SKINNING ENEMIES.-The rumor, long discredited as incredible, has come at length to be proved beyond reasonable doubt, that a son of John Brown, so well known as the leader in the affair at Harper's Ferry, was actually flayed, his skin tanned, and sent in little bits over the South as mementoes of the vengeance inflicted. A specimen, found by one of our Generals in Virginia, and forwarded to Prof. Martin in the city of New York, was seen by the editor of the N. Y. Tribune. We do not marvel in the least at such an exhibition of barbarism, for there is literally nothing that slavery will not do for the attainment of its ends. The world is only beginning now to see how bad it is.

SENATOR SUMNER ON THE TRENT AFFAIR.

This admirable speech, delivered in the United States Senate, January 9, 1862, breathing a spirit so excellent, and embodying in a small compass so much learning and logic, deserves to be circulated through the whole civilized world. If brought before the sixty millions of England and America, it would do more than a hundred battles towards setting aright the points in dispute. We can give only a few extracts.

THE MAIN FACTS IN THE CASE.

Two old men and two younger associates, recently taken from the British mail packet Trent, on the high seas, by order of Captain Wilkes, of the United States Navy, and afterwards detained in custody at Fort Warren, have been liberated, and placed at the disposition of the British Government. This has been done at the instance of that Government, courteously conveyed, and founded on the assumption that the original capture of these men was an act of violence which was an affront to the British flag, and a violation of international law. This is a simple outline of the facts. These two old men were citizens of the United States, and for many years Senators. One, (Mason) was the author of the fugitive slave bill, and the other (Slidell) was the chief author of the fillibustering system which has disgraced our national name, and disturbed our national peace. Occupying places of trust and power in the service of their country, they conspired against it, and at last the secret traitors and conspirators became open rebels. The present rebellion, now surpassing in proportions and also in wickedness any rebellion in history, was from the beginning quickened and promoted by their untiring energies. That country to which they owed love, honor and obedience, they betrayed, and gave over to violence and outrage. Treason, conspiracy and rebellion, each in succession, have acted through them. The incalculable expenditures which now task our national resources, the untold derangement of affairs not only at home but also abroad, the levy of armies almost without an example, the devastation of extended regions of territory, the plunder of peaceful ships on the ocean, and the slaughter of fellow-citizens on the murderous battle field; such are some of the consequences proceeding directly from them.

To carry forward still further the gigantic crime of which they were so large a part, these two old men, with their two younger associates, stole from Charleston on board a rebel steamer, and, under cover of darkness and storm, running the blockade and avoiding the cruisers in that neighborhood, succeeded in reaching the neutral island of Cuba, where with open display, and the knowledge of the British consul, they embarked on board the British mail packet the Trent, bound for St. Thomas, wher.ce they were

to embark for England, in which kingdom one of them was to play the part of ambassador of the rebellion, while the other was to play the same part in France. The original treason, conspiracy and rebellion of which they were so heinously guilty, were all continued on this voyage, which became a prolongation of the original crime, destined to still further excess through their ambassadorial pretensions, which, it was hoped, would array two great nations against the United States, and enlist them openly in behalf of an accursed slaveholding rebellion. While on their way, the ambassadors were arrested by Captain Wilkes, of the United States steamship San Jacinto, an accomplished officer, already well known by his scientific explorations, who, on this occasion, acted without instructions from his govern

ment.

BRITISH PRECEDENTS.

If this transaction be regarded exclusively in the light of British precedents; if we follow the seeming authority of the British admiralty, speaking by its greatest voice; and especially if we accept the oft-repeated examples of British cruisers, upheld by the British Government against the oft-repeated protests of the United States, we shall not find it difficult to vindicate it. The act becomes questionable only when brought to the touchstone of those liberal principles, which from earliest times the American Government has openly avowed and sought to advance, and which other European nations have accepted with regard to the sea. Indeed, Great Britain cannot complain except by now adopting those identical principles; and should we undertake to vindicate the act, it can be done only by repudiating those identical principles. Our two cases will be reversed. Great Britain is armed with American principles, while to us are left only those British principles which, throughout our history, have been constantly, deliberately and solemnly rejected.

Of course it is not an affront; for an accident can never be an affront to an individual or to a nation. Public report forbids us to continue ignorant of the precise ground on which this act is presented as a violation of international law. It is admitted that a United States man-of-war, meeting a British mail steamer beyond the territorial limits of Great Britain, might subject her to visitation and search; also the United States ship-of-war might put a prize crew on board the British steamer, and carry her off to a point of the United States for adjudication by a prize court there; but that she would have no right to remove the emissaries, who were not apparently officers in the military or naval service, and carry them off as prisoners leaving the ship to pursue her voyage. Under the circumstances, in the exercise of a belligerent right, the British steamer, with all on board, might have been captured and carried off; but according to the British law officers, on whose professional opinion the British cabinet has acted, the whole proceeding was vitiated by the failure to take the packet into port for condemnation.

Thus it appears that the present complaint of the British Government is not founded on the assumption by the American war-steamer of the belligerent right of search; nor on the ground that this right was exercised on board a neutral vessel between two neutral ports; nor that it was exercised on board a mail steamer, sustained by a subvention from the Crown, and officered in part from the royal navy; nor that it was exercised in a case where the penalties of contraband could not attach; but it is founded simply and precisely on the idea that persons, other than apparent officers in the military or naval service, cannot be taken out of a suspected ship at the mere will of the officer who exercises the right of search, and without any form of trial.

NO CAUSE FOR WAR IN ANY EVENT.

Do not forget that the question involved in this controversy is strictly a question of law, precisely like a question of trespass between two neighbors. The British cabinet began proceedings by taking the opinion of their law advisers, precisely as an individual begins proceedings in a suit at law by taking the opinion of his attorney. To make such a question a case of war, or to suggest that war is a proper mode of deciding it, is simply to revive, in collossal proportions, the exploded ordeal by battle, and to imitate those dark ages when such proceeding was openly declared to be the best and most honorable mode of deciding even an abstract point of law. "It was a matter of doubt and dispute," says an early historian," whether the sons of a son ought to be reckoned among the children of the family, and succeed equally with their uncles, if their father happened to die while their grandfather was alive. An assembly was called to deliberate on this point, and it was the general opinion that it ought to be remitted to the examination and decision of judges. But the emperor, following a better course, and desirous of dealing honorably with his people and nobles, appointed the matter to be decided by battle between two champions." In similar spirit has it been latterly proposed, amidst the amazement of the civilized world, to withdraw the point of law, now raised by Great Britain, from peaceful adjudication, and submit it to trial by combat. But the irrational anachronism of such a proposition becomes more flagrant from the inconsistency of the party which makes it; for it cannot be forgotten that in times past, on this identical point of law, Great Britain persistently held an opposite ground from that which she now takes.

A question of international law should not be presented on any mere argumentum ad hominem. It would be of little value to show that Captain Wilkes was sustained by British authority and practice, if he were condemned by international law as interpreted by his own country. It belongs to us now, nay, let it be our pride, at any cost of individual prepossessions or transitory prejudices, to uphold that law in all its force, as it was often declared by the best men in our history, and illustrated by national acts; and let us seize the present occasion to consecrate its positive and unequivocal recognition. In exchange for the prisoners set free, we receive from Great Britain a practical assent, too long deferred, to a principle early propounded by our country, and standing forth on every page of our history. The same voice which asks for their liberation, renounces in the same breath an odious pretension, for whole generations the scourge of peaceful commerce.

AMERICAN AND BRITISH PRACTICE IN CONTRAST.

Great Britain, throughout her municipal history, has practically contributed to the establishment of freedom beyond all other nations. There are at least seven institutions or principles which she has given to civilization: first, the trial by jury; secondly, the writ of habeas corpus; thirdly, the freedom of the press; fourthly, bills of rights; fifthly, the representative system; sixthly, the rules and orders of debate, constituting parlimentary law; and seventhly, the principle that the air is too pure for a slave to breathe, long ago declared and first made a reality by British law. No other nation can show such peaceful triumphs. Bnt, while thus entitled to our gratitude for glorious contributions to municipal law, we turn with dissent and sorrow from much which she has sought to fasten upon international law. In municipal questions Great Britian drew inspiration from her own native common law, which was instinct with freedom; but especially in maritime questions, arising under the law of nations, this power

seems to have acted on that obnoxious principle of the Roman law, positively discarded in municipal questions, Quod principi placuit, legis vigorem habet, and too often, under this inspiration, to have imposed upon weaker nations her own arbitrary will. The time has been when she pretended to sovereignty over the seas surrounding the British isles, as far as Cape Finisterre to the south, and Vanstaten, in Norway, to the north. But driven from this pretension, other pretensions, less local, but hardly less offensive, were avowed. The boast of "Rule, Britannia, rule the waves," was practically adopted by British courts of admiralty, and universal maritime rights were subjected to the special exigencies of British interests. In the consciousness of strength, and with a navy that could not be opposed, this power has put chains upon the sea.

The commerce of the United States, as it began to whiten the ocean, was cruelly decimated by these arbitrary pretensions. American ships and cargoes, while, in the language of Lord Russell, "pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage," suffered from the British admiralty courts more than from rock or tempest. Shipwreck was less frequent than confiscation; and when it came, it was easier to bear. But the loss of property stung less than the outrage of impressment, by which foreigners, under the protection of the American flag, and also American citizens, without any form of trial, and at the mere mandate of a navy officer, who for the moment acted as a judicial tribunal, were dragged away from the deck which should have been to them a sacred altar. This outrage, which was feebly vindicated by the municipal claim of Great Britian to the services of her own subjects, was enforced arrogantly and perpetually on the high seas, where municipal law is silent, and international law alone prevails. The belligerent right of search, derived from international law, was employed for this purpose, and the quarter-deck of every British cruiser was made a floating judgment seat. The practice began early, and was continued constantly; nor did it discriminate among its victims.

It is mentioned by Mr Jefferson, and repeated by a British writer on international law, that two nephews of Washington, on their way home from Europe, were ravished from the protection of the American flag, without any judicial proceedings, and placed as common seamen under the ordinary discipline of British ships-of-war. The victims were counted by thousands. Lord Castlereagh himself admitted, on the floor of the House of Commons, that an inquiry, instituted by the British Government, had discovered in the British fleet three thousand five hundred men claiming to be impressed Americans. At our Department of State six thousand cases were recorded; and it was estimated that at least as many more might have occurred of which no information had been received. Thus, according to this official admission of the British minister, there was reason to believe that the quarter-deck of a British man-of-war had been made a floating judgment seat three thousand five hundred times, while, according to the records of our own State Department, it had been made a floating judgment seat six thousand times and upwards; and each time an American citizen had been taken from the protection of his flag without any form of trial known to the law. If a pretension so intrinsically lawless could be sanctioned by precedent, Great Britain would have succeeded in interpolating it into the law of nations.

Protest, argument, negotiation, correspondence, and war itself-unhappily the last reason of republics as of kings-were all employed in vain by the United States to procure a renunciation of this intolerable pretension. The ablest papers in our diplomatic history are devoted to this purpose; and the only serious war in which we have been engaged, until summoned to encounter this rebellion, was to overcome by arms this very pretension

which would not yield to reason. Beginning in the last century, the correspondence is at last closed by the recent reply of Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons. The long-continued occasion of conflict is now happily removed, and the pretension disappears forever, to take its place among the curiosities of the past.

On this question British policy may change with circumstances, and British precedents may be uncertain; but the original American policy is unchangeable, and the American precedents which illustrate it are solemn treaties. The words of Vattel, and the judgments of Sir William Scott, were all known to the statesmen of the United States; and yet, in the face of these authorities, which have entered so largely into this debate, the American Government at an early day deliberately adopted a contrary policy, to which, for half a century, it has steadily adhered. It was plainly d clared that only soldiers or officers could be stopped, thus positively excluding the idea of stopping embassadors, or emissaries of any kind, not in the military or naval service.

Clearly, and beyond all question, according to American principles and practice, the ship was not liable to capture on account of the presence of emissaries, "not soldiers or officers; nor could such emissaries be legally taken from the ship. But the completeness of this authority is increased by the concurring testimony of the continent of Europe. Since the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, the policy of the continental States has refused to sanction the removal of enemies from a neutral ship, unless military men in actual service. And now, since this debate has commenced, we have the positive testimony of the French Government to the same principie, given with special reference to the present case. M. Thouvenal, the Minister of the Emperor for Foreign Affairs, in a recent letter to Mr. Seward, published with the papers now before the Senate, earnestly insists that the rebel emissaries, not being military persons actually in the service of the enemy, were not subject to seizure on board a neutral ship. I leave this part of the subject with the remark, that it is Great Britain alone whose position on this question can be brought into doubt.

If I am correct in this review, then, the conclusion is inevitable. The seizure of the rebel emissaries on board a neutral ship cannot be justified according to our best American precedents and practice. There seems to be no single point where the seizure is not questionable, unless we choose to invoke British precedents and practice, which beyond doubt led Captain Wilkes into the mistake which he committed.

RISE OF THE BRITISH NATIONAL DEBT.-It began under Charles II, in 1660; but with all his extravagance and profligacy, it reached, in 1681, only a little more than £600,000. How small a beginning for the gigantic proportions it has since attained! In 1763, it had risen to £139,000,000. At the close of the French Kevolution in 1802, it was £571,000,000. In the twelve years of the wars of Napoleon it increased to £865,000,000, which was its maximum. From this point it rapidly decreased for thirty years, having been reduced in 1845 to £768,789,241. At the close of the Russian war in 1856, it had increased to £800,000,000; and in consequence of the Indian mutiny, the Chinese war, and the distrust of France, can hardly have diminished since. The interest on the present debt, at the rate of 3 1-2 per cent. is $134,400,000 per year, or $368,000 a day, $15,333 an hour, $255 a minute.