The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-05-09

more copies OF Blackstone than were sold In oil
the United Kingdom. 1t was from this source
that they learned the fundamental truth
that true and enduring liberty is based ON IT.
refragible law and not on unbridled license;
and 1t was the splendid and incorruptible
conservatism that characterizes their Anglo
Saxon blood which enabled them to avail
themselves Of the lessons of the French revo-
luton by adding reverence to the reason of
VOltaire and temperance to the impassioned
eloquence of Mirabeau. 1t was to England
that was due the vast difference between
jefferson, the Jacobin of America, and Robes
pierre. the Jacobin of France-and what a
difference was there! From England, who
bequeathed to us the domination of the
glo-Saxon blood we derived the great
source of our distinctive national vir-
tues which is the sense of duty, the
power OF pursuing course we be-
lieve to be right, independently of
all considerations of sympathy Or favor of
enthusiasm or success, and these are virtues
our leaders of popular sentiment have in com
mon only with those Of England, who has trans
mitted them to us as common inheritance
with her own children Other nations have
SUI phSSsu us III Iutily lut1lbitS bilttt dio Dtau-
tiful, and in some qualities that are great.
But it is the peculiar merit of the Anglo-Saxon
race in England and America, that beyond
all others it has produced men of the stamp Of
q Washington or o Hampden; men careless
indeed for glory, but very careful of honor :;
who made the supreme majesty Of moral
rectitude the guiding principle of their lives;
who proved In the most trying circumstances
that no allurements of ambition and no storms
of passion could cause them to deviate one
hairs breadth from the course they believed
| to be their duty
Montesquieu, In his Spirit of Laws" says
Though all governments have the same gen
eral end, which IS that of preservation, yet
each has another particular object. Increase
| Of dominion was the object of Rome; war;
that of Sparta; religion, that of the Jewish
laws; commerce, that OF Marseilles; public
tranquility. that of the laws of China; navi-
CATION. that Of the laws of Rhodes; natural
liberty, that of the policy of the savages; in
general, the pleasures Of the prince that of de-
spotic states; that of monarchies the princes
and the Kingdoms glory the independence
of individuals is the end aimed at by the laws
of Poland" the French idea, after Mostes-
quieu's day. from thence results the oppres-
sion of the whole. One nation there is also in
the uorld, that has for the drect end of its con
stitution. political Hberty''-and that nation
was ENGLAND. That direct end" she gave
to us, and till this day it has become the guild
ing star, the supreme aspiration, of none
other peoples on Gods earth but England's
and ours. She taught us the true meaning of
human freedom and, as Montesquieu again
says, there is no word that admits of more
various Specifications and has made more
different impressions on the human mind.
than that of Liberty" One nation there was.
and it was the Russians, which ''for long
time thought liberty consisted in the priv-
lege of wearing long beard"
This long difference between the true
idea and love of political freedom which
England gave us-and the right to wear a
long beard, exactly measures the relative
sympathcs our people feel for England and
for Russia.
These are but q part of the debts we owe to
England-not debts either, but benefits she
has showered upon us out Of her initiate
bounty, freely and without price, as she has
given us the blessings of Millions sublime
imagination, of Shakespeares omnscience OF
Bacon's and Burkes wisdom, of Hampden's
heroism-aye, and the very tongue in which
their genius has found immortality, and,
which to-day, in the homes of England alone
utters the words familiar to our father
land" What have the people of America
in common with those of Russia to
seduce them from fellowship of race, creed,
tradition and sentiment such as this ? Abso-
lutely nothing. We have heard of the rude
Muscovite, the Siberian, the Finn and the Cos
sack Of the Don but we have only heard of
them as we have Of
The Anthropophaei, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders
Of these people we know nothing, with
them we have nothing in common, and while
we bear them no ill-wil, these facts alone will
serve to keep our sympathes, as against
them, with England, from whom he have in
herited 50 much, and who through us is i'm
parting to the gathering nations the typ
zeal attributes Of her splendid manhood
But the Herald goes on to learnedly
enumerate the grounds Of American
sympathy with Russia. These are the course
OF Russia during our civil war, and the con-
sistent moral support she gave the Federal
cause; the emancipation of the serfs, which
the Herald attributes to Fellowship of good
works" inspired by Mr.. Lincoln's emancipa-
ton of the negro slaves; the recognition of
the Monroe doctrine, in the sale to the United
States of Alaska; our ability to enter into
Russia's view with reference to the outlets of
the Euxine into the Mediterranean, resulting
from our having been once placed in sim
liar predicament in relation to the free navi-
CATION of the Mississipp; and, final
ly, Russias sympathy with US in
our resistance to the maritime pre-
tensions of England, including the
right of search, which led to the war of 1872 /
These are the sources Of American sympathy
with Russia, and for these things, according
to the Hernld our neonIe will "Rish her