The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-23 00:00:00

Is the United States too. Large 1

This is what President JOHNSON said, when re-
plying to Governor BULLOCK'S address of welcome

on his visit to the State Capitol, Boston :—,, I can-
not refrain from making one single remark concern-
ing what has been said. If we were brought more

in contact with each other, we should see more of
each other, understand each other, and feel together

hat many of our differences which are imaginary,

but which nevertheless operate very prejudicially,
would all
Pass away. The angry andsharp corners
of spirit which are gotten up by talking about each
other at a distance, and not coming in contact with
each other, is the basis on which our prejudice and
ill feeling rest. These States—the people of these
States—should stand in close harmony with each

other. Our nation is too large. I know some will
speak otherwise, but I will take the converse of the
proposition. Our nation is too large, and much of
our difference arises from that fact. We ought to
feel that the whole cannot get along without the
parts, or the parts without the whole. We ought
to be one people—a united people—and this being
done, we shall be a prosperous and a happy people."
We believe the PRESIDENT'S proposition to be
based on error ; and to lead, when followed into the

broad questions of the future, into clear and unmis-
takeable error. People will fight, and all the more
bitterly the closer the relations and the smaller the
numbers. From the unit of mankind, pater-
familias and his wife, to contending nations, we

have all degrees of factious ; but the mightier

the body over whom the seeds of rancour are
cast, the less bitter is the dispute. A man may
hate his brother, a wife her husband, but indi-
viduals do not hate nations, though they may dis-

like them. We contend, that differences are not
lessened nor more unlikely to exist because the boun•

daries of anation are narrowed. Mr. SEWARD'S
speech at Annapolis is confirmatory of what we
advance. In substance he observed that while the
Atlantic States have been quarrelling so as to create
suffering, confusion, and mutual disaster, the Pacific
States have been pushing their material interests, and
growing with such might and rapidity, as already
to begin to revolutionise the world. While the
Northern and Southern Atlantic States had referred
their insane quarrel to the great West as au umpire,
it had sternly decided that it cares for neither, but
appropriates to itself the substantial advantages con-
ceded by the stupid controversies. " henceforth if
you will insist upon continuing the insane divisions
of the East, I shall be found among the statesmen
and politicians of the West." Now, if this shows
anything, it shows that the quarrel instead of being
between the distant extremes is centred in the Eas-
tern States. Let Mr. JouNsoN lop off the parts—
beginning by the most distant territory, that of
Russian - America just acquired, until nothing
remains but his capital of Washington and Dis-
trict of Columbia—and he will simply concentrate
into its sixty square miles the venom of the dis-
pute. It is not distance that mainly separates
people ; classes do so even more effectually. Men
may live in the same town, and yet know little of
each other, although each thy they may pass each
other in the streets. If the angry and sharp cor-
ners of spirit were really created by distance, be-
getting prejudice and ill feeling, it follows that the
Pacific States hold in the greatest degree these
angry differences with the Atlantic States, or that
Maine most bates Texas. But what is really
the case? There is more bitterness in the
city of New York, in Baltimore, or in Phila-
delphia—not against each other, but among the
residents than exists between the widely sepa-
rated parts of the Union. And what we maintain
is, that the only effect of narrowing the area would
be to intensify the feeling. Whatever may be the
local contention,
a genuine American can always
be raised from the
paltry and narrow minded by
appealing to the grand destiny of his country.
Whether he comes from Oregon or Georgia, from
Kansas or Massachusetts, on this he is agreed—and
it is the most deeply
I implanted of his national sen-
timents.
r:-1118 there is a strong and natural bond
of union through the whole nation, and the effect
is to lay a broad foundation of concord and
unanimity over all the States, which prevents
any bitter disputes, however widely they may
ramify, from reaching the soil and taking root
in the ground. Instead of the magnitude of
the country being a cause of difference, it has pro-
, bably the effect of swaying the parts so as to prevent
the prejudices and ill-feeling from splitting the
nation into sections. Nothing is unmixed good,
and the wide separation has, in a measure, the result
Mr. JOHNSON states. There cannot, as we observed
iu our last issue, be a full community of sympathy
between the high civilisation of Massachusetts and
the primitive settlers of Oregon, but they pnsess
in common the stronc, American sentiment born of
the manifest destiny. We are persuaded that the
,ye
balance of advanta is on the side of magnitude.
The country, therefore, is not too large. These are,
however, mere present considerations, while the
true manner of regarding the question is in its
future bearings. If the country were too large, it
is clear that the war for the maintenance of the
Union was a mistake, and the South should have
been permitted to establish its Confederated Go-
vernment. The glory of the Union would have
departed, the death-blow been given to the mani-
fest destiny, and the grand and universal belief of
the American people would have ceased to exist.
With that bond of union destroyed, the sections of
the North American continent would have been
unshackled, and numerous independent States