The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-08 00:00:00

,PArER

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4FI-443 0)7:s. 51
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thought that, if the United States ha -
lic, one and indivisible, the South cou
not have seceded. The way to prevent setepsionlor s
the future then, is, upon this assumption, fcrierniiffel
the Constitution, and establish a consolidated Re-
public, one and indivisible. Such a political system
would, of course, be quite unlike the Union as it
was, so that the South will at least have succeeded
in abolishing the old Union, and the North, which
went to war to restore it, will have to confess that
the task which it undertook to accomplish was an
enterprise beyond its strength. Under these cir-
cumstances it becomes a very interesting problem
whether any particular form of Government or poli-
tical system could have prevented the secession we
witnessed four years ago, or would have the effect
of obviating a like revolution in the future. Revo-
lutions have their origin in the feelings and interests
of large bodies of people. The population of the
South desired to be an independent nation, because
it believed that this was essential for the protection
of its best interests. There was in the opinion of the
Southern people no alternative between self-govern-
ment, to be obtained by secession, and a defensive
war, if need be; and government against their will
by the Northerners. The antagonistic interests of
the North and South were in part moral and politi-
cal, and in part material ; but even the former were
in fact the result of the, latter. The antagonism
which existed between North and South; including
the element of slavery, had its sources in the geo-
graphical position of the two sections, and is as
little susceptible of being removed by artificial
means as the climate of the country itself. If,
then, the United States had been a consolidated
• Republic, one and indivisible, these antagonistic
interests would have been just as powerful and
Just as sharply defined as they have actually
proved themselves to be. The two sections of
American society, the Northern and the Southern,
would have been under any possible form of govern-
ment just what they have been and are. The same
struggle for power would have gone on between
them. Each party would have striven to get one of
its own statesmen elected as President, and to go-
vern the country through his agency. In all coun-
tries and under all forms of government where the
representative principle is admitted at all, there are
two parties, each of whom aspires to govern the
country through the agency of the Prime Minister,
if it is a Monarchy ; of the President, if it is a Re-
public. And if revolutions and secessions do not
take place, it is because society is more homoge-
neous, and because there is not a strong antagonism
of material interests, the result of physical geo-
graphy. Revolutions are by no means a novelty in
the history of the world. The British colonies
showed themselves quite as ready to revolt against
us in the last age as the South has done to separate
itself from the North in the present, and from mo-
tives which were insignificant in comparison. Yet
the colonists were the subjects cf a great Power
which, it was supposed at the commencement of the
struggle, would put them down in a few months.
The fact of a Republic taking the consolidated form,
as one and indivisible, instead of the form of a con-
federacy of States, does not in the least -alter the
fundamental principle upon which it is based. What
that principle is we learn from the Declaration of
Independence, drawn up and promulgated by the
colonists when they threw off their allegiance to
Great Britain, and when it was as yet uncertain
what form of Republic they would adopt, or even
whether they would establish a Republic at all, and
not a Monarchy. The principle in question is that
men ought not to be governed against their will ;
that all government rests on the consent of the go-
verned. If the Americans had established a Monarchy
their Southern descendants at the present day would
not have been likely to pay more respect to it than
they did to the British Government of which they
were the lawful subjects. On the contrary, having
broken up one Monarchy, so far as they were con-
cerned, to establish another, based upon the principle
of consent, they would have been able to urge this
very principle as the justification for secession.
If, then, the North were to abolish the old Con-
stitution entirely, and establish a consolidated Re-
public, one and indivisible, on its ruins, or even if
they were to establish a military despotism under a
dictator called a President, it is difficult to see in
what way this would preclude the possibility of
future secessions when any large number of the
States believed it was their interest to separate, and
also that they were strong enough to give effect to
their will. It is under the most tyrannical and con-
centrated Governments that revolutions have been
the most plentiful. If the Southern States had not
believed themselves strong enough to achieve their
independence they would not have seceded when
they did. And any other portion of the American
population which might in the future believe it was
its interest to secede, and that it was strong enough
to win its independence, would do as the South has
done, whether the Union remain a Federation, or
be formally changed into a-consolidated Republic,
one and indivisible. The events of the past four
years of war have shown that the Federal Govern-
ment has wielded a power as great and as absolute
as that possessed by the military despotisms of the
Old World, and what greater power over the liberty
of the citizen could be possessed or exercised by
the government of a consolidated Republic, or a
Dictatorship, or any other, there would be a large
standing army at its command. But so there would
be at the command of the old Government, under
its old form, if it chose to keep such an army on
foot. And if that army consisted in part of
Southerners, such part could not be relied on in case
of the South attempting to secede again. If to avoid
this the North were to take care to exclude all
Southerners from the army, the case would not be
much altered, for they could do this as well under
the present form of government as under any
other ; and it would, besides, be no safeguard
against the future • secession of any other States
than those of the South. We find such of the
Southerners as were in the United States army
seceding from it, as their States seceded
from the Union ; and what the Southerners did
yesterday the inhabitants of other States would do
to-morrow. The feeling which for genera-
tions has attached the American to the State of
which he is a native is not likely to be eradicated by
a mere change of names, a mere alteration on paper
of the form of the Government from a Federal to a
consolidated Republic, or even to a military Dicta-
torship. That the South may be too much broken
and exhausted to attempt a revolution for a long
period of time is obvious ; but should it ever be re-
stored to prosperity, should it ever become relatively
as strong as it has been, and should it believe it to
be its interest to secede, we. may be assured that if
it abstain from seceding it will be through the re-
collection of the past war, and not through any
changc in the paper constitution of the United
States or in the name which maybe given to its form
of government, or in the title of its chief magistrate.
The fact is, that the American Union covers too vast
an extent of territory for a single country, and the
more populous it becomes the greater will be the
difficulty of keeping it together. It is possible that,
with the experience of the past, the South, even if
stronger relatively to the North than before, would
not at a future time think it expedient to renew the
attemp which has ended in failure. But, on the
other hand, if the South were to secede, would not
experience equally warn the North against going to
war to oppose it ? The South has lost its cause, but
what has the North gained ? Or, assuming that may
have gained something, is that something worth the
war, and the evils which the war has left behind it?
The South has lost its cause, but what has the North
gained ? Or, assuming that may have gained some-
thing, is that something worth the war, and the evils
which the war has left behind it? Nature has made
the North and South—North and South separate
they might make two great and prosperous empires,
unnaturally united they are an ill-assorted pair that
never canbe one. The closer the union between them
the more strongly will their antipathies and their
antagonistic interests come into conflict and colli-
sion. What nature has separated let not man seek
to weld together.

Victoria Cross.

(From the London Gazette of July 7.)

WAR-OFFICE, July 7.

The Queen has been graciously pleased to signify her
intention to confer the decoration of the Victoria Cross on
the undermentioned officer of her Majesty's Indian forces,
whose claim to the same has been submitted to her Majesty's
approval, for his gallant conduct during the operations at
Umbeyla, on the north-western frontier of India, as recorded
against his name, viz.:—
Lieut. (now Capt.) George Vincent Fosbery late 4th
Bengal European Regiment, for the daring and gallant
manner in which, on the 30th October, 1863, acting as a
volunteer at the time, he led a party of his regiment to re-
capture the Crag Picket, after its garrison had been driven
in by the enemy, on which occasion 60 of them were killed
in desperate hand-to-hand fighting. From the nature of
the approach to the top of the crag among the large rocks
one or two men only could advance at one time ; and
"while I ascended one path," relates Lieut.-Col. Keyes,
C. 8., commanding the let Punjab Infantry, "I directed
Lieut. Fosbery, of the late 4th European Regiment, to push
up another at the head of a few men. lie led this party
with the greatest coolness and intrepidity, and was the first
man to gain the top of the crag on his side of the attack."
Subsequently, Lieut.-Col. Keyes being wounded, Lieut.
Fosbery assembled a party with which he pursued the
routed enemy in the direction of the Lallooßidge,inflicting
on them further loss and confirming possession of the post.

ROYAL ISTITUTION.—Mr. Thomas Henry Hux-
F.R.S., the Professor of Comparative Anatomy and
PhySiology to the Royal College of Surgeons, has just been
appointed Fullerian Professor of Physiology to the Royal
Institution of Great Britain.