bias to the family politics. He had frankly committed himself to an uncompromising liberal policy, before the late piece of Whig strategy was thought of; thus taking up an independent position. Every person who reads the debates, can see that Earl Grey is a man who really studies the great questions of the day, before he takes part in discussing them. His character, among officials, is that of a judicious, regular, hard-working man. There was a good deal of crotchetiness, and peevish self-will, in some of his earlier displays: but this, it is said, has entirely sterner qualities of the statesman; that the Marquis of Lansdowne was the brood-hen, under whose wing these chickens of the game picked and pruned themselves; that the Foreign Secretary, who almost plunged us into a war with France, for the good graces of Abud Mesjid ; and the Governor-General of India, who perpetrated the blundering crime of Affghanistan, were their first recruits; and that nearly a week was allowed to elapse after Lord John Russell received the Queen's message, before he opened a communication with Earl Grey. It is well that these things should not be forgotten, although Lord Grey has frankly joined in the movement. What was wanted at such a crisis, was men at the head of affairs; ministers who see their way clearly, and are resolute to keep it. Public opinion is right in the main, but the public opinion of the electoral class is unformed. A cabinet was required that can form, as well as wield, opinion. In general society, the majority of thinkers are friendly to a liberal policy in commerce, and in church and state affairs. A not inconsiderable minority of the landed interest are hopeless of resistance to the free trade party, half convinced that their apprehensions from it are bugbears. But a decided majority are of the curry-powder school of politics, and the more rational are not yet sufficiently converted to liberal views to struggle for them. There are, therefore, three sections of public opinion to be taken into account by a statesman invited to form a Cabinet, the willing members of the movement; the men of the Peel stamp, between whom and the old Tories, the late ministerial disruption has at last raised an insurmountable wall of division; and those out-and-out disciples of the old school, who badgered the Duke into retracting his promise to help the repeal of the Cornlaws. The last-named have broken up the Peel ministry, but they cannot form one. The collective brains of the whole party are not sufficient for that. The Duke has surrendered their proxies, and is not likely to take them back again. He may not see that the game is up, but he has not enough of fight left in him. Peel, Aberdeen, and Graham, the advocates of unconditional Cornlaw repeal in the late cabinet, monopolized its administrative talent, and are men to whom public business is a necessary of life. But men inspired by a liberal policy alone can move at present. If they succumb to the Richmond section, even their somewhat equivocal character will be lost, and can they persuade the mules to 'assume a virtue" which they have not. 66 re Without undervaluing the spasmodic courage of Lord John Russell, or all the lovable qualities of Lord Morpeth, a strong admixture of the more pulsive qualities of Earl Grey, would have been required in the liberal ministry. Even among the Lansdowne-House party, there are some who felt this. It is well known that Lord Clarendon and his friends are any thing but satisfied with the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston. Lord Clarendon knows that peace It was not very assuring for the public that the osten- and industrious enterprise are not only more conducive sible prime movers in the present Whig rally, were to the interest of Britain, but more congenial to the Lord John Russell, the surviving incarnation of Holland tastes of Britons than war. Lord Palmerston, not altoHouse, and Lord Morpeth, in whom amiability of tem-gether ignorant of this, is yet uncontrolled by the belief. per, and natural generosity, are as conspicuous as the He is a statesman of éclat. He is clever, and ambitious worn off. of being thought so. He was one of those of whom Lord 66 sentation. Religious freedom, too, is on the advance : true, many of its loudest professors ill understand the spirit they would persuade us animates them; but multiplied sects, and multiplied schools and colleges, will do good in spite of them. If Earl Grey continue bold in his views, and comprehensive in his inquiries as now; if Lord Clarendon remain true to his pacific industrypatronizing policy; if Lord Morpeth add businesstalent to benevolence and frankness, of which there is no reasonable doubt, they will be leaders; if not, others will take their place. In the next liberal move, we are doubtful whether Sir Robert Peel will have a part. Thrown into public life while little more than a schoolboy, set to learn politics, as they do Divinity at Oxford, after signing the Articles, there is palliation for his past shuffling. But his conduct during the interregnum seems to show that shuffling has become a habit he cannot cast off. If so, his day is nearly over. When the time comes for the Whigs to succeed to organize a government they will do well to remember that its permanence depends upon the judicious casting of parts. Lord Palmerston in the Foreign Office, would be to the Liberal Premier what Lord Stanley in his Colonial Office has been to his Conservative predecessor. These facts ought to be kept in mind; for the time for action will soon return. None but an interim cabinet can be formed now, or for many years P.S.-The Times does not do justice to Lord Grey. He to come. Coalitions do not answer in this country. did not refuse to sit in the Cabinet with Lord Palmerston. Our public men will either be kept by prudence On the contrary, he offered to give him the Colonial from entering into them; or, if they do, will neutralize office, and take any thing they pleased for himself. But, themselves for the rest of their lives. But a fusion of recollecting Palmerston's vagaries when in office, and his parties is taking place, and there can be little doubt of denunciation of the Arbuthnot Treaty, he would not act what will be the tone of the amalgamated party. In this if Palmerston was to be Foreign Secretary. Again, The country, property always will exercise a large amount Times represents Grey as having acted with apparent of influence; and the tendency of realized property is cordiality for a time, and then come out with an objecto invest itself in land. Except at rarely recurring in- tion he kept in reserve. Grey was not privy to the tervals, the landowners of England will continue to be move, and not very early invited to join. He stated this the most powerful section of society: the support of a objection from the first. I have no more to do with decided majority of that body will be indispensable to Grey than any of the rest; but fair play is fair play. any minister. By the landed interest is meant, not a few wealthy titled families, but the great body of landowners. This class is continually receiving within its pale new men" from the manufacturing and mercantile towns, the learned professions, and the public services. These new members are the means of assimilating its views to those of general society. The aristocracy of the revolution of 1688,-the Cavendish, Bedford, and other families, are subjects for History. Even the Pittmade peerage is giving way to a newer landed interest. Yet a few years, and the Peel leaven will leaven the whole lump. We mean Peel principles apart from Peel temporizing. The League, which can raise its hundred thousand pounds one year, and its quarter of a million the next, is the nursery of many a future landed family; and its tone of sentiment will tinge the body. The abolition of the Corn-laws will save the next landed interest from the grovelling errors of that which is passing away. So late as Adam Smith's time, the landowners were the friends of free competition; the clever but short-sighted traders of the day were the graspers at exclusive privileges. A generation of landowners in their dotage took up, in 1814, the selfish fallacies which the liberalized mercantile body were casting off; and it has been in a false and discreditable position ever since. Ere long it will be sufficiently purified to give enduring support to an able and honest minister. In the interim, we have to look for a rapid succession of ephemeral cabinets. At such an epoch, it is the duty of all who take upon them to counsel the public, to keep constantly before it sound political doctrines, and frank, candid, and fearless judgments of public men. The Corn-laws are doomed; and with them will rattle down about our ears the whole fabric of protective policy. In the means by which this has been in part accomplished, we see the germ of more momentous changes. If the League speaks truth of its forty shilling freeholds in counties, or even if the constituencies believe that it speaks truth, we shall soon have an earnest agitation for a readjustment of the deranged balance of repre Still, it remains to be asked, was Lord Grey right, judicious? It may be said that the Whigs ought to have formed an interim cabinet to have carried the Corn-law, on the understanding that there was to be a reconstruction or resignation as soon as this was done. By making an interim cabinet, they could, at its first meeting, have opened the ports by an order in council; and having done that, resigned next day, sure that Parliament would not dare to shut them again. Even suppose the party could have been brought to do this, Lord Palmerston, who would have the Foreign office or nothing, is as much to blame as Lord Grey. But Lord Lansdowne would not hear of so bold and straightforward a course. Cottenham would not; and Palmerston himself would not. There was nothing to be gained worth the risk of letting Palmerston rule the Foreign Office during the week the President's message was expected. Peel has the game again in his own hands. If he is not too twisted by habit, he can do this:-Introduce and carry an act to decree that, at the end of three, four, or five years, all duties on imported grain shall cease and determine: that during the year 1846 a duty of 5s. shall be levied on imported grain; during 1847, of 4s.; 1848, of 3s.; 1849, of 2s.; 1850, of 1s. This would give the total repealers certainty that all protective duties would be abolished, almost as soon as foreign countries could get additional supplies ready for us; the land-owners, that they had time to prepare for competition; the gradually disappearing duty would remove the temptation to hold back immediately before it expired, in order to bring in free. Peel could induce his own Conservatives to do this; the Buckingham-Richmond malcontents on the one hand-the official Whigs, (some of them,) and the League, (perhaps,) on the other-might try to thwart him: but the Patrick Maxwell Stewarts, in parliament; the Leadbetters, (Glasgow,) and all that kind of people, would support him. But I do not think Peel can get over his old shuffling habits sufficiently to do this. He will try something less, and make a mess of it. Printed by WILLIAM TAIT, 107, Prince's Street. EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. FEBRUARY, 1846. WAR WITH AMERICA: ARE WE NOT BRETHREN? "THERE is so little good gained, and so much | language that now rings in the Senate House of mischief done generally by wars, that I wish the Washington? imprudence of undertaking them were more evident to princes; in which case I think they would be less frequent. If I were counsellor to the Empress of Russia, and found that she desired to possess some part of the dominions of the Grand Signior, I would advise her to compute what the annual taxes raised from the territory may amount to, and make him an offer of buying it at the rate of paying for it twenty years' purchase. And if I were his counsellor, I should advise him to take the money, and cede the dominion of that territory... But to make and accept such an offer, these potentates should be both of them reasonable creatures; and free from the ambition of glory, &c.; which perhaps is too much to be supposed." Thus wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1788. We write not with bitterness, but with regret and despondency. Disciples of that school of politics, which sees no hope for humanity but in the progressive enlightenment and growing strength of public opinion, we cannot triumph in this seeming failure of a great democratic experiment. Conscious how incompetent we are at this distance to appreciate correctly the character and temper of the American people, we would rather leave to them the task of rebuking General Cass, and others, who would revive in the Capitol of Washington, the spirit that pervaded the Capitol of Rome. Anxious for the perpetuation of peace, we would not, if we could help it, utter one word that was likely to irritate the most susceptible American. If, therefore, in what follows, any expres"It was better to fight for the first inch of sion escape us wearing the most distant resemOregon, than the last. Our destiny is onward-blance to a national reflection, we request our its western movement cannot be resisted. We cannot recede; we cannot stand still... Texas was our latest acquisition; I hope it will not be our last... If this administration can secure the peaceable acquisition of California, it will receive the lasting gratitude of the people. [Voices on the Whig side-California!' Of course, California: we must have that.' 'And then Cuba? We have started, and must go on.'] We must give twelve months' notice; and if England persist in her claim, [to Oregon,] war must inevitably follow: and it will be a war in which all the strength and the prejudices of both nations will be brought into play." Thus spoke, in 1845, General Cass, and other members of the party which has a majority in the Senate, and "an overwhelming majority in the House of Assembly of the United States." It is melancholy to reflect, that the lapse of sixty years, instead of making the views and principles of American statesmen more humane and far-sighted-more philosophical, in short-has produced a diametrically opposite result. Benjamin Franklin, both morally and intellectually, was immeasurably above the contemporary statesmen of Europe; General Cass, President Polk, and too many more of the existing statesmen of America, have fallen almost to a level with them. When Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Adams, organized the Union, they looked forward to a people and government who were to rise superior to the low lust of territorial aggrandisement, who were to introduce "common sense" into the dealings of nations with each other, to extend the empire of law and reason, and narrow that of brute force. What would these great and good men say to the VOL. XIII.-NO. CXLVI. readers on the other side of the Atlantic to hold it for cancelled. Some good men, in the manufacturing districts of England, have organised themselves to urge the merchants of this country to address invitations to their American correspondents to co-operate with them in averting war between the two countries. They have invoked the aid of the newspaper press, which has been cordially and promptly given. Encouraged by this success, they have put forth a declaration, already signed by many of our most influential popular leaders, that the dispute between Great Britain and the United States ought to be settled by arbitration. This truly peaceful agitation, is making rapid progress. It is taking such hold of the public mind, that no war party in power would be able to resist it. And there is no war party in England to obtain power. The present ministers are the men who sanctioned the Ashburton "capitulation," as its vituperators termed that judicious termination of a protracted and complicated controversy. One of the main impediments to the construction of a Whig cabinet, was the dread of seeing Lord Palmerston in the Foreign Office. The people of Great Britain frankly avow their dislike of war: are there no private citizens in America, sufficiently intelligent and humane, to commence a similar movement on the other side of the Atlantic? Are there none who will give themselves the trouble to create a pacific spirit, or elicit a proof of its existence in the United States? The present ground of controversy betweer. England and America, is one that can be settled by arbitration, if both sides sincerely desire justice and the continuance of peace, and nothing more. F |