Germany herself, or any other independent State, has the right to do the same thing. That is not a doctrine fatal to constitutional kings, any more than to presidents, for a king may reign by an informal, as well as a formal consent of his people, but it is a doctrine fatal to all those claims to be above consent which kings have hitherto put forward. The extinction of Hanover, after seven hundred and twenty-one years of recognized and separate existence, because its continuance in independence was generally inconvenient, is the recognition in the most concrete and practical form of the right of peoples to organize themselves as they please, in utter disregard of any rights their sovereigns may claim. The king of Hanover had committed no fault. Hanover as a State had refused no reasonable concession. There was no proof that the prince Ernest or the Duke of Cambridge, if called to the throne, would not have signed any treaty necessary to the German empire, and have assumed as regards that empire the attitude of the kings of Saxony or Bavaria. There was, in fact, no excuse for the bouleversement, except that while Hanover existed Prussia could not be strong, and that a strong Prussia was essential to the aspirations of the German people; and that excuse, which would justify any anti-royal revolution, seemed to the foremost of German legitimists amply sufficient. It seems so also to constitutionalists and republicans, and it was well it should seem so; but then, if it is sufficient, where is the logical claim of sovereigns against subjects? It is reduced to this, — that if subjects wish a throne to disappear, they must have the necessary force to bring it to the ground. We do not suppose the Hohenzollerns will ever regret the severe measure dealt out to the Guelphs. It was necessary to deal it, or to draw back from their appointed task; but a day may come when they may recollect it, and doubt whether Louis XIV. did not understand kingcraft when he said, "Sovereigns should stand by one another." They have learned a higher lesson, but whether it is one which will equally tend to their own prosperity is a question to be settled in the future, if it ever arrives, when Germany fulfils Heine's prophecy, and the German republic is born. It is not the farther off because the last Guelph was unattended to his grave by representatives of Germany, and was honored in England only with an official and perfunctory mourning.
UNITED STATES' INDIAN WARS.
For some time past ennui has been the prevailing complaint along the United States Indian frontier. Buffaloes have been scarce, and the redskins so uniformly peaceable, that no reasonable excuse could be found for testing the capacity of small arms on them. Under these circumstances, every lover of his species (with a white face) will rejoice to hear that boredom is at an end, and that the summer of 1878 promises to be one in which much aboriginal gore will be shed in the regions that lie under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. A general Indian war is on hand. This we learn from the secretary of the interior, Carl Schurz. More troops and more money are necessary. This is the burden of General Sherman's telegram. The Shoshones and Bannacks of Idaho and Oregon are moving from the head-waters of the Columbia River and taking up their position in the lava beds between Great Campas Prairie and the Salmon River, a locality which, in the Modoc war, the Caucasians who engaged in that inglorious struggle found a remarkably difficult bit of country. It might be remarked that it was their tribesmen and their near cousins, the Nez Percez, or Pierced Noses, who were about this time last year at war with the United States, and were, as we read in official documents, utterly routed by the courage and energy of the troops under the command of a certain General Howard, a warlike paladin dwelling in those parts. The truth of the matter was that General Howard and his warriors were utterly routed by White Bird and his colored clansmen, who only surrendered when they found their comestibles growing short. It is this same General Howard who is at present sending alarming despatches to the Washington government, and demanding more troops, more powder, more bullets, more corned beef, and, above all, more money, in order to crush the Ishmaelites who are insolent enough to imagine that they have a better right to their native land than the lank men who "located" thereabouts some thirty or forty years ago at the outside. The general who so covered his name with glory last year professes himself anxious again to seek the battle-field, but confesses that with his recollections of one or two untoward events in his career, he does not feel justified in moving south on the "hostiles." The truth of the matter is, the United States troops along the
