The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-17 00:00:00

IHE SUN, LONDON, TlitilSDA iv II7EN NO, DEC E MBER 17, 18NI.

to introduce the preposterous regulation that their
wishes should bind all future generations.
The free soil party had become so numerous
that there was no possible chance of their being
out-manoeuvred or out-numbered, either by the
fraud or violence of the planters in the neighbour-
ing States, and thus the last convulsive effort was
to retain Kansas as a slave State, despite the
decided objections of an overwhelming majority
of the people.
Two of the sections of the quasi-constitution are
so extraordinary that we shall repeat them here.
They are to the following effect :
" Section 1. The right of property is before and
higher than any constitutional sanction, and the
right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its
increase is the same and as inviolable as the right
of the owner of any property whatever.
" Section 2. The Legislature shall have no power
to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without
the consent of the owners, or without paying the
owners previous to their emancipation a full equi-
valent in money for the slaves so emancipated."

We have heard in the olden time of " the right
divine of kings," and, against that claim, " the
pilgrim fathers" and their descendants and suc-
cessors, boldly and manfully protested. From
that protest sprang the model Republic. It is
the very foundation of its constitution, to which
"Statesmen" refer with just pride. But a new de-
scription of divine right is to be substituted. It
is the right of man to seize his fellow-man and re-
duce him to the most degraded position—not su-
perior in any degree to the beasts of burden—
with whom he is associated. The language is
carefully selected so as to show the feelings with
which he is regarded. "The right of the owner
of a slave to such slave and its (sic) increase is the
same, and as inviolable as the right of the owner
to any other property whatever." Could any
phraseology so vividly depict the condition of the
unfortunates, who are submitted to the tender
mercies of men, we beg pardon, of planters capal3le
of framing such a clause.
Then comes, however, the great attempt after
laying down the principle (!) which may be re-
garded as the preamble of the Act, they declare
that the Legislature shall have ne power to pass
laws for the emancipation of slaves without the
consent of the owners, or without paying the
owners, previous to their emancipation, a full
equivalent in money for the slaves so emancipated !
No power ! A Legislature without power seems
an absurdity. The law abhors a perpetuity, and
there must rest a power somewhere to repeal or
modify any law ever enacted, or that can be
enacted. America is said to be the land of pro-
gress : and there we should find the doctrine of
" finality " less favoured than in this country.
But here it was only asserted that there ought to
be no interference. The right to do so, if the
Legislature thought fit, was never questioned.
The Ness York Herald, which gives a sensible,
straightforward article on the point, very perti-
nently inquires, " Where did these LECOMPTON
philosophers derive the power to supersede the
sovereignty of the People ?" adding, "If this Con-
vention could assume and stretch its power as an
absolute despotism for seven years, why not for 70
or 100 years to come ? They might just as well
have said that the people of Kansas shall have no
authority to alter their constitution till the year
1964, as the year 1864."

1 The act appears to contain contradictory pro-
visions. In a schedule it is stated, that on the
21st of this month the people are to vote by bal-
lot for " the constitution with slavery," or "the
constitution with no slavery." In the latter
case, however, there is a strange exception,
that " the right to slaves now in the
territory shall in no manner be inter-
fered with." The people vote for no slavery,
but still there shall be no interference with the
right to slaves now in the territory ; and in other
parts it recognises the right of the slaveholders of
other states to settle in Kansas, with their pro-
perty ;" was there ever so flagrant an attempt at
establishing a pro-slavery despotism, in opposition
t..) the will of the people 7
It is manifestly, however, a spasmodic effort of
the planters to obtain a final advantage. It is
alike opposed to every principle of common sense
and constitutional law, and will be set aside with
the ridicule it so eminently merits.

And Prince ADAM CZARTORYSKI—of whom we
spoke on Monday evening—surely every one who
knows anything at all about Poland, knows per-
fectly well who is Prince ADAM GEORGE CZAR-
TORYSICI 1 The world's history has record of his
antecedents. They extend in a conspicuous manner
over an interval of considerably more than half
a century. During sixty years of his protracted
and illustrious life, the Prince has been before
Europe vividly either in power or in exile—always
as a patriot—often as a statesman—long under the
bitterest load of misfortune—never disheartened.

Briefly to sum up the particulars of this re-
markable career by an enumeration of its most
notable incidents, let us here add a catalogue
of the principal events marking the life of t his
honoured and revered chief of the great Polish
Association.

Prince ADAM GEORGE CZARTORYSKI, then, is
mainly entitled to the consideration of his con-
temporaries, and to the remembrance of posterity,
for inasmuch as he will survive in the annals of
his native land as the some time President of the
National Government of Poland. When Poland
last existed as a nation, he was the foremost among
her rulers—less her CROMWELL or hsr BONAPARTE,
than her HOFER or her WASHINGTON. Between
the twenty-ninth and thirtieth of November,
1830, the signal was given for the last grand
rising of the Poles. It was struck in the ancient
Cipital of Poland, and the hand that sounded it
was the hand of CZARTORYSK[. Twenty-seven
years have since then gone by, but that occurrence
is not in any way forgotten, either by Poland or
by Europe. And long, very long, yet please
GOD, will it be cherished by the former—the
memory of that last patriotic explosion, when for
a brief interval the compatriots of SOBIESKI and
KOSCIUSKO regained their existence as a people,
once more under the leadership of one
having a hereditary claim upon the confi-
dence, and even be it said in a measure upon
the allegiance of the Polish population. For the
Pt file° ADAM CzARTORYSKI—ex-President of the
National Government of Poland—is lineally de-
scended from a branch of the sovereign house of
the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, a family ulti-
mately seated upon the throne of Poland,
in the fourteenth century, under the title
of the dynasty of the Jagellons. But alto-
gether apart from his august ancestry, this your-
raLle patriot has claims of a personal character upon
the grateful notice of his fellow countrymen, second
to those of no Polish Prince now surviving. In
ievidence of the commanding nature of these per•
what ni a chlaasi mbse
been
nf his,
already it is only
said
dof necessaryth the
last ts oi reiteratexty y years
lu s
of his existence, that in the cause of Poland 01Ey
have been
passed in
anperpetual vicissitude. la yids-
t
situde so strange
hequered. as to read more
like romance than reality. Instance this the ex-
tremes of those sixty years' public service ! At the
close
under hotfle reign an exile in the capital of France
of one Emperor NAPoLitorr. At
the commencement of the nineteenth centuiy,

during the sway of another Emperor, the man
designated by France, and afterwards by the
world at lsrge, NAPOLEON le Grand—what ?
What at the beginning of this last half-century was
Prince ADAM CZARTORYSKI ? Is it forgotten The
mere appearance of the incongruity of his position,
and of his character, will, of itself, be sufficient
surety, one may well imagine, that the former
(namely, his position nearly sixty years ago), can-
not speedily be lost to the popular recollection.
And that ?—Was it not the position of the per-
sonal and intimate friend, and associate, and
minister of the CZAR of all the Russias, the then
reigning Autocrat ALEXANDER ? Already, in 1788,
he (Prince ADAM) had completed his education,
and had then traversed, in succession, Germany,
France, and England—noting well, in the latter
country, during the days of WILLIAM PITT,
and CHARLES Fox, and EDMUND BURKE,
the evidence recognizable even then of the
beneficent influence (in spite of all the storms of
party warfare) of a purely constitutional Govern-
ment. Enrolled in 1791 in the ranks of the
Polish army, then struggling to vindicate against
the legions of Russia their national independence
and the integrity of the newly organized consti-
tution, CZARTORYSKI during the campaign of
the following year was decorated, in conside-
ration of his heroic services, with the mili-
tary cross of Poland. The CZAR PAUL not
long afterwards witnessed with peculiar chagrin,
almost with dismay, the intimacy which
soon sprung up between the young Polish
Prince and the heir to a power wielding a sceptre
of the most perfectly irresponsible despotism over
sixty millions of the human race ! Out of that
strange friendship between the Czar ALEXANDER
and the Prince CZARTORYSKI sprang the power of
the latter at St-. Petersburg, and the hopes of his
country for many years afterwards. Russian
Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1803, CZARTO-
RYSKI continued to hold that high and responsible
position until 1806, when beholding his com-
patriots en masse ranging themselves under the
banners and attaching themselves to the fortunes
of NAPOLEON the GREAT—the Polish Statesman
(patriot above all things) threw aside the Russian
portfolio. Everyone knows that in 1812 it
rested with the Emperor NAPOLEON, by a
word—by a stroke of the pen—to have
summoned Poland once more as a king-
dom int) existence. That word—unhappily
for Poland (and for NAPOLEON also !)—was not
spoken. Eighteen years sped by, and again the
hopes of Poland were revived. Again, for one
brief and glorious interval, it was actually visible
again to Europe as an independent Government, and
at the head of that Government was CZARTORYSKI.
Twenty-seven more years pass by—the patriots of
Poland all the while in exile—and year by year
at Paris are the words of consolation and encou-
ragement addressed to his heroic and' afflicted
countrymen by the venerable Prince, who is re-
cognised by them as Chief among the Champions
of their Nationality. Surely, surely, a spectacle
this entirely commanding our sympathy—one to
which our hearts at once offer instinctively the
unaffected homage of our respect and of our ad-

COURT CIRCULAR.

OSBORNE, DEC. 16.

rezular and satisfactory. The interruption of diplomatic
relations with a neighbouring state, arising from causes
which Europe has been able to appreciate, still exists,
but it leads to no cessation of the ordinary intercourse
between the two countries in civil and commercial mat-
ters.

" I have ordered my government to communicate to
you s,:me new treaties concluded with Spain, Denmark,
and Persia, in the interest of justice, navigation, and
commerce. The development of our commercial interests
in foreign countries has rendered a better organisation
of our consular service indispensable, and a measure
will be brought before you for the purpose,
4' My Ministers will submit to your consideration va-
rious bills relatieg to questions of internal administration.
It will be possible, by means of a rigorous economy, to
maintain in the budget an equilibrium between the ordi-
r ary receipts and expenditure, notwithstanding the un-
favourable events which have impeded the regular develop-
ment o' the State resumes. It will, however, be necessary
to have recourse to a loan for the purpose of meeting
the expense of the great works commenced at Spezia
and Mount Cenis for the defence of the State, or for the
honour of the country. (Applause.)
"Senators and deputies, ten years have elapsed since
my august father, anxious for the liberty of his people,
accorded them our present constitution. Endeavouring
to make every act of my life in conformity with that
high-minded act, I consecrate all my strength to carry
out and enlarge the idea which had suggested it. (Loud
applause.) May his memory, which, this day symbolised
iu marble, I confide to your veneration, inspire all your
deliberations for the welfare and glory of Piedmont and
of our common land of Italy." (Immense cheering.)