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Show THE tiLORIOUS FOURTH. ' The stern realities of tho civil war! took the United States out of its jejune period and retired its sentimental senti-mental orators. The publio is now seldom forced to listen to the Chinese cracker, spread eaglo Btyle of oratory, ora-tory, that mado America the greatest, freest, best and cheapest nation of the globe, and held up every other country coun-try to execration as tyrannical and oppressive to its people. Having for the suke of a sentiment passed through all the horrors of a destructive destruc-tive home conflict, wo now have little lit-tle opportunity to boast the superiority superior-ity of our form of government or to hold up cur republic as a model to tho rest of the world. How much worse is Russia now behaving towards Turkey than our sections behaved toward to-ward each other in ISGO-o. The north fought the south ostensibly to put down African slavery; Russia invades in-vades Turkey for tho sake of rele.is-iug rele.is-iug the Christians from tho slavery of the Mahommedans. Wo did not stop to enquire when we emancipated thu southern slaves whether the boon of liberty would be really valuable to them, or wLen we gave them the supposed franchise whether they were fitted to me it properly; neither will the Russians ask whether the Turkish Christians are to be benefitted by their release from the imperial rule of Constantinople Indeed, this qucs tion is not necessary. The lino of czars can scarcely set up a lofty standard of human liberty as one of the jewels of its crown. Recounting nil the atrocities of the fanatical bashi bazouks, nothing can be found under the banner of tho sultans to rival the cruelties of Siberia, and the despotism des-potism which tho Greek religion sanctities has never been paralleled either at Rome or at Constantinople. Looking beneath the professions of Russia for Christianity we find her underlying sentiment to be that of conquest expansion of her domain, in obedience it may be to the necessities neces-sities of an ambitious race whose pro gress as yet has been coufined to physical and material advances rather than intellectual and moral improvement. improve-ment. She h.$ never taken a step backward on this line, and fortunately fortunate-ly her lulers have been strong enough to repress all tendencies to dangerous interna! discord. The czar of Russia could abolish serfdom by a proclamation, proclama-tion, while it cost the United States a great war and more than a million of men to wipo out its system of slavery. Whether this country in eniergine from her chrysalis state of Fourth of Julyiam and casting of! her infantile political period has a!ao lust the vigor and strength of national sentiment and furce which under the old democratic demo-cratic rule did so much to extend her borders and give her continental fame cannot now be divined, Certainly Cer-tainly we have seen no exhibition of tins sentiment spring from political republicanism. Mr. Seward by the purchase of Alaska did something to breuk the dead level of the anti pro-greBsiveness pro-greBsiveness ot his party, under which tho gallant Cubans have been bu flared for u longer period than our revolutionary revolu-tionary war to struggle against Span-lib, Span-lib, despotism, without even their recognition as belligerents. It will be a question for the future parly to determine de-termine how far tho underlying principles prin-ciples of our revolution and tho declaration of the Monroe doctrine are to be ignored. Are Spanish , tyranny and Moxicau inefiicieucy to be the rule of tho continent? Is it not remarkable that even the once aggressive democracy Reema to have overlooked altogether the fact that the great American nation should at leHst claim to dictate a continental continent-al policy in keeping with its constitutional law and traditions? If the United States is the gainer by the war for the Union in the result of a strengthened nationality, hns it not been weakened by the dovotion of the ruling party to the peurilities of the maintenance of local power? Is there not required moro than anything else at Washington an administration distinctively dis-tinctively national, which shall restore to tho United States the lofty sentiments senti-ments of American independence dis- nlavorl mniw fiiU military and diplomatic, and which mado tho American name a proud one throughout through-out the world ? So far as tho Fourth of July is the symbol of spread-eagleism in politics, i) haB been wisely thrown aside; but it might be useful if through the teachings of this great holiday the people of the United States could bo brought to stand more erect upon their Americanism and insist upon a broader continental platform and a more aggressive front in regard to the practical enforcement of American ideas and politics upon this continent. |