The Express.
London, England, 1862-11-18 00:00:00

AMERICA.

(PROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
BOSTON, Nov. 3.
Whichever party is beaten in the elections the
war must still go on. Suppose the opposition
party succeed in getting into power, what
then Mr. Lincoln has two years more—the
new Congress will not meet till a year from next
December. Cabinets are not made or unmade
in this country by the popular breath. Though
both branches have a majority against the admini-
-1 stration, ministers do not resign the seals of office.
It is also a curious fact, that for a succession of
presidential terms the Congress chosen for the lad
two years has had a majority against the party who
elected the President. And should the election to-
morrow follow in the direction of former precedents,
when the opposition began to act, it would as a
whole sustain the President in his war policy.
Again it may answer for the purpose of gaining the
support of those who have grown up with an
enduring attachment to the constitution to insist on
the battle cry, " The Union as it was and the con-
stitution as it is ;" but this can never be. The old
American Union is a thing of the put. The nation
can only be saved, if at all, by the reconstruction
of the Union on the basis of freedom ; but this is
not universally believed. The party of the past
in all countries cling to their traditional ideas with
unyielding tenacity. So even now, men who have
been willing to join hands with the South are yet
looking forward to a compromise and reunion on
the old basis. If the " conservative party"
were in power to-day, and should go down
' on its knees and beseech " the misguided
brethren" to come back on the pledge of new gua-
rantees to slavery, it would be of no avail. The
men at the South who have this movement in hand
know what they mean and what they are doing.
If they had wished to remain in "the Union as it
was and the constitution as it is," even with new
supports for slavery, they might have done so.
But they look beyond the present It was not the
result of the last presidential canvass that they
dreaded, so much as the report of the census and
the inevitable progress of the Free States. Ten
years hence the great West, with its in-
creased millions, will outstrip them in all
the elements of material greatness and of
political power. These will be wielded in
behalf of free institution, and free labour. To
return to the Union to-morrow, even with still
stronger guarantees to slavery, would not wipe out
this great fact of political economy. Mr. Jefferson
Davis sees all this ; so do his colleagues. Their
designs are as bold as they are intelligent and com-
prehensive, and should the people's party get into
power, and send commissioners to Richmond, the
first condition on which they would agree to treat
would be an acknowledgment of the new Confe-
deracy. Should Mr. Seymour, with the declara-
tion that the Union must be preserved at all risks,
and the glorious flag wave over an undivided
country should this veteran " conservative "
politician, with his tradition of love of the
constitution and Union, knock at the door
of the Confederate President, ho would reply, "All
we ask is to be left clone. We are a sovereign
nation and must be treated as such." This great
conservative leader who now about% " the Union
as it was and the constitution as it is," would be
compelled to eat his own words or grapple with the
real issues. It is for this mama that I say the
logic of events will control and compel the action
of those in power, whatever their political opinions.
By failing to see the great underlying forces in
American society a superficial observer is liable
to reach wrong conclusions. Thus when this
struggle began, and before the attack on Fort Sumter,
Mr. Fernando Wood, then Mayor of New York,
had the effrontery to recommend that the city
should secede from the rest of the State, and there
were those who argued from this that the great me-
tropolis would throw her influence into the arms of
the secessionists. So now this same unprin-
cipled politician attempts to bully the chief magis-
trate, and threatens, if he does not change his
policy, that, " ss George Washington was the first
President so Abraham Lincoln will be the last."
This is the rant of an unscrupulous bitter partisan,
whose love of plunder and office far exceeds hie
honesty or patriotism But all this is said for
effect. It cannot materially influence this
struggle. In great upheavals the filth is thrown on
thesurfaoe, and such are the features of New York
society, being as it were the great artery through
which nearly a half million every year pass from the
old to the new world, and which iu this flow of
foreign immigration leaves a mass of ignorant men
as permanent residents ; this furnishes just the
material for the bold and unscrupulous partisan
to work on. But such men as Fernando Wood are
not of the class who will give shape and direction to
the " conservative " party. By boldness and ap-
peals to the passions and prejudices, and the cun-
ning arts of the adroit politician, such as he may get
local political power, but it is men like
Horatio Seymour, Washington Hunt, and ex-Pre-
sident Fillmore, who will mould the policy and
crystallise this new political organisation.
Another feature of American politics must also
be kept in mind, and that is the exaggerated stories
which gain currency before an election. At this
time this is increased by the peculiar state of
society. Thus we are told not only of the meeting
of governors to bully and browbeat the President
into a favourite policy, but also of, intrigues
and cabals for detaching the West from the
Eastern States. If the process of disintegration
really begins, it is not safe to s►y where it
will end, but that any serious plan of
this kind now really occupies man I do not
believe. But the poiaibility of this makes the
maintenance of the nation a necessity, and when
the practical question comes of an entire union or

a disunion into many fragments, the difficulties
are so great, and the dangers so many, that men
naturally fall back to their old traditional love of
the Union ; and the necessities, as well sadeep and
ingrained convictions, will strengthen the national
sentiment. In revolutionary times a people may
sometimes act under the influence of temporary
excitement, and there may be brief fluctuations of
policy, but the great march of events, as guided by
those permanent forces which have their sources in
cherished ideas, historical traditions, material in-
terests, and abiding features of character.
Foreigners constantly wonder at the tenacity with
which the North and South continue the struggle
and the magnitude of the efforts and sacrifice;
which each party makes. Were it a mere feud,
" a miserable war,'it would be a cause of surprise,
I but it is far deeper than this. It is a question of
civilisation, and the destiny of free or slave institu-
tions—it is the strife for dominion—not simply of
material ascendancy—but dominion of ideas, of a
certain system of labour, of • peculiar cast of
society, and the forma into which wealth shall run
and political power be attained and exercised. The
North and the South in many respect& are as un-
like as ancient Sparta and Athens ; and the question
is, shall Richmond or Washington—that which
Lath rePMAtte..7-etile 1 If the one oaniaot cooper
the other, they must agree on a truce ; but this
would only be postponing the struggle. Therefore
European merchants and statesmen must be con-
tent to watch and wait. Parties at the North can-
not control events, but will be controlled by them.
Entertaining these views of the American war, I
do not lay that special stress on the results of ps.r-
ticular elections which is so common both in
America and Europe.
But to pass from these generalisations to particular
events. The mercantile community is startled more
than ever by the boldness and emcees of the Ala-
bama.
After lighting up the ocean not far from
the Azores with the blaze of captured ships, this
daring rover has turned his steamer towards the
American shore, and is now in the great ocean
pathway across which passes the commerce of the
Old and New World. The broad expanse of waters
and the swiftness of his movements baffle pursuit,
and his power of destruction is very extensive.
Captain Semmes will live in the annals of maritime
achievements, and his name will be placed by the
side of Paul Jones and Captain Kidd. The news-
papers are loud in their complaints, and men who
never touched a rope or were ever out of sight of land
are ready with their advice to the government as to
the ease with which "the pirate may be caught,"
and partisan politicians make it a charge against
the government that these depredations are allowed.
But with English skill and capital to build, arm,
and equip steamers, and free access to the ocean
from British ports, with only a little adroitness in
I keeping to the letter of the law, thus using the
resources of • power in friendly relations with their
foe, it is not difficult to get under full head of steam
'on the broad ocean. Once there, the catching is
not easy. A hundred vessels may be in pursuit,
and yet she elude them all. It is one of those ex-
posures to which all maritime nations are subject,
and these exploits of the rebel captain illustrate the
disastrous consequences which would attend British
commerce in case of a war with the United States.
Private naval enterprise here has always outstripped
the government ship-yards, and the daring American
Bailors would repeat on • much larger scale the de-
predations on English commerce than those of
Captain Semmes. The merchants of Liverpool,
Bristol, and London would suffer far more than
those now at Philadelphia, Boston, and New York.
In one case Captain Semmes has destroyed the
property of British subjects, and as he strikes with
• ruthless hand, the power that has fed and nou-
rished the serpent may feel the sting. But the
slaveholders are also using the St. George's ernes in
another way ! It is asserted that slaves have been '
carried from Texas to Cuba and sold. Where are the
spirits of Wilberforce and Sir Fowell Buxton
What does the esteemed and honourable champion
of human freedom, Lord Brougham, say to the
British flag floating over the slave pen / What say
the great mass of liberty-loving men in Great
Britain as thus they see this modern revival of the
slave trade in the Gulf of Mexico under their own
sacred national emblem I When the United States
at last has risen from its moral torpor, and con-
damns those engaged in this infamous traffic of
human blood, how do Englishmen enjoy the pic-
ture of their own honoured flag waving in triumph
over the manacled slave as he is carried from
Galveston to Havanna!' ? These questions the
Federal liberty-loving men who are now engaged in
the great battle of humanity send across the ocean.