The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-24 00:00:00

than Mr. Davis displayed on the only occasion
when the devastating war he had invoked placed
him in personal danger.

It might be added that Mr. Davis has given no
evidence in his public career of that absence of sel-
fish ambition, that complete subordination of per-
sonal advantage to the public good, which made
the character of Washington honoured even by his
enemies.

I object further to the idea implied in the whole
article, that success or failure can make any possible
difference in the right and wrong of actions.
To say so is to subvert all political and social
morality, and to declare that whatever is profitable
is right. No; history records many a holy failure
and many a vile success. We must have a higher
standard.

The word " rebel" as applied to Mr. Davis and
his associates did signify " the perpetration of a
great crime"—one of the greatest political crimes on
record—the most stupendous and the most cause-
less of all rebellions.

If those who have used the term are now to drop
it, it will not be because we deny the propriety of
its past application, but because we hope the rebel-
lion is ended, and over that sad past we desire to
throw the veil of conciliation. If anything will
tend to perpetuate the term, it will be the use of
such arguments as the article here quoted employs,
for the name will then be adhered to as a protest
against the course of those who would extenuate a
" great crime."
By affording a place, if possible, in your columns
to these criticisms, and expressing clearly your own
opinion on the question at issue, you will confer,
Sir, a great favour upon

A REPUBLICAN READER.

On Saturday, the Ist instant, the President left

Washington for Raleigh. lie was accompanied by Mr.

Seward and Mr. Randall. They reached Richmond
in the evening, the President taking up his quarters
in the apartment lately occupied by Jefferson Davis
in Spottiswood's Hotel. On Monday morning the
journey was continued, passing through Petersburg
and Weldon, where speeches were made. Mr.
Johnson carefully avoided political subjects—taught
by the fatal experience of the celebrated tour of
List summer. A President "on the rampage " is
worse than a bull in a china shop, and the general

smash that followed his last monumental excursion

to Chicago must havebeen vividly in his mind, as this
year he passed South, a" sadder and a wiser man."
There is indeed something touching and noble in the

return of the President of the United States to the

home of his boyhood, and he might well have been
moved with emotion when relating the story of his
departure from Raleigh, " an inexperienced, penni-
less lad to make his way in the world." The scene
is a fine subject for an American artist. There, was

a man who had attained to one of the highest
posts on earth, pointing out to the great digni-
taries of State, the servants of his Government,
the lowly house in which he had been born, the

streets in which, as a child, he had played,
the tradesmen, the labourers, the mechanics

who had been his associates, while he himself
towered in the grandeur of a power equalled only
by two or three other men in the world. Well
might he say that he had scaled the heights of his
ambition, and had nothing more to ask for. " One
of my leading tenets," he continued, " has been the
prosperity of the great mass of the people, holding
that all persons, without regard to condition or
colour, should be esteemed according to their in-
trinsic merit or worth, leaving each to rise on his
own merit, courage, and energy. Let this be the
standard, so that to every one may be assigned his
true position. I trust and hope, instead of discuss-

ing party issues, creating factions between North,
South, East, or West, that all will exert themselves
to the restoration of the union of these States, so
that the flag may float ovar a contented and pros-

perous people. (Applause.) Let us, my friends, re-
pair the breaches made by the war, and restore the
Union. This being accomplished, we may then make
such issues as the public prosperity and safety may
demand. Let us efface from our minds the memory
of the past—let us pour oil on the troubled waters,
and restore peace to the States. This has been my
constant object."
On the 3d inst. the first election in Washington
since the establishment of negro suffrage took

place. The Nation gives the number of voters al

coloured 8,300, and white 9,800. The result was a
majority to the Republican patty on the municipal
election of about 1,500 votes. There appears to
have been no division among the coloured voters,
who had the ballots distributed to them in their

churches on the preceding day. At an early hour
in the morning they roused up their fellow darkies
with loud sounding trumpets and fish-horns, and
rapidly gathered around the polling places. The
Standard's correspondent says, that either through
ignorance or design many voted several times
in succession, and some attempted to deposit whole
packages of tickets in the boxes. The Nation states
that every means of the pettiest annoyances were
resorted to to make the negro as uncomfortable
as possible while he cast his vote. There were
counterfeit tickets and every attempt to deceive the
ignorant, which were signally unsuccessful, as the
Freedmen had been effectually forewarned. That
paper adds :•—" We know nothing of the candidates,
but certainly the behaviour of the negroes while
getting ready to vote and while voting ought to
cheer most of our Thomases except Benjamin
Franklin Perry."
President Johnson reached Richmond on the 7th
instant, on his return to Washington. On the 6th
he visited the University of North Carolina, where
he delivered a lively speech, marked by the good
sense and sentiments which have made his present
tour so strong and favourable a contrast to the last.
no reiterated his former declarations to uphold the
Constitution of the country, declaring the sincerity
of his motives, and of the principles that had actu-
ated him throughout.
The New York Herald has a leader on the free
navigation of the St. Lawrence. It appears that at
Montreal the Canadian authorities seized three
American steamers plying on that part of the river
without a permit, which has been required since
the abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty. It con-
tends that the St. Lawrence is the great channel of
commerce by which in the near future the grain and
mineral crops of our North-Western States must
find their most direct, feasible, and economical
route to a market. Can the mouth, then, of such a
river be permitted to remain in the hands of a hos-
tile power, ready to use its position -0 embarrass
commerce by delays and exactions, and to levy
tolls for the right of passage? Not while the Ame-
ricans continue to be what they are."
Last week the rumour was strong that Maximi-
lian had been shot, or would be shot. This week
the idea is that he will be banished from Mexico—
banished from Mexico, indeed ! what a horrible
fate ! lle has been tried by a court-martial, from
whom he claimed the right of a trial by a Congress
of nations. From New York we learn that the
trial had been postponed. It is asserted that the
Liberalist officers in command had protested against
clemency towards Maximilian. The fall of Quore-
taro was due to the treachery of the commander of
a principal fort. Maximilian stipulated on surren-
dering that he should be treated as a prisoner of
war, but that, if any one was shot, he should be the
first. The report in Vienna is that Maximilian
will be banished, but that his life will be respected.
He forwarded to his brother through the Atlantic
cable the following telegram :—" I am a prisoner of
war ; but do not be afraid. 1 am treated in a manner
which in noway violates the laws and customs of
civilised nations.—MAXl MILIAN."
Thaddeus Stevens is certainly a man of rare deter-
mination. He is but now recovering from his
severe illness, and it is not likely that he is destined
for many more days. lie returns to the measure
he advocated with just as much energy after the
extreme prostration of sickness as before, apparently
unconscious that he is breaking the Commandments,
stirring up as he does the bad passions it is the duty
of leading men to allay. He has written another
letter urging the confiscation of property of the
richer and more atrocious malefactors, as he terms
the Southern leaders. " Feeble as are my powers,"
he says, " if I had five years more added to my
life I should not doubt that this would become an
accomplished fact." We doubt it very much, and
think it much more likely that Thaddeus Stevens