The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-07-10
BALTIMORE.
SATURDAY, JULY 10, 1858.

SATURDAY, JULY ~, 1000.
In the bosom of the great Muscovite Empire,
and in the counsels of her Autocratic ruler, mo-
mentous contest is now being waged, the issue OF
which, no friend of Humanity and Human Pro-
press-no American, at least, can regard without
interest Two opposing clements are warning
against each other-twe mighty forces are con-
tending for the mastery-two great Parties
seeking to shape each to its own ends, the policy
and the destiny of the Slavonic people. On the
one hand, we have the CAR, the young ALEXAN-
DER II-half German that he is, with his mothers
blood in his veins-and around him are gathered
the liberal and progressive men of his nation. On
the other side is arrayed the old Muscov lite party
thes enemy of all innovation and the staunch
defender of ancient abuses and at It's head
the Prince MENscHKoFF. We have heretofore in
Dictated in this journal the outlines of the plan
adopted by the Emperor for the gradual emancipa-
ton of the Sers, and the prospective extirpation
of Slavery throughout the Empire. We now re-
cord further step in the upward path of Progress
and Civilization taken by this libera-minded Mon
arch He has submitted to his Cabinet pro-
gramme of principles by which he proposes TO be
governed in the administration of the affairs of the
great nation, whose destinies have BE-. committed
to his keeping. This programme embrace e are
given to understandable construction of RailWa,-.
for commercial as well as military purposes-the
promotion of Education, and the establishment
of National Schools throughout the Empire, and
the creation of Middle Glass; intelligent and
laborious, devoted to commerce, to manufactures,
and to the industrial pursuits of life Here, then,
is q new future opening for the Slavonic race
capable of calling into life and activity all the dor
mant energies of that slumberng people, and of
developing the resources OF an Empire which
stretches away to the Eastward, from the banks
of the Neva across the width of two Continents TO
the Straits of Behring, and crossing that narrow
channel possesses no inconsderable foot-hold upon
q third. CiviliZaton-whch some thousands of
years ago had its birth in the mountains of Cen
trail Asia, and thence travelled slowly and by easy
stages Westward across the plains of Mcsopotamia
and Syria, and along the shores of the Medterra-
mean and the Black Sea, having finally completed
the cycle of the globe, is now to be carried back
again in triumphant procession from the shores of
the Baltic, to the wds of Tartary and the steppes
of the Aral mountains, with all that it has gained
in the interval of Christian culture and Western
finement. Such, at least, are the promised fruits
of the liberal policy of ALEXANDER, should he be
able to enforce in practice the theories which he
entertains. That he has met with opposition, we
have already said; that he must be prepared TO
overcome much MORE it is easy to foresee-
Against him arrayed the old Aristocratic ele-
ment and the powerful influence of the landed pro-
prietors. The great Russian Princes and Boyars
look with disEavor upon policy which threatens
one day to raise the enfranchised peasant to
level with his former lord, and to set the
trader over the head of the noble The
Priests, too, perhaps, have their secret fears of
system which proposes to open the eyes and in
struct the minds oftheir ignorant iocks and to in
troduce that ravening WOLF the schoolmaster, into
the hitherto peaceful secusion of their folds
At all events, not without much opposition and
verting the policy of the Empire from the bed of
old tradition and hereditary prejudice, in which it
has hitherto run, into the newer and more modern
channel of Progress and Reform which he has
marked out for himself. That he must eventually
triumph, however, or if not he-then another that
shall come after him, and who shall follow in his
footsteps, we cannot permit ourselves to doubt
The principle of Progress which he represents is
Nitality-the stationary element which is opposed
to him is Death. 1t is the vessel of brass coming
in contact with the pot of clay
We speak thus confidently of the overthrow of
the old Russian party with its Asiatic ideas fcaste
its pariarchal institution of Slavery and its obst
nate adhesion to the sem-barbarous customs of the
old a,f ip,n that &c
things must be conceded to be inevitable either
the Slavonic race must conform more nearly to the
civilization of the West, it must itself be-
fore the aggressive energies of the Western
The Crimean war has effectually dispelled the old
illusion which used to prevail in respect to the
invincbe might and power of Russia. In spite
of NAPoLEoN's famous prophecy, all apprehenslons
ofEurope becoming either Republican or Cossack, at
least within the period limited by him for the fulfill
ment of his words have ceased to exist. That
mighty embodiment of Absolute Power, which ac-
cording to the crude fancies of some, was destined
to divide at some future day. with the Republic of
the UNITED STATES, the Empire of the world, and
according to the jeune imaginations of Others,
comparable only to that Dark Spirit who in Persian
fable wages perpetual with the Spirit of Light,
has turned out TO be mere bugbear of the mind,
and the verieSt man of straw. Germany alone is
barrier strong enough to prevent any extension
of Russian power westward England and France
have shown that they have both the ability and
the will to check its spread southwark. Nay more;
that heroic German race, whose heritage is the Ian
guage of LUTHER, and the legend of Hermann, and
the river Rhine, flowing "deep and majestic, like
the life of hero Of antiquity" is not only album
tribes and wild Asiatic hordes whom the Gar can
gather to his banner; it may yet in its career of
conquest and colonization press hard upon the con-
fines within which Russian power is already en-
trenched. No can look at the map of Europe,
and note how many of the Slavonc nationalities,
Galicia, and Hungary, and Bohemia and Croatia,
and Servia, and Pennsylvania, have passed under
the dominion of Austria, mark how large
slice of ancient Poland has fallen to the share of
Prussia, without being convinced that here again it
is the German race which is the vessel of brass
and the Slavonic race which is the potsherd. If
then Russia would retain her place among the great
Powers of Europe she must accept the destiny
which her Emperor, ALEXANDER III, now offers to
her, and the robust strength of Western civilization
must triumph in the couusels of the Gar over the
vain and Intellectual opposition of the old Musco-
vite Nobility
DANIEL WEBsTER's well known comparison, of
the strong man struggling in the mire, who, the