New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1853-11-29
7EPEcTS OF THE FOREIGN NE WvS.

XSPEcTS or THE FOREIGN NEWS.
Our ffiends Of the Country Press, for whose
Independent good sense. as to American qustions,
~ cherish the greatest esteem, may have sources
Of information, o. to the urco-Russian quar-
rsl, which are not accessible to us. So we must
suppose, from the easy and assured confidence
With which they write about that which is, We
confess, an almo st inscrutable mystery to us
In our present state Of information, or even il
any at all likely to come, we despair of under
standing it. Possibly, they drink, from New
York, Boston, Philadelphia, or Washington pa
pcrs, an illumination which, to our eyes, is but
darkness. Though night-workers, 70 are not
nocturnal in our powers Of vision, and cannot
look through very complex matters without the
help Of little direct daylight. In this country
there is none ON these subjects. The best in
formed men among rs know exceedingly little
about Russisn affairs and still less of Turkish.
All they can do is, in the midst Of whimsical
preiudiess originally formed without any GER
tnin grounds, to adopt at second hand the opin-
ions ofFrsnce and England, themselves dictated
BY policy, or by party, and formed with little
real knowledge Of the politics of the farthest
edge of Europe. Thus all we can actually learn
Of these quarrels in the far East is BY their dim
reelection TO us from the uncertain mirror of
Engliah and French opinions and passions We
GA put no sort Of confidence in them. All the
world In those countries has taken sides with
Turkey: and getting every thing through them
We have not got and we shall not get single
fsct that favors Russia as long as it is possible
70 avoid it, While it was negotiation. the dis
closures were as one-sided as possible and yet
even then We discover that there are, within the
European dominions of Turkey and in her Asian
possessions next the Cars territories, no less
than twelve millions of Christians, whom the
Turk holds in civil bondage 1t is for them that
Nicholas processes to interfere That of course,
is not his sole object: but that is legitimate
one Why should not the powers who are inter-
fering take care that this object should be ac-
complished, and thus take away the possibility
Of his sfecting anything further The real
truth is, we suspect, that the freedom of all
these Christian populations, held in slavery by
half a. many Mahomedans, is willingly sacri-
fced. by Britain and France, to the European
"balance of power''-a thing in which we, in the
United States have certainly no great concern.
or, at any event, not by any means as much as
in the freeing Of twelve millions of Christians
from thraldom to half as many Of those barba-
rian unbelieyers, who have now. for 400 years,
sat, like Tartar camp, in the midst of one Of
the fairest parts of Christendom.
We have never had the least affection for the
Russians; nor do We, by any means, wish them
particularly well. On the other hand, we have
not for got the day when, after the brutal power
of the Sultan had been, for ages, tramplinr
upon the poor Greeks, we, in common with all
Who love the Cross as against the Turcoman
horse-tail, and freedom as against the most saw
age Of modern despotisms, gave all our wishes
and all our vows against these sons of the lying
prophet of Arabia, for whom nearly all Chris
tian countries seem struck with such sudden
love and fellowship. We in no manner share it.
II Russia be country of which the arbitrary
principles are adverse to all the ideas Of govern
ment which we love, Turkey is at least equally
30, and it, besides, our foe in religion In short,
We know that we have not the means of deciding
on which side lies the justice of the quarrel:
and, as to all the rest, we stand in the happy
position Of him who cared not whit which got
the better, Trojan or Tyrian.
II, however, we be unwilling to make one of
the blind guessers or ill-informed sympathisers
in the politics Of Constantinople, we understand
that part of all these questions which concerns
the United States. They-let Britain or France
play what part they may, and make or not make
themselves portions Of this matter--haye but
one plain course to take. II they allow them
selves to be led by their "sympathies into any
other, they will commit folly the most deplo.
rable. That course is the old and sober one.
which has heretofore not only kept us safe, but
made US sosingularly fourishing -entangle.
mont upon any pretence, in European affairs.
Woe to the Administration and the President,
whoever they may be, who shall, no matter un-
der what instigation, abandon this clear policy
and plunge us into war not our own.
Certainly there is about us, unhappily for the
country, large body of ill-advised feeling,
that would ask no better than to join in all such
contests, and volunteer or borrow European
wars, for every body's behoof but our own. We
have citizens yet i'll enough acquainted with
their own new duties towards the land that has
adopted them to wish to slake at its expense all
the resentments, all the dreams, of that which
they have left. That it should still be clear 10
them is but natural, and, until such an attach
ment lnterferes with what is now their supreme
obligation, right But they must, unless they
would become citizens as pernicous to us as to
themselves, take to their hearts new and a
olemn lesson, and learn that they are, as to
very public duty, no longer Europeans, but
Americans alone. In admitting them into the
'reat fellowship Of our freedom, we have ac-
epted no partnership in their former condition
We cannot follow back the wrongs from which
hey have fed; we have adopted them, but
either their loves nor their hates. They have
ut half-forsworn their foreign allegiance, if
hey still retain fealty to Irish or French or
ierman or Italian passions, that they were
ound not to bring with them, or to pluck from
heir bosoms, as soon as they can. A good
ltlzen must renounce all such things He must
I'VE no country but his own he must hate no
ountry but one that is at war with her.
Let our adopted citizens learn, above all
hings, this salutary lesson. Let them, instead
I banding themselves, against their duty, in
oreign associations, earnestly apply themselves
o understanding how to aid us here, in preserv-
ng good government, instead of running about
liter every body's hates and hopes, for which we