5th May. Ir has rather surprised us that the views expressed by " Fundamental" in his recent article in our columns on "The Dividing Line between tha Democratic and Republican Parties have not elicited more criticism from Americans in China. The article in question was a valuable one, because it stated clearly the view of the Constitution of the United States which forms the dividing line between the two great parties in the Republi at the same time it may be taken as certain that the Democratic party as a whole would not now consent to see the view carried to the conclusion to which the South wished to take it in 1861, and to allow any State or group of Stati if they were dissatisfied to, like wayward sisters, part in peace. As "Critic" points out in the letter which we publish this morning: "The question whether National or State authority was paramount was the real issue of the Civil War, and was then settled for ever. The people of the North insisted that the National authority was paramount and that to it all sections should submit. The Southern States claimed the right to put their own authority above that of the National Government and to recede from the Union in case of irreconcilable conflict of authority with the National Government." "Critic" goes on to refer to some of the great American statesmen who have condemned the Southern view, and adds that "its reassertion at this late day is as futile as would be an argument} for the restoration of slavery itself." The result of the Civil War unquestionably was that the Democrats in the North and the people in the South with the exception of a few irreconcilables accepted " The Union, one and indivisible,' and the discussion of State rights now has passed out of the region of practical polities and has become merely academic.
Among the statesmen quoted by "Critic" we do not find the name of one of America's greatest men, who has gone down to history side side with Washington himself, Abraham Lincoln, a man who was much misunderstood in England at first, but who before his cruel assassination had by his wisdom and trae fatness conquered British _projudice, and earned full recognition of his moral and mental grandeur. In his first inaugural address on the 4th of March 1861 he said "Th _is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our National Constitution. During that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens have, in succession, administered the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same great task for the brief constitutional term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
"T hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national government, and the Union will endure for ever,—it being impossible to destroy it, except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
"Again, if the United States be not a government per, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it asa contract be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind Tt follows then from these views, that no State, upon its own mere motion, can Tavefally get out of the Union: that resolves and ordinances P; to that effect are legally void, and acts of violence within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary according to circumstances.
"I therefore consider that in view of the Constitation and the Laws, the Union is unbroken: and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part."
We do not know if Lincoln's state apers are ever made use of in the oaks that are compiled for the education of the young in England, but they fully deserve to be. His by|cducation was something like that of John Bright, and his papers and speeches resembles Bright's in their power, their purity, and their wisdom. As Lincoln pointed out in his magnificent address at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, the blood of the brave men who consecrated that ground cemented the Union for all time, and his own blood, shed on the 14th of April 1865, put the final seal to it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.