The Daily Madisonian

From the N. Y. Journal of Commerce.

Public sentiment with regard to the affairs of Rhode Island stands upon a pivot, and will turn easily either way. The universality of suffrage in almost all the States, shows how opinion is, and has long been, on the fundamental matter of difference between the two parties. A vast majority of the American people sympathise with the Suffrage party in this. In their attempt to carry out that principle, however, by establishing a new government to override the actual government, public sentiment ought to be, and we have no doubt is, strongly against them. That procedure was inconsistent with the integrity of all our institutions. Since the adjournment of the Suffrage Legislature, the legitimate government have done very right, it seems to us, in arresting several of the Suffrage leaders, and the gentlemen arrested have done honor to themselves as American citizens, in submitting to be arrested and yielding to the proper course of law. They have thus exhibited their regard for order, and their confidence in American institutions to bring them out right. Public sentiment will go with both sides in this procedure, but we doubt whether it will authorize many more arrests. There is no necessity for arresting every one who took a part in the usurpation. Enough have already been committed, to establish the supremacy of the laws, and test all the principles in the case. The legal government is now established, and if no more is done, the influence on the country generally will be salutary. It would be most unfortunate if arrests should be pushed so far as to produce a counter current. Now, it seems to us, is the time for a final settlement of the whole affair. As yet, the controversy has not gone beyond words and demonstrations. Not a drop of blood has been shed—not a blow struck. The laws have held the Rhode Islanders, as they always should. This is the time for the legal legislature to show their generosity, and by calling a convention giving the people generally the right of voting for delegates, to put an end to the controversy in this happy moment. We care not to know what would have happened in Rhode Island, if either party of our fellow citizens there had forgotten American interests and American principles, and given themselves up to the control of stubbornness or revenge.