The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-12 00:00:00

lution. For aught that appears, this reason is as
cogent as ever, and the Budget being yet not voted
the KING will be compelled to appeal to his sub-
jects at once, and while they may be supposed to
be irritated with the unfair treatment of their

deputies. The reactionary party will no doubt
exert themselves, backed by Court influence, to the
utmost ; but there is not, that we are aware, any
reason to think that the country will fail to sustain
its deputies, and it will probably increase the
majority against Royal wilfulness.
It is much to be regretted that Prussia should,
just now, want a Sovereign up to the standard of
his age. A King of Prussia might now be the vir-
tual Emperor of Germany. Had he only the sense
of a VICTOR EMMANUEL—had he sense to perceive
that German unity was an aspiration more ardent
than ever, but that the only path to it was through
Constitutional Government honestly accepted—he
might be the rallying point of all the Liberalism of
Germany. Instead of this the foolish old military ma r-
tin et cannot get dreams of Feudal Royalty and Right
Divine out of his mind. His babblings on that
topic at his coronation, and afterwards to his clergy
too, and his uttered complaints immediately after
the elections against the Liberal majority which
had been returned, must be fresh in the memory of
Electors, and show him to be utterly incapable of
understanding the first duties of a constitutional
Monarch. He seems to have no more idea of a
power'; which may check and modify his own in
a popular Parliament than the colonel of a regiment
has in his subordinate officers. While this is his
temper, and we fear he is too old to learn, he can
do little but injury to the post he encumbers. His
people, we may hope, will firmly resist him, and
the kingdom fall peacefully in due time into the
hands of the husband of our PRINCESS ROYAL ; but
it is to be regretted that till that time he will be
but a clog on the advance of the nation.

In the inaugural address of President DAVIS, now
before us in full, one thing is still remarkable—we
fail to detect anything whatever beyond constructive
grounds of secession. There is nothing assigned, at
the very moment of inaugurating a permanent
Government, which an English House of Commons,
with its practical sense, could accept for a moment
as a ground. for such a step as Secession, defended
by armed rebellion. The true grounds appear but
indirectly—false grounds are made prominent.
There could be no need for this—for we are told
that thirteen States were represented in the Con-

-- -
gress Mr. DAVIS addressed, that eleven had voted

in an electoral college, and that their entire Totes,
109, had fallen on JEFFERSON DAVIS for President,

and A. H. STEPHENS for Vice-President.
His address was meant, no doubt, for perusal
throughout America and Europe, yet we may sup-
pose that to such an assembly of entire and united
friends and coadjutors, the truth, as it is seen in the
South, would come out. "Yet he begins his
grievances with complaining of " a long course of
class legislation, directed not to the general welfare,
but to the aggrandisement of the Northern section
of the Union." Now, nothing can be more certain
than that in all that class legislation—we suppose
the tariffs are referred to—the South concurred,
and that not a single tariff hostile to Southern
interests could have been carried through the
Senate, as well as the House of Representatives,
without the assent of the South. It may indeed have
been that the Southern politicians did this as part
of a tacit bargain for Northern support of slavery,
but if this were so, it did not suit JEFF. DAVIES'

purposes to say it.
It were almost amusing, had not the consequences
been so bloody, to see the shadowy grounds alleged
for secession—" the dogmas," not the acts, of a
sectional party are specified—it is at most said
that these dogmas " threatened to estroy the sove-
reign rights of the States." Not one single mis-
deed of the North, or of the new Government
can be laid hold of to proclaim to the world
as the reason for setting up this permanent Govern-
ment. There was no taxation without representa-
tion, no attacks by arms, no invasion of a Southern
right in any form—there was, indeed, nothing bat
the one fact, that the Presidential Chair was no
longer a piece of Southern patronage, and that the
"spoils of office" were consequently lost. As to
power in Congress, it was, in March last, balanced
about as nearly as in our own House of Com-
mons. Had the South been content to have
used political means merely, they were, like their
counterpart in England just now, far too strong to
permit of the North taking any unfair advantage.
They perceived a " revolution in silent but rapid
progress to place them under the despotism of num-
hers,"—but they surely might have waited till
they had proof of the fact that numbers would
at all more tyrannical then they them-
selves had become. They had no right to
assume that a majority would act unjustly, and to
plunge into rebellion and a war on such a gratui-
tous assumption.
The truth is, and it is useless for the South to con•
ceal it, this is a secession for political power and for
slavery. The leading men in it were the poli-
ticians who, in the days of BUCHANAN and
his predecessors, had pulled the wires of Go-
vernment, and who were mortified to nd teir
power gone. ahe Rebellion was a planned thihng.
FLOYD, who as General has distinguished himself
by leading his men in flight, was their chief agent
in BUCHANAN'S Cabinet—the arc L-conspirator who
armed the South and disarmed the North, against
the day of Mr. LINCOLN'S election. The South has
rebelled, to maintain in its own territory, that
mastery which it once asserted over the whole
Union. Its politicians could not be second men.
They would be first in the Union, or first in the
Confederation. And this fact, with slavery and its
demoralising consequences, account for the whole of
this, to English views of the case, unjustified re-
bellion. We do not mean to deny that Northerns
and Sontherns are too diverse in character to work
in harmony, but Mr. DAVIS speaks only of political
reasons, and he has certainly not mentioned one
which will bear a moment's scrutiny.

Never has a Minister fallen with more dignity
than Baron RICASOLI. That at least must be said
of him. Whatever views may be entertained in
this country as to his policy, it is certain at least
that he has so withdrawn from power at Turin
that his personal honour is preserved. His con-
sistency at any rate is not compromised. Tout est
perdu—fars l'honneur. He tenders his own resig-
nation, and with that the resignation of his col-
leagues collectively, to his Sovereign the new King
of ITALY—King no longer of Piedmont alone, hut
of " Italy"—and why dces he withdraw from the
leadership of the Italian Government P Simply
because he will not consent to hold office in that
apparently supreme and manifestly responsible
capacity upon sufferance as the nominee, or by
permission, of his Irnpuir.l :11,jesty the French
11:11113Gror, NAPOLEON 111. There no blinking the
tact we arc here alluding to. The scene presented
to view the other day in the great Represen!ative
Chamber of the Italian Parliament served to illus-
trate it as a fact altogether incontrovertible and in
a manner the most remarkable that could very well
have been. There and then it was rendered mani-
fest that had RICASOLI consented so to modify
pis policy with regard to Italian unity that it