The Press.
London, England, 1854-12-16 00:00:00

DEeEmtER 16, 1854

order to crush the germ of an aspiration for freedom.
It is evident that a war of encroachment is more
consonant to this system than a state of peace, and
more conducive to the ultimate establishment of the
absolute as a general principle of government
throughout Europe, which is its end and aim.
Russia upholds, in fierce determination, these iron
canons of rule for the maintenance and for the pro-
pagation of the absolute. The Muscovite oligarchy
is that power which is stronger than the autocrat,
and is the throne itself. Disobedience to its interest

is followed by imperial death. This prepotent faction
has been apparently weakened by the admission of a
foreign and Germanic element in its constitution;
but an astute and well-worked policy, following out
the spirit of the Bth, 10th, and 11th clauses of the will
of Peter the Great, has converted that supposed
weakness into a principle of strength. Short was the
contest betwixt the Muscovite and Germanic dis-

patents. The death of the Emperor Alexander was
a warning to Nicholas to be fait:iful in his allegiance
to the absolute, to that principle which is greater
than the imperial throne.
After the extinction of Poland, the ramification of
the absolute was extended slowly butsurely through-
out the Germanic Confederation, and the Muscovite
used the secondary and obedient faction for its own
especial advantage. The object was to undermine
gradually the federal influence in the fatherland, and
to substitute the absolute in its stead. The means
employed were family alliances, and the subordination,
through them, of the Germanic Diet. Napoleon con-
tested for the supremacy of dominion with the
Panschlaviet, whose designk he had detected. He
failed by the union of all parties—autocratic, consti
. tutional, and republican—against him, and in his
fall he left the field open for the project of
Panschlavism. The treaty of Bucharest, which was
signed by the light of the flames of Moscow in 1812,
served as a check to Austria. It ceded to the Mus-
covite Bessarabia, Eastern Moldavia, and the mouths
of the Austrian river, the Danube. The treaty of
Adrianople was a repetition of that of Karnadji,
giving sovereign power to the Czar as protector of the
Greek Christians within the dominions of the Sultan,
and with the important addition of closing the Dar-
danelles against all other powers in the event of a
war. The Black Sea, in defiance of Austria, was
changed into a Russian lake, and Constantinople was
in the fangs of the Panschlavist. Where was Lord
Palmerston'
But the silent extension of the absolute throughout
Europe, felt from within although not seen from
without, brought into play the antagonistic force of
republicanism. The Congress of Vienna had appor-
tioned states and kingdoms without reference to
race, habits, or nationalities of opinion and govern-
ment. Throughout this division of empire, the
absolute was the real, yet concealed, agent. The
undue pressure upon the people, being made by
rough and inapt princes, produced an acerbity of
discontent ; and this was the more perilous to the
princes since the masses of central Europe were
educated, and wielded an intellectual power unknown
to the illiterate Panschlavist. The Muscovite fac•
Lion, nothing daunted, and with the Czar its agent,
sought to corrupt where it could not coerce. The
faction worked darkly, and, with secret agents in the
councils of the German princes, obtained a majority
in the Frankfort, Diet. It acquired through this
majority the nomination to various professorships in
the universities. This brought the Muscovite face
to face with the Republican and his Bnrschenschaft;
and the murder of Rotzbiie, the Manheim professor,
agent of the absolute, and chamberlain of the Czar,
was the immediate result. Both as a poet, and a
lecturer, Kotzhiie inculcated the advantage of a
paternal absolute. The murderer, George Ludwig
Sandt, having failed in self-destruction, was executed
after a lapse of two years ; and there is this remarks
ble in the circumstance, that the sentence was carried
Into effect at the peremptory demand of the Czar
through his Minister at Baden. Both the Govern•
ment and the Grand Duke desired to avoid the exhi•
bition of capital punishment, since the life of
Sandt could not have been much longer prolonged.
His death by the hands of the executioner, a just
and righteous doom, two years after the committal
of the trespass, by converting the murderer into a
martyr, produced the gravest results, and strengthened
the ranks of republicanism.
France at length led the way in violent resistance
to the absolute, and Italy, Germany, and Hungary,
at successive periods, were prompt to follow the
example. The Republicans, as is their wont, under
the name of Liberty, installed the absolute of com-
monalty. They deified liberty, otherwise anarchy,
without limit and without responsibility,—a state
wherein, by the legalisation of evil, the bad alone can
prosper. They published equality, which is impos-
sible in practice, and contrary to the divinelyconsti-
tuted nature of man ; end they professed a fraternity
of love with their faces and hands smeared with the
blood of their brothers and victims. And this
applies to the Republicans of France, Italy, (ley-
many, and Hungary. The- Archbishop of Pans,