The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-10 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, Feb. 23.
The birthday of George Washington, slaveholder,
and (until he became successful) a rebel, was yester-
day celebrated by 20 millions of people, who affect
to hate both slaveholding and rebellion with viru-
lence to which history offers few parallels. Were
Washington now alive, holding the principle for
which he fought and conquered in his own day, he
would either sit in the seat of Jefferson Davis or be
among the most trusted of hie councillors; but the
North, forgetting principle in passion, honours his
memory, and departs from his teaching. So greatly
have times changed since the comparatively recent
day in which he was a power among his fellows that
he has almost become as mythical as Ulysses or
Achilles—a name for boys to revere, for girls to
dream of, and for philosophers to theorise and be
learned upon, but of no more practical account,
either by his example or his precept, in the govern-
ance of the Republic which he founded than if he
had been dead 3,000 years. He declared that go-
vernment reposed upon the consent of the governed,
and to prove the contrary the Federal Americans
have taken up arms to coerce eight millions of people
of their own race and lineage and the greater por-
tion of four millions of negroes. He warned them
against sectionalism as the greatest of all the dangers
against which the young Republic should be on its
guard, and they became sectional until see-
tionalism—as he foresaw it would—ripened and
expanded into war. He dwelt upon the neces-
sity of wise compromise as the only stable foun-
dation of constitutional liberty, and they refused
to listen to compromise until compromise became

impossible. Forgetting all his counsels, all his
principles, all the objects for which he made him-
self a name for ever, they have deluged his na-
tive Virginia with the blood of a hundred thousand
of their own and as many of the opposing people,
carried fire and sword through that once lovely
land, laid up a store of misery and indebtedness to
afflict countless generations, parted with liberty
for the sake of " glory," and gained not even the
glory and the dominion for which they perilled
so much—nothing, in fact, as yet, but a vague half-
consciousness that all their sacrifices have been in
vain, and that as Washington was so will Jefferson
Davis be hereafter. But if Washington's principles
be forgotten, his birthday is remembered. Yester-
day guns fired, banners waved, illuminations and
rockets reddened the midnight sky, balls and other
festivities enlivened the hearts of the young and
fair, while older and soberer persons took pleasure
in that indigenous species of oratory known as
" hightalutin," in commemoration of the glorious
anniversary. To-day all is over, and Washington's
name is laid on the shelf until the 4th of July, when,
if all be well, it will be taken down again to cele-
brate kapceessfal rebellion against England, and to
point the moral of an old revolution without
throwing any light upon the principles and passion
of the new.

Among the promises made for the day were two
which were not fulfilled—the one, a new Proclama-

tion of Universal Emancipation; the other, the great
inaugural meeting in the city of New York, under
the auspices of the Lincoln Union League, tor the
advocacy of Mr. Lincoln's claim to reselectioa. Per-
haps the first, if ready, has, for reasons best known
to Mr. Lincoln, been postponed to a more appro-
priate season ; the second has undoubtedly been
postponed because of the almost total want of sym-
pathy in its objects which exists among the people
of the metropolis. Even the Tribune, which made
him, has formally declined to support him for a
second term. Though Gen. Butler is spoken of, and
he and the North are worthy of each other, he is
scarcely to bo considered a popular favourite. That
honour has been reserved fur Gen. M‘Ulellan. His
name is always received with shouts of applause
whenever publicly mentioned. The soldiers when
he appears among them, as he did for the first time
lest Saturday, receive him with a furore of delight,
which proves that his enforced retirement has not
diminished his popularity among his comrades. His
official report to the Secretary of War on the organi-
sation
of the army of the Potomac and its campaigns
in Virginia and Maryland has just been published.
Congress ordered 10,000 copies to be printed for the
use of members, but, lest the document should be
too extensively used as an electioneering manifesto,
it reduced the number to 5,000. But this little
circumstance only increased the public anxiety to
read the report. It has been reprinted piecemeal
in hundreds of newspapers all over the country,
besides being re-issued in book form by a score of
publishers. The General stood high before in the
estimation of the Democratic party, as well as of
that large non-partisan class whose only bond of
poli ical cohesion is their timidity and dread of
violent revolution. His report has strengthened the
confidence reposed in him by both, and will, in the
event of a Presidential election under the old forms
which is not by any means so certain as it ought to
be—procure for him many hundred thousand votes
which he might not otherwise have secured. But
far more important than the movements of the
General's friends is the step just taken in the interest
of Mr. Chase. Cautious, solid, steady, always going
forward without appearing to move, and never
drawing back, Mr. Chase bides his time. He says
nothing, but does a great deal, and cleverly allowing
Mr. Lincoln by the exercise of the war power
vested in him as Commander-in-Chief to fill up the
gape left in the Senate and the House of Repre-
sentatives by the session of the Southern States, he
seems to calculate that the two cunning engineer
may be hoisted with his own petard, and that if
the ultimate decision of the Presidential contest
be thrown into the House of Representatives, the
votes thus created may be given foe Chase, and not
for Lincoln. His friends—and he is a man whose
purity of life, independence of character, and range
of intellect would always secure him many, even if
he bad not high power and the power of putting
his favourites on the road to fortune to add to the
number—have finally come forward with a laboured
statement in his behalf, in the shape of a circular
or manifesto, ostensibly addressed to the whole
people, but intended for the chiefs as well as the
rank and file of the Republican party. It is signed
by Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, on behalf of the
National Executive Committee, and when,yesterday
morning, published for the first time created a
marked sensation in this city as well as in Wesh-
ingtee. To-day it has led to two reports—one that
it is a fabrication, and the concoction of an enemy;
and the other, based upon its authenticity, that Mr.
Lincoln will either yield his own claims to those of
Mr. Chase or dismiss him from the Secretaryship of
the Treasury. The document is generally believed
to be genuine. It states that this movement on the
part of the friends of the Union who differ from the
policy of the Government ties been rendered neces-
sary by ttie prior movement made to secure the re-
nomination of Mr. Lincoln; that werethe re-election
sennld be smpraeteeeble