Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-05-13

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FIXTURE.
Mr.. Russell, the American correspondent
of the London Times, who writes like a man
of sense, and whose position as disinterested
spectator Of the progress Of affairs in this
country is an advantage on the side Of inn
partially, to which no American can pre-
tend, under date of April l, speaks as fol-
lowsi
'From all / have seen and heard. my belief
is that the Southern States have gone from
the Union, If not forever, at least for such
time as will secure for their government an
absolute independence till it be terminated
by war, or, II their opponents be right, by
the certain processes Of internal decay, aris-
ing from inherent vices in their system,
faulty organization and want Of population,
vigor and wealth"
This opinion was formed at Washington,
when Mr.. Russell enjoyed the acquaintance
not only OF politicians and public men Of
the North, but Of the Commissioners of the
Confederacy then on their mission to the
seat Of government and is, we do not
doubt, the conclusion to which he arrived
after hearing all that could be said upon
both sides Of the question.
Mr.. Russell, with much propriety rejects
the word secession as descriptive of the pro.
cess the South has undergone, and pro.
nounces the affair to be such as il would be
unwise to consider and treat in any other
light than IS o revolution. With equal judg-
ment, be recognizes the difference between
leug and short periods Of time in the future
and while he regards the Southern Confed-
erscy as a present fact, does not profess to
predict as to its future, nor to determine
the right of precedence, nor the strength
Of the forces by which it may hereafter be
dissolved.
Mr.. Russell appears either to have made
good use of his time since he came to the
United States, or to nave fitted himself for
his mission by careful study and prepare.
ton for he not only exhibits a competent
knowledge Of the spirit of the people and
the nature of the Government, but is able to
avoid those errors in detail and nomencla-
ture by which the productions of so many of
the British writers on America have been
disfguIed; subjecting them, 10 repeated in
stances, to suspicious of ignorance that
were, doubtless, in a measure unfounded.
The Importance Of having a man at once
able and honorable at the seat of govern
ment, free to communicate to the great
British putlic, through 10 accredited a chan
mel, information of facts as they transpire,
can hardly be overestimated. We shall get
as nearly cotemporaneous history as the ma
ture Of the case will admit, and see ourselves
through a medium as little liable to refract
what it transmits any with which we are
acquainted.
The dangers which will beset the Southern
Confederacy are twofold those that arise
from causes without and those that arise
from causes within. These may act in con-
junction; and it is the opinion, or, at least,
the hope ofsuch as advise the use of forcible
means to compel the people to perform their
duties to the Constitution, that they will do
so. Judging from the temper of the North,
as shown through the early progress of the
revolution, it would seem that there was a
time when it was at the option of the South
to choose between a withdrawal from the
Union in peace, with all that was necessary
for the establishment of a separate national
ity, and reasonable hopes of the speedy at
tainment of whatever else was legitimately
desirable to constitute independence, and the
Inauguration Of state of war, to compel the
Government prematurely and informally to
.relinquisb, without either the expressed or
implied consent of its loyal people, or its CO.
ordinate branches, that which it was bound
by its constitutional obligations to retain and
protect.
The South chose war. Before it had even
begun to lay the foundations of a civil pol
ity, il seized and appropriated whatever
property Of the Government, not only within
but outside the territory of the seeding
States, which lay within its reach; and no
sooner had it a legislative body authorized
to speak its collective sentiment, thar it not
only sanctioned all that had been done, but,
by modes not equivocal, declared its inten-
ton to persist in its course, carry a wal of
conquest and revolution into States whose
people were yet obedient to the Govern.
ment, and finally to seize the Capital, over
bAAON Nv OONOAAmShtf anu AhobdAl ~ OHu
in its place; and to accomplish these ends, it
is employing its energies to prepare the
means with all possible rapidity.
= 1t is this series of acts which has exposed
the South to the danger of ~coercive measures
that otherwise it might not have incurred.
How far the Government Of the Union, once
engaged in war, will proceed, is a question
that will ultimately depend for its answer
upon the will Of the people, as much as that
of the Administration If the issue is the
united power of the North against that of
the South, with no cessation until one party
or the other is conquered; the South, whose
resources in men and means are the least,
must be the one TO succumb. But between
the present and such a fnality, there are a
multitude of contingencies; and that it will
come to this, is not probable. 1t is reason
able TO believe, therefore, that the South
will, upon some terms, have a period in
which to try its hand in the art of selt-gov-
eminent, unobstructed by any agency acting
from without.
We have, in previous article, expressed
the opinion that the Secession programme
intended a complete revolution of all the
States, except, perhaps, of those included in
New England, and the establishment of the
Administration of Mr.. Davis in the place Of
that of Mr.. Lincolni and that, unless this is
carried out, the movement must be pro-
nounced a failure. Thousands of men who
favored Secession as merely preliminary to
reconstruction upon a more desirable basis,
will dread the prospect of a separate ma
tional existence, with all its resulting trou-
bles and perPleKities. They looked upon Sc.
cession as only a step preparatory to revolu-
ton, and imagined a revolution to consist
here, as it does in other countries, in pulling