The Sun.
London, England, 1848-12-05 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1848.

After a contest of unusual earnestness :General
ZACHARY TAYLOR, the Conqueror of Mexico, has
been elected President of the United States. There
is deep cause for congratulation on this result of the
struggle between the partizans of the Whig candi-
date and the Locofoco candidate. The discomfiture
of llExar Cass is an omen of prosperity and a
guarantee of quietude for four years, at least, to the
North American Republic. Had the consequence of
the election been otherwise the New World would
have been doomed to a career of agitation, the whole-
some policy of WASHINGTON abandoned, the egres-
sion of Polak surpassed, another Texas would have
been monopolised, another Oregon carved by the
keenßess of diplomacy, another California occupied
by an army of predatory democrats—the
vast territories of the western continent
would- have been ravaged by the supporters
of a system of wholesale annexation. Fortunately,
however, for the United States themselves, and for
their more immediate neighbours, these pernicious
dreams of spoliation have been dissipated by the re-
velations of the ballot- box. Votes beyond the num-
bers required to constitute the absolute majority were
marked with the name of old " Rough and Ready,"
attesting the regard of the American citizens for
those principles of constitutional probity and pacific
administration with which the career of ZACHARY
TAYLOR had gradually become identified. The Pre-
sidential contest among the Anglo-Saxon democrats
having terminated, therefore, in this satisfactory re-
sult, the turmoils, and the jealousies, and the rancours
of party warfare have abruptly subsided, and
the population of the United States are
looking forward with calmness into the perspective
of their future government.
For the indulgence of those anticipations there re-
mains ample leisure and opportunity. Until the
fourth of the ensuing March the administration of
the newly-elected President, ZACHARY TAYLOR, and
of the newly-elected Vice-President, MILLARD FILL-
MORE, will not commence. Beyond this, the next
House of Representatives will not assemble before
the December of 1849—notwithstanding the remote-
, pees of which date, it is already calculated that the
majority of the Whig members will prove very con-
considerable. Some estimates of the proportion
likely to exist between the supporters of the
Government and the ranks of the Oppo-
sition are, in fact, of such a microscopic
e1:192110,er, that the exact extent of the
superiority of the Whig_ representatives is stated at
twenty-three.
rurathefsre circumstances it is mani-
fest that full time
is afforded
to the antagonists of
the Locofocos to
mature their tactics, and to perfect
the scheme of their legida,
e ,azaign before the
expected Congress is inaugnrated
before President
TAYLoR is installed in his official
res
elapse
December lf o r e
nce at Wash-
ington. That the interval which must el
the arrival, first, of March, and secondly, of
will not be filled up by the active preparations of a;
Whig statesmen and their supporters, we do not in
any respect dread, seeing that the chief characteristic
of this powerful class of politicians in America is
their vigilant and consummate prudence. The pre-
sent generation of Whig-Republicans will not belie
the renown of their ancestors.
While the millions of the United States are
emerging from the brief and bloodless battle for the
Presidency, while they are looking forward with com-
posure to the.:advent of a pacific Administrator like
General TAYLOR, it is not surprising that some of the
more reflective citizens of the great Trans-
atlantic Democracy should begin to contrast
the tranquillity of the Western with the turbu-

lence and distraction of the Eastern Hemisphere.
The difference of the condition of the American con-
tinent and the European continent in 1848 is too
striking- not to challenge observation, and the deduc-
tion derivable from that difference is too flattering
to the political institutions of the former not to excite
the patriotism of its enthusiastic people. Light and
darkness, crime and virtue, youth and decrepitude,
trance and delirium, are not more opposite to each other,
iry does not afford a more
t which presents itself to us
'D. Europe on one hand, and
other. howeYer:

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