The Daily Dispatch

"SHOULD THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SYMPATHIZE WITH THE ALLIES?"

This is a question which is being generally discussed by the American press, and the almost universal conclusion arrived at is, that we have no cause of sympathy with the Western powers in what is on both sides a war of interests and policy.

On this subject the Baltimore American says:

"The government of Russia is undoubtedly despotic. The Czar is an Autocrat whose sway is absolute; and of course his subjects cannot enjoy the blessings of constitutional or any other kind of freedom. It is quite likely, too, that he is ambitious; and like all other sovereigns and rulers, seeks to extend his limits, develop his strength, and augment his authority among the nations. But, is all this something new under the sun? Have constitutional England and Republican France just waked up to the fact that Russia is not a free country-that she is striving to increase her power and extend the realms of her Empire? Is Russia more absolute or more aggrandizing now, than when she dismembered Poland? Was she any less the friend of national right, when she sent her legions against the brave Hungarians, effaced their national existence and consigned them to the dominion of Austrian absolutism? Russia for a hundred years has been just as despotic and ambitious as she is to-day. Yet never until now, have France and England felt called upon to cross her path, to question or oppose her progress. On the contrary, it was English soldiers joined to those of Russia, that made common cause against Liberty in France, and waged the bloodiest war of modern times to crush Napoleon, to reconstruct a monarchy that had been abolished by the French people, and reseat a banished Bourbon King upon the throne. England-the friend of Humanity-saw unmoved Poland invaded,-her Constitution destroyed, her Government annihilated, her sons murdered or exiled, her territory dismembered and divided as spoil among crowned robbers. England-the champion of National Independence-had nothing to say, not a tear to shed, when the northern Autocrats banded their armies to overwhelm the brave and noble patriots of a Christian nation, and crush them and theirs beneath the hoofs of brute power. The same and more, perhaps, may be said of England's ally in this great crusade for human rights. It stands upon the record, that whenever, in any part of Europe, Republican Freedom has attempted to raise its head, it has found its most relentless and fatal foe in those two powers that now claim to be champions of Liberty. How many martyrs of Freedom are at this moment wandering among the nations, homeless and friendless, because these champions of Liberty left them to struggle alone against a superior and vandalic force, or gave additional weight to the blows that crushed them.

"The sympathy of this Republic will be extended to the people of Europe in every struggle they may make for deliverance from oppression. England would have enlisted the earnest support of the United States, if she had heretofore interposed her power for the vindication of popular rights, popular enlightenment, freedom of conscience, and constitutional liberty wherever they have encountered the embattled hosts of absolute power. And even now, if the allies would prove the sincerity of their claim to be recognized as the friends of freedom, by espousing the cause of freedom in the despotic States of the Continent-if they would form an alliance with the people of Poland, and Hungary, and Germany, and Italy, and fight their battles they would receive the sympathy which they complain is now withheld. But how can the American Republican sympathize with a cause which courts the alliance of Austria, and promises support to one despot while resisting another?"

These views of the American will commend themselves to every man of common sense. There are other reasons, also, which naturally cause Americans to withhold their sympathy from the allied powers, in a war in which no principle of any value to us is involved. For the French, it is true, our people have only friendly feelings, the result of an ancient alliance and of almost uninterrupted concord from the first moment of our national existence. For England, notwithstanding two wars, there is, to say nothing of the ties of kindred blood and a common tongue, admiration of her greatness, her wisdom, her valor, and the sterling qualities of her characters. There are few Americans, we suppose, who, if called upon to name the greatest nation, in their opinion, of the old world, in all its annals, greater than Rome or Greece who would not point to England. Yet, notwithstanding these just and natural feelings, the course of the British government has been such as not only to alienate the affections of Americans, but to make them anxious, from the instinct of self-preservation, that there should be no farther accession to British power. While the government of Russia, with which no American can entertain the slightest sympathy, has uniformly treated this country with respect and even kindness; whilst she has never, at any period of our history, interfered with our domestic affairs, and never, by open hostility nor secret arts, sought to thwart our progress, -Great Britain, next to our own the freest country in the world, Great Britain, from which we were entitled to expect better things has never omitted an opportunity to impede our progress, to restrict our limits, and in the most audacious manner to menace us with her interposition in our policy towards Texas, Cuba and the Sandwich Islands. The most sublime display of impudence that was ever witnessed in this world, and the most unparalleled exhibition of Pharisaical self-complacency, is to be found in the virtuous indignation assumed by England at the horrid immorality of wresting Spain by violence from Cuba, (a project which this country is not dreaming of,) when the greater portion of her own territory throughout the world has been robbed and plundered from its rightful owners with violence and blood. But that which even more than this arrogant dictation and disgusting self-righteousness, has annoyed and irritated the American People, is the hostile and wicked attempt to sow the seeds of discord and division in the United States, by means of the slavery question. We do not see how any one can look at the embittered feeling, threatening disunion, which has sprung up between the Northern and Southern sections of this country, and recollecting that it has been the work of English agitation and English gold, promoting, encouraging, and strengthening abolitionism in the United States, can then feel anxious that Great Britain should prevail in the Eastern war, and be in a condition at the close of it, to hurl her victorious legions upon our distracted and divided land.