The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-16 00:00:00

FINANCIAL.

NEW YORK, MAY 3, P.M.
The money market is easy. Capital is freely
offered at 7 per cent., and there is a tendency to
lower rates. The 100,000,000 dollars of two year
5 per cent. legal tenders will become currency on
the Ist of June, when they lose their first coupons,
and this anticipated inflation is already being felt
in the money market.

Government securities are quiet. United States
Sixes of 1881 registered 1121 ; ditto coupons, 113 ;
Seven and Three-tenths Treasury notes, 110;
Coupon Five Twenties of 1882, 105 i ; One Year
Certificates, 98i.
Exchange is active at 197.
Gold opened at 177 and rose steadily to 1801,
closing at that rate.

Railroad shares are irregular and active. Erie,
MI; New York Central, 1301; Hudson River,
1321; Harlem, 233 ; Reading, 128 ; Illinois
Central, 1241 ; Michigan Central, 135; Michigan
Southern, 90 ; Pittsburg, Fort Mayne, and
Chicago, 109; Chicago and Rock Island, 1091,

COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.

NEW YORK, MAY 3, P.M.

Flour.—Unsettled, and 5 to 10 cents, per barrel
lower. 7 dole. to 7 dole. 20c. for superfine State
and Western; 7 dole. 20c. to 7 dole. 30c. for extra
state; 7 dole. 35c. to 7 dols. 60c. for choice state
.;
7 dols. 300. to 7 dols. 70c. for common to medium
Western.; 7 dole. 75c. to 9 dole. for good to choice
do. ; 8 dole. 10c, to 11 dole. for extra St. Louis;
7 dole. 60c. to 8 dole, for common to good Southern ;
8 dais. 10c. to 11 dole. for good to choice extra do,;
7 dols. 30c. to 7 dole. 60c. for common, and 7 dole.
60c. to 9 dole. for good to choice extra Canadian.

Wheat.—Dall, and 1 to 2 cents. per bushel lower.

1 dol. 84c. for amber Michigan, 1 dol. 78c.. for
amber Jersey; 1 dol. 80c. for spring amber, and
winter, and Western.

Corn.-1 dol. 37c. to 1 dol. 39e. for old 'Western.
Cotton—Quiet and steady. 831 c. for middling
uplandP, and 80c. for low middlings.
Ashes.—Quiet, 9 dols. for pots. and 11 dols. for
pearls.

Provisions.—Pork, quiet. 2G dais. for mess; 28
del& 502. for new do. ; 23 dolt. to 25 dots. for old
and new ptime ; 27 dots, 503. for prime mess. Beef
ie firm, at 16 dots. to 17 dole, for repacked, arid 19
dole. to 20 dots. for extra mess.

Tallow.—Dull ; 13ic. fur city.
Sugar.—Stecdy ; 161 e. to 171 c. for Cuba.
Rice.—Quiet, at 11c. for Rangoon:
Petroleum.—Moderately active; at 381 c. for
crude, and 583. to 60c. for refined.

Coffee.—Dull. San Domingo at 39c.; 45c. to
f. 470 or Rio, and 53c. to 55c. for Sava.

President Lincoln on Slavery and Eman.

cipation,

The American papers publish the following:—
Executive Mansion, Washington, April 4.
. _

A, G. Hodges, Esq., Frankfort, Ky.
114 dear Sir,—You ask me to put in writing the
substance of what I verbally said, the other day, in
your presence, to Governor Bramlette and Senator
Dixon. It was about as follows :—I am naturally
anti• slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is
wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so
think and feel. And yet I have never understood
that the Presidency conferred upon me an unre-
' stricted right to act officially upon this judgment
and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would,
to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and de-
fend the constitution of the United States. I could
not take the office without taking the oath. Nor
was it my view that I might take an oath to get
power, and break the oath in using the power. I
understood that, in ordinary civil administratien,
this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my
primary, abstract judgment on the moral question of
slavery. I had publicly declared this many times,
and in many ways. And I aver that, to this day, I
have done no official Sc.: in mere deference to my ab-
stract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did under-
stand, however, that my oath to preserve the con-
stitution to the best of my ability imposed upon me
the duty of preserving by every indispensable means
that Government—that nation, of which that con-
stitution was the organic law. Was it possible to
lose the nation and yet preserve the constitution ?
By general law, life and limb must be protected ;
yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life;
but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I
feel that measures otherwise unconstitutional might
become lawful by becoming indispensable to the
preservation of the constitution. Right or wrong,
I aasumed this ground, and now avow it. I could
not feel that to the best of my ability I had even
tried to preserve the constitution, if to save slavery
or any minor matter I should permit the wreck of
government, country, and constitution altogether.
When early in the war General Fremont attempted
military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did
not then think it an indispensable necessity,
When, a little later, General Cameron, then Secre-
tary at War, suggesting the arming of the blacks,
I objected, because I did not yet think it an in-
dispensable necessity. When, still later, General
Hunter attempted military emancipation, I
again forbade it, because I did not yet think
the indispensable necessity had come. When
in March and May, and July, 1862, I made earnest
and successive appeals to the Border States to
favour compensated emancipation, I believed the
indispensable necessity for military emancipation;
and arming the blacks would come, unless averted
by that measure. They declined the proposition,
end I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alter-
native of either surrendering the Union, and with
it the constitution, or of laying strong hand upon
the coloured element. I chose the latter. In choos-
ing it I hoped for greater gain than loss ; but of
this I was not entirely confident. More than a year
of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign rela-
tions; none in our home popular sentiment; none
iu our white military force—co less by it anyhow or
anywhere. On the contrary, it shows a gain of
quite 130,000 soldiers, seamen and labourers. These
are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be