The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-04 00:00:00

T "

0 X F 0 R D,
8, OXFORD-STREET.

This noble building being now completed, its architectural
beauty, elegance of ornamentation, and brilliancy of lighting
reader it one of the sights of the metropolis. Open Every
Evening. The programme is varied, and includes Selectirms
(by a full company of principals, powerful band, and chorus)
from " Macbeth" and "Un Ballo in Masehera." both operas
by Verdi, the composer of the day—The wonderful Solos on
the Cornet-a-Piston of the renowned LEVY—Scotch Duets by
the Misses Stuart, and other vocal and instrumental music
of the highest order. Conductor, Mr. F. Jonghmans. The
Comic portion of the entertainment is supported by Miss
Green, Messrs. Sam Collins, Harvey, and French (the Nerves),
W. H. Wieland, E. Marshall, and W. Randal.
Halt, sixpence; Balcony and Stalls, one shill. Ading. Private
Boxes, 10s. ed.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
T Dior .—Morning, 11h. Om.—Afternoon, 11h. 36m.
To-moßatow.-Morning, h. m.—Afternoon, 12h. 6m.

TILE WEATHER.-SUN OFFICE, JULY 4, 1861.

THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
71—highest since noon yesterday.
54—lowest this morning and during the night.
6G—this day at noon.
Bannurrnn-29.58 ; going down rapidly.
WlND—South-Westerly; blowing very strong and gusty.
There is a storm raging in the Channel now, with signs
of rough weather here. Heavy clouds and scud passing.
ONE 0' CLO cx.—Rain has commenced.

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THE SUN.

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1861.

To-day Congress re-assembles in extraordinary
session, the commemoration day of United States
independence having been selected for that purpose.
We may well suppose that some theatrical effect
was intended when the day was named. The
object must have been in some way to connect the
solemn declaration of Independence with the events
now occurring. To as, on this side the water, the
connection will seem somewhat far fetched. It
cannot be pretended now that Independence de-
pends on the co-operation of three-and-thirty States,
as it did then on the union of thirteen. The orators,
however, North and South, will have plenty to say
on the subject. The North will indirectly show an
appropriateness in the day to the commendation of
their cause ; the South will more directly proclaim,
" Independence is what we commemorate to-day,
and Independence is what we have combined and
armed to seek."

But both North and South will meet to be re-
minded, by the din of arms around, that the Union
was a hollow because an immoral one. When the
North purchased Union at the cost of giving
artificial power to slaveholders, it introduced the
seeds of a disease which has now proved, what many
at the time predicted it would, fatal to the Union.
When members were assigned to the Southern
States, not only in proportion to their white popu-
lation, but to that population augmented by three-
fifths of the slaves—" all other persons"—being
accounted as representative population, the Free-
men of America sold their birthright. They not
only tacitly sanctioned the immoral political incon-
sistency of founding a great Republic, with its
famous preamble on the natural rights of men, yet
one which deprived a whole race of men of their
equal rights, but they put actually power into the

hands of the very men who were guilty of
this social and political crime. Nay, they rewarded
them with power in proposition to the extent of
their guilt. A slave state might acqure the right
to send an additional member to Congress, merely
by purchasing a larger number of their hapless
fellow-creatures,

All the early great statesmen of America, even
WASHINGTON and JEFFERSON, though slavehelders
themselves, saw the danger, and hoped the arrange-
ments which had been made would prove fatal to
slavery. They have been as utterly mistaken as
most compromisers with evil generally are. Slave.
holders at first pleaded fate, necessity, the danger
of sudden measures, and that the evil, they too
deplored, was inevitable. Quickily, however, they
began to change their tone, and the civilized world
has seen with astonishment the most infernal evil
on earth becoming the controlling power in
America; giving Presidents, Supreme Court
Judges, a majority of the Senate, and eventually
every petty officer to the Union ; has seen
it annexing Texas, forcing compromises, abolishing
them when they stood in their way, endeavouring,
by Presidential treachery and by ruffian violence,
to subdue Kansas to slavery, enacting Fugitive
Slave laws to deprive men of liberty by a mock
trial, and by direct bribery of the Judge, such as he
was---the civilised world beheld all this, and asked
—ls this Republicanism ? Are these things the per-
fection of free institutions? At last the uncon-
genial elements have separated, and separated, we
may hope, for ever, unless the Northerns hoist the
banner of abolition. This fourth of July ought
to bring to their minds, if anything can do
it, the folly and wickedness of the original com-
pact between Freemen and Slaveholders. Unless
that contract of iniquity be broken up, the
Union ought to be shattered. The civilised world
cannot wish to see the Free States again ham-1
pered and corrupted by a close union with Slave-
holders. Better by far, if slavery cannot be
abolished, that the Free North should remain un-
fettered by associations with what has proved to
be so debasing and corrupting to its national
character: While even in despotic countries, in
Europe, the sentiments of the people were right
enough in regard to personal slavery, it was the
rarest thing in the world, before Mr. LINCOLN'S
olootion, to meet an American who 15-115 not at