The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-10 00:00:00

America and the New Year.

One year ago, at the commencement of the fes-
tive season, we addressed some words to our readers
in relation to the then New Year 1866, and the
Event which had been accomplished for America
and for the World since the beginning of the
then expiring year. To-day we recur to the sub-
ject, not less hopefully and cheerfully than we did
then. Eighteen hundred and sixty-five stands on
the record of History as the best and the holiest year
since the Christian Era, for that year saw
the bonds which bound four millions of
men in hopeless and degrading bondage for
ever stricken off, and those four millions
standing for the first time in Gop's pure sun-
shine, unshackled and free. But the Event was so
recent and so tremendous—the light which had
dawned on humanity was so sudden and so bril-
liant—that men stood aghast and dizzy, and could
scarcely realise the change. Eighteen hundred and
sixty-six came and went, and to-day, in the dawn-
ing of eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, we know,
and begin to realise, how great was that
Event which America accomplished for her-
self and for humanity, after all those sad
years of havoc and war. We know that in the
short space of a few months the work of centuries
has been accomplished—that a New Nation has been
born in the New World, and that henceforth and
for ever Freedom is something more than a mere
name ! In the midst of the convulsions of 1866,
though great vested interests were lost, and great
financial schemes terminated in disaster, one scheme
remained staunch and solid as the enduring hills—.
that scheme inaugurated by ABRAHAM LINCOLN—
that scheme which changed a nation cf slaves into a
nation of freemen. And now, at the beginning
of another New Year, we count as a familiar and
accomplished fact that which twelve months ago
we failed to grasp at its true worth.
We would write with moderation and calmness,
but we become enthusiastic when we contemplate
the “manifest destiny" of the American Republic.
There are at the beginning of this year more

than thirty-five millions of people, scattered
over a domain vast as the whole of Europe,
and richer in every species of " natural wealth
than Golconda or Ophir. No section of the
human family ever before bad such prospects
before them. Among all these thirty-five mil-

ons, there is not one who cannot exercise some
appreciable influence upon the happiness and pros-
perity of the whol.-1. In nearly all the States the
whole male population is eligible to the exercise of
the elective franchise, and the recently emancipated
ones are being rapidly prepared for their great du-
ties in the future by instruction and education. The
settler in his log cabin in the far West—the artisan
in the crowded city--the country gentleman and
the swarthy son of toil--are alike invited to declare
at the ballot-box the principles on which the land
shall be governed. No man is too poor, no
man too rich to share the duties, the privileges, and
the responsibilities of public life ; and from the
county magistrate to the chief Executive of this
mighty nation, all spring from the people, and are
alike the servants of the people. Vox Populi, vox
Dci is truer of this people than of any other since
the world began.

We, in our humble, though most responsible
position as Editors of a public Journal, aspire to no
less than to represent this people in Europe—to
speak for them and by their authority—to expound
their national sentiments—to make known their
wants and their desires. Others may think
this task mere pastime, but to us it is
fraught with grave responsibility. The nation
we represent is young—it aspires to take rank with
the oldest civilisations of Europe ; it is ambitious—
it dares to stake its ambition by the side of that of
Emperors and Kings ;it is energetic—its energy is
that of a nation of Titans rather than of men ; it
is proud—but its pride is the pride of freemen, and
not of slaves !

We think we shall not be wide of the mark if we
state, in advance, that no other nation on this globe
will make so extensive or so brilliant a display
at the Paris Exhibition next April as the United
States of America. They have just emerged from
one of the greatest wars that ever afflicted huma-
nity, and they will share more of the enduring
triumphs of peace than any other nation. They
engaged in that war with but one object, and with
but one motive ; having accomplished which, they
return to the pursuits of peace like CINCINNATUS,
beating their spears into pruning-hooks and their
swords into ploughshares.. We shall have at
Paris agricultural implements and labour-saving
machines of every kind of American in-
vention. We shall have, too, evidences of their
proficiency in arms, and their skill in that which
pertains to armies and wars, but these will be only
specimens of what America has done, rather than
of what she is doing. ller people will flock to
Europe by tens, if not hundreds, of thousands,

every one of them with a heart full of generous
feeling towards England, and brotherly love towards
France; and every one of them determined to
" whip" both these countries in the exercise of a
princely and far-seeing liberality, and an en-
lightened friendship for those who are to receive
them.

We say, then, that at the beginning of
this year of Grace, 1867, we have every
reason to- be grateful, and happy, and proud.
We come with no stain on our honour, no
blot on our escutcheon, and offer to shake hands
fraternally, in Paris, with England, with France, and
with the whole world. 'We respect and revere and
venerate the old time institutions of these lands, but
we love the young, the robust, ab,l vigorous imti-
tutions of that ; and while we have no word of fault-
finding or reproach for anything we see here, we
have a great wealth of affection for what we have
left there. We say to England and to France, let
us three join hands in a warm and fraternal greet-
ing, and in this year of peace let us each declare
that these nations shall not learn war any more, but
that this year shall witness the commencement of a
fresh rNalry between us in those pursuits which
tend to promote the happiness, the prosperity, and
the godliness of the nations !—Anglo-American
Times.

Two MARRIAGES. By the: author of " John
Halifax."—Messrs. Hurst and Blackett have just issued a
new book-, entitled "Two Marriages," by the author of
"John Halifax, Gentleman," "Christian's Mistake," &c.
It is a very charming work, which cannot fail to please the
numerous readers and admirers of this deservedly popular
noveli4,

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES..." La Revolution va hien." The despatches
which pour upon us through the Atlantic Telegraph
show that the well-known phrase of 1792 may be
applied in all its meaning to the course of events in
America. A revolution is in progress there. The
House of Representatives has taken the first step
towards the removal of the President from office.
Mr. Johnson stands in the way of the Republican
party. He is the " Monsieur Veto" of the Union,
and he must be got rid of. He has been guilty of
the crime of forming an opinion for himself, and that
opinion does not conform to the sentiments of the
majority of Congress. Whether the opinion was
right or wrong, just or unjust, it is not for us to in-
quire. The important points are that it was an inde-
pendent opinion ; that Mr. Johnson thought he was
a President with well-defined duties and responsi-
bilities, instead of a Constitutional King bound to
accept and follow the advice of Ministers possessing
the confidence of a Legislative Assembly ; that the
independent opinion formed in the pursuit, as he
thus conceived, of his duty conflicts with that of
Congress; and that a popular Assembly will not
brook the existence of a permanent obstacle to its
will. Accordingly, Mr. Johnson is to be impeached.
The House of Representatives has ordered a Com-
mittee to report on the offences of the President, and
the Radical party are determined, we are assured, to
press on the Impeachment, of which this is the first
step, to its "bitter end." The members of the House
have returned to Washington, after their short
Christmas recess, more bentthan ever on establishing
their own supremacy. The Impeachment of a Pre-
sident is not, indeed, an event to be ranked in the
same category with the trial of a King ; even when
consummated, the appropriate punishment of the
offender is simply deposition from office and
disqualification for future employment ; yet it is so
foreign to what was once the temper of American
citizens that any step towards it betokens a pro-
found change in their character. We are driven to
the conclusion that the revolution is bearing fruit.
It is true that Mr. Johnson is not hedged round by
the divinity which made loyalty to a Stuart cr a
Bourbon the creed and passion of multitudes, but it
may be boldly asserted that a successful impeach-
ment of the President is impossible without a
wrench of that constitution which the Americans
were wont to idolise as divine. Those who have
initiated the impeachment must be resolved to carry
it through, no matter how flimsy the charges pre-
ferred against the President, or what constitutional
difficulties may stand in the way of their purpose.
What sudden provocation has hurried the House of
Representatives to a step which a few weeks since
would have been considered impossible ? The tele-
gram from our correspondent, perhaps, supplies the
answer. The President has vetoed the Negro Suf-
frage Bill for the district of Columbia, and we are
warranted in looking upon this act as the exciting
cause of the impeachment. In one point of view,
this explanation, if sound, may appear to detract
from our estimate of the importance of the step
taken by the House of Representatives. The House
is, to say the least, a somewhat eccentric body. It
thanked Commodore Wilkes in hot haste for an act
immediately afterwards pronounced illegal by Mr.
Lincoln and his Cabinet. It adopted without dis-
cussion the amendment, or rather the repeal, of
the Neutrality Laws promoted by General Banks,
which has since been quietly shelved in the Senate.
In the week before Christmas it was seduced into
passing a ludicrous resolution solemnly command-
ing " the tone of the national voice towards the
Republic of Mexico." Knowing all this, it may
be said that the instruction to the Impeachment
Committee is a mere splenetic resolution! The
President, in perfect consistency with his former
acts, vetoed the Suffrage Bill, and the house boiled
over. It had reached the term of its patience. Mr.
Johnson's veto was an idle form, but it was an act
of opposition to the majority, and an impeachment
immediately followed. But, in truth, the compara-
tively trifling matter which has been made the occa-
sion of the impeachment, the feebleness of the in-
dictment against the President, and the obstacles
presented by the Constitution to the success of the
impeachment, only heighten our sense of the revo-
lutionary character of the impeachment itself. If
the law and the Constitution are to be observed,
what ground is there upon which reasonable men
can rely that the impeachment may prove success-
ful? Mr. Wendell Phillips, the leader of the most
advanced section of the Republican party, and one
of the first to recommend extreme measures, is for
impeaching Mr. Johnson uppn " his instincts."
Falstaff was a coward upon " instinct," but it is not
easy to believe that any legal tribunal can recognise
" instincts" as sufficient evidence of criminality.
Yet this is all that Mr. Phillips has to adduce. "If
my instincts be true," says the orator, " it will be
found that from the time the rebellion was suppressed
Mr. Johnson was in league with traitors. Gen. But-
ler, next in importance as an advocate of impeach-
ment, is a little more definite in his charges, but the
more definite he becomes the more unsatisfactory is
his case. It is an article of accusation with the for-
mer commander at New Orleans that the speeches
of Mr. Johnson during his Chicago tour were inde-
cent. They degraded the office of President, and ex-
posed it to public ridicule. An impeachment of a
public officer for an offence against good taste is
somewhat of a novelty, and the novelty is not dimi-
nished when we consider who is the accuser.
General Butler has, however, another charge.
Mr. Johnson has appointed his own friends to
offices of State. If this be an offence, it is one
of which every President within living memory
has been guilty, but it is scarcely necessary
to point out how impossible it would be to make
such a charge a ground of condemnation. Yet it is
upon allegations like these that the House of Repre-
sentatives has instructed a Committee of its own
body to inquire into the crimes of the President, and
that the Republican party has resolved to proceed
to extremities. The futility of these articles of in-
dictment ought to be sufficient to insure its failure
before any competent tribunal ; but the founders of
the Republic took care to guard against any passing
excess of popular excitement by making Impeach-
ment in all cases a difficult process. The Impeach..
ment must be conducted by the House of Represen-
tatives before the Senate, sitting as judges under the
presidency of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
of the Union, and the Constitution prescribes that
no person shall be convicted without the concurrence
of two-thirds of the members present, sworn to
give a true verdict upon the evidence before them.
The events of this session, grave as they have been,
will not allow us to believe that two-thirds of the
Senate will concur in a condemnation of the Presi-
dent upon the charges brought against him ; but a
Constitutional difficulty is in these days a matter of
small concern in the States. If the majority in Con-
gress cannot legally compass their ends, they will do
so by the expression of their own will. In the face
of the Constitution, Mr. 'Wendell Phillips has con-
stantly urged that the President should before trial
be prohibited from exercising any of his official
functions, on the ground that an accused person
should not continue to act as President of the United
States • and the spirit which dictated this bold ad-
vice will not scruple at acting upon a sentence, even
though it should be supported by less than the pre-
scribed:two-thirds of the Senate. Let a majority,
however small, condemn Mr. Johnson, the dominant
party will enforce the condemnation, and their su-
premacy will be established without opposition or pos-
sibility of rivalry. The Union is thus visibly pass_
ing through a revolution, and a revolution, per-
haps more than any other, remarkable for the
speed of its progress. It is barely a month since
Congress met, and ten days out of the month have
been spent in the recess, yet this brief time has
been sufficient to develope a profound change in the
American nation. During the elections and up to
the beginning of December nothing appeared more
chimerical than an attempt to impeach the Presi-
dent. No respectable organ of opinion, no person
in any position of responsibility, advocated it; and
the Republican leaders deprecated any suggestion
of such a proceeding as a slanderous asper Lion upon
the moderation and sagacity of the party. But
Congress has met and tested its strength, and,
flushed with a sense of power, hurries on from one
position to another, until at last it
_boldly declares
that no obstacle shall be permitted to thwart the
complete execution of its will. What was pro-
nounced impossible has become a fact, and argu-
ments reprobated with indignation are accepted
and acted upon. What is a clause of the Consti-
tution that it should bar the way of the repre-
sentatives of the people? A majority some eighty
years since pretended to enact laws limiting the
power of the majority of to-day. Csn any pre-
tence, it be more vain or idle ? And the
sophism passes current, as sophisms will which
justify the excesses of those to whom they are
addressed. But the popularity of such reasoning
makes .the impeachment of the President remark-
able as evidence of the length to which the revo-
lution has gone, and a hint of what may come
after. The fate of Mr. Johnson is a trifle com-
pared with the safeguards of all personal liberty
and individual freedom, which are thus subjected
to the unchecked caprice of a fluctuating majority.

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to stop the approach of (glom or throw it vif,