The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-08 00:00:00

ATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION.

led A

ford University ! But, while Sir STAFFORD would
be regarded pretty generally as " a safe man" (not,
of course, in the Frail sense of the words!), there
might just possibly be felt some few deli-
cate qualms in reference to the convenient
ductility or plasticity of the opinions of the
new Solicitor-General. These considerations,
moreover, are altogether apart from the remem-
brance of the somewhat graceless manner in which
the Solicitor-General could alone claim the suffrages
of the University constituency. This is, of course,
after having cavalierly thrown aside poor Mr. RICH
and his vacated seat down at Richmond.

The American papers which arrived by the
Adriatic are filled rather with speculations on old
facts, and accounting for them, than with new ones.
The State of Harper's Ferry, the plans of General
SCOTT, the position of the forces under General
BUTLER on the Chesapeake, all are subject of dis-
quisition, but there is no important movement.
The Anti-English fever is represented as cooling
down a little. Mr. SEWARD, it is thought, com-
pelled us to bethink ourselves, and Mr. ADAMS
came over and has taught our bewildered states-
men to think aright. The New York herald thus
states the most important questions which will be
discussed at the extra session of Congress,
—" 1. Sanction for the President's movements. 2.
Authorising a loan of two or three hundred million
dollars. 3. An act authorising the vigorous pro-
secution of the war. 4. A modification of the pre-
sent tariff. 5. A bankrupt law. 6. A tax on tea
and coffee. 7. A direct tax in absence of sufficient
revenue from customs." A week or so will change,
however, these speculations for facts; probably
they are guesses of men who are guided by the
gossip of public parties.
Amongst the most important facts is the simple
statement that—" The election returns received
from Kentucky up to the present time show that
nearly all the Union candidates have been elected."
This, combined with the election of Union candi-
dates in Maryland, when once the Federal troops
had liberated the voters from fear of Secessionist
violence, and with a known state of feeling in Mis-
souri and Tennessee similar to that of Kentucky,
must be worth a great deal to the Northern cause
All these important Border States have but a
small slave population ; in the larger part of each
of them hardly a slave is to be seen ; but the Slave
party, like the Aristocratic party, is the better or-
ganised ; its leaders are men of more leisure to
attend to public matters than those who have
their own business to mind, and hence in peacefill
times they have a disproportionate position and in-
fluence. The present quarrel brings out their numeri-
cal inferiority and comparative feebleness, and the
Union, or Anti-slavery party, assert their real
strength. There seems every probability of the
Border States becoming reunited with the North
by their own act. Kentucky is an influential State;
she at first insisted on neutrality, but if the majo-
rity of her own electors go for the Union, and that
while Federal forces are at hand to back them, the
slave-holding minority must give way.
To this we must add the singular fact of the new,
irregularly chosen Assembly atWheeling,inWestern
Virginia, setting itself up as the State Governmen

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and repudiating the old State Government as null
and void through its treason. Mr. LINCOLN has
acknowledged this irregular Government, an act
which seems as technically inconsistent as any well
can be. The Convention was a purely spontaneous
eelf-originated body. Within the State of Virginia
it seceded from the State Government as informally
as, in the general Union, the Confederated States
seceded from the United States. We may think, and
President LINCOLN may think, that technicalities
are to give way. Be it so, but he reasoned in
exactly the reverse way at first. Re treated the
Secession as a nullity. He knew of no such thing
as Secession, because the laws and constitution
knew nothing of it. He strained every nerve
at
first to act as if there were no such facts as seizure of
Customhouses and ports, and States banded toge-
many of his friends thought that his
they, and even

policy, which seems to have been the ono of Mr.

SEWARD, did much to nurse the rebellion itself.
It will not be without advantage to the Union if
Mr. LINCOLN now boldly deals with all things as
they really are, and with or without martial law,

asserts the paramount necessity of shaping his

course by the object he has in view, and not by

Legal subtleties.

Altogether, we cannot seriously anticipate
for one instant that Mr. ROUNDELL
PALMER meditates any longer aspiring to
represent the University of Oxford in Parliament
in the event of Mr. GLADSTONE'S resignation. It
is true that " A Conservative Member of Convoca-
tion," writing from Oxford on Saturday to our
chief morning contemporary, says very confidently
—" If Mr. GLADSTONE should retire from the
representation of the University, it is the fixed de-
termination of a large number of Conservative
members of Convocation to use their utmost efforts
for the return of Mr. ROUNDELL PALMER." Ob-
serve—" it is the fixed determination of a large
number of Conservative members of Convocation "
that is promised in favour of the new Solicitor-
General in Lord PALMERSTON'S Whig-Radical-
Free-trading-Conservative emnium gatherum Go-
vernment ! Surely there is nothing after
all like a Coalition—huzza for the Coalition !
viva the Olio of Oddities ! long life to the variegated
or party-coloured all-sided Rhomboid administra-
tion, the scope of whose policy is ao ample as to
embrace within it an obedient regard (not to speak
it profanely) for the memorable advice to make
friends " out of the mammon of unrighteoussess.''
And so the soi-disant Liberal Solicitor-General
is to be enticed, if possible, at the eleventh hour,
into forsaking Mr. RICH and Richmond, by the
prospect of the support to be accorded to him at the
University of Oxford by " a large number
of Conservative members of Convocation."
Whatever may be said in behalf of any
such (under present circumstances) particularly
ill-timed and ill-advised proposition, we cannot now
believe it to be in any way probable that Mr.
ROUNDELL PALMER will thus lay himself open to
the all but dead certainty of an ignominious discom-
fiture. Such would indubitably be the fate reserved
for him, we are perfectly well persuaded, if under
these altered circumstances he should rashly be de-
luded into opposing down at Oxford the formid-
able. and we may add, too, the popular candidate
of the Opposition, Sir STAFFORD NORTHCQTE, the
DERBY-DISRAELI Chancellor of the Exchequer tha'
is to be.