The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-28 00:00:00

I hold myself ready now, as always heretofore, to
vote for any properly-guarded laws which shall be
deemed necessary to prevent mutual invasions of
States by citizens of other States, and punish those

who shall aid and abet them. Notwithstan—dingthe
arguments of the gallant senator from Oregon (Gen.
Lane), I remain of the opinion that physical bonds,
such as highways, railroads, rivers, and canals, are
vastly more powerful for holding civil com-
munities together than any mere covenants, though
written on parchment or engraved upon iron. I
remain, therefore, constant to my purpose to secure
if possible, the construction of two Pacific rail-
ways, one of which shall connect the ports
around the mouths of the Mississipi, and the other
the towns on the Missouri and the Lakes, with the
harbours on our western coast. If, in the expres-
sion of these views, I have not proposed what is
desired or expected by many others, they will do
me the justice to believe that I am as far from
having suggested what in many respects would
have beea in harmony with cherished convictions
of my own. I learnt early from Jefferson that in
political affairs we cannot always do what seems to
us absolutely best. We must be content to lead
when we can, and to follow when we cannot lead ;
and if we cannot at any time do for our country all
the good that we would wish we must be satisfied
with doing her all the good that we can. Having
submitted my own opinions on this great crisis, it
remains only to say that I shall cheerfully lend to
the Government my best support in whatever pru-
dent yet energetic efforts it shall make to preserve
the public peace, and to maintain and preserve the
Union ; advising only that it practise as far as pos-
sible the utmost moderation, forbearance, and con-
ciliation. My faith in the Constitution and in the
Union abides, because my faith in the wisdom and
virtue of the American people remains unshaken.
Coolness, calmness, and resolution are elements of
their character. They have been temporarily dis•
placed, but are reappearing. Soon enough, I trust,
for safety, it will be seen that sedition and violence
are only local and temporary, and that loyalty and
affection to the Union are the natural sentiments of
the whole country. Whatever dangers there shall
be, there will be the determination to meet them ;
whatever sacrifices, private or public, shall be need-
ful for the Union, they will be made. I feel sure
that the hour has not yet come for this great nation
to fall. The Union has not yet accomplished what
good for mankind was manifestly designed by Him
who appoints the seasons and prescribes the duties
of states and empires. No, sir; if it were cast
down by faction to-day, it would rise again and
reappear in all its majestic proportions to-morrow.
It is the only Government that can stand here.
Woe woe ! to the man that madly lifts his hand
against it. It shall continue and endure ; and men,
in after times, shall declare that this generation,
which saved the Union from such sudden and un-
looked-for dangers, surpassed in magnanimity even
that one which laid its foundations in the eternal
principles of liberty, justice, and humanity.

THE /STATE OF EUROPE.

(Front La Tresse.)

According to the strict letter of the news and
correspondence which we have published during the
last week or so, we are evidently on the eve of a
new crisis in the policy of Europe, William I.
said to his generals, " A storm is brewing !" and
the Augsburg Gazette declares that war can neither
frighten nor surprise sovereigns who, in their
Warsaw meeting, laid the bases of an alliance
the chief object of which is to secure to Austria
the possession of Venetia. Public opinion is much
moved by these threats ; it remembers the noise
that was made in Germany at the beginning of the
Italian war, and it has not forgotten the ridiculous
and abortive issue of these boisterous fanfaronades.
In any case, the remembrance of the Warsaw meet-
ing can cause it no great anxiety.
On the 23d of last October the descendants of the
three sovereigns who, ninety years ago, commenced
the work of spoliation, which has been finally
accomplished under our eyes, met in the town
which still stands as a monument of the indepen-
dence of Poland, and of the attack made ois its
nationality. This second triumvirate, in which
Europe saw a menace against its liberties, had,
however, nothing of the audacity and insolence of
the first. For thirty years order has reigned at
Warsaw. Russia, Prussia, and Austria full of
terror, irritated at the present, and afraid of the
future—assembled then, not to plot the ruin of
a people and to share its territory, but to devise
means for saving an edifice whose foundations
are giving way on all sides, The interview,
brought about with difficulty, terminated ab-
ruptly, and the three princes separated, giving
to Europe the solemn and instructive spectacle of
their anxiety and their impotence. This interview,
which the Augsburg Gazette is so awkward as to
recall, disclosed to the members of the triumvirate
the secret of their weakness. It taught them that
there existed no harmony in their views, and that
they had neither the sincere wish nor the power to
combine their resources for a common course of
action. They returned to their States, discontented
with one another, and quite convinced, beyond a
doubt, that the principle of non-intervention is
henceforth fatally imposed upon them by their weak-
ness, their disagreement, and the daily growing as-
cendancy of the modern ideas of Europe. Europe is
now divided into two camps, in one of which may be
witnessed the desire for war and impotence to make
it; in the other all the means of recommencing
it brilliantly, but the desire to avoid it, and let
the regeneration of Italy be accomplished peace-
fully. On one side the old worn out dynasties, and
the easy fall of thrones which had no other support
than the bayonet ; on the other, democracy victo-
riously shaking off the rule of oppression, which
for about half a century has been the:misfortune of
peoples and the scandal of humanity. On one side,
in short, the Europe of 1815, on the other, the
Europe of the new public law, i.e., the Europe of
the liberty and independence of nations.
It is in the midst of these death-struggles of
absolutism, in presence of old monarchies in a
state of decomposition that certain German jour-
nals threaten democracy with a coalition. Where
is that coalition to come from ? Where is it to
be got up ? Where are its generals, its armies, its
funds ? That the blind councillors of the Papacy
should reckon on the head of the Greek church and
the King of a Protestant and constitutional state to
bring the Italians to obedience; that Francis IT.
should reckon on a Holy Alliance to replace him
on his throne ; that the Emperor of Austria should
endeavour to form a league that should permit
him to restore the old regime, maintain the con-
cordat, subdue Hungary, and lay that phantom
of a parliament which already shows such a
strange spirit of independence we can very well
understand; and it is possible that their hopes
may be fed by confidential " notes" and diplomatic
proposals. But there is a long way from a cour-
teous and diplomatic good understanding to an alli-
ance offensive and defensive.

The times are gone when Russia, Prussia, and
Austria could think themselves strong enough to
give the law to Europe. They have no longer that
unity of aim or that community of interests which
they had when Poland offered herself up to them
as an easy prey for seizure and partition. The
sovereigns of these three powers may lay out pro-
grammes, but they will never be guilty of the
folly of wishing to impose them on Europe. They
may form plans in concert in view of certain events,
but on the express condition of undertaking nothing
against the peace of the world on the independence
of nations. The day they transgress that limit the
order which they claim to re-establish in Italy or
elsewhere would not exist very much longer in
their own states, even at Warsaw.
But these, let us hasten to admit, are chimerical
apprehensions. In the first place France and Eng-
land are lastingly and sincerely allied, and as long
as their alliance, a condition sine qua non of the
peace of the world, is not broken, every European
difficulty, of whatever kind it may be, will be solved
or cut through in the interest of civilisation.
In the next place, among Russia, Prussia, and
Austria there exists no principle of sincere alliance,
no real element of coalition.
Austria, although in a rapid decline, is still a
state of the first rank ; but she is so in virtue of her
past rather than her present power, and in that
fact lies precisely her greatest danger. Although
she has lost the prestige. of her wisdom and her
strength, she cannot bring herself to renounce
either the preponderance she exercised so recently
as 1848 in the councils of Europe, or the supremacy
which she has arrogated to herself in Italy
and Germany. Severely shattered in 1848, she
could hope to recover her strength only by keeping
herself quiet and avoiding every internal shock ; it
was at that very time, on the contrary, that she
substituted for the old traditions of the Cabinet of
Vienna, a system o f intemperance and audacity
which were ill suited to her situation. In 1850
she provokes Prussia and displeases all Germany ;
in 1854 she provokes Russia, and has not the cour-
age to push the matter to an issue ; in 1856 she
reaps in the Congress of Paris the fruits of this
vacillating and provoking policy. To avenge
herself for her check oho attacks Piedmont; and