The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-02 00:00:00

lodged Nnmot A.s to be wrong and the Mlle:3
right ; we do k aow that she nevertheless ref used
to join then ; Lid we also know that in cons e-
quence of this be r merchants and her King fill ed
their coffers by 1 )ecoming the PICKFORDS, or lthe
CHAPLIN and. HI )RTES, between Russia and the
Western huckster ;, who would. have traded i rah
SATAN himself if they could have turned a penny
by it. How tht other Powers could think :her
signature worth 8 ,ppending to the Treaty of Paris
is marvellous. 31 its conditions had to be 'en-
forced she would; never spend a single kreutzer in
doing it. She v. Pi )uld rather want to act the car-
rier again, and i ) get a good mileage charge, on
supplying stores to the aggressor. Perhaps the
Anglo-Prussian k .etrothabs required this tribute
to Prussia.

But the other day we had a fresh illustration
of the stability oe"-: the Prussian Monarchy. Sup-
pose some Herr ,Republicaner had been spending
a little time in .our picture galleries, and in -the
British Museum it, and suppose he had brought
over with him s. )me letters to the Kossurris and
LOVIS BLANCS, .or to the FROSTS and ERNEST
JoNESES amongs't us ; and suppose, further, that
Sir RICHARD M_ tYNE, trembling for the throne
of VICTORIA, had pounced on the man, seized his ,
papers, and hurii ed him off to starve for fifteen
mortal hours, in a lock-up—would not all Lon-
don have that/4 ;ht Sir RICHARD mad ; or, if
the citizens suipposed him to be still compos
mentis, would t hey not alternately have laughed
aloud at his silliaLess, and been indignant that a
foreigner should. be so maltreated, and our QUEEN
insulted by such. unpardonable fears for her safety?
Yet this is but ti Le exact counterpart of the treat-
ment Mr. M. MCNORE informed us on Friday he had
just met with from the authorities at Berlin. We
need not repeat the particulars; but what must
the purchase of st throne be worth which trembles
at a foreign artist's perambulation amongst its
galleries and rauseums ; which is not ashamed
of the conduct of its officials ; which does
not think it needs apology ; and which
thereby implies that the Prussian monarchy
needs this sort c,f thing for its security ? Perhaps
it does ; we don't dispute that. We only know we
are thankful no plebeian daughter Scan be in dan-
ger of marriage with Prussian Royalty.

The elect of the minority will be the successor
of Mr. PIERCE in the high office of President of
the United States. Though the action of the
electoral colleges must intervene before this real%
can be fully arrived at and officially declared, no
doubt exists as to the decision to which they will
come. Mr. BUCHANAN has not only a majo-
rity, but also an absolute majority of the elec-
toral deputies, so to speak, in his favour, and
the votes of the majority of the American people
have been recorded in vain. So complete is his
victory that there is now no chance of a third
party wresting it from him !
It is a remarkable spectacle this issue of so
great a conflict, and apparently illustrates the
saying as to the wisdom of the wise being foolish-
ness. The sagacious theorists of the Constitution,
it may be thought, would have turned with dis-
dain from the prophet who predicted that the
means whereby the righteous decision of the
sovereign majority was to be attained would thus
be converted into a mockery and a snare. And
yet this is precisely what lies happened. Colonel
FREMONT, who, by the legitimate action of uni-
versal suffrage, would now be the successful can-
date, is the unsuccessful one, and a minority is
triumphant. The fact, we take it, is, the founders
of the Constitution had no confidence in an abso-
lute democracy, but, regarding the sovereign
people as but too likely to be swayed by the
passions of the hour, deemed it necessary to
interpose formidable obstacles between the
attainment of the Presidency and the expres-
sion of their unadvised will. The consti-
tution of several of the States, and the mode
by which the President is elected, tend alike
to confirm us in our opinion. The Southern
States have constitutions by no means so demo-
cratic as the Northern ; and the system of the
President not being directly elected by the people,
but by the Electoral Colleges, was evidently de-
signed to filtrate, as iwere, the turbid will, and
so far control and limit the power, of the unthink-
ing masses. The intention may have been good,
and the precaution warranted by circumstances, but
the means have proved, in this instance at least, a
failure. The majority of the people are a mino-
rity in the Electoral Colleges. That may have
been contemplated ; but the majority of the people
have had right and reason, and the good-will and
approval of the lovers of liberty everywhere, on
their side. Still they are a minority; and the ma-
jority of the Electoral Colleges cannot be expected
to lend them a helping hand, for the members of
the Colleges are nowadays the mere nominees of
those who elected them. Thus we have an ab-
sorption of the power of the Colleges, and at the
same time a minority of the democracy imposing
their will on the majority. Anomalies like those
puzzle Europeans and confound theorists, and, it
may reasonably be expected, will before long have
to be put an end to. Looking at Mr. BUCHANAN'S
majority, it is well to observe, in confirmation of
our remarks, that 120 of the 178 votes in the
Electoral College in his favour are given by the
Slave States ; that these 120 represent three-fifths
of a slave population of three millions and a half,
women and children included, as well as the adult
whites legally qualified to vote ; while Colonel
FREMONT:B 118 votes represent each the full
quota of free white voters. Now, the cattle
which the negroes tend, and the fields they culti-
vate, have just as much to do with the recording
of votes as they haVe. Their owners vote for
themselves and slaves ; and thus it is the Southern
States have overridden the choice of the free men
of the North.
What the career of the President thus elected
will be it is impossible to say with certainty. All
the information we have received goes to support
our previous vatiainations. He is represented as
studiously avoiding self-committal, and like a star
apart holding himself from communion with others.
This intention, and that intention, as to the forma-
tion of his Ministry, whereby some key would be
obtained to his policy, is ascribed to him. He meets
each and all with an authoritative contradiction.
There may be more than one solution of his
reticence—but that which accords with our expec-
tation is most probably the true one. Ho means
to serve his country rather than follow the
dictation of the platform to which he owes
his election, to wear that worthily—at all
events mere worthily than the slaveowners and
filibusters will admire, what he has obtained by
unworthy means. The people of the United States
appear to be of this opinion, for his election is now
regarded in a more favourable light by the North
than could otherwise be expected. As we said
before, he has a name to make, and in his avowed
intention to imitate General JACKSON, and make
his Cabinet a unit, and not an aggregation of in-
congruous elements like that of General PIERCE,
we are disposed to recognise the initiation of a
policy conducive to tranquillity and internal de-
velopment rather than piracy and intestinal dis-
order.

The Emperor and Empress of Austria on the '26th
honeured at Venice a masked ball at the Theatre della
Fenice with their presence, and stayed there upwards of
two hours.