The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-22 00:00:00

THE PRBSIDENT'S MESSAGE.

The Times deems the Message worthy of atten-
tion as an illustration of character and as the
utterance of a man who is the Chief Executive officer
of the American nation, but it would be easy to
overrate its importance as a State paper. One
cannot imagine that the threat of impeachment, or
even the instruction to the Judiciary Committee of
the House of Representatives to report the practice
in cases of impeachment, will have any serious
result. There is abupdant evidence, however, that
Mr. Johnson will be almost powerless for good or
evil during the rest of his term of office. Mr.
Johnson is almost reduced to the position of a
constitutional king, who may reign, but not govern,
and his Message is something less than a royal
speech, since it expresses nothing but his
personal opinions, which his Legi,Slature has already
vehemently repudiated.

The Standard owns it may seem strange that Mr.
Johnson should think it worth while to reiterate
domestic advice so recently rejected ; to stand so
firmly by a policy which seems to have so little
chance of adoption. One must bear in mind, how-
ever, the peculiarity of the President's position. Of
the entire nation a great majority are on his side.
In the North he has for him a popular vote but
little inferior to that of his opponents, and the
South is wholly excluded from Congress. More-
over, the new Congress would not, under ordinary
circumstances, meet till December 1, 1867. The
present does not expire till March 4, 1867. So there
is time for a popular reaction which, though it
would not alter the character of Congress, would
divide and dishearten the majority, and strengthen
the President to resist it ; and such a reaction is
not improbable.
The ;tar declares that President Johnson, though
not born in the purple, has exhibited during his
brief tenure of power as much blindness ancrun-
teachable obstinacy as any Bourbon or Hapsburg
whose fate history records. His Message is a re-
markable manifestation of utter incapacity to adapt
opinion to circumstances. It is, in fact, a political
fossil. The President is not, however, quite so blind
as not to see that his policy is spurned by the mass
of the people. He feels thathe has taken an unpo-
pular position ; but, instead of receding from it, he
endeavours to cover it by adopting a tone towards
foreign nations which will, he imagines, be flatter-
ing Co the national pride of America. Mr. John-
son's expressions of ill-concealed sympathy with
the aims of the Fenians deserve the consideration
of his admirers in this country, who are accustomed
to denounce Congress and the Republican party as
fosterers of the conspiracy. The fact that an at-
tack on Canada was intended merely as a diversion
in aid of an Irish insurrection " necessarily modi-
fies," says the President, " the opinion we might
otherwise have entertained in regard to an Lxpodi-
tion expressly prohibited by our neutrality laws."
The Star does not greatly regard this, as the poli-
tical influence of the President has been annihi-
lated ; but the whole tone of the Message on this
head should teach us to obliterate as soon as we can
the feeling so universal in the United States that
we have dealt unfairly and with a high hand in the
matter of the Alabama claims. It might also lead
us to reflect on the relation in which we stand to
Ireland by showing how it may be a doubtful ques-
tion, to say the least, with foreign onlookers whe-
ther we are wholly in the right and Ireland wholly
in the wrong.

A fearful accident occurred during the journey of
the Queen of Spain to Lisbon on Saturday last.
The explorator-locomotive preceding the Royal
train ran over the crowd assembled at the station
of Daimiel, a few miles before reaching Ciudad
Real. About 30 people were killed or wounded.
It is reported that the Hotel du Louvre and the
Grand hotel have determined to raise their prices
during the Exhibition 50 per cent., and to insist on
people dining or paying for their dinner.