The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-08-14
Anvnnce orRuss,a.

The great northern Power Whlch al
ready rules over seventh part of the
| globe we inhabit seems to be making
| perpetual progress. Her arm already
sways the whole OF the north: Sweden,
Norway and Denmark being now little
other than dependent Kingdoms; and it
was comparatively but yesterday that
| she threatened to embrace Constantine
pie within her gigantic stride. Foiled
there for the moment, she has lately
turned her attention 10 the East, and
already her legions are within few
| days. march of that Tedoubted oppo.
neut which temporarily joined with
| France to arrest her advance in the
south. Only few hundred miles sep
crate the British troops in the far dis
| tant East from the ground into which
Russia has lately pushed her forces
from the west, and the day is not dis
tant when they must unavoidably come
into collision. The result it is i'm.
possible to predict. Britain has
strength, science aud courage on
her side; but Russia has all these,
though as yet in a less civilized
degree. She has, moreover, recently
| tTiumphed over an enemy whom all
| the vast resources OF England utterly
failed TO Subdue. The Rsjah of Bokha-
ra, who, secure in his Eastern tastness-
es for SO many years offered Il con-
tenpLuous defiance to the English, has
been constrained to yield alter few
days' contest with u Power which ap
preached by the more accessible points
| of the Caucasus, and a prestige has thus
been impaired to Russian arms which
Britain long contended for in vain. The
kingdom of Ahghanistan Is now the
onlV obstacle beLwiXt them. Which of
the two will obtain IL, is bard to say,
though we feel inclined to back the
Russian, inasmuch as he approaches
| from a colder climate into a more gen
| ial latitude, and has the advantage of a
continuous basis of communication by
land whereas the troops OF England
are necessarily enervated by previous
residence in India, from which she
must advance, and she will also be de-
pendent upon resources apt TO be in
| Ierrupted by sea.
| A few years. therefore, may witness
the accomplishment of that prediction
which the frat Napoleon made when
writhing as a prisoner, nearly half
century ago, on the rock OF st. Helena
that Europe would within that period,
along with the greater part of the OLD
world, become either republican or
Cossack for Russia is young and
| rising power, while Britain is an old
| one whose meridium Is already past.
That any part of Asia will become re-
| publican we do not believe. Such a
| system of government has never exist
ed on it's soil, and seems wholly lncon-
sIstent with it. From the very earliest
ages there mankind have lived in
state Of pupilage, and seem incapable
of any other condition. The cradle OF
the human race is the only part of the
world in which there has been no i'm
provement, and where men still exist
under paternal government in the same
state of childhood as they Gid in ages
long prior 10 the days of Abraham.
China, Hindostan and every other
country of the East are at this moment
ruled just as despotically as they were
countless ages ago. Even Britain, with
all her cant about the eXcellencies
of "the British Constitution-the envy
ofsurroundinE nations aud admiration
of the World"-has never thought OF
extending the advantages OF II TO her
possessions in India, and would proba-
bly, put down any demand for repre-
sentative government on the part of the
natives quite as ruthlessly as she eX-
tiDyuished the Sepoy rebellion. Russia
will, therefore, find the field ready for
her here, and race Ofsuojecls already
fitted for her rule. But with Europe 1t
ls otherwise, There RepubiicaniSm
has already taken root, though it must
be con iessed the soil does not appear
yery conRenial one. In the instance of
The great commonwealth of France 1t
failed, and now exists only in the small
territory of Switzerland, whose power
ty, perhaps, more than anything else,
tria and Prussia 1t has not yet taken
root, though hankering for 1t has ex-
listed in some of the Intermediate re-
gions of Germany. The chances. there
fore are in favor of Europe's becoming
CoSSuque, and If not governed directly
by Russia, of being swayed by her
through principles in accordance with
her own.
It must be confessed that the system
of government adopted by Russia has
been not only eminently conducive to
this view, but is in some degree de.
serving of the success that has attended
it. She has never stood upon the old
preiudices of country or caste, but in
yarlabIy preferred foreign ability to
native Incompetence. Since the days of
Peter the Great, the country has gene
rally been governed by foreigners, and
these the ablest that could anywhere
be found. All the Improvements intro
duced into 1t by that pOlentate and
Catharine the Second came from other
parIs-of Europe, aud eminent men were
generally brought in at the same time
Tor the purpose of experimenting them
Nesselrods, in our day, came from Ger.
manY; POZHO di BOrgO, a contemporary of
Napoleon, was brought. from the same
Iisland or Corsica with the design of
counteracting him, which in the end he
etTectualIy did. The late Emperor owed
not less To them than TO his own energy,
anu inherent lOrce OF CnhEacIeE luaL
ascendancy which he acquired in the
various courts OF Europe, and it is by
pursuing this policy that Alexander
still governs and is silently regaining
the influence which Nicholas eventual
lly lost by the disastrous campaign in
the Crimea. Much, however, Is due to
the present sovereign himself, and he is
above all entitled 10 the merit of maxi
: ing the whole of his subjects free. 1t
will be the boast of future ages that the
same generation has witnessed the fet-
ters struck off from the serf in the east
and the slave in the west. Russia and
the United States have long gone hand
in hand, aud, as their interests can
never clash, they may long hand in
hand continue to go. TheiRrulers may
not, like Augustus and the present
Louis Napoleon, boast that they found
their ca piIals OF brick and that they left
them OF marble; but they can make the
prouder vaunt that they found the In
stituIions of their country delapidated,
and Ieit them restored; that they found
u large portion OF their subjects or citi-
zens in bondage, but left them free
Second senatorial District.