The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

MIES.-It is very remarkable that at this women,
the most conspicuous result of the American war is
a gradual elevation of the black race in social and
political position. The Northern people, as a body,
though they have obviously learnt a species of tole-
ration for the coloured race, are probably not mare
solicitous than formerly for the welfare or emanci-
pation of the negro; but, as happens in all revolu-
tions, the most thoroughgoing party has proved the
most enduring, and that party is the Abolisionist
party. It was pointed out at a very early period of
the war that slavery could hardly escape from tire
double danger with which it was threatened. If the
Federals were victorious, they could deal with the
institutions as they pleased ; it the Confederates
established their independence, a free soil would
bound their territory, and any slave by crossing the
frontier could assert his freedom. Something akin
to this process has now been long going on. Many
negroes have actually taken refuge on Northern soil ;
many more, though still on Southern soil, have been
enabled by the presence of Federal armies to escape
from slavery. In the border counties, indeed, slavery
may be said to have been abolished though slaves in
great numbers still remain, bat it has not been found
necessary in any of those territories to resort to such
edicts as that of General Banks in Louisiana. In
justice also to the Abolitionists, it must be confessed
that the extreme representatives of their party are
consistent in their views. They do not, while as-
serting the rights of the negro, condemn him to
social proscription. They accept the logical
consequences of his emancipation, and have even
astonished the world by the completeness of the
recognition which they have recently announced,
and which our correspondence so vividly portrays.
It still remains to be seen, however, what part
the Southern people will take in the question thus
developed. If the war, as some Northern writers
tell us, and as appears by no means improbable,
is henceforth to be prosecuted with armies of
blacks, it is obvious that the superiority of re-
sources will now, for the first time, be on the side of
the South. If by men is meant black men, the Con-
federates are stronger than the Federals, for there
is ,eo reason to presume that the Southern 'negroes
will refuse to fight on the side of their masters. In
any case, ha Waver, their position must be materially
affected, and it
9 certainly remarkable that the only
result of this extrao:divary war as yet visible should
Ise the gradual subvers:on of that institution which,
if it was the remote cause of strife, was forgotten in
the first hours of conflict. Three years ago the
Federal Government made no sceeret of its willing-
ness to give every satisfaction to thse slaveholders of
the South on condition of resuming their allegiance.
In all probability the:great mejority of ibe Federal
.people would still ba ready to make peace on the
same terms, but such a policy is necessarilytlaslking
in vigour, and while the Democrats hesitate to avow
their pacific sentiments the more zealous Abolition-
ists have carried their standards to the front. In
the meantime, by the mere course of events, the
black man • is pushing his way to a new position.
In the North, though still rejected by the bulk of
the population, he is encouraged and favoured by a
determined faction, and has become necessary to all.
In the South he is invited by the invaders to quit
the state of slavery, and has actually the option over
a considerable portion of Confederate territory of
becoming what he was not before. It is not much,
perhaps, to be promoted from slavery to serfdom,
but it is a move, nevertheless, and when once accom-
plished will be hard to reverse. We do not see, in
fact, how slavery, thus dealt with on all sides, can
either remain what it is or become again what it
was, and that is one of the least unsatisfactory pros-
pects of this terrible war.
HERALD.—The anxiety of Lord Palmerston to
satisfy the Government of Louis Philippe in 1840,
not only that he had not connived at the Boulogne
expedition, but that neither he nor Lord Melbourne
had for years set eyes upon " that madman" Louis
Napoleon, is hardly reconcileable with the readi-
ness with which the noble lord has vindicated and
assumed the whole responsibility for Mr. Stansfeld's
intimate connection with the plotters against the
life of Louis Napoleon, the Emperor of the French.
There we then nothing but an insinuation, which
the noble load could have afforded to despise. Had
he seen Louis Napoleon, who enjoyed a good social
position in this county; a short time befoeethe ex-
pedition, there would have been nothing tit it to
justify complaint from the French Government.
But the canards of French newspapers were sufii-
cient cause to induce the noble lord to deny in the
official newspaper that he had called upon the
Prince, and send for the French Minister to give
him the most emphatic and detailed denial that he
had the slightest knowledge of the conspirators
against France. We applaud the anxiety, worthy
of an English Minister, to repudiate all part, even
the remotest and most indirect, in conspiracies
against a friendly Government. How is it that we
find a Minister, then so extremely susceptible, now
not only refusing to give the French Government
an explanation in a much more serious matter, but
wantonly and offensively assuming the responsibi-
lity of aiding and abetting conspiracies against the
life of a friendly sovereign ? Upon prisoners arrested
in Paris, in whose luggage were found weapons in-
tended, as they confessed, for the murder of the Em-
peror Napoleon, were found papers implicating Me z-
zini as the organiser of the insurrection, and instruct-
ing his instruments to communicate with him at the
house of Mr. Stansfeld. These facts are men-
tioned at the trial. The Procureur General ex-
presses his surprise and regret that a member of
the English Parliament should assist such scoun-
drels, but he observes that this member of Parlia-
ment had been mixed up in a previous conspiracy
against the life of the Emperor. Now, iel.re was a
case against Mr. Stansfeld, infinitely plainer end of
far greater gravity than that which Lord Palmer-
ston was so eager to explain away, and Mr. Stens.
feld, to do him justice, seems to have felt that he
had committed au indiscretion which made it im-
possible for him to remain a Minister of the Crown.
He offered his resignation. Lord Palmerston,
however, refused to accept it, and the result was
that Mr. Stansfeld, emboldened by the support of
his chief, refused to give any explanation, and pro-
nounced a glowing eulogium upon the arch-revolu-
tionist and apostle of the dagger. The House of
Commons was not to be put off thus easily, and Mr.
Stansfeld was compelled to explain ' • and the Go-
vernment was only saved from defeat by the pathetic
appeals not to spoil the young man's prospects with
which the supporters of the Government accom-
panied their acknowledgments of his indiscretion.
Lord Palmerston alone refused to express regret,
and boldly, tauntingly,assumed the responsibility of
Mr. Stansfeld's friendship with Mazzini, and his
unintentional plots of the Italian revolutionist
against the Emperor's life. It has been said that a
man's body changes altogether in seven years, and
that at the end 'of that period it contains not the
smallest fraction of the substances with which it
commenced the septenniad. Thrice seven years have
passed since Lord Palmerston showed himself so
anxious for his honour to these days in which he
eagerly accepts the responsibility of harbouring and
assisting assassins. Are we to suppose that his
mind has been changed with his body, and as each
set of framework has given place to a weaker and a
worse, so the mind of the noble lord has in each
change lost something of its eense of honour, until
now it can accept without difficulty the scandalous
part which the Premier has undertaken; orshell we
ammo that Lord Palmerston was as indifferent