THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 453, 7 March 1857, Page 5

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATES.

(From tho ' Times.') The collision of the different estates of the republic which lias just taken place in the United States

teaches a political and a moral lesson. The political lesson is, that no precautions in the original framing of a Constitution can guard against undue acts of power ou the part of the Executive, or against what may be called despotic acts. However jealously yen may curb your Executive, and whatever cheek the Cpnstitution may ptit upon it, an Executive must have power, if it is to be of any use; and if-it has power-, that power may be abused. You cannot, with the most republican intentions, tie up your Executive so strictly that it will only he able to use its powers exactly as you want it; something must be left to its own discretion ; tfiid if you give it a d scretion you must take the chance whether it uses you well or ill. In the United States we have a republic as cautiously and jealously framed against any despotic acts of the Executive, as it could be consistently with its general effectiveness. The result is, however, that at this moment, half the population of the United States are up in arms against the despotism of their Executive, and are speaking of General Pierce much as our forefathers spoke of James 11. "Let freemen," says a New York contemporary,— free-, ■men who,love the freedom for which Washington i fought, iwhich Jefferson proclaimed and which Jay taughr, contemplate the scene. On the one hand, slaveocracv,not eon ent with its sectional institution of slavery within bounds guaranteed it by the Constitution, demanding that its sectional institution shall be extended over the free soil of the national territories, and that the power of the United Mates' army shall be turned against freemen to force the extension ! On the other hand, standing in the same halls, national freedom, true to itself, saying firmly, hut calmly, that slaveoeracy shall not have the army of the" United States to force slavery on freemen!" Here is an appeal, then,-to every true son of liberty to resist the act of a Tarquin ; President Pierce receives his classical diploma, and the United States are at last political enough to have a tyrant. We begin to think of Ilannodius and Aristogeiton, and to congratulate General Pieice that tyrarts are more gently dealt with now-a-days than they once were. Nor is the charge wholly without ground. For what is the fact? Has not the President of the United States simply used the American army to put down his political opponents and serve his political friends? The territory at Kansas has at first a Free-state Legislature ; but it is invaded by the border States, who put down this legislature, erect another, and put the territory on the Slave-state basis. A fight follows ; the President chooses to assume that the legislature for the •ime uppermost is not the usurping, but the established legislature, and supports it by the Federal forces. Here, then, is an arbitrary and despotic apt,' and an electioneering use of power against 'which no Constitution could guard. ■ The Federal Executive ought to have the power to support an established -legislature, and it must be left to its discretion to decide what is an established legislature. The truth is, then, that no mere letter of a Constitution, however republican it may be, can be a security against arbitrary acts on the part of the Executive. For a true security against such acts, you must depend on political custom and feeling, on certain established maxims and rules of political action, <m what we call the "practical-working" of a Constitution rather than its letter. The letter of the English ''Constitution gives the Sovereign an absolute veto; but Constitutional custom forbids the exercise of it, the Constitutional rule being that when a ministry finds itself in a minority in the House of Commons, it resigns. Thus a Constitution has vapidly grown up in this country which effectually prevents all despotic acts on the part of rhe Executive; but this Constitution, it will he found, lies in custom rather than in statue—in certain traditional and unwritten rules of political action, which all parties have tacitly agreed to observe, rather than in the letter of any acts of Parliament. We see by the present events in the United States how superior such a Constiiusional understanding, as it may be called, is to a merely written Constitution ; how crude the working of the paper creation is, where not interpreted by any practical tradition and generally accepted rule, compared with the easy and smooth working of a Constitution' which is "the growth of time, real history, and- national life. Thus all the French Constitution, of recent date had ceased to work and were full of jars long before their final overthrow. The Americans, in fact, have not yet got their Constitution, if by that word we understand the mature practical machine so called ; it has yet to grow, and such events as the present are forming it for them. It will be decided before long, whether President Pierces act with respect to Kansas will be accepted and approved by the nation as a whole, or the j lwerse- if the latter, a precedent will beset which ! will o-overn future Presidents ; so a full American I Constitution will at last grow" up, just as our law ■iocs, by a suecessio'n o" precedents, national judgments, and the general course of political event*The second lesson which the present events in the ' United States teach is amoral one. People have been prophesying the rupture s f the Union for » long time, and it has not come; and, so far, the United States m.iy boast of a practical principle of

union which sustainsvthern in opposition to many threateniiigs and many flaws in their position. But here is at last, a positive" collision between the different estates, which, if not a rupture, must be mended very soon, or it will lead to one. And what is the question which has;produced this collision? The slavery question. Here isS the rock on which they split, here is the source of danger. to;:,the American Union. If the United States, then, maintain a morally bad institution, they must pay; for it—pay for It. mi political/disunion, rancour, and convulsions/The Democratical party tries- to smooth over this ■ sore, and to persuade everybody, not to think about it, but to take America as a whole. But people will think about it, and will agitate the question at any cost, no matter even if it breaks up the Union at* last. That is the consequence .of having an institution' which violates mural and religious feeling. The opponents of slavery cannotbe silenced by ■ any appeal to political expediency, because they are fighting a question which, in their opinion, supersedes all such arguments.. ' The instant people determine that a moral and religious principle is involved in a question, they . are '.com-; mitted to fight it at all hazards. .Slavery thus creates the American revolutionist, and arrays the religious

enthusiast and the philanthropist against the Union. Here.is a.sore at the most vital part, .which must '"■ be perpetually attended to, otherwise it will get the better of them. The greatest statesmen of America have constantly to use their best arguments to keep back the force of. anti-sl;ivery opinion, which threatens to overwhelm them. They have to bealways soothing and calming the enthusiast, entreating him to be reasonable, telling: him he must be content with things as they are, at any rate respect established interests^ Mr.. Webster in this way fought the battle of the slave-owner, anil procured him the fugitive Slave Law ; bur it was a hard fight, and. the anti-slavery, enthusiast retaliated in print by a character of that great statesman such as might remi.nd .the'theologian of. the 'character which tie ancient fathers gave of Antichrist—viz., the perfection of immoral .intellect. The United States will get over, this particular disturbance, and that, j probably, very soon; but they have not seen the last ot' the question which is the cause of it, and which will eoii-tiii»e.fo be a constant source of poli-' tical danger arid division.-"