AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 338, 15 January 1861, Page 4

AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

The present election for the Presidentship of America is the most important that has taken place for along period, if not since the establishment of the Republic. Two principles, or more properly two parties, are brought face to face, on the success of one of which enthusiasts tell us depends the character of the country, while others assert that the success of the other party is essential to the existence of the Union. The rallying cry is " Slavery!" upheld by the Democrats and opposed by the Republicans. In reality it is not the " institution " itself that has aroused the existing hostile feelieg, so much as matters connected with its abuse ; and that less in reference to the slaves themselves, than to the white inhabitants of the Free States. Neither does the question of slavery adequately represent the principles of the parties. So far as the Republicans politically differ from the Democrats—they differ on Conservative groundß. Although Conservative principles involve no defence of slavery—as an institution—they would naturally induce caution in dealing with the question, and an indisposition to has)y or reckless emancipation. On the other hand democracy of a far less extreme stamp than that of the American Democrats ought on principle to repudiate slavery altogether. To fully apprehend those apparent contradictions, it is requisite to glance at the.origin of the two parties, and the circumstances of their growth. Everybody knows that the political principles of Washington, and most of the other founders of the American Republic, were cautious and conservative. They did not resist the attempt of the British Parliament to tax them on speculative, but on what they considered constitutional grounds, and in defence of those "rights" which it was then held an Englishman carried with him wherever he went, and was bound to transmit to bis children. They bad been trained to venerate the British.Constitution, and their admiration was shown in an endeavor to imiiate it so far as circumstances permitted when they constructed the American system, with its President, its Senate, and its Representative Assembly. The persons who held these views—and they formed the great majority of the country—were called " Federalists," signifying their wish to render the Federal Constitution and Government predominant over the States, under which nationality and government would be almost impossible. The Federalists were so powerful in the country, that, with the exception of Jefferson's Presidentship, they held the government for forty years, that is, till Jackson's eleotion in 1829. The name of Federalists had, however, passed into that of Whigs (which, in America, was understood as at least to mean Conservatism). i After the trimming of the great Whig leader, Henry Clay, together with some suspicion of jobbing and trickery, bad throw discredit on the name of Whig, the party became " Republican," differing as much in character as in name from the original Federalists. They profess to disapprove of filibusters and annexationists; but as a party they mafee no public exertions to stop them, nor do they ever repudiate the advantages which filibustering and annexation may bring in their train. Some may be said to go farther. Clay opposed the annexation of Texas, simply on account of the violent manner iv which it was accomplished. He proposed what he called a " policy of masterly inactivity ;" that is, a gradual settlement, till the Americans by their numbers would b3 able to coerce the Mexicans. In like manner he objected to the payment for the cession of Florida, because it might have been got without payment by the same policy. In the earlier years of the Republic slavery was hardly a party question. It was expected to die out, no one having any idea that the extension of ihe cotton trade and the demand for other productions of the South, would have so greatly extended the area of slavery, and created a home trade, much more repulsive, morally speaking, than even the foreign slave trade ; and ending in a party hostility which threatens to break up the Union. It could not be called a Whig party question, for Clay himself was a slaveholder. Many Northern men, having perhaps " business relations " with the South, upheid slavery not as a rightful thing, but an existing necessity ; many tabooed the subject; the majority mentally disapproved of slavery, but gave themselves no practical concern about it. For many years past an active religious minority has been zealous in its anti-slavery exertions, and in later years the American Abolitionists have been aided by the same party in this country. Still, all this would have had but little effect in producing the present state of things, had not the slave-owners, by their violence, and their constant encroachments on the principles and feelings of the North, exasperated that portion of the Union by proceedings we shall presently explain. Meantime it will be Decessary to say a word about the Democrats. This party was anterior to- the Republic itself, and drew its principles from Tom Paine (who was one of its body), and the Jabobinical ideas of the extreme French Revolutionists. Though not numerous or very respectable, it gave a great deal of trouble to Washington by its activity, violence, and intrigues with Frenchmen, and inspired forebodings in his mind that have been too well realised. Notwithstanding that their leader, Jefferson, was twice President (from 1801 to 1809), they did not obtain full possession of the Government till 1829. Probably they would not have triumphed then, or ever, but for their junction with the slave interests. There could, of course, have been notiling in common between the great Southern planter, with his large possessions, his university education, his feudal ideas of personal power and diguity, and the "loafers," "rowdies," and other classes of " shysters," (blackguards), who manage, indeed often control, the Northern elections, and form a considerable mass of voters. But " necessity briugs us acquainted with Strange bed-fellows." The South by itself was comparatively powerless. The Slave States were thinly inhabited, and had they been equal to the Free States, it requires some three slaves to make a voter, or rather to creat9 a vote for " their owner." As the number of representatives from a state are decided by its population, the South must have been beaten without a chance, unless it could increase its numbers. This was done by a junction of the Democrats. They brought numbers, electioneering management, and unscrupulousoess (if that were needed). The South gave the Democrats ■what they wanted, leaders of statesmanlike capacity, foresight, power of organisation, an administrative skill. After the Southerners had got possession of the Government they retained it^ftlways electing a President of their own

party, or, if military enthusiasm overwhelmed them, in the case of Generals Harrison and Taylor fortune assisted them, for both those Presidents died within a few months of their inauguration. This position in the country the party would have probably maintained but for their violence and impolicy shown by a succession of aggressive legislative acts. It was an opinion in some of the Free States that •' slaves , could not breathe" there any more than in England. The Judges of New York formally set free a cargo which had been brought into their port. To meet this difficulty the Fugitive Slave Bill was passed in 1850, and this measure virtually extended slavery all over the country, by enacting that any runaway slave, when found in another State, should be restored by the authorities to his owner. In an abstract point of view this was indiscreet, but it passed readily as a compromise. Its profound impolicy consisted in its visibly presenting one of the horrors of slavery to the Northern population and in a dramatic form. Towns as quiet and as little cognisant of practical slavery as any place in England, and as much adverse to it, were liable to be entered by ferocious slave hunters, the very worst ruffians of the South. Such fellows seizing an escaped slave, who might have resided some time in the place, naturally excited great indignation, especially if the man happened to be nearly white. In such a case at Boston the authorities determined to carry out the law, but they could only do it by calling the militia to the aid of the civil power. In some places the slave hunters were compelled to depart without their victim. In one case, and very probably in several others, the hunters shot a free white man. Before the Northern public had time to get used to the working of this Act, Mr. Douglas, the head of the Northern Democrats, and one of the present candidates for the Presidency, contrived in 1854 to repeal the Missouri Compromise Act, under which, in all the country lying north of latitude 36°.30', slavery was to be " for ever prohibited." This was done with a view to make Kansas a Slave State. The abolitionists of the North, in order to defeat this scheme, entered the country as settlers. Then in 1855-56, began a series of outrages which excited so much horror and indignation that full accounts were published in the English newspapers, describing the invasion of the " border ruffians," and the arsons, robberies, murders, and devastations which they committed on peaceable Northern families. In the year after occurred the celebrated case of Dred Scott. This man had been a slave, and claimed his freedom, in part by residence, with the consent of his owner, under the Missouri Compromise Act. The Supreme Court decided that" a negro is not a citizen," and that the Act, so far as it undertook to " exclude Negro slavery from, and given freedom and citizeuship to the negroes in the Northern part of the Louisana cession, was a Legislative Act exceeding the powers of Congress, ancr void and of no effect to that end." One would suppose all this would have filled the cup of offauce towards the North. Still as doubts are entertained as to whether a Republican (Anti-Slavery) President will even now be elected, it may be assumed that the prospect would have been still more blank but for a '• split" among the Democrats. Some religionists would call this a "judgment," for Kansas was the cause, and Douglas the instrument. In 1857 be quarrelled with the present President, Mr. Buchanan, on his high-handed and arbitrary management of the Kansas territory (a territory without sufficient population to form a a " State"). In 1858 he came to an open rupture with the Southern Democrats, when they endeavored by an Act of Congress to compel a territory to receive slavery, whether the people wished it or not. The candidates of the respective parties are Mr. Lincoln (Republican) and Mr. Douglas (Democrat.) Whichever of them may be chesen it may be doubted that the election will operate with very beneflcial results either to the United States or to this country. The Federal Government, if Republican, might disapprove of filibustering, but in an excited phase of the public mind would scarcely venture seriously to interfere with it, and certainly not under the presidency of Mr. Lincoln, who is a man of moderate character, and of provincial rather than national reputation. The Democrats, on the other hand, are decidedly aggressive. Their candidate, Mr. Douglas, who sprang from the artisan class, and still (probably as a matter of policy) retains the brusqueness and vivacity of his former associations, is a man of much ability, fluent, energetic, and determinedly persevering. He regards the acquisition of Cuba &s & necessity, limited merely as to time, and he has publicly laid down the doctrine that the United Stales must acquire territory " in whatever direction its progress and increasing population may require." ' This disposition might tend to bring his Government into collision with England on one or other of the questions always capable of affording grounds for dispute—those, for example, of the Isthmus of Panama, San Juau island, and interference with Central America. It is difficult to foreseen how the election may affect slavery, which is not a Federal question, but it is entirely within the control of the individual States, excepting of course, such enactments as the Fugitive Slave law. Our object in these remarks has been to chow clearly the growth of the parties which now agitate the Union, and to point out the differences between them, rather than to estimate their relative chances of suocess.— English Paper.

Letter from Gavazzi.—The British Ensign publishes the following letter from Father Gavazzi:—" Me3sina, Quartier General, August 4> —Dear Sir, I snatch a moment from my duties with the heroic Garibaldi to answer your question about the real aim of our movement. I spoke so much on the subject when lecturing ia England that I feel it a part of my old mission to assure your people that we fight now for the sole purpose of uniting all Italy under the constitutional sceptre of Victor Emmanuel. Let Englishmen lepudiate the idea that there is anything republican in the present, since even the hottest followers of republicanism have sacrificed their views to the great cause of our independence, unity, and constitutional liberties. I am, indeed, the happiest of patriots, finding myself, after so many years, in the very field I longed for, where the conquest of our civil liberties will bring to my Italy the religious freedom which was always the dream of my exiled life. Nor can I help feeling proud in recollecting that ray words to English audiences were neither poetical nor impracticable, but the expression of a practical mind. What people objected to in my Italian views has been realised beyond all imagination. They Baid we could and would not fight —we fought; that we could not govern ourselves—we did that we could not enjoy

wisely our acquired liberties —we have done that also; finally, that we could not rid oaraelves of our municipal jealousies—we have done so effectually, and to the astonishment of the world. Meantime, I have to thank your House of Commons for their generous words, Lord John Russell for his open and firm expressions, and, above all, your people at large, who have given such a moral support to our Italian regeneration. Be sure of what so often I spoke in England, that if there is no intervention in our fightings we shall arrive to crown in the Capitol our dear Victor Emmanuel as the constitutional King of one Italy.—Yours, &c., Alessandro Gavazzi." A German Account of the Volunteers. —A military paper of very high standing, published at Darmstadt, the Allgemeine Militar Zetung, gives an account of the English Volun- j teers in a recent number, which, making allowance for a few trifling errors, is very accurate : —" A very few battalions excepted, this army of Volunteers dates from the latter half of last year; the great body has not been put in uniform and drilled more than a twelvemonth. At present its strength on paper is 120,000 men: but if we may draw conclusions from what is the fact in some districts, there will not be more than 80,000 men really effective and drilled. The first year's drill has taught the Volunteers so much of the elementary movements that they may now enter on skirmishing and rifle practice. They will be far more handy at both these kinds of work thaa the English line, so that by summer, 1861, they would form a very useful army, if only their officers knew more about their business. This is the weak point of the whole formation. Officers cannot be manufactured in the same time and with the same means as privates. Up to now itha3been proved that the willingness and the zeal of the mass may be relied upon, as far as necessary. But this is not sufficient for the officers. As we have seen, even for similar battalion movements, wheeling in column deployments, keeping distance (so important io the English system of I evolutions, where open columns are very often employed), the officers are not by far sufficiently formed. What is to become of them on outpost and skirmishing duty, where judgment of ground is everything, and where so many ! other difficult matters are to be taken into consideration ? How can such men be entrusted with the duty of taking care of the safety of an army on the maroh? ... If the whole movement is to lead to something, this ia the point where Government will have to step in."