The Express.
London, England, 1855-09-19 00:00:00

LONDON,

Y, B.EPTEMBER 19.

IT has been a 001111S011 remark for some time past
that we beer mush less than we did about the share
the Americans propose to take in the existing and
impending conflicts of Europe. We need not return
now to the view most frequently and naturally pro.
Dented to account for this—the impossibility of the
Americans making war in our hemisphere while their
own great interior conflict remains unsettled. Their
Own newspapers supply new lights, which throw a
strong interest round the case to all who wish well to
the great Republic.
The abdication of SANTA ANNA is filling with hope
• large proportion of the citizens of the United
States. We are sorry that it is so large an
out, as their aerial (or noteiter) organ, the
New York Herald, avows a kind and de-
gree of exaltation in the prospect of the extension
of slavery into new territory which the best of the
population must consider a matter of mourning and
humiliation. There is no slavery in Mexico, any
more than there was in Texas while it belonged to
Mexico. The Americans introduced slavery into
Texas ; and they propose (according to the New
lurk Herald) to establish it in Mexico. There is to
be, according to this popular authority, a new Mexi-
can war. So says one journal, in the way of pro-
posal and prophecy. Another, the Daily Times, gives
&letter from Kossurn to the PRESIDENT, which
quotes certain promises from the late DANIEL WIS.
nen, on behalf of the Hung .rian cause, and asks
questions of the PRESIDENT about Use fulfilment of
these promises. As a matter of course, the Perm-
DENT altogether declines to patronise any scheme ot
insurrection against an established European power.
He lets down M. Emu= gently ; but the refu-
sal to support the Hungarian cause against Austria
in any way whatever is as clear as it can be made.
The only matter of surprise is that M.
KOSSUTH should have asked such questions of the
ruler (representative or hereditary) of any nation in
alliance with all the existing European powers.
Thus, according to journals which speak for diffe•
rent American parties, the Americans will probably
go to war on their own continent on behalf of
slavery ; and they will not go to war os our oonti-
neat on behalf of liberty ; at least, in that form of
which the Hungarian cause is an exponent.
Other newspapers cant lights on this alternative,
and on some other matters at the same time. One
declares that the sympathies of the American people
are with the CZAR; while another entreats Europe
not to believe such a calumny, and asserts that re-
publicans like themselves can distinguish between
the protection afforded to national security and deve-
lopment by the Allies and the tyrannous aims and
temper of the Russian policy. While we are looking
from the one speaker to the other, perplexed which
to believe, a third solves the riddle, by pointing out
the grounds of sympathy between the United States
and Russia. Passing over those which belong to the
institution of slavery, the fear of free speech and a
free press, the censorship on literature, the abroga-
tion of justice in inconvenient cases, and other anal*.
gone practices which liken the Southern States to
Muscovy—there is a cause which involves the States
collectively. From the days of GEORGE 111. the
supposition on which the foreign policy of the
United States has been based has been the same en-
tertained by Russia—the supposition of the eternal
antagonism of England and France. This supposition
being proved to be a mistake, the CZAR suffers on the
one hand, and the Americans are perplexed on the
other. At first they would sot believe the fact, and the
Americans resident in Russia laughed at it, in concert
with the courtiers. Next, they were sure the alliance
would not last, and there was a rush of individual
citizens to St. Petersburg and to the towns on the
Black Sea, to help to bring on the rupture
as soon as possible. That expectation failing
also, the next profession was of reverent com-
passion for the Caen, invaded by overwhelming
forces in his own territory, while peacefully engaged
in patriarchal care of his people, trader the "peculiar
institutions" of Runk We must not suppose, how-
ever, that the noisy many who swell this cry are the
majority of the American people. Neither are we
at all sure that the majority sympathise with the
Allies. We are disposed to believe that the new
conjunctions, and varying aspects, and complicated
interests of European politics are simply perplexing
to the majority of Americans, and that they find it
best to say no more of the aid that their country
would give on behalf of freedom in cue of say peril
to the sacred cause.

This, again, is not all. The wisest and most
patriotic Americans regard war very differently from
those of their neighbours who are republicans for
other moons than enlightened principle. The
highest ceder of awn in the Republic are the most
sensible of the privileges of their political and social
birthright. They rejoice that their institutions took
form in an ap when the military regime was
virtually past ; when warfare is, among the more ad-
vanced peoples of the earth, purely defensive, and
especially for commercial aims. Believing that their
Republic was based on the most advanced social
principles, they know, and rejoice to know, that they
can support no competition with old military States
in the organisation and arts of war, any more than
Russia and Austria, and the warlike States of Asia,
can compete with the States of New England in en-
lightenment, morality, and the arts of peace. They
know, and rejoice to know, that the field of warfare
it not that in which republicans of the nineteenth
century can reap their brightest glories. Of course
this is no question of personal prowess. The wars of
the revolution settled for ever the question of Ameri-
can bravery and devotedoess. The same qualities
would show themselves as conspicuously u ever
now, or at any future time, in case of
invasion, or any sggression which affected the
radical or general interests of the Republic. But no
provision is made in the federal constitution for war
as a liability, lake that of the old world; and the
Americans, not being provided for war, or trained to
it, like nations whose institutions date from the mili-
tary ages of the world, are certain to fail in the com-
parisoo,oe other soils than their own. In their own
country it is rather a boast than not that the military
and naval professions are not honoured as in Englaad
and France. The public principle and sentiment are
against a standing army and sir thousand is the
amount of the federal army, in ordinary times. The
habits of the popular mind are directly opposed to
those which are indispessable for such an organisa-
tion as belongs to a military system; and what the
drawbacks are to the life of a soldier or sailor,
private or in command, none dealers so strongly and

so openly as the members of both reviews in
the Republic. The jealousy of arbitrary
bom-
mmad defeats itself in a way which shows how incom-
patible is military pieties with &aromatic inefitu-1
dom. As for the officers, nave' Or 'Military, they!

occoplain of want of power to project and Cl
schisms for which they ari yet responsible.

are so many spies, so many objectors, so many
people to pinkie, with so few to sympathise in their
cares, that no vocation is so hard and so thankless as
theirs. General Sucre, it may be remembered, was
superseded at a critical moment, in Mexico, by the
jealousy of a cabal, and restored to command merely
by the oosepienoos incapacity of his successor. The
reader of Capt. Wimuses Narrative of the United
States Exploring Expedition will remember how
sore a subject is that of authority and obedience on
the high seas, or in the diplomatic transactions in-
volved in such a voyage. It is no secret to any tra-
veller in the Western world that the want of legal
power in the heads of commanders induces punish-
ments which would not be tolerated by, or on
behalf of, British soldiers and sailors. There
must be no dogging on board ship, nor any specified
punishment against which popular sentiment can
show cause; sad the consequence is that each com-
mander takes his own way. The captain throttles
an insubordinate sailor, at some private moment,
and shuts him up till he begs humbly to come out.
The military officer administers the buck and gag, or
sets his culprit on a barrel, all day, in a public street
of a foreign tows, with a sentry beside him, to run
him through if he attempts to come down. No
British soldier would stand the back and gag (being
tied into a helpless bundle and then gagged for more
or fewer hours); nor should we ever have as army if
we treated our soldiers no better, in regard to food
and all other personal accommodation, than the
American authorities do. The fact is, the troops are
not American. The hot-blooded young natives who
want to fight go as volunteers, for a year or some
other fixed term, each providing his own horse and
other equipments, and every man obeying such orders
as please him, and no others. In the Mexican war,
the regular soldiers were scarcely American at all,
but German, Irish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Cana-
dian, and a few English. Many of these were run-
aways and scapegraces ; but some of each nation
were not so; and the common agreement of those
respectable soldiers is well known—that the American
service was intolerable after that of other countries.
Their term was usually for five years; and those who
did not previously desert broke away in delight
when their term had expired. The desertions be-
tween Vera Cruz and Mexico amounted to a propor-
tion never heard of in Europe. The unreliableness of,

the American soldiery in a war of aggression
was as remarkable as their steadiness and devoted-
ness in their immortal war of defence. And so it
must continue to be. They do what they can in fos-
tering their Military College at West Point, and
training officers there in as much of the European
spirit as they can command; but their people and
their institutions are not of a military nature. The
slave-power will fight feeble Mexicans for a new
slave area, and the whole nation will fight like Spar-
tans in defense of the Republic; but when the ground
and the cause are European, the aid to be looked for
from Americans is not of a military kind. They know
this very well ; and Europe ought to know
it also. The CZAR may hope for their good-will and
covert assistance, to a considerable extent ; but be
will
soil. The KOSSIITEIS of the depressed nationalities
may obtain vague promises from party leaden, and
money and sympathy from any number of individuals;
but they, too, may be assured that military assistance
from the United States is out of the question, and
would be of no avail if it could be had. The
genuine Americans ars above being mere merce-
naries; and the circumstances of their country and
time ►eave them no leisure to devote their lives to
any cause bat those which they may well find all-
absorbing at home.