The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-05 00:00:00

4, A YANKEE'S" PREDIC7ION.

The Spectator last Saturday published a letter
from its American correspondent, "A Yankee,"
who, we regret, has not lately spoken from that
pulpit—to borrow a phrase of his own. We pre-
sume " A Yankee" was annoyed with the comments
of the Spectator on his former letters. Indeed there
was internal evidence before he ceased to write that
he was boiling up into a state of indignation.
The Spectator's ignorance of the value of States'
Rights has attracted him again into its columns,
and the importance it attaches to his commu-
nications is clear from the dignity it accords
of " Special" Correspondent. It does not re-
quire the critical acumen of the Spectator to
discover how able a writer he is, and as a tra-
velled, highly cultivated, and genuine Yankee hi.-
letters carry weight. In substance he says that the
Republicans will be defeated in the Presidential
election unless GRANT'S popularity can carry them
to a success, because their platform infringes on
States' Rights. The oue idea which pervades
American society alike in Massachusetts and in
Ohio, in the Carolinas and in Louisiana, is States'
Rights—the sovereignty of the State in a municipal
capacity in contradistinction to the sovereignty
of the Federal Government in a national capa-
city. Were the angel GABRIEL nominated on
a platform destructive of States' Rights he
would have no chance of an election, nor even the
"Fallen Angel," for whom it is said "the Demo-
crats
would vote to a man if he received a regular
nomination," and declaring the Chicago platform
to encroach on States' Rights, he believes in a Re-
publican defeat. Glancing over the articles of
their platform, we find the first declares it to be the
duty of the Government to sustain the new Consti-
tutions of the Reconstructed States, which secure
equal political and civil rights to all, while the
second maintains the guarantee of Congress of
equal suffrage to every loyal man in the South.
So jealous are the people in preserving States'
Rights that they consider even this an infringe-
ment, the Reconstruction laws being a direct in-
fraction, which will turn thousands who fought
to maintain the Union in support of the Demo-
crats who uphold these privileges. The war
settled two questions in the negative—Whether the
South was justified in the invasion of States' Rights
by extending their "domestic institution" into
States where the people rejected it ; and whether
the Southern States, failing in that, had the right
to secede. The North fought for States' Rights as

involved in the first question, the South as involved in
the second question. But" A Yankee " shows how
mistaken is the impression in England that the South
strove to maintain States' Rights in their integrity
against a usurping majority of the North. A
Federal Government of Sovereign States is that under
which the citizens have hitherto lived, and that they
intend to maintain. A central Sovereignty might
be a better form of Government ; but it is not, and
never has been, the Government of the United
States, and, what is more, whe.ler GRANT or SEY-
MOUR be elected, it never will be, at least while the
people are in their present moss. States' Rights
alone preserve the Republic from the despotism of a
majority, under whose rule the minority would have
no rights the majority were bound to respect. To
intrench on States' Rights is to introduce a total
change in the G)vernment, equally obnoxious to
the New Englander and to the Southerner, the
Western man and the Californian. The platform,
then, which in the slightest degree proposes to
invade rights so jealously guarded, is opposed to
the opinions of the citizens, and will heal to the
defeat of the party putting down such a plank.
We grant the strong feeling in favour of States'
Rights ; we admit that a change in the municipal
Sovereignty of the States would revolutionize the
Republic; and we allow that the interference of
Congress in the domestic affairs of the Southern
States is in a high degree objectionable. But the
circumstances are peculiar, the necessity over-
whelming, for bow otherwise could the objects of
the war be secured? Tais question is always
evaded by the men who can-le an the action of
Congress. If the Southern States insisted on ex-
tending the " domestic institntioa" into States
which rejected it; to make the North a hunting
ground for slave-catchers, and •failing that fou;h,
for secession, the North has a right to intr )duce
the Free-soil law of their States into the South.

This the Southerners do not dispute ; at leist they
bow to the necessity and accept it. Bat they urtia-
tain that there the power of the canqueAng North
should cease, and that they should leave the Negro
in the South in the same position he holds in the
North, where he is a free man, but not a citizen.
The moderate Republican, in reply, says—Yes :
could the position of the Negro be secured in the
South as in the North under the Northern system.
hereia lies the difficulty. Sappoing all die-

PRIM... 4d.
STAMPED bd

abilities and troops withdrawn from the S)uthern
Mates, precisely the same men would rule
tow as before the war. In the North the
Negro is of no cousecpence, and he is de-
lied the suffrage in many States simply from
irejudice,, not that he could in the slightest degree
1() him ; but this is of the less consequence, as, al-
houghThe is socially obnoxious, th is neither the
!accost nor the desire to harM him. In the South
ee c tse is quite different, for the mate! ial prosperity
if these St Iles almost wh )lly depea Is on the ,dis-
ositioa the n .gro will evince to work, and in
tie of disinclinaqon oe his part the power of
ompelsion to make him do so to be place I
s the halls of the wilies is the difficulty.
f the rule of the Southern planter were un-
Itecked, the Northern belief is that SA!,I3O'S
m•litioa would soon resemble that of a slave.
Wherefore the Northern man maintains that he
oust either be "a citizen or a chattel." Tiis the
Democrat disputes, asserting that he has long main-
nined a position which is neither the one nor the
)ther in the N attwra Sates. Bat why did not
" A Yankee" give the reason, which he mast have
'tnowa so well, that in the North it was no one's
uterest to interfere with him, while in the South he
vas the vital question. Granting the sacredness of
Mates' R;ghts, there are other rights more sacred
still; and if the declaratioi oa whic'a the Re-
oublic is based, that all anon are elual and en-
itled to the pursuit of happiness, is true, it must
werri le the right of a State t ) hell in servitu le a
race of human beings, or to enact laws compelling
labour. A glance at the growth of the Federation
shows that however tenaciously held, these rights
save neither in a great majority of instances been
sanctioned by ancient usage, nor acquired and sanc-
tified by the blood of the former dwellers on
the soil. Only thirteen States wrested indepen-
dence from the mother country, but there are
now 37 States ; that is, a number almost double of
the original has been added to the Union. As no
Provision existed under the old Confederation for •
forming and admitting new States it had to be
created, and 24 having adopted, assented to, and
ratified the Constitution, have became, integral
parts of the Union. Whenever a territory within
the jurisdiction of the Republic shall have attained
a sufficient • population either of citizens of the
Union or immigrants from foreign countries it be-
comes admissible into the Union with equal rights,
privileges, and powers with the original States.
Hence the 13 have been swamped by districts of
whose existence the inhabitants who fought the
War of Independence were unaware. Before
these territories attained to the dignity of
States the power of Congress was exclusive and
universal. The Governor, Secretary, United States
Attorney, and Marshal are appointed for four years
by the PRESIDENT, and all laws passed by the
elected Council and Representatives, though ap-
proved by the Governor, are null and voi I if dis-
approved by Congress. It is true that each terri-
tory is represented by a delegate in the Congres-
4ional House of Representatives, with the right to
take part in a debate wherein his constituents are
interested, but without a vote. When such a ter-
ritory rises into 'the dignity of a State it acquires
rights all are bound to respect—but such rights do
not override the very principle whereon the Re-
public has been built. The Spectator's correspondent
maintains the absolute sovereignty of the State in
all matters not delegated to the Federal Govern-
ment, and hence its right is indisputable to pass
any law regulating suffrage or property, no matter
how absurd. Theoretically this is true, but prac-
tically it is not; for no community eould run riot,
and enact unjust and absurd laws,,without affecting
their neighbours, who when injured have the right
to interfere. If " A Yankee" wants a proof of
this, he has it in his own illustration. The
Southern States chose to cherish what they called
a " domestic institution," which, in truth, militated
against Republican ideas of man's right. That
institution was as old as the settlement of the coun-
try, the negroes and the Puritans being landed is
America in the same year. Yet, with all the
weight attached to ancient usage, and to property
inherited from the forefathers of the existing citi-
zens, it was unable to withstand the contact, and
was abolished by a war which liberated the slaves
almost by annihilating the masters. If any State
passes laws which militate against equity and
the general welfare, States'. Rights will not pro-
tect that State from a Federal interference, be-
cause the national welfare is of greater importance
than the right of any State, and will crush it if they
come into collision. The position is
.curious, for
the general sense is against negro equality, yet
that sense is even more decidedly opposed to any-
thing savouring of slavery, and the problem is
how to secure the rights of the black man without
placing him on an equality with the white man, a
proposition easier to propound than to elucidate.
We have followed " A Yankee" through all his
letters, and we recognize in him a thorough repre-
sentative of his class. He gives expression to an
immense range of thought in the United States,
and grasping and imbued as he is with the feel-
ings of a large portion of his fellow-citizens,
he has boldly predicted, and has generally
proved a true prophet. Whether he is right in
predicting Republican defeat unless saved by GRANT
will soon be shown, but he concludes his letter by
stating that if the Republicans gain the Presidential
election it will be in spite of their platform ; and if
the Democrats, it will be sin spite of their ticket.—
Anglo-ilmerican Times.

The Great Eastern steamship is likely soon to be
afloat again. She is now being prepared to lay down the
Franco-American cable.

----- -
The news from Hongkong, July 24, contains a
rumour that Europeans have been appointed to assist in
the Government at Pekin. This bears out the views and
opinions advocated by this paper with regard to the Chi-
nese. On the 19th June 147 Japanese labourers arrived
at Honolulu, in the Scioto. For a long time past
the Hawaiian Consul at Yokohoma, Mr. Van Reed,
at the instance of the Board of Immigration, has
been endeavouring to negotiate with the Japanese autho-
rities for permission to send to the Sandwich Islands Ja-
panese who might be willing to engage for a term of years
on specified wages, the faith and honour of the Hawaiian
Government being pledged to the protection and care of
the immigrants, and to the fulfilment of the stipulations of
the contract. But consent was withheld until recently,
when the Tycoon's Government replied that passports
would be granted to such Japanese as should enter into
engagements with the Consul. Mr. Van Reed, supplied
with the means, and under the authorization of the
Board, proceeded at once to engage three hundred and fifty
labourers, twenty of them having wives, and to charter
the Scioto to carry them. At Yokohama the Japanese
were eager to embark, and clamorous to be among those
selected to go, and doubtless their personal condition and •
earnings will be better abroad than in their own country.
Under these circumstances it is hoped that this experiment
may result in mutual satisfaction both to the employer and
employed. These Japanese have loft their country under
no written contracts. There is only the agreement of the
Hawaiian Consul, as agent of the board, with the Japanese
authorities, that the wages shall be $4 per month, with
food, clothing, and medical attendance, and a free passage
from, and return at the end of three years to Japan.
They are under verbal engagements to perform the ser-
vice required to the Board, which has the right to assign
this service to others, and is responsible for the ptyment
of the wages and the faithful performance of all the stipu-
latons of the engagement with them on the part of their

employers.
It is declared that James Stephens, the head-
centre and chief organiser of Fenianism, h•is returned
t) Paris, whore he has resumed his old profession as
tetyther of languages. His brief career of glory, during
which Irishmen at home and abroad were only too glad
to pay tribute to him, ended with his singular escape from
the Dublin prison. Whether that escape was brought
about by the ingenuity of his Fenian friends, or by the
design of the Government for the sake of making a better
use of him, it destroyed the illusion of martyrdon, and was
fatal to his influence. lie did not succeed in winning
a very great place even among Irish heroes, and the sud-
den collapse of his fortune shows how unsubstantial was
the support he professed to have when his reputation was
at the highest.—Bost :n Advertiser.
it is announced. that during this month negotia-
tions will be opened in London for concluding a postal
treaty botweeu Switzerland and Great Britain,