THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF LEIPSIC.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 41, 10 February 1864, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF LEIPSIC.

(From the Times.) The people, of . Leipsic have been; busily employed in reminding tie world that Gfermany has had rest from, Her foes forlialf a century. She never j had so long a repose since she first: emerged from her impenetrable forests j and:took a part in the great drama of the world. She is indebted to it for a unanimous effort, inspired by common . wrongs, common sufferings, and com- ; mon interests, and from being theni singularly proof against the seductions \ to which she had. hitherto been the ; facile prey. The world had long agreed; to regard' Grermany as open a field of enterprise as the ocean had been to buecaniers, and a new hemisphere to colonists. It was true there _ was already in possession a highly civilised and very ingenious race, quick to invent, apt to labor, and at home in the most useful industries and loftiest speculations. But they were divided and infinitely subdivided; they had long reposed" under paternal Grovernments ; they were not without ambition; but, above all, they were credulous. It Avas not till they had lost half their strength in idle conflicts one with another that they found their hope lay in union. Like the oxen in the fable, among whom the lion had long sown dissension, and who had paid the penalty of their blind confidence, they clubbed their remaining forces together at last, and, in the famous Battle of Nations, rid their soil of the invader. Prom that day to this, Grermany has enjoyed a perfect immunity from foreign aggression. It is true that she has not been exempt from civil disturbance, but, notwithstanding now and then a threatening manoeuvre, it can hardly be said that either one Grerman State has been at war with another or that G-erman soil has been violated. # This is the golden age which all Leipsic, multitudes of every class, and deputations from all the States that shared the glory of the struggle, have met to celebrate withprocessionand banquets, with songs and orations, with chaplets and garlands, with holy rites and a lasting memorial. The hills, .the walls, the streams, the bridges, and the very streets of Leipsic are them•selves monuments of the prolonged and terrible strife. But fifty years of peace are a monument beyond the power of man to build, and it is that immense result and happy boon which Leipsic this week has celebrated. If we remark that in order to maintain peace it is necessary to do something more than to wish it and resolve upon it, and that as war contains the elements of peace, so peace has the cankers that lead to war, the people of Leipsic themselves have put these words in our mouths. They, want peace, and something more than peace, if not, indeed, better than peace. In laying the foundationstone of the monument on the Thornberg, the Burgomaster undertook to represent the prominent feelings of 1 the occasion. In so doing, to the recollections of a great struggle, and the memory of those who had fought, suffered, and bled in it, he added the awakening of Grermany to its national feelings, perseverance in the ' work begun for the great objects of the Grerman nation, and the ultimate triumph of the Grerman people in the struggle for the power and greatness, unity and freedom, of the deeply-loved Gferman Fatherland. There are people whowillsmileat the very thought of concludinganything or surmising anything from a momentary outbreak of Grerman enthusiasm ; but here is something suggested more than peace, and something which can only be obtained by war. So true is it that men weary of peace as they are weary of war ; and, great as the horrors of war may be, the time will always arrive when they will be forgotton ; a generation will come that knows not war, and the only souvenirs of a pandemonium will be some decorated veterans, a few historical names, and local traditions. ' No general resolution war, no proud exemption from the scourge, no often told calculation of its costs, can prevent the quiet growth of sentiments and the cropping up of the ideas that culminate in war. A' few years— rather a few months ago — no people were so convinced of the .blessings of peace, and so resolved to preserve them as the United " States ; no orators so vehemently pacific as their eulogists in this country. That people and those forget that much as men wish for peace there are other feelings stronger still, and more likely to rouse to sudden action the energies of a great nation. Peace is pleasant after war. Peace is pleasant when it is enjoyed together . with those things which men fight and struggle for. Peace is pleasant to those who have given- hostages" to fortune, who shine in the dizzy height of power, who repose in the golden vale, whose .overloaded bark catches. the listless s "breeze from the still waters of life.

Such persons have staked much or all on peace. But they are onlypart of the nation, and they do not represent its mind, its hopes, its national aspirations. They do not even represent the more general course of human affairs. There must always "be many, and they are not without importance or influence, who would have no objection to see the board swept and a new game begun, who want a new start, and find no present opening for their enterprise. They cannot thrive on peace,, they might thrive on war. They cannot emerge on the Lethean ; stream of prosperity. They arfe stifled; by millionaires, frowned down _by; office and /station, wedged in, like those the poet wrote of, between thick ribbed masses of place and position. Excluded from all hope of eminence in this dull leaden region of public tranquility, they have found their solace in bright visions out of their own -sphere, -beyond rational limits, above the level, oi' this vulgar humanity. It may be all illusion; it is generally only a specious form of a worse selfishness; But these and other more avowed and more intelligible griefs conduce to war. They are the explosive power which accumulates under our feet, and which may some day shake the plains and raise even the mountains. Grermany betrays their presence and their growth at the very time she is celebrating the conclusion of a long war, and building the monument of a long and prosperous peace. If, then, peace is to be preserved, something else is necessary than monuments and anniversaries, orations and thanksgivings. A great festival of peace is proclaimed, and yet, when a nation is assembled and the prophet stands on the sacred mound, he preaches not peace, but grand objects — unity of race, power, glory, and consolidation. While these scenes are enacted at Leipsic, at Frankfort the Federal arms are laid under orders for a doubtful frontier and a perilous border province of this much desired unity. On the Eastern frontier a mighty Power is engaged hi driving to desperation and thrusting to the very van of insurrection a powerful race which has hitherto been happy and respectable only in war and in league with some great disturber of the general peace. On the "West a foresight, an iron will, and a strong hand wields all the resources of a great military race, and watches for the opportunity which it knows how to use. Southward all is unsettled, and there is always an occasion to let loose the dogs of war. Across the ocean all is war, far as the eye can see, or mind forecast. If this is not a European crisis, and if war cannot be said to be trembling in the balance, it is because the way is dark before us and we know not whither we are drifting, A single spark would kindle a conflagration from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus, from the Meditteranean to the Arctic Sea. It is scarcely possible to imagine how we could stand apart, and plume ourselves on our immunity between two worlds in flames. Yet who shall say how deep we shall descend into the struggle, once begun — how long we should be involved, and with what changes we should finally emerge? Pur position is that of arbiter, for Aye have no interest to be answered by war. It is our plain duty to seize and to use all the opportunities of that position, and make and keep the peace while we can.