The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-26 00:00:00

The following joint resolutions declaring the dis-
position of principles and purposes of the Confede-
rate States in relation to the existing war with the
United States were introduced by Mr. Hill, of
Georgia, into the Senate, and passed the House of
Representatives, after a secret debate of several
hours, on June 10, with a few, but unessential mo-
difications :
Whereas, it is due to the great cause of humanity and
civilization, and especially to the heroic sacrifices of their
gallant army in the field, that no means consistent with a
proper self-respect and the approved usages of nations should
be omitted by the Confederate States to enlighten the pub-
lic opinion of the world with regard to the true character
of the struggle in which they are engaged, and the disposi-
tions, principles, and purposes by which they are actuated;
therefore.
Resolved by the Congress of the Confo ',orate States of
America,—That the following manifesto bo issued in their
name, and by their authority, and that the President be re-
quested to cause copies thereof to be transmitted to cur
Commissioners abroad, to the end that the same be laid be-
foro foreign Governments :
" Manifesto of the Congress of the Confederate States of
America Relative to the Existing War with the United
States.
" The Congress of the Confederate States of America
acknowledging their responsibility to the opinion of tho civi-
lized world, to the great law of Christian philanthropy,and
to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for the part they have
been compelled to bear in the sad spectacle of war and car-
nage which this continent has for the last three years ex-
hibited to the eyes of afflicted humanity, deem the pre-
sent a fitting occasion to doelare the principles, tho sena-
mints, and the purposes by which they have boon, and
still are, actuated.
" They have ever deeply deplored the necessity which
constrained them to take up arms in defence of their rights,
and of the free institutions derived from their ancestors;
and there is nothing they more ardently desire than peace,
whensoever their enemy, by ceasing from the unhallowed
war waged upon them, shall permit them to enjoy in peace
the sheltering protection of those hereditary rights and
those cherished institutions. The series of successes with
which it has pleased Almighty God in so signal a manner
to bless our arms on almost every point of our invaded bor-
der since the opening of the present campaign enables us to
profess this desire of peace in the interest of civilisation and
humanity, without danger of having our motives misinter-
preted, of the declaration being ascribed to any unmanly
sentiment, or any mistrust of our ability fully t maintain
our cause. The repeated and disaztrous-cheas foreshadow-
ing tibial& e discomfiture, which their gigantic army, ereeled
against the capital of the Confederacy, has already met
with, arc but a continuation of those providential successes
for UP. We du not recur to these successes iu any spirit of
vain boasting, but in humble acknowledgment of that Al-
mighty protection which has vouchsafed and granted them.
" The world must now sae that eight millions of people,
inhabiting so extensive a territory, with such varied re•
sources. and such enormous facilities for deferce as the be-
nignant bounty of nature has bestowed upon us, and ani-
mated with one spirit to encounter every sacrifice of ease,
of health, of properly, of life itself, rather than ba degraded
from the condition of free and independent States, into
which they were born; can never be conquericiT Will nut
our adversaries themselves begin to feel that humanity has
bled long enough, that tears and blood and treasure enough
have been expended in a bootless undertaking, covering their
own land, no less than ours, with a pall of mourning and ex
posing them far more than ourselves to the catastrophe of
financial exhaustion and bankruptcy, not to speak of the loss
of their liberties by the despotism engendered in an aggres-
sive warfare on the liberties of another and kindred people P
Will they be willing, by a longer perseverance in a wanton
and hopeless contest, to make this continent, which
they so long boasted to be the chosen abode of liberty and
self-government, of peace and a higher civilisation, the
theatre of the most causeless and prodigal effusion of blood
which the world has ever seen, of a virtual relapse into the
barbarism of the ruder ages, and of the destruction of consti-
tutional freedom by the lawlessness of usurped power
"These are questions which our adversaries will decide
for themselves. We desire to stand acquitted before the tri-
bunal of the world, as well as in the eyes of omniscient jus-
tice, of any responsibility for the origin or prolongation of a
war as contrary to the spirit of the age as to the traditions
and acknowledged principles of the political system o
America,

" On this continent, whatever Opinions may have pre-
vailed elFewhero, it has ever been hold and acknowledged
by all parties that government to be lawful must be founded
on tho consent of the governed, We wore forced to dissolve
our Federal connexion with our former associates by their
aggressions on the fundamental principles of our compact of
union with them; and in doing so wo exercised a right con-
secrated in the groat charter of American liberty—the right
of a free people, when a government proves destructive of
the ends for which it was established, to recur to the origi-
nal principles, and to institute new guards for their secu-
rity. The separate independence of the States, as the sove-
reign and coequal members of the Federal Union, had never
been surrendered, and the pretensions of applying to inde-
pendent communities so constituted and organised tho ordi-
nary rules for coercing and reducing rebellious subjects to
obedience was a solecism in terms, as well as an outrage on
the principles of public law.
" The war made upon the Confederate States was, there-
fore, wholly one of aggression. On our side it has been
strictly defensive. Barn freemon and the descendants of a
gallant ancestry, we had no option but to stand up in de-
fence of our invaded firesides, of our desecrated altars, of
our violated liberties and birthright, and of the prescriptive
institutions which guard and protect them. We have not
interfered, nor do we wish in any manner whatever to in-
terfere, with the internal peace and prosperity of the States
arrayed in hostility against us, or with the freest develop-
ment of their destinies in any form of action or line of policy
they may think proper to adopt for themselves. All we ask
is a like immunity for ourselves, and to be left to ourselves
in the undisturbed enjoyment of those inalienable rights of
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' which our com-
mon ancestors declared to be the equal heritage of all the
parties to the social compact.

"Let them forbear aggressions upon us, and the war is
at an end. If there be questions which require adjustment
by negotiations, we have ever been willing, and are still
willing, to enter into communication with our adversaries in
a spirit of peace, of equity, and of manly frankness. Strong
in the persuasion of the justice of our cause, in the manly
devotion of our citizen soldiers, and of the whole body of our
people, and above all in the gracious protection of Heaven,
we are not afraid to avow a sincere desire for peace on terms
consistent with our honour and the permanent security of
our rights, and an earnest aspiration to see the world once
more restored to the beneficent pursuits of industy and of
mutual intercourse and exchanges so essential to its well-
being, and which have been so gravely interrupted by the
existence of this unnatural war in Awerica.

"But if our adversaries, or those whom they have placed
in power, deaf to the voice of reason and justice—, steeled to
the dictates of prudence and humanity by a presumptuous
and delusive confidence in their own numbers, or those of
their black and foreign mercenaries, shall determine upon
an indefinite prolongation of the contest, upon them be the
responsibility of a decision so ruinous to themselves and so
injurious to the interest and repose of mankind.

"For ourselves, we have no fear of the result, The
wildest picture ever drawn by a disordered imagination
comes short of the extravagance which would dream of the
conquest of eight millions of people, resolved with one mind
to die freemen rather than live slaves,' and forewarned
by the savage and exterminating spirit in which this war
has be,n waged upon them, and by the mad avowals of the
supporters of the worse than Egyptian bondage that awaits
them in the event of their subjugation. With these decla-
rations of our dispositions, our principles, and our purposes,
we commit our cause to the enlightened judgment of the
world, to the sober reflections of our adversaries themselves,
and the solemn and righteous arbitrament of Heaven::