The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-06 00:00:00

I'may premise that the first of these instances,
inasmuch as it refers merely to a change of Govern-
ment, and not to the dismemberment of a State, is
quoted solely with a view to giving the principle
laid down by three American Secretaries of State.
Some of your readers will remember that upon the
expulsion of Louis Philippe from the French
Throne upon February 24th, 1848, and upon the
simultaneous establishment by the French people of
a Republic, the new Government was recognised by
the American Minister in Paris, Mr. Rush, upon
February 28. It is needless to state that Mr. Rush
acted on his own responsibility, and without instruc-
tions from Washington. Those of your readers who
are interested in reading an entertaining narrative
of the French Revolution of 1818, and of the mo-
tives which impelled Mr. Rush to such swift action,
may turn with profit to a book entitled " Roll'B
Occasional Productions." Approbatign of Mr. Rush's
action on the part of.the Washington Government
was not long delayed. Upon March 31, 1848, Mr.
Buchanan, the American Secretary of State, wrote
to Mr. Rush as follows:
"It was right and proper that the Minister Plenipoten-
tiary of the United States should be the first to recognise
the Provisional Government of the French Republic. In
the intercourse with foreign nations the Government of the
United States has from its origin always recognised de facto
Governments. We recognise the right of all nations to
create and reform their political institutions according to
their own will and pleasure. We do not go behind their
existing Government to involve ourselves in questions of
legitimacy. It is sufficient for us to know that a Govern-
ment exists capable of maintaining itself, and then its re-
cognition on our part inevitably follows. This principle
. of action, resulting from our sacred regard for the indepen-
dence of nations has occasioned some strange anomalies in
our history. The Pope, the Emperor of Russia, and Presi-
dent Jackson were the only authorities which ever recog-
nised Don Miguel as King of Portugal."
The alacrity displayed by Mr. Rush and Mr.
Buchanan in recognising the transference of the
Trend' Government from a monarchical to a repub-
lican form is easily intelligible. But in the case of
the change in the French Constitution which pre-
ceded the elevation to supreme power of the Empe-
ror Napoleon 111. the following instructions, betray-
ing less empressement, though affirmative of the
same principle as Mr. Buchanan's, was sent in Jan.,
1852, by Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State, to
Mr. Rives, the American Minister in Paris :
" From President Washington's time down to the pre-
sent it has been a principle always acknowledged by the
United States that every nation possesses a right to govern
itself according to its own will ; to change its institutions
at discretion ; and to transact its business through what-
ever agents it may think proper to employ. If the French
people have now made substantially another change we
have no choice but to acknowledge that also ; and as the
diplomatic representative of your country in France, you
will adhere to what appears to be settled national autho-

rity,"
Writing upon the same subject on Feb. 17, 1853,
Mr. Everett, who succeeded Mr. 'Webster as Secre-
tary of State, thus instructs Mr. Rives
" It is the fundamental law of the American Republic
that the will of the people is the ultimate principle of go-
vernment ; and it seems quiet evident that the people of
France have, with a near approach to unanimity, decided
the restoration of the Empire."
The other instance to which I desire to call atten-
tion bears more analogy to the position now occu-
pied by the Federal and Confederate Governments
in relation to European Powers. Your readers
will remember that in 1848 a provisional Govern-
ment was formed in Hungary, followed in 1849 by
an effort to dissolve connection between that king-
dom and the
Austrian
-Empire. The assistance
given to Austria by R
brave exertions of the rendered nugatory the
not revolutionary Government,
but its failure was
due to. any
encou-
ragement from the great Ain want of a
view to enabling the tintederl Republic. With
the
to be the
first to welcome Hungary into the family of na-
tions, Mr. A. Dudley Mann (now a
official in Europe] was sent as an agent Confederate
to H
to watch the struggle and to declar the un,,crY„
of his Government to recognise the new
State if able
to maintain itself. I may remark in passing that it
is affirmed by Mr. Bancroft and others
that the
American Government has never been a propagam_
jet in advocating its own form of polity. How does
Mr. Bancroft explain the eager and importunate
presence of American officials wherever a revolution
is piing on, and the welcome offered by their pre-
sence to the struggling insurgents to enter the com-
munity of nations? Is not this a direct invitation to
the insurgents, if successful, to assume a Republican
form of Government ? How does Mr. Bancroft ex-
plain such passages as the following, which abound
in the pages of his countrymen? I quote from Mr.
Lawrence's Preface to " Wheaton's International
Law," prefixed to the edition of 1863. He speaks
thus of the war now raging in this country
" An internecine war, in many cases literally between

children of the same family, is not only destroying our
national resources and the best blood of the land, but
threatens to dissolve that Union which philanthropists and
publicists
have regarded as the precursor of a C nift deration
that., by combining under Federal institutions all nations of
the earth, would obviate every motive for future war, and
thus perpetuate universal peace."
But to return. The mission to Hungary of Mr.
Mann having been referred to in President Taylor's
Message, the Austrian Charge d'Affaires at Wash-
ington, Mr. Hulsemann, addressed a Note to the
Secretary of State, Mr. Webster, protesting against
certain ex ressions in Mr. Mann's instructions, and
complaining of the steps taken by the United States
to encourage the Hungarian rebellion. An angry
answer to Mr. Hulsemann's note emanated from
Mr. Webster. Your readers, if any of them care to
investigate the case, will find a full narrative of it
in the sixth volume of Webster's works. Mr. Web-
ster says :
4, Questions of prudence arise in reference to new States
brought by successful revolutions into the family of na-
tions ; but it is not required of neutral Powers to await the
recognition of the parent States. If the United States had
formally acknowledged the independence of Hungary, it
would not have been an act against the law of nations, pro-
vided they took no part in her contest against Austria. . . .
Nothing will prevent the people or the Government of the
United States from exercising at their own discretion the
rights belonging to them as an independent nation, and
expressing their own opinions freely and at all times upon
the great political events which may transpire among the
civilized nations of the earth."
Now I ask your readers, after perusing these two
American precedents, to say whether it is conceiv-
able that such a revolutionary war as the Confede-
rate have waged against the Federal States, could
have been carried on prior to 1861 in any other part
of the world without the Washington Government
having been :swift to recognise and to welcome the
new State into the family of nations ? For nearly
four years war, waged with such reckless lavishness,
sustained upon such a prodigious scale, and en-
forced by such a multitude of combatants as would
long ago have been fatal to some first-class Euro-
pean Powers, has dashed vainly against the rock
opposed to Mr. Lincoln by the Confederate States.
For nearly four years all the functions of Govern-
ment have been uninterruptedly exercised by Pre-
sident Davis over an area vastly larger than the
whole of Europe. In spite of the promises of
Mr. Seward, and the speeches of thousands of
Yankee stump orators, no disloyalty to Mr. Davis
has been perceptible in the ten States over which he
claims sway. Not a pound of cotton finds its way
to New Orleans, Vicksburg, Pensacola, or Key
West, excepting such as has been forcibly carried
there by Federal soldiers or sailors. In his circular
of May 28, 1862, Mr. Seward announced that a
servile war was about to be added to the horrors of
which the slave States are the arena. I defy Mr.
• Seward to adduce to-day, two years and a half after
his circular was written, one solitary grain of evi-
dence indicating the existence of a servile war in
the Confederate States—one solitary instance of in-
fidelity or insubordination among the slaves plenti-
fullyscattered over the voiceless solitudes of the
South, upon plantations occupied only by old men,
women, and children. Again and again has the
rebellion been crushed (on paper)—first, by the
anaconda's strangulation ; secondly, by famine ;
thirdly, by financial exhaustion ; fourthly, by in-
ternal insurrection ; fifthly, by exclusion from the
outside world ; sixthly, by want of men, cannon,
muskets, and gunpowder ; and seventhly (as is at
this moment the cry of New York journals), by the
cutting-up system of Sherman. But the rebellion
lives and thrives, and gathers force and increasing
resolution day after day and year after year. It is
possible (though I do not for a moment anticipate
it) that Richmond may fall in 12 or 24 months ; it
is possible that Sherman may carry fire and sword
into Georgia, as many of his associates have carried
it into Virginia and into every other State which
they have entered. But that it is possible either to
resuscitate the Union or to exterminate five
millions of Anglo-Saxons and three millions
of slaves (all as bitterly opposed to the Yankees
as arc their masters) I emphatically deny. The
harmony of feeling and interest, the idem
sentire atque idon vette of the two sections -is a
thing .of the past. Under these circumstances
your readers will understand - that the following
bold announcement which has just appeared in the
Richmond journals is received with something very
much like a sneer :
"At the banquet of the Lord Mayor of London Lord
Palmerston said that he trusted that the contending parties
in America would soon find it better to be reconciled than
to fight. and that these disputes which have bedewed the
American continent with blood will be settled by amicable
arrangements between them.elves."
It is seldom that a voice from the outer world
reaches Richmond ; but is it surprising that men
with arms in their hands, with passions roused and
intensified by four years of savage strife, should re-
gard such tame words as these, emanating from a
man whom they consider unjust to themselves as
little better than an insult ?
Intense interest continuesto be expressed here in
regard to Sherman's progress in Georgia. Your
readers have long been aware that upon the 12th
inst. Sherman cut loose from Atlanta, setting fire,
as is alleged, to the city, and darting with five army
corps, and a large cavalry force, into the heart of
Georgia. It is difficult to estimate each army corps
as containing less than from 6,000 to 7,000 men,
and thus, with a cavalry force estimated at 9,000,
Sherman must have with him at least 40,000 men.
His force is probably the finest army which the
Federals have ever had in the field. He is said to
carry with him everything necessary for success in
his hazardous expedition, such as indiarubber pon-
toons and all that science has invented to facilitate
rapidity of movement in an army advancing
in light marching order. Nevertheless, it must
be confessed that he has done hitherto wonder-
fully little harm, and effected almost nothing
during the 15 days which have elapsed since he
started. It is, of course, difficult to know where the
whole of Sherman's army is, but it is believed that
up to last night he was on the line of the Oconee
River. The bridge which carries the Georgia Cen-
tral Railroad (connecting Macon with Savannah)
over the Oconee River is long, and adjoining it there
are five or six miles of high wooden trestle-work,
which carry the railroad over a vast cypress swamp
to the west of the Oconee. The bridge and trestle-
work were attacked by a part of Sherman's forces
on the 24th, 25th, and 26th, but up to the latest ad-
vices the Federals had been drawn off by the
Georgia troops and by Gen. Wheeler, who is be-
lieved to be in the neighbourhood of Sandersville
with 10,000 cavalry. It is believed that Sherman's
main force was yesterday near Milledgeville, where
it is presumed that the State-house and other public
buildings were burnt. And here I may remark that
already the earnestness and zeal of the Georgians as
Confederates have been wonderfully stimulated by
the savage and ruthless spirit which Sherman and
his men have everywhere exhibited. If there were
much truth in the alleged disloyalty to President
Davis of Governor Brown and Vice President Ste-
phens, it would have been easy for Sherman by ap-
plying to Georgia an antiphlogistic treatment to
cultivate and encourage the Union sentiment of
Georgians. But, with the fatuity which everywhere
attends Mr. Lincoln's emisaries, Sherman has left
nothing but embittered rebels in his track. Men are
not to be coaxed back into the Union by burning
their barns and houses, stealing their horses, cattle,
poultry, hogs, slaves, provisions, and waggons. It
is already seen in Richmond that there will be little
occasion hereafter to complain of Georgian luke-
warmness. In the interest of the Confederates,
nothing could be more desirable that the destruction
of Governor Brown's house and barns in the neigh-
, bourhood of Canton, by Sherman.
It seems to be the general impression here that
Sherman will strike for the seaboard, and, in the
words of the Northern journals, " exchange signals
with Admiral Porter upon the Atlantic coast," with-
out's
of
course,
attacking any
e 1
forfi €' ,c 1 towns, such as Macon or
Augusta. It is,
by
the
possible that almost be-
fore these word
are written the lie may be given
to this impression rtowns,
movement of Sherman
against either of these t
the first instance on But he diverged from
his course after leaving o
his
righatnta, and left Macon on
has been made to receive him and such preparation
inevitably detain him (probably faotr some
as will
It seems to
attacks that town. Two things are eine
days)
if he
to Sherman—time 'an ton.
d very important