The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-30 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 20, 1866.

lation, intelligence and energy, the pluck of fanati-
cism and the hope of plunder, are banded against
all law and order. But there is something to hope.
The President stands firm, the Supreme Court
takes Southern cases on trial of appeal, "as of
course ;" the Nort-West is growling, and in New
Jersey and New York the Conservative elemest
musters strong ; Radical Legislatures are going out
and more moderate men coming in—the strife is
becoming more equal, and in peace let us wait till,
to alter the fable, between the bull and the bear can
come in the lion to decide the day. The balance
will yet hang even, and then let the South throw
her whole weight for the principles of Anglo-Saxon
freedom and the putting to shame of the Radical
dynasty.

(From the Mobile Register, March 27.)
The South will not purchase political privileges
to which it is entitled by the constitution of the
country at the price of dishonour. Indeed, the
South has made all the concessions it means to
make to restoration. First, because it has done
enough ; and second, because faith has not been
kept with it in what it has done. We were promised
amnesty for the past and cordial political brother-
hood for the future, if we would submit to certain
conditions, which were hard, because they were
opposed to traditional habits and instincts. We
kept our part of the bargain, but it has been broken
to the hope, and insult paid down instead in the
other. We have no other bargains to make.

(From the Mobile Times, March 27.)
A friend drew from his pocket, yesterday, a carte
portrait, and called
excellent
likeness of the noble
ne
said he, 66 will be Presi-
dentodue
original.ry stittee twi o‘i nt‘ with
hoaal itth
man,"ea m bt
of the United States one of these days." "That
man," scEptical reader, was Robert E. Lee, of Vir-
ginia, the " rebel" descendant of the " rebel"
George Washington. Stranger things have hap-
pened in this strange and variable world, especially
in this mutable America, where the currents of
popular opinion run like mill-races, in whatever
channels circumstance, fashion, and passion exca-
vate for themselves. When the American people
do make Lee their President, they will get an
honest man, a brave cavalier, and a gentleman for
that exalted post.

The Conflict between Congress and the

President.

The Times, which has been Mr. Johnson's
champion from the beginning of the present diffi-
culty between him and the American Congress,
now admits that the appearance of the Veto of the
Civil Rights Bill was inopportune and seems to
have influenced unfavourably the vote of both
Houses on the Civil Rights Bill. There were,
moreover, expressions in the preamble that
amount not only to a protest against the indefinite
continuance of provisional government in the South,
but to an explicit adoption of the State-rights
principle. Now it is certain that many who have
little sympathy with the views of Mr. Summer's
party, and who shrink from negro suffrage, are not
prepared for the immediate application of the prin-
ciple of State-rights for the restoration of the
South. To provide legal guarantees for the pro-
tection of negroes before re-admitting the South
to the Union is only going one step beyond the
position taken by Mr. Johnson himself. He insists
as strong as any man on the necessity of imposing
some previous conditions, though he objects to the
conditions proposed by the Republicans. In this
respect the question raised by the Civil Rights Bill
differs considerably from that involved in the re-
organisation of the Freedmen's Bureau. That in-
stitution belonged naturally to a state of war, and
was never meant to last more than a year after the
proclamation of peace. In declining to sanction
its permanent establishment, the President merely
resisted a scheme for keeping the South in a condi-
tion of subjection only to be maintained by military
force. In Vetoing the Civil Rights Bill he went
further, and virtually disputed the competence of
Congress to prescribe the terms upon which the
seceding States should be allowed to resume their
place in the Union. In his view the latter are
absolutely entitled to exercise their former Con-
stitutional rights on proof of their " loyalty ; " and
he seems to recognise but two tests of loyalty—the
abolition of slavery and the repudiation of the Con-
federate debt. In the view of his Republican op-
ponents the Southern States have deprived them-
selves of representation in Congress by their own
act of wilful rebellion, are not in a position to claim
re-admission as a right, and the Northern States are
perfectly justified in taking ample security for their
future good behaviour.
The Daily Telegraph remarks that a month ago it
seemed as though the weighty and powerful states-
man who now fills the Executive chair at Wash-
ington was destined to prevail against wordy orators,
wo
of
(t houseste there
North,
and y
oh
ra tt4. aree,
;a t
butii
ns thewthilat
ht
been
wp
oihns oedmdi
main
the ihinem
lbatlisilete
feelingg
and even of the Democralic City of New York., is
turning against the President. It would seem that
the unanimity with which all the Southern States
are backing and endorsing the policy of Andrew
Johnson has awakened the suspicious jealousy of
the victorious States, and has made Northerners
believe that the President and the " Rebels " are
working together to effect " in close design by fraud
and guile what force effected not." The cry of
" Copperhead " is loudly applied to Mr. Johnson,
and the memories of the war are still too fresh and
recent for men to forget that only thirteen months
ago a " Copperhead " meant " a sympathiser with
Rebellion." Upon the use which may be made by
the two Houses of their triumph over the head of
the State will depend the significance of the measure
they have carried in despite of his veto. But it
is inclined, considering the super-heated atmo-
sphere which American politicians have long been
inhaling, to augur the worst. With a view to
making themselves undisputed masters of the situa-
tion, nothing can be more tempting to the Houses
of Congress than to impeach the President. On
the very instant of his impeachment—and provi-
sions for the process are elaborately furnished by
the Constitution—his power is actually suspended.
Many months would probably elapse before he
could either be found guilty or acquitted of the
charge under which he might be arraigned. In
the interim Charles Sumner in the Senate, and
Thaddeus Stevens in the House of Representatives,
would " ride in the whirlwind and direct the
storm."

The Times calls upon the Americans to look into
the mirror of British history for instruction in the
present conjuncture of their affairs. The Southern-
ers are prepared to shake hands, but the Northerners
will not have it. They are resolved to keep their
late enemies out of the pale of the Constitution, to
disarm them by the infliction of civil disabilities, to
punish them for their recent malignancy by political
outlawry, to restrain them by penal statutes, to in-
troduce among them obnoxious
principles supported
by force, and thus in the heart of the South to esta-
blish Northern ascendancy. Of course they do not
profess to be doing all this in perpetuity. There is,
no doubt, much to be said for the policy of
the American Radicals. In fact, their argument
is reasonable, but it is not so reasonable as the
opposite. It is the case of Ireland over again. We
had reason at the time, and as things went, for all
our penal legislation ; it was only in later days that
we discovered the error of our policy. We found
that exclusion and proscription did not convert con-
quered rebels into good subjects, but that the ideas
which we desired to efface rather grew and throve
under persecution. We found ourselves with a
source of political danger where there should have
been a source of political strength, and were com-
pelled to witness " the difficulty" of one portion of
the empire recognised with eagerness as " the op-
portunity" of the other. Disaffection and hostility
still lingered after their causes had been removed,
and at length, years after a policy of liberality and
conciliation had been inaugurated, we have the
Fenian conspiracy to remind us of bygone blun-
ders.

The armour-plated screw steamship Prince Con-
sort, 31, left Plymouth on Saturday to resume her
duties at Queenstown.