The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-17 00:00:00

THE AMERICAN PRESS.

The New York Nation, speaking of President
Johnson's reply to the address of the Philadelphia
Convention, says that it was in great part a repeti-
tion of statements of his opinions and feelings with
which the public is already familiar. But he went
further than he has yet gone in denunciations of
Congress, using one phrase which has a somewhat
ominous sound. He spoke of Congress as " a body
hanging upon the verge of the Government, as it
were ; a body called, and which assumes to be, the
Congress of the United States, but is, in fact, a
Congress of only part of the State.",. It would be
easy to set this down as an indication that Mr.
Johnson is preparing his own mind and that of his
followers for the creation of a Congress of his own
in December, and for an attempt at the forcible re-
pudiation of the body now iu existence. We prefer,
however, to believe that he is yet a great distance
from any such step ; and we call attention to the
phrase simply as an illustration of the lengths of
absurdity to which his own mental obtuseness and
the flattery of his admirers are carrying him. It
must be remembered that the Congress now sitting
was elected by the loyal States for the purpose of
governing the United States in peace or war, weal
or woe, for the space of two years. Mr. Johnson,
on the other hand, was elected Vice-President as a
compliment to himself and his State, and nobody
who voted for him had the smallest anticipation that
he would ever be called ' upon to exercise any
greater share either in reconstruction or in the
general administration of our affairs that falls to the
lot of the Speaker of the Senate. In other words,
he was to occupy towards the executive the same
relation as Hannibal Hamlin occupied towards it.
He did not receive a single Southern vote, and was
detested through every Southern State with a cor-
diality unknown in the case of any Northern Radical.
He holds his power he now exercises by an accident,
and when he speaks of himself as "a department of
the Government," and calls Congress "a body hang-
ing on the verge of the Government," he does no
harm, we admit ; but he reveals a state of mind, as
we have often remarked before, which proves his
presence in the White House, at such a juncture as
the present one, to be most calamitous.

THE RIGHTS OF OUR NATURALISED CITIZENS LN

EUROPE.
• (From the New York Evening Post.)
The war in Germany is likely to produce many
cases of great hardship for American naturalised
citizens, who may be found visiting the land of their
birth. We hope they may be met by our Govern-
ment with such a precision in their claims and state-
ments, and such a full understanding and firm
maintenance of the exact right, as shall lead to a
final settlement of a question that has been the
source of much perplexity, and that is not yet de-
termined. It is reported that
" The authorities of the city of Muscatine, lowa,
have received information that Mr. Henry Funk, late
Mayor of that place, while travelling through his
native country on a pleasure tour, was seized by
Austrian officials and forced into the ranks of the
army, on the ground that he owed military service
to that country and must perform it. The fact that
he bad become a citizen of the United States, and
was entitled to protection as such, was not sufficient
to save him from seizure."

It was generally supposed that the question in-
volved in this case was substantially settled in the
case of Koszta, the Hungarian, in 1853. The Ame-
rican view was ably maintained by Mr. Marcy,
then our Secretary of State, who insisted that foreign
Governments had no longer any claims upon their
former subjects after they had become naturalised
citizens of the United States. But the case went
off, at last, on the point that Koszta had been seized
on Turkish territory, without any warrant of Turkish
authority, while he was in fact doing business under
a letter of license from our consul. It was said
that, by usage in Turkey, such a letter entitled him
to American protection against arrest, whether he
was in fact a citizen or not.

The case now before us, of the ex-Mayor of
Muscatine, is probably free from any complications,
and will, therefore, afford our Government an op-
portunity for a vigorous and successful maintenance
of aright which is absolutely essential to our national
honour and independence. The rule should be,
that a naturalised citizen of the United States
acquires all the rights of citizenship, and is as entirely
dissevered from his native country as if he had not
been born in it. It is time for our lawyers and
judges, our statesmen and writers on public affairs,
to wean themselves from a servile dependence on
the dicta of English courts, and plant themselves
on the broad principles of the law of nations, that
" every nation claims the right to give the complete
character of a citizen to an alien, without consult-
ing the wish of the stole of his birth." [Dana's
Wheaton, p. 143, 22.]
Another case is reported in the papers, of impress-
ment by a Prussian than-of-war from the American
steamer Baltic, at Bremerhaven. It is published
by the purser of the Baltic, but not in a way to
present the legal questions that arise. It does not
appear whether the man was an American citizen.
The impressment was done on the assumption that
he was a Prussian subject. The certificate of our
consular agent is as follows :
" Consular Agency of the United States of
" America,

4 Geestemunde, July 18, 1866.
" 1, the undersigned, consular agent of the
United States of America for Geestemunde and
the dependenties thereof, do hereby certify that
according to an order of the commander of the
Prussian man-of-war Nymphe, lying in the river
here, the Prussian citizen, Charles Berger, is bound
to become a navy soldier on board the said man-of
war. For this reason the said Charles Berger
cannot return hi the steamship Baltic to New
York.
" Given under my hand and the seal of this con-
sular agency the day and year above written.
" EDWARD ULRICHs,
" United States Consular Agent."
Of course, the captain of a merchant ship, in the
presence of four Prussian ships-of-war, had no al-
ternative but to give up the man to his fate. The
man was shipped in New York by regular shipping
articles. It will be a serious interruption to our

commercial interests if American ships are liable
to be stripped of their necessary hands on such
pretexts. We have had one war for "sailors' rights,"
and our people will never acquiesce in the slightest
encroachment by any foreign power whatever.
Prussia must be made to give up the man, and to
apologise for the gross insult to our flag.

Indications of a Closer Intercourse between
England and America.

It is interesting to watch the growth of the con-
nection between America and the mother-country'.
First, we have the revival of trade—commodities
beginning tollow again into their old channels, with
all the intimate relations grounded on so enormous
a barter. Gradually, the number of steamers pll-
ing between the great ports increases. Line is added
to line ; yet the increase of passengers outstrips the •

increase of accommodation. Americans re-appear
in numbers in English society—great hotels are laid
out expressly to secure their custom, and the fashion-
able shops begin to feel the weight of their patron-
age. The Great Eastern starts on her enterprise,
and ends, triumphantly, in establishing telegraphic
communication between London and New York
not one, but two cables. By degrees we begin to
feel the influence of the change. American inven-
tions, American notions, American drinks, are
again coming prominently forward. Five-twenties
rise into a favourite investment,. and capitalists seek
for information about American railways. We
noticed last week the foundation of one of those
houses which have succeeded so admirably in Paris
—a great American agency, placed in a central
spot where Americans most congregate, and over"
shadoNs ed by the Langham Hotel, is likely soon to
become the rendezious of all the most prominent
Americans whom business, or even pleasure, Mal
bring to London. A business already so well-
known, and whose ramifications are so extensive as
that of Gilead A. Smith, will have little difficulty
in forming the wide connection indispensable to the
SUCCNS of such. an undertaking. We will not just
now allude further to this establishment, so novel
in this country ; and we mention it only as a strik-
ing instance of the growth of the intimacy between
England and America. -As swallows portend
summer, so are these signs significant of the
friendly bonds which are uniting these nations.
The best proof a keen man of business can give in
his strong belief that the tendency is towards peace,
good-will, and close alliance, is to invest in under'
takings which must depend mainly for success,
pn this result. The civilised world has had
its period of repose between periods of exhaust'
ing warfare. From Waterloo to the Alma the
great nations of the earth had been in comparn"
tive peace. From the Crimea to the present day
each of the great nations has in its turn been
convulsed with war. We may now fairly hope that
a period of profound peace is again dawning. The
United States had determined on the extinction 01
slavery, and slavery could only be extinguished by
war. The fight has been fought, slavery has been
extinguished, and however bitter may be the poll'
tical questions which have arisen from so astound-
ing a change in society, it is to the last degree in)."
probable that a people which professes to have more
brains than that of any other on earth will enter on
a second period of self-annihilation for an object
which does not require war for its elucidation.
England has ceased to meddle, and is not likely t°
be again a player in the wicked and unprofitable
game. The resources of America are only begin'
ning to be developed. It is the grand field for
capital, for enterprise, for the untrammelled energy
of bone and sinew. The emigrant resources of Ire;
land are dwindling to insignificance, while those 01
England are increasing, and much good may resat
from the introduction into America of a superior
class of English mechanics and labourers. Arne:
rican travellers in England, and English enn"
grants in America will have a strucg
effect in moulding the opinions of these na"
Lions, speaking the same language, in assimilating
institutions, and in correcting the erroneous ideas
which mostly proceed from ignorance of each other,
If the countries knew each other intimately hostile
criticisms would be heard no more, or be heard 019
from quarters where they would meet with nothiog
but contempt. The unbounded love and fraternity
professed between despotic Russia and Republican
America is a mere farce. These nations have little
or nothing in common, while the mother county/.
and her great offspring are bound by every tie et
kindred, language, laws, and institutions—not t°
mention enormous material interests. That Mae'
rica should pass by England to rush into the on:
braces of Russia is as absurd, not to say unnaturl_o
1
as an Englishman rushing past a Yankee into tn
arms of a Chinaman. We hope soon to see the end
of these theatrical follies, and that we may bold
towards each other the position clearly indicated by
Providence.—Anglo-American Times.