The Express.
London, England, 1856-04-15 00:00:00

THE UNITED STATES.

(71011 OVZ SPZOLAL 120111SPONDINT4
NEW YORK, Aram 1.
The Court of Appeals—the supremejudicial autho-
rity in the State ot New York—has decided the Pro-
hibitory Liquor Law unconstitutional, and of neces-
sity the law is at once blotted from the statute book.
The ground ot this decision is just what the most
sagacious friends of temperance clearly foresaw—
via., that the seizure and forfeiture clauses were in
conflict with that clause of the constitution which
declares that "no citizen shall be deprived of his
property except by doe process of law." It is thought
that this decision settles the question virtually for
the whole country. It has, at all events, dealt a
heavy blow on fanaticism, and hereafter fanatical
men will be apt to proceed with more caution in their
favourite reforms.

Day by day it is becoming more and more clear
that the Presidential election will hinge upon the
Kansas question. Mr. Fillmore's nomination seems
to meet with general repudiation in all the
free states. Nis strength is narrowed down
to the slave states, and in nose of those can
he run against the Kansas Democrats. The
south generally goes with the democratic party,
and is sure to do so now, since that party has com-
mitted itself irrevocably to the cause of slavery pro-
pagandism. For the first time in the history of the
confederation, the lines are drawn definitively between
slave and free states. It is known that the Know-
Nothings, who repudiate Mr. Fillmore, are to meet in
a convention in New York Jane 12th, and it is gene-
rally believed and understood that they will put up
Colonel Charles James FrEmont, of California, for the
presidency; and that his nomination will be con-
firmed four days later by the Free State convention
in Philadelphia. This ticket would be nearly sure
to summed; and it smear highly probable that it will
be made.

Little is said shoat war with England anywhere
now in the United States. I should except the fol-
lowing extract trees a leader in the Richmond Bs-
• rarer, the oldest and moat influential democratic
newspaper in the slave states. It contains much for
English statesmen to think of.
In the event of a great Ratios', emergency, it is the pees-
liar prerogative of the people of this country to instruct the
/overarmed by an imposing expression of public opinion.
This privilege becomes a supreme duty 'rhea toe country is
threateaed with all the disasters of a war with one maims
the foremost posers of the earth. War is absolutely an evil
of each colossal proportions that we aced not Insist on its
Woodmen and accidental ealsaities I. order to deter the
nation from lightly invoking its uninsagicuible honors. But
the event of wet with Great Britain, at this pining's:
juncture, might strike the prosperity of the south with
so terrible and Irretrievable a rain, that we may well
speed to the legislature of Virginia to interpose a voles of
wise admonition between the solitary and that greatest
disaster. The extncts la another toluene from the British
press clearly reveal the design of the British govern-
meat to strike the ant blew at the heart of the south.
Whether their onadirece In the defection of oar slave
population prove a foolish or a wise calculate, it le certain
that the effect of a war with Great Britain on the general
interests of the south will involve manifold and Lrthparable
injury. It is very doubtful if the conservative spirit of our
state rights government Gould survive the coadiet. It is
nit absolutely certain that some extreme states of the
north might not be &stashed from alliance with the math,
and be seduced into a naiads of eras against slavery. In
any event, the productions of slave labour would be reduced
to a value altogether inadequate to the support of the insti-
tution. The cotton of the Carolinas and the tobacco of
Virginia would waste Is the fields of the planter, and he
might accept the emanelpatioa of his slaves as
pHs( from an intolerable hardens. The south, ass
se risk and powerful, might be impoverished and hand-
Hated ; and is its ruins abolitionism would meet the
commercial and political despotism to whisk it
aspires. The plunder of privateers, the socaop,ly of
the market In the purchase et mom and the sales of
manistactures, and, above all, the conquest of Canada.
would aggrandise the north is proportion as the *oath sinks
In the seals of wealth and power. ea inseparably ere the
Interests of the math bound up with the preservation of
poses with Great &hat& The heUigerset tons of the
abolitionists, NI moth and averse from violence,
admonishes us in simitaestare to purses a policy of
petiole snodentlea. They set, sot from impulse, hut from
calculations of the prothumilest pet* • and when we hear
&sward, Sumner, and Whose elms,* for war with Great
Britain, we seed so 111111811111111011 that they seek net the via&
cation of asthma homer. bet the degradation and destrac-
tiou of the teeth. They eestead set ter the sanctity of
public faith, but futile* treaty whisk sets arbi-
trary bounds to the midway. Against a contin-
gency of such fatal pretest le thOsonth it is proper that
the legiilatan of Virgiaia should appose all the inflithnee
of a formal expression of the make sentiment of the
state.

Another sign of the dose, fall of significance,
amass from Virginia. It eppeare that the aggressions
of slavery upon fres soil Dave aroused a feeling even
in the south too deep to be smothered. From the
following extract from the Virginia Sentinel of March
27, headed " Treason Stalks Abroad,' you will per-
ceive that the south has at last begun to speak out
the real sentiments of a vast proportion of its people.
A public meeting called in Loudon°, to ratify the
nomination of Mr. Fillmore as the favourite pro-
slavery candidate of the south, turned out to be quite
a different thing from what wee Intended. It ended
in a bold and unmistakeable demonstration In favour
of the establishment of freedom in Kansas, and "the
_ .

limitation of the domain of African slavery—not to
say its gradual extinction on this °oath:est" The
Sentinel, startled at the sodden discovery of aboli-
tionism in the midst of slavery, exclaims :
Tho article which we copy to-day from the Loudest
Mirror cottaiss lotolligncs of the moot astounding, our
prising charseter. In the tarns of all that is dear to oar
peace sad the safety_of oar Irmildar, what aro we coming
to, when chants of virgbia hit:mbers, proclaim or
applaud the moot doormats di•ry d.c•rines,7-ia
tea light of day, sadla a oldest and oyerhearleg spirit
Whoa a Yrginla gentleman 0111•113 t 'apron himself in
favour of protecting these latarerts of oar Mato, which aro
inseparably roasted_ WM •for weal or woe, without
being hissed by a pithift alseehly oa his native soil, what
have we already come le
The editor naturally realms the following concha-
sion from a survey of time alarming facts :
Ws call upon the gag people of Loudoat to Maim
their upstate§ sad posing me south from the filmiest
consequatess of ;ha ismastie tresses. Boischor aid
mut will now feeble is salts for rifles to shoot down
toil& souther* tonere*, mad will point to this Lottdoun
saidoraemant of their amedmons purposes, aid alas, with
tremendous effect. One teshor is worse than a thousand
less.

The London. Mirror, after giving the entire pro-
ceedings, throws more light upon the real state of
public feeling in Virginia than has come from any
other soma :
We have be.. the mere mimes la detail la order that the
;maple of Loadonn might ma the extremity to which • body
of men among than OM so iaseasiderable body) will Ira
Is advisees priadyiss,imarreetiossry is their simplexes'.
and the procurel of wh'eh kgaarded nese by
the eiv, rat peed lame Si Om state. W. isvito their meet
eerier mid eisotheielloa to this sabjeet, with thee:-
rime*. of the baps VW they will set salter it to piss in
Asses We esseed an wrath ; make so 'pose to panics.
We will set arrogate Se elite of 'Arbor of men who an-
dentaad their Ogles eel emir deems, sad who are amply
competent to determine epos the mass to goad theta
egoism both Iseult sad laomie.. Bst may we not with
pronriety, diffidently sessow, that they should 'dearly sad I
solemnly pummel judgment spes_pallie meothip, elm-
lag, in their mantis! Was% Ms rallam of both pro•
ppeerrty end meal pesos P Se the Sew with imossity to be
bearded In hie dos—esd shell seedier& Vandalism, after
bevies saardeted our Alma is the pursuit of their pro-
perty, loutish the weal Si &emu ever the citadel of
the math f lie le supessien eel Welessee from witboot
to be died lush and eadlenweistest frees within ?
Has the monster et siellitesies grew, to each hags pro-
portions se to era Its darkithis ever the territory of the
smith, without easels • belie en ef mistimes to mite
from a "rosily ostregod ea, Waited poop's t Shell the
kits of that se:west, Blade ffierettlieasine, be spewed in the
fees of a tout' era geatiesses, who dares to stead up within
the limits of his sent eirese re ooefront the seendes of hie
esesrity and preetripl lat the people at Lesions answer
by suet pallier response es they to titer jedgments, este-
emed in ealia deffiseellen, say itaimmies epos.
The telegraph WWI float New Orleans received
last enable of the highest importance. The
steam ship Daniel Webster had reached that port
from Nicaragua. It was supposed that this rams!
bad been seised by Walker, as she did not arrive at
her regular time. Costa Ries bas formally declared
war against Nicaragua, and Colonel fichleesinger, the
Nicaraguan envoy, having been sent out of the
country, had }tined Walker with 280 men. As soon
as the news reached Walker he advanced with SOO
of his best troops towards demo Castle. He has
sow nearly or quite 2,000 perfectly equipped
United States riflemen ander his command. At
the latest news the forces of the two states
bad not met, bet an engagement was soon
expected. Different opinions prevail, bat the cent-
mon impreesioo, among them who have trued the
progress of drain most carefully, is that the effemi-
nate half-breeds of Costa Rica oast offer no effectual
resistance to the well-biased desperate followers of
0, Um Great Filibeetwe It is stated os all sides. that

Costa Rica began hostilities, and with no aggressive
movement on the part of Walker. If this be so, the
is thought to have acted with very little discretion ;
for it is well known that Walker desired nothing more
than such a provocation for a general crusade against
the military chieftains who have for a whole genera-
tion bathed the soil of Central America with the blood
of its people. Costa Rica could well have afforded a de-
lay till the hot season, when fever would have thinned
Walker's ranks, unless, as some suppose, he would be
able to reinforce his army and means of conquest
faster then they would have been depleted. It wee
supposed, by the enemies of Walker, that at the first
sign of aggression from any surrounding state, all the
others would at once join in the attempt to drive
Walker from the peninsula. Bat at the last accounts
San Salvador had cent an ambassador to Walker
with despatches of a pacific character. On the
9th of March General Walker issued a proclamation
stating that he had been invited by the democratic
party of Nicaragua to espouse their cause, that he had
responded to the appeal, and attempted to vindicate
the principles of the revolution of 1854; but since
the Legitimist party had repelled all efforts at con-
ciliation, and aggression had followed aggression,
there was no recourse but war. In the mean time
the government of Costa Rica bad published an ad-
dress to all the states and peoples of Central Ame-
rica, calling on them to rise and drive out the Ame-
rican invader,.

Brach are the latest aspects of this question as con-
cerns the affairs of Nicaragua at home. At Wash-
ington the administration is still undecided what
coarse to take. A special messenger from Washington
had arrived at Granada with despatches to the
American minister, but it is not supposed that their
purport
.would materially change the actual state of
things. The next arrival from the Isthmus will
probably bring definitive new., which will have •
most important bearing upon Walker's prospects. If
he wins a decisive battle, thousand, of American
volunteers will rush to his standsrd ; if he is defeated,
he may expect little aid from the United States.