What a compact statement is contained in the following sentence of the instructions to the representative of foreign affairs at Vienna!—­’The political affairs in Austria present to us the aspect of an ancient and very influential power, oppressed with fiscal embarrassments,—­the legacy of long and exhausting wars,—­putting forth at one and at the same time efforts for material improvement and still mightier ones to protect its imperfectly combined dominion from dismemberment and disintegration, seriously menaced from without, aided by strong and intense popular passions within.’  A lyceum lecturer might consume an evening over the present political condition of Austria, and yet not convey a more perfect idea thereof than is comprehended by the preceding paragraph!

Mr. Seward in first addressing Mr. Dayton discusses the slavery element of the rebellion, and elucidates more particularly the relations of France to a preserved or a dismembered Union; and evolves this plucky sentence:  ’The President neither expects nor desires any intervention, or even any favor, from the government of France, or any other, in this emergency.’  But a still more spirited paragraph answers a question often asked by the great public, ’What will be the course of the administration should foreign intervention be given?’ Foreign intervention would oblige us to treat those who should yield it as allies of the insurrectionary party, and to carry on the war against them as enemies.  The case would not be relieved, but, on the contrary, would only be aggravated, if several European states should combine in that intervention. The President and the people of the United States deem the Union which would then be at stake, worth all the cost and all the sacrifices of a contest with the world in arms, if such a contest should prove inevitable.’

In the advices to Mr. Schurz, at Madrid, occurs a most ingenious application of the doctrine of secession to Spanish consideration in respect to Cuba and Castile; to Aragon and the Philippine Islands; as well as a most opportune reference to the proffered commercial confederate advantages.  ‘What commerce,’ asks the Secretary, ’can there be between states whose staples are substantially identical?  Sugar can not be exchanged for sugar, nor cotton for cotton.’  And another sentence is deserving remembrance for its truthful sarcasm:  ’It seems the necessity of faction in every country, that whenever it acquires sufficient boldness to inaugurate revolution, it then alike forgets the counsels of prudence, and stifles the instincts of patriotism, and becomes a suitor to foreign courts for aid and assistance to subvert and destroy the most cherished and indispensable institutions of its own.’