We have discussed elsewhere the significance of General Butler's resolution,
carried on Monday in the House of Representatives by a majority of 172 to 21, welcoming our liberated Fenians, in the Came of Congress and the American people, to the soil and capital of the United States. To make it really valid as a wel- come offered by Congress, the Senate must pass a similar resolu- tion, which we almost hope it will hesitate to do. For our own parts, were it not that we feel sincere regret for everything which increases the gulf between England and America, we should rather exult in this flagrant evidence that America not only excuses, but even thinks it right to flaunt, sympathy with the revolted subjects of a friendly power. We, in this journal indeed, never felt the remotest sympathy for the American Secessionists, quite the reverse, but we did think America foolishly susceptible about the false sympathies of those who did. Now, it appears, 172 members of the House of Representatives in- dulge the same false sympathies rather ostentatiously. But it won't annoy anybody here. The more intimately the 172 culti- vate the acquaintance of our Fenian Irreconcilables, the more cer- tain we shall feel that they are beginning to know remorse about their vote.
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