The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-23 00:00:00

AMERICA.

:ME PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, Nov. 8.
The eventful day that is to decide the fate of
America for the next four years, and possibly for all
coming time, dawned gray and misty. A thick
vapour covered land and sea, and concealed from the
sight of the spectator every object more than 50
yards distant. As the day wore on the gloom in..
_ _ _

creased, and by 9 o'clock was accompanied by such
a heavy fall of rain as is seldom to be seen in our
showery England, but which ever and anon bursts
upon the Atlantic shores of this continent with the
force and continuity of a miniature deluge. Every
one predicted a " slim" vote as likely to be the re-
sult ; but before noon the rain abated, though the
fog did not clear away, and the people turned out
to the polling places in numbers as large as at any
previous election, or, as some old inhabitants say,
much larger. No troops were to be seen in the streets,
but it was notified in most of the journals that fully
10,000 men were posted in convenient localities,
some in steam ferry boats anchored in the Eaet River
and the Hudson, and some in the neighbouring
cities of Brooklyn and Jersey, ready to act at five
minutes' notice in case of ri.)t. Gunboats were also
stationed in both rivers. Except the report of the
capture of the Confederate war steamer Florida off

the coast of Brazil a month ago there was scarcely
even the whisper of a Federal victory, though so
many had been predicted as certain to hsppen on or
before to-day to raiee the spirits of Mr Lincoin't,

friends to the fever point of enthusiasm. This dis-
appointment tended to throw a moral damp upon
the Republican party as cold as the“ payaic il one
which impartial nature, in the shape of mist and
rain, had thrown upon the just and the unjust, the
peaceable and the warlike. The only feet, or sem-
blance of a feet which seemed in any degree to
warm the hearts of the Line elnites with hope and
joy, and to animate the AFClellanites with the
more fervid sentiments of hate and indignation,
was the arrival of General Butler, and the noti-
fication under his own hand, that he had by direction
of the President and to meet a special emergency
assumed military command of the Sato of New
York. Nor did it tend to increase the equanimity
of the Democratic party to learn that so early as
Saturday, 30 hours or more before any official an-
nouncement had been made either of his presence or
his functions in this city, the General should have
ordered the attendance at his headquarters of Mr
Gilbert Dean, an eminent lawyer of this city, to
explain some passages in a speech which he had re.
cently made in support of Gen. M'Clellen, By what
right, it was asked, did the General summon to
wait upon him a gentleman with whom he wee not
personally acquainted, and whom, if he wanted to
see, he could have found at his house or place of
business? But the official announcement of yester-
day morning was a sufficient reply to that question,
and the loyal leaguers, the contractors, the extere
minators, the negrophilists, the war Christians, and
the friends of the Administration generally were
loud in their expressions of joy that, to some one
more resolute and unscrupulous than the respectable
and gentlemanly, not to say polished and aristocra-
tic Gen. Dix, had been deputed the task of over-
awing the traitors and Copperheads, the Secession-
ists and Cessationists, who form so large a minority
in this great city. Two or three persons, one of them
a Wall-street broker, suspected of traitorous conspi-
racy with other persons unknown to send up the
premium on gold were invited by the polite and
peremptory aides-deeeamp of the General to wait
upon the awful Butler, and explain why they
should not be sent to Fort Lafayette. But in all
these cases the trembling innocents escaped with
a reprimand. General Butler received his visitors
with all courtesy, seat in full military costume at
his writing table, with one loaded revolver on the
right hand and another on the left. In all quarters,
except among the zealots of the Republican party,
a decidedly angry feeling was created, not alone by
the appointment of General Butler, but by the rea-
sons given by himself in his " General Order N 0.1,"
why such duties were confided to him. This person
—whose names it is historical truth to say is synony-
mous in America, if not in Europe, with all that is
odious or despotic in the practice of Government,
informed the people of this great State and city,
little accustomed to be hectored and dragooned by
any individual, however high and mighty he may
be or may think himself, " that he had assumed
command of the troops arriving at and about to
arrive in New Yorklo meet existing emergencies.''
In order that he might not be accused of what
every one imagined his real purpose—a design to
overawe the people, this day presenting themselves
peaceably at the polls to tender their votes for Gen.
M'Clellan he explained the " emergencies," which
called for such an evil dens cx inachina as himself to
meet and manipulate. They were no other than
"raids alike in quality and object to that made at St.
Alban's," He added that, had not such raids been in
contemplation " there could have been no necessity
for preceutionary 'preparations." In other words,
the Federal Government, under pretext that a few
Southern refugees in Canada might take advantage
of the excitement of the Presidential election to
run over into Maine or Vermont, or cross the Lakes
above and below Niagara, to create disturbance or
commit depredations, despatched the tyrant of New
Orleans to this city, and left his division of the
Army of the Potomac to take care of itself while he
guarded the Canadian frontier, five hundred
miles distant from his head-quarters in Broad-
way. The people of New York were not
se simple-minded as to be deceived b 5 so flimsy a
pretext, and if at the close of the polls today it i