The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-19 00:00:00

THE UNITED STA7ES.

One of the most peremptory duies of journalism I
is to expose insidious misrepreseneitiens, It is not
in our power to arrest the motives which instigate
attempts at political imposture ; but we can lay
bare the cheat whenever it shows itself, and, pain-
ful as the service is, we are bound to render it as
frequently as it may be required. The glaring ab-
surdity of pretending that the stability of the Ame-
rican Union is in danger by the working of Univer-
sal Suffrage, is only equalled by the pertinacity
with which the assertion is repeated. How dense
must be the state of political ignorance en which
writers of such mis-statements rely, and how dan-
gerous it must be if such ignorance pervades any
extensive portion of the classes whose prejudices
and weaknesses are flattered by such fables, and who
naturally unite in resisting popular demands ! It
is indeed hardly credible that fictions so unlike fact
should be republished for the sake of the brief
influence they are expected to have on the unthink-
ing. One day we are told that nobody in this coun-
try wants Reform, because nobody who already has
the franchise asks for it. Next day we are told
that to allow taxpaying householders to vote for
representatives is to Americanise our institutions.
Americanism is assumed to be identical with uni-
versal and indiscriminate democracy ; and then we
are informed, with serious air and philosophic tone,
that the fabric of American society is about to be
rent asunder by the wild will of universal suffrage.
What can be more gratifying to the heieditary
opponent of all reform than such a string of solemn
looking slanders on the principle and practice of
popular self-rule? 111-informed and uninquiring
though he be, he can hardly help knowing that
America is a signal illustration of the worth of
representative government, but he still likes to
be told that it is on the high road to ruin, and
wishes to believe that its approaching downfall
is the result of democracy. The people of this
country neither believe nor wish to believe in
the ruin of the great Commonwealth of their
kindred beyond the ocean ; but whatever
perils be in store for it, arising out of the schism of
the Southern States, they well know that these
perils originate, not from the application or mis-
application of the democratic principle in South
Carolina, Georgia, or Virginia, but conspicuously
and notoriously from its absence in those States.
The Southern States are not, and never were, demo-
cracies in any sense of the term. The simple truth
is, and it cannot be too often repeated. that Vir-
ginia, Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida
were each and all expressly founded with oligarchic
care and oligarchic aim upon an oligarchic model.
All power and privilege was concentrated in the
planter caste ; and a servile multitude was provided
by regal. and aristecratic policy by whose unre-
quitted toil the governing few were to subsist.
Such as it was when founded by the courtier states-
men of Trance and England in the seventeenth
century, the system continues in the nineteenth ;
intensely oligarchical. Yet this is the 83 stem
whose sadden refusal to be any longer federatively
allied with the free polity of the North we are
gravely told is one of universal suffrage in a state
of mutiny.
It is rather strange, however, that in the same
breath menacing prognostics are held forth of the
triumph of the seceding provinces, and various
reasons are assigned for the expectation that the
Planter Confederacy about to arise will speedily
eclipse, in affluence and might, the poor Northern
remnant, in which men, regardless of their origin,
are treated as equal and free. If democratic
institutions he so fraught with suicidal ruin as
our Antis Reformers in this country aver, what
chance can there be of a new and splendid
combination of States being formed on that foun-
dation ? Or if the grandeur and glory of the
Southern Union said to be now about to be formed
he so clearly discernible in the future, how can
universal suffrage be the terrible thing it is de-
picted, for are not the Planter States all governed,
as is said, thereby ? We leave the solution of
these riddles to those who have unconsciously
propounded them. Meanwhile, let us note in
passing the auguries on which the horoscope of
Southern pre-eminence is cast. By the time Texas
has been filled up and redivided into four slave
States, aml Mexico has been conquered and reinocu-
lated with the love of negro driving, the stretch of
territory slong the seaboard from the northernmost
point of Virginia to the westernmost shore of the
great tropical gulf, and inland across the continent
following 36 degrees of latitude, will constitute the
richest and the noblest region in the -world, subject
to one form of civilised rule. Its navigable rivers,
numerous and large, its soil every-where prolific
and in great part virgin, its seaboard almosf un-
rivalled, its mineral treasures inexhaustible, and its
population—well, better say nothing about that ;
but, after all, what signifies, in the contemplation
of politicians who talk of democracies where the
few bear rule, and of universal suffrage where nine
men out of ten are not allowed to vote ? We
grieve to be obliged to say that in our estimate of
the possible future of America we see, on the con-
trary, cause for the deepest anxiety as to the fate
of civilisation, social and political, in the devoted
regions whose frantic oligarchs are striving to sever
them from the wise and enlightened rule founded
by Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Jay.
For the destiny of the free North, with its intelli-
gence and industry, its wealth and invention, its
love of equal liberty, and its love of equal law,
there is no cause for fear. Inferiority of soil, sea-
board, and streams, of mineral wealth, and of moun-
tain pasture, of sweep of domain and enjoyable
climate—the vigorous, fearless, self-reliant North
can afford, with a laugh, to admit it all, and yet
feel how transcendently stronger and richer,
nobler and happier, is its place among the nations.
If permanent severance there must be, the world
will soon comprehend the difference between a
compact nation of educated, free, and self- depen-
dent citizens, and a community of indolent and
insolent proprietors of land living in hourly dread
of a herd of slaves.—Daily News.

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, FRIDAY MORNING.

TILE DONEGAL MURDER.

The Derry Journal says :--
" Four or five persons, from the neighbourhood of Glen-
veagh, have been arrested on a charge of being concerned
in the murder of Mr. James Murray. For the last two or
three days a party of the Churchill constabulary have been
in this city, with Messrs. Dillon and Considine, stipendiary
magistrates. It is said that one of the persons engaged in
the murder has turned approver, and that, acting on th e
information thus obtained, the four or fivo men wer e
arrested, brought across Lough Swilly, lodged in Derry
Gaol for a time, and sent on to Lifford Gaol last night, with
an escort of constabulary. Another version is that the men
were arrested in the neighbourhood of this city. The police
seem to have acted with much prudence and secrecy in
effecting the capture. W have heard that the approver
states that the deceased was attacked by a numerous party,
that he shot one of them with his revolver, and that the
others then rushed on Murray, beat him to death, and threw
his body down the hill to the place where it was found. We
believe that the statements of the approver represent that
a widespread conspiracy existed to take away the Scotch-
man's life."

A correspondent of the Dublin Evening Post states
that the number of arrests made amounts to 17,and
that all the prisoners have been committed for fur-
ther examination.

VISIT OF LORD CHELMSFORD TO THE IRISH LAW
COURTS.

Yesterday considerable interest was excited at
the Four Courts by the appearance of Lord Chelms-
ford, who entered the Court of Error, where seven
of the judges were sitting—namely, the Lord Chief
Justice of the Queen's Bench, the Lord Chief Jus-
tice of the Common Pleas, the Lord Chief Baron of
the Exchequer, Mr. Justice Ball, Mr. Justice Fitz-
gerald, Mr. Justice Hayes, and Mr. Justice Chris-
tian. On the entrance of Lord Chelmsford the
judges rose, and received him with the greatest
cordiality, all of them shaking hands with him.
The noble and learned lord took his seat on the
left side of the judges, and remained there for some
time during the argument. When it became known
that he was present there was a regular rush of
visitors and strangers into the court. Lord Chelms-
ford is a fine, portly, amiable-looking man. During
the time he remained in court he appeared to pay
great attention to the case in progress. He also
visited the Consolidated Court, where Mr. Justice
Keogh was presiding ; the Court of Chancery,
where he paid his respects to the Lord Chancel-
lor ; and the Rolls Court.

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