The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-16 00:00:00

TUESDAY EVENING,

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS GF Tlll9 DAY.
TIMES.—Among the many advantages to be
derived from an improved communication between
nations, we may hope to find a very general and un-
hesitating acquiescence by every civilised people in
the rules of international morality, commonly de-
nominated the law of nations. We belong not indeed
to that sanguine class of politicians, which expects to
see war banished from among the means of human
arbitrament, but we would fain believe that increased
intelligence will tend to produce rational behaviour,
not only among individuals but among states, that the
dictates of prejudice and passion will have a constantly
decreasing influence upon the policy and conduct of
mankind, and that the rapid means of intercourse be-
tween all parts of the earth, which we now providen-
tially possess, will lead in truth to a real comity of
nations, making of the different kingdoms and states
into which men are divided one great commonwealth,
in which general opinion will have great sway, and
the unbiassed judgment of disinterested parties will
eventually acquire the force of an almost imperative
rule of conduct. We entertain these expectations
because we hope that an improvement in the
physical condition of mankind will tend materially
to soften manners generally, and conduce to an uni-
versal cultivation of every humanizing art and science.
The constant interchange of thought that is now
going on amid the many communities and states that
have become members of the great civilised common-
wealth of the world must tend to an eradication of
national antipathies, a lowering of national vanity, as
well as to au increased susceptibility on the part of
all to the censures and applause of the great aggregate
of which we all form a portion. Just in proportion
to our increased intelligence, and our improvement in
all the better arts of life, will in future be our obe-
dience, both to the general opinion of civilized nations
and to those rules of international morality to which
an universal assent has given the force of positive law.
The nations who are most strictly bound by all the
higher sanctions which can alone influence the con-
duct of sovereign communities, to set an example of
the most ready obedience to this exalted morality,
are those upon whom fortune has lavished her
choicest gifts of wealth, power, and intelligence—
and, if we were called upon at this moment to
select that people which, of all others, from their
political and social condition is more especially under
an obligation to obey the dictates of this international
morality, we should, without hesitation, point to the
United States of America. Unlike all other nations,
they have not been condemned to pass through an
ignorant and barbarous infancy. They began their
national existence at the highest point of civilization
to which mank:nd has yet attained. They enter into
the great commonwealth of nations just when science
and art have almost annihilated time and distance,
and when intelligence can be communicated from one
end of the earth to the other almost with the rapidity
of thought; when, too, the physical wants of man-
kind are satisfied with an ease that, in times past,
would have been deemed miraculous, and when, be-
sides, political science has discovered the means of
uniting into one national community, under the rule
of a law made by themselves, any number of human
beings, spread over any extent of territory. Thus
happy as to the moment of their national birth, they
have been equally fortunate in the territories in which
as a people they are destined to dwell. For ages
these territories will be practically without limit, and
they contain within themselves all that a nation needs
for comfort, luxury, security, and power. The people
are united by the tie of one language and one law ;
and although many different races of men have con-
tributed to make.lip this population, one nation, viz.,
the English, have so far outnumbered all others in
this contribution as to stamp upon them a national
and peculiar character. It is this people, we say,
united, homogeneous, enjoying every comfort, and all
the luxuries of life, possessed of a boundless and fer-
tile territory, secure against outward aggression, and
safe, as far as a community formed of fallible human
beings can be safe, from internal danger, endowed
with every means of enlightenment, and already in all
the useful arts evincing a wonderful and ever
improving efficiency—it is this people, we say, who
are bound by every obligation of duty to mankind,
every consideration of policy as respects them-
selves, to set an example of willing and ear-
nest obedience to the rules of international law.
In the United States the people govern, and
their resolutions are manifest by law alone. No
despotic will is by the spirit of the Constitution per-
mitted to have sway. The predetermined rule of the
law is supposed to be paramount, and to govern with
its inflexible will and command not merely individuals,
but the whole community. Just as no single man
can, by his mere volition, determine for the commu-
nity, so no body of men, none, in short, but the whole
community, acting according to forms prearranged,
can adopt resolutions for the State. A mob in a
great city—the great city itself—nay, the State of
which it may be the metropolis—is, according to the
law and the spirit of the Constitution, as much with-
out power to act in the name of the people of the
United States as a single individual ; and were the
President to-morrow, by his single authority, to de-
clare war against a foreign Power, and call out the
armies and fleets of the Republic in support of his
warlike resolves, he would not be guilty of a more
flagrant violation of the law, a more criminal breach
of his duty than would a band of unauthorised indi •
viduals, no matter how numerous, powerful, or re-
spected, who should, upon their own mere motion,
commence hostilities upon a neighbouring people.
There is in the United States, as there must be in
all communities assuming to be civilized, and pro-
fessing to be governed by law, a specified authority by
which communications with foreign Powers are
carried on, there is also a rule as to the mode in which
such communications are to be conducted, and any
departure from this mode, any encroachment upon
the defined powers of the constituted authority by
which international intercourse is to be conducted is
not merely a violation of international law, but also of
the Constitution of the United States, and the viola-
tion is as signal and as mischievous when the work of
many as of one. This regulation of the American
Constitution is in accordance with, and is supported
by, the general rules of international morality. War
levied by individuals, and without the authority of a
sovereign state, is by this international law adjudged
to be piracy. They who thus levy war are pi-
rates, are without the pale of law, and are
deemed the enemies not merely of the country they
unjustly attack, but of the whole civilized world.
Those, however, who would more than all others
be bound to repress such a breach of the most
sacred obligations of law and morality, would, in
this case, be the people of America themselves ;
and if we apply there rules to the late proceedings of
the piratical and marauding band who attacked Cuba,
and to the conduct of certain assemblies of American
citizens who met to discuss, to approve, and defend
this outrage upon the civilized world, we shall not be
at a loss as to what judgment we are to form either
with respect to the original piracy, or the subsequent
approval of it; neither can we be in doubt as to what
will be the course of conduct which the United States
should feel bound to pursue upon the occasion. If,
under circumstances such as those which have oc-
curred, any Government should either be unwilling or
unable to do what the comity of nations demands of
it, such a Government would necessarily incur the
contempt and excite the indignation of every civi-
lized community. We cannot believe, from our
knowledge of the men who compose it, that the
American Government will be unwilling to perform
its duty. We are sure, from what we know of the
constitution of the United States, there is no real lack
of power to enforce in this case the dictates of com-
mon prudence and common honesty upon the nation at
large. Spain and the United States are not merely
allied, they are friendly nations. The wretched
subterfuge to which Mr. Ashbel Smith had recourse
in our columns some days since, in order to justify
an attack upon Cuba, cannot by possibility be ac-
cepted by the President of the United States and his
Government upon this occasion. There is no quarrel
between the United States and Spain, neither can
any pretext for a quarrel be found in the conduct of
certain Englishmen who choose to advocate the abo-
lition of slavery in Cuba. The circumstances which
have led to this outrageous aggression have no con-
nexion with slavery or the doings, wise or unwise, of
English abolitionists. There are in the United
States, more especially towards the south, large bands
of men, desperate in fortune, loose in their morality,
and reckless and daring in conduct. To ruffians of
this description the excitement of a marauding expe-
dition, together with the hope of plunder to result
from it, is absolutely irresistible. Hold out to them
a chance of success, and they would join in an expe-
dition against LondOn, Liverpool, or New York, with
the same alacrity as that which they evinced when
invited to attack Cuba. This buccaneering spirit
was the first moving cause to this unprovoked outrage.
A. love of excitement and of plunder moved the at-
tacking bands to action. The circumstances which
have induced an expression of sympathy with these
pirates are, however, of a somewhat different descrip-
tion. We are quite ready to suppose that the execu-
tion in cool blood of fifty gallant, though unprincipled
youths, by the Spanish authorities shocked many who
in no way sympathized with the objects or justified
the conduct of the unfortunate sufferers upon this oc-
casion. Feelings of national vanity were quickly
mixed up with the anger roused by the inhumanity of
the execution; and thus a somewhat generous senti-
ment, and an almost pardonable weakness, contributed
simultaneously to a sudden outburst of passion. There
are also some politicians in the United States
who consider Cuba an exceedingly desirable acqui-
sition for their country, and who view with
undisguised satisfaction any events which may
tend to bring it about. These men join the
sympathizers, and swell the shout which demands re-
venge and seeks to enforce punishment. If to these
we add all who belong to the class of those who suf-
fered, yiz., all the idle, reckless buccgoore yfbc. still