The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-15 00:00:00

MON 1?CllY I.Y 711 E UNITED ST ATES.

The Round Table does not write for sensation—
it does not stray out of the regions of common sense
into those of extravagance to get talked about, or
to produce a remarkable article, which may be ex-
tensively copied into the 'Columns of its contempo-
raries. Yet our readers may perhaps accuse the
Round Table of doing this, when it actually predicts
the near approach of a monarchy in the United
States. We go see-sawing, like boys on a board
—one high up, the other low down; the one with a
diadem, the other with a cap of liberty ; one, the
voice of the Sovereign, the other, that of the people.
If so just as England is hastening to a Radical De-
mocracy, the United States, having completed that
cycle, goes in for Sovereignty. This is the idea of
the Round Table, and it certainly does not write
without authority and experience. The political
changes in the Union have been equalled only by
the social changes. It is probable that the South
has by this time a government of its own, but in-
stead of the government it yearned after and
fought for it has an irresponsible military dictator.
GRANT, ruling the States lately in rebellion, in a
position above law, and supported by an army, is
no less than a despotic monarch over a third
of the great Republic. This follows on a great
war, on a rent Constitution, on a PRESIDENT
stripped of power, on a Supreme Court deprived
of the Constitutional appeal, and on a usurp-
ing Congress which claims tomake and unmake Dic-
tators. The Round Table believes in a growing per-
suasion that American institutions, in their present
form, are inadequate to meet prospective require-
ments, and that a change is necessary which pos-
sibly may assume a revolutionary character. Re-
publican simplicity and provincial prejudices have
vanished before wealth and cosmopolitan know-
ledge. But there are others besides these natural
changes which have followed on the great war that
lead to an uneasiness seen in the faces and heard
in the speech of men who care about their country,
arising from a consciousness of both the need and
imminence of readjustment of some sort, with the
uncertainty as to what those readjustments ought to
be. The whole surface and current of society has
changed and is changing from the simple, frugal,
even-toned Republic of the past, with a surging swift-
ness that reminds one of the rapids which rush down
to swell the great cataract. The provision to meet this
shows one great advantage which Englani possesses
in an unwritten Constitution that grows with the
people and adapts itself to altering circumstances,
over a written instrument whose limits of flexibility
are precisely defined, but whose infringement
will always endanger the national peace. These are
very nearly the words of the Round Table, and it
goes ou to state—" We are no advocates of mo-
narchy or irresponsible government in any form,
yet we certainly believe that most of the evils under
which we labour are the legitimate fruits of carry-
ing popular theories of government to a licentious
extreme—an extreme never contemplated by the
founders of the Republic. The warning has been heard
so often that it falls on partly calloused ears, but our
career towards military despotism threatens to be a
swift and straight one. We have carried our trusts
in majorities too far ; we have disregarded the right
of minorities too long ; we have accepted the voice
of the people as the voice of GOD, and have hugged
to ourselves the stupid blunder that ignorance work-
ing in masses would breed wisdom, notwithstanding
that ignorance in the individual, breeds folly." Not
only does the Round 2 able believe that a plebiscite
vote, black and white, might sanction the follow ing of
the French example, but it maintains that the political
reaction lately set in, promises to be so confusing to
most previous calculations as to arrest or deflect the

national course. "Should it fail to do so, and no spe-
cial dispensation be reserved that is yet unseen, we
may be nearer than most Americans would be willing
to believe to the Sceptre and the Diadem." Suppos-
ing there is truth in this remarkable statement, what
an extraordinary change would be wrought. At
the very time that England is becoming American-
ized, and all Europe feels the influence of her Re-
publican propagandism, it will be passing strange if
America should rush into a monarchy ! Though Ame-
ricans might scout with disdain the notion, yet it
does not follow that the reaction announced by the
Round Table is not in operation. Americans move
with a startling rapidity, and changes occur so
great as absolutely to take away the breath, and
leave the slow, gazing in open-mouthed wonder at
the progress of the State machine. History
backs the arguments of the Round Table, and
there seems, as it says, a certain grim fatality
in the political experience of nations which com-
pels the repetition of historic sequences. At
the same time that we grant the astounding
nature of such a revolution, we maintain that a
change little less in degree has been effected
in England, which had any one predicted, a
few years ago, would be inaugurated and car-
ried into effect by the country party, he would
have been considered mad. It is easier to
wrench power from the people than from a class.
The multitude individually surrender little, though
the aggregate of that little, makes a C.ESAR. But
the few surrender much, and cling tenaciously to
what they possess. Americans generally hold
that to the New World cannot be applied the ex-
periences of the Old; but history is rapidly dispel-
ling this delusion. They move on, however, in the
comfortable assurance generated by their faith till
inexorable fate overtakes them. Twenty years ago
few would have believed that they had to fight
a mighty conflict to preserve their cherished Union.
But the other day their violated Constitution was a
venerated document. If time has with so sacrilegi-
ous a hand dealt with institutions held thus sacred,
why should the rule of the majority be exempt
from overthrow? Our lands, says the Round Table,
are filling up with unexampled rapidity ; our taxes
are burdensome beyond precedent ; the interest of
the various sections—chiefly through bungling and
unscientific legislation—are becoming almost di-
rectly antagonistic; enormously rich men are ap-
pearing, who, by controlling great railroads, and other
potential levers, are acquiring an ascendancy which
threatens to become highly dangerous to the people
at large. A love of luxury and a habit of vain-
glorious expenditure have developed into propor-
tions that irresistibly suggest historical precedents
as lessons. These, in the opinion of the Round
Table, are foreshadowings of the Purple, and
although we firmly believe that the great Re-
public is a long way from such a change, yet the
arguments are not without weight, and who can
tell what the future has in store ? Those who
ground their faith in human progress on Republi-
can institutions, will receive a shock from such ideas.
A revolution that substituted monarchy on the ruins
of the Republic would to them be simple sacrilege.
However imperfect now, they
.hold that education
will gradually fit the masses for self-government.
Monarchy in the United States means the abandon-
ment of a belief in Democracy by the human race,
and of all hope of ever fitting mankind fur his
natural privilege of self-rule.—Anglo-American
Times.