The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-17 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From. the Tines C'or •espondent.)
.w YORK, March 1.

The spring campaign has : fairly opened, both in
Virginia and Tennessee, ant 1 during the next six
months the world may expee t to hear of a succes-
sion of battles as bloody an I indecisive as Antie-
tam, Fredeeicksburg, Chanel llorsville, Gettysburg,
or any other of the useless massacres of the war.
The field of contest has began largely extended, and
there are indications thagi; not only Virginia, Ten-
nessee, Louisiana, Texas, Florida, and the Atlantic
States, but the rich and hitherto undevastated re-
gions of Pennsylvania and Ohio, will be made to
feel the full horrors of the sword and torch, the
rush of squadrons and the tramp of exasperated
armies. Both sides have put forward their utmost
available strength of men, if not of leaders. In
leadership the South excels. It not only possesses
the best generals, but employs them without regard
to politics or party favour, while the North, with
fewer men of note and ability to choose from, selects
its generals for nonmilitary reasons, and dismisses
them as soon as they display the slightest symptoms
of genies. The South is grimly in earnest—as it
has ever been ; while the North, unwarned and un-
taught by repeated reverses and disappointments,
is jauntily confident of speedy victory, as if none of
the roseate predictions of its political chieftains had
ever been made and falsified. But though the area

of the war widens with the march of time, neither
side has such large armies in the field as it had in
1863. Meade commands a smaller host than that
with which he conquered at Gettysburg, and Lee a
_rorce less by a third than that with which he in-
yLvied Pennsylvania. Grant's army does not exceed
60,000 men, while the combined forces of the
Southern generals, who are about to try if they
can,aot rescue Tennessee from his grasp, do not
reae.ta within 5,000 or perhaps 10,000 of that num-
ber. This diminution of force may, however, be an
advantage to both parties, and much of the ill-
success which has attended the efforts of the South
to conquer independence, and of the North to com-
pel allegiance, may be due to the fact that the armies
of each have been too large for the effective manage-
ment cf an; General which either has produced.
Ponding the outburst of the storm which will
speedily roar and flash on every side, unless all the
warnings of the barometer and all the signs on the
horizon be deceptive, it may be well for the student
of American affairs to take as accurate and compre-
hensive a survey as his vision will allow of the
social and political condition of the Northern people
and their rulers at a crisis of their fortunes which

the issue of one b :We or other circumstances may

render decisive. To ascertain what the President
is doing, what objects of individual or national con-
cern occupy the attention of his Cabinet, with what
spirit the Senate and the House of Representatives
are imbued, what are the aspirations and character
of the soldiery, what are the honesty and patriotism
or the reverse of the military chieftains, and what
is the morality or immorality, the power or the
weakness, of parties—all these are inquiries of the
highest interest. There can be no doubt that there
are many true patriots in America, men of noble
ideas and lofty aims, but at this turning point in the
bistery of their country it is of importance to know
whether they are in the majority or the minority,
and whether it be in their power to direct to happy
iegues, either now or hereafter, the apparently all
but desperate fortunes of their nation:
Beginning with the highest personage in the
realm, we find that Mr. Lincoln is confessedly in-
competent to restore peace or prosecute a successful
war. Even his honesty—for which at one time
ell the world was willing to give him credit—appears
to have succumbed to the evil influences which
aerronnd him. Three years' possession of power has
familiarized him with baseness. He meets serious
argument with a jest, and buys the too troublesome
opponent whom he cannot otherwise silence. Fasci-
nates:, as greater men have been, by the exercise of
supreme authority, he cannot reconcile his mind to
the decency of relinquishing it. He has learnt to
play with principles as gamblers play with dice, and
desiring to be re-nominated to the Presidency, he is
determined to win the game unfairly if he cannot
win it otherwise. The Constitution which he swore
to uphold having been abrogated on the plea of
military necessity by a subservient majority in both
Howes of the Legislature, he acts in all respects as
he pleases. lie absolves himself from obedience to
all authority but his own. He plans campaigns,
though he is no soldier, and sets aside the combina-
tions of his Generals without giving himself the
trouble to understand them. He orders an army to
advance for a political purpose, even though the
result of the movement should be a military disgrace,
and is s fearful teat some successful General should
appear and end the war by such a victory as would
make the victor President that ha cripples the ener-
gies of his best officers, and withholds alike hie con-
fidence and his reinforcements. Within the last
month, without consultation with his Secretary of
War or Commander-in-Chief, he directed an expe-
dition into Florida, making his private secretary, a
lad of 20 years of ap, the bearer of orders to General
Gilmore to take military possession of that State.
The object was not a military one, but solely intended
to organize a civil government in the name of a mi-
nority, by means of which Florida might be repre-
sented in Congress and cast its vote for Mr. Lincoln,
if the Presidential election should fall, as most
people believe it will, to the decision of the House
of Representatives. The result of this stupendous
exercise of arbitrary folly has been a disastrous
failure. The 5,000 men despatched under General
Seymour to accomplish the President's purpose
were suddenly confronted by an enemy of thrice
their numbers, of whose existence neither Mr.
Lincoln nor the General employed had the slightest
suspicion, and forced to retreat with a loss of
1,200 men in killed and wounded. Besides the
human lives thus wantonly sacrificed, this ill-starred
expedition cost about two millions of dollars
in money. This is but one, though as yet the last,
specimen of Mr. Lincoln's management, at a time
when not alone the greatest prudence and circum-
spection are necessary to prevent mishap, but when
the purest self-sacrifice and the most patriotic de-
votion in the chief of the State, and of all others in
high position, are essential to prevent the worse
calamities that may follow upon dishonour.

The spectacle offsred by the Cabinet is scarcely
more edifying. In any other constitutional country
men in the position of Mr. Stanton and General
Halieck would have resigned their offices if a man
in the position of the President had planned and
commanded such an expedition as that to Florida
'without consultation with and concurrence from
them. But as they have purposes of their own to
serve, they hold on to their portfolios, and wash
their hands of responsibility. A striking peculiarity
of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet is that the Cabinet never
meets. Each Secretary manages his own depart-
ment, as far as the President will allow, and takes
no heed of the national policy as a whole. In
American phrase, each man "runs his own ma-
chine," and has little, if any, other object than to
make such political capital out of its management
as will place him in a favourable position before the
country in the scramble for office. It is known that
there i 3 not a single member of the Cabinet who
does net think he wood make a better President
than Mr. Lincoln ; and the great majority of them
do not scruple to sey so. Mr. Seward missed the
Presidency by a mere chance, and was only made
Secretary of State because he was too powerful to
be omitted from the combinations of the party; and
even he—superior as he must feel himself to be in
intellect and acquirements to the master whom he
serves—is content to " run" the foreign machine,
while he sees, without an effort to avert it, the
domestic machine running headlong down a
precipice where it must inevitably be dashed to
The Secretary of the Treasury, the coolest,
and, as far as is known, the honestest head in
the Government, is openly a candidate for Mr.
Lincoln's seat,
and, if no unfair or extra-constitu-
flow.: means arc emp!oycil to thwart him, wilt in all
probability secure a larger popular vote than any
competitor of the same political bias. Mr. Stanton
also has Presidential aspirations,and works to that
end, though ha may think that another period of
four years may intervene before his wishes be grati-
feed. The other Secretaries, though they respect
each other bat little, respect Mr, Lincoln still less,

end have ecarnely a bond of sympathy to unite them
to his political fortunes stronger than that which
urges them to look jealously upon the rising fame
of any soldier who threatens to seize upon dicta-
torial power, and so consign the whole of them to
exile or to obscurity.
The Legislation does not show to greater advan-
tage than the Cabinet. The Senate ostracizes patriots
like Mr. Bayard because they advocate peace, and
applauds Mr. Sumner and Mr. Wilson for insisting
on the right of negroes to ride in railway carriages
with white men ; though they have not uttered a
syllable against General Banks for the virtual re-
establishment of slavery throughout every part of
Louisiana where his authority extends. War sub.
jugation, and extermination are the favourite themes
of the leading orator of what ought to be the most
dignified and sober deliberative assembly in the
realm ; and the senator, gray with years and ripe
with experience, who dares to mention either peace
or conciliation incurs the imputation of disloyalty, if
not the penalty of treason, for his offence. The
Lower House is as blinded as the Upper, and con-
siderably more corrupt. It is vain to look for states-
manship in the majority, and although there is still
a minority who are of opinion that union is good,
but liberty better, they are without influence, and
are compelled to resort to the expedient of printing
the speeches to which nobody will listen. The recent
history of the Whisky Tax proves not only how many
of them are purchasable, but how many of them
have been purchased ; and the whole course of their
legislation on the all-important subject of the taxes
that must be levied, if national bankruptcy is to be
avoided, shows how little they comprehend the
magnitude of the struggle in which their consti-
tuents are engaged, and how slightly they estimate
the duties that in such a crisis devolve upon those
who truly represent and would truly serve :the
people.
The aspirations and character of the soldiery may
be more briefly stated. The war has already con-
verted them into a class apart. They know that
for many years, whatever may be the issues of the
strife, the Northern States must maintain a stand.
in g army of half a million of men. They have ac-
quired to a large extent, the esprit du corps, and
under able guidance,they expect to make themselves
the masters of the country. That " the bayonets
think" is the foolish boast of men who should know
better than to imagine that such a circumstance is
other than a frightful peril to the State that em-
ploys them. The bayonets may hereafter come to
think that the destruction of the commonwealth
and the erection of a military despotism on its ruins
is desirable ; and if they so think, who is to prevent
them from carrying their thought into action ?
The character of the officers corresponds with that
of the soldiery. General Banks is a dictator where.
ever the power extends—and that his power is not
slight, nor exercised with any tender regard to the
principles for which the Northern people are sup-
posed to be waging this terrible war, is apparent
from the ease and impunity with which he has
seized hold of the freed slaves of the Southern plan.
ters, and compelled them to labour for horns shich
he prescribes and for reward which ho fixes.

General Butler, as high-handed a despot as Pro-
vidence ever permitted to afflict a community, has
gone beyond General Banks in his outrage against
all the principles which the ancestors of the Ameri-
cans are supposed to have revered long before the
first Anglo. Saxon set his foot upon American soil,
and in support of which the passengers by the flay•
flower wore contented to dwell in the wilderness
and fight with savage men and savage beasts. Gen.
Banks, whatever may be said against the system of
serfage which he has found himself forced to esta-
blish, may urge in extenuation that he could not as
a wise ruler allow rich lands to remain uncultivated
while there were hundreds of thousands of men
strong enough to work upon them, but who would
not or could not work without compulsion or guid-
ance; but Gen. Butler, in taking the pulpit under
his management—or, as Mr. Lincoln phrases it,
"in running the churches," has usurped a power
that at any time these 200 years would have cost a
king of England his throne if not his head if he had
dared to exercise or even to claim it. Generals
Burnside, Schenck, Milroy, Hascall, and a whole
host of subordidate provost-marshals, having made
Europe and America ring with the story of their
willingness to crush out the liberties of their coun-
trymen, and of their attempts to rival the worst
atrocities of the worst tyrants whom the world ever
saw. There is no lack of such material in the Fede-
ral army. In this respect it may be urged on behalf
of the :americans that in a time of civil war, when
the military becomes the supreme power, it cannot
be otherwise; that an army is a ruthless machine,
and that unreasoning obedience to authority is the
essence of the discipline without which no army can
exist. But these are circumstances which the Ame-
ricans ought to consider before it be too late to
rescue their liberty from a grasp which will not
again relax, if it once get a firm hold, without years
or even generations of anarchy and convulsion.
The present condition of the two great parties
—the one holding and the other endeavouring to
attain power—is perhaps more melancholy than all
the other aspects of the hour. The Republicans
ignore and deny the principles on which the Union
was founded, and are revolutionising the whole sys-
tem of government, substituting force for consent,
centralisation for diffusion, despotism for liberty.
They are not alone arbitrary, but corrupt. They
destroy liberty for the sake of territory, and would
treat their brethren of the South as the Norman in-
vaders under William the Conqueror treated the
Saxon English. They force their political, reli-
gious, and philanthropic doctrines down the throats
of recalcitrants with the sword, and are as merci-
lessly intolerant as the successors of Mahomed in
Asia,or the Inquisition in Spain. The plunder rather
than the conquest of the South is the object at which
they aim; and could they obtain possession of the
Southern plantations of cotton, rice, sugar, or
tobacco, and were unable to cultivate them by the
free labour either of white men or of blacks, they
would do on a large scale what General Banks has
done on a small one, and re-establish slavery—as
they have abolished the Constitution—on the plea
of military necessity, Nor are their great opponents,
the Democrats, very much better. They clamour
for war while they mean peace. They are hopelessly
corrupt and demoralised by the means that their
system compelled them to adopt to maintain them •
selves in possession of place and its perquisites. In
short, the real intelligence, virtue, and public spirit
of the country are not represented by either of the
parties that exist. Honest men keep aloof from
politics lest they should be contaminated, and the
public peril has not yet impressed itself with suffi-
cient vividness before the eyes of the majority to
force them to arise, as the people are accustomed
to do in other countries at great national crises, and
sweep away the old parties indignantly by the crea-
tion of a new, without other objects to serve than
those of the public safety, or other motives than
those of the national honour.

It is under circumstances like these that the
fourth campaign of the war has opened. Should
successes reward the perseverance of the North,
there will not be very much difference in the plc-
tare. Should, however, a great reverse befall either
General Meade or General Grant, a change may
result at which the world will be astonished.

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