The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-13 00:00:00

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end of June, during which time the claims put for-
ward on behalf of but not by General Grant will
probably be decided one way or another by himself
or General Lee. With Grant as President, General
M'Clellan would, doubtless, be reinstated in high
command, so that M'Clellan's policy is to watch
and wait, and take advantage of any divisions in
the ranks of his opponents which may serve to
keep his name before the public, and gather round
it the great Conservative party that still believe
in State rights, and see in a centralised Government
the inevitable downfall of republican liberty. If
he Gould serve that party as President, he could
also serve it as Commander.in-Chief. Thus
Grant's success or failure will equally serve his
purprise. In the one case he may be at the head of
the army; in the other at the head of the State,
so that he, of all men, has most reason to maintain
his soul in peace and leave events to their natural
solution.
Mr Lincoln's temporary suppression of the World
and the Journal of Commerce for being as ready to
be deceived by a forgery as his Secretary of State
in Washington and his Ambassador in London has
considerably damaged his popularity. In America
a man is either very much praised or very much
execrated. The people have no medium in their
love or hate. Their generals must either be
Napoleons or "stunted corporals," and their lead-
ing men paragons of honesty and virtue, or
knaves and imbeciles. Mr Lincoln has had his
"heated term," in which it was the fashion to
endow him with every possible good quality, and
in which, if a blunder were brought home to him,
the all-sufficient excuse and palliative was found in
his immeasurable and unprecedented honesty. The
cold fit is now upon his reputation, and he who was
so great before finds none to do him reverence,
except those who expect favour or fortune at his
hands. The journal which was the first to recom-
mend him for re-election has changed its tone, and
denounces him with a virulence of ill.will of which
no journal in the world is so great or so mean an
exemplar. It states that the renomination of Mr
Lincoln will be an attempt to perpetuate the
petty despotisms, the gross corruptions, and the
unparalleled abuses of the past four years, and that
the slightest Probability of his success will intensely
infuriate the masses of the people; that the politi-
cians, by simply nominating two or three weak
candidates, may allow Lincoln to slip in between
them ; but that if this old game, frequently
played and generally successful, be attempted
while the people are in their present temper,
it will not answer for the consequences. It adds
that "riots, burnings, assassinations, barricades, and
a revolution will probably ensue, All that the people
want is a fair chance to defeat Lincoln. Give them
that by nominating such a man as Grant, and all
will be well. Attempt to cheat them out of it by
nominating half a dozen weak men in order to
divide the opposition vote, and Lincoln's re-election
will be the signal for such an upheaval of the North
as has never before been witnessed." It requires
but little knowledge of the American character to
know that this wicked prophecy will not be fulfilled,
and that if Mr. Lincoln were elected by a legal vote
—whether resulting from the split in his own or the
opposing party—the people would very quietly
submit to the infliction. The danger to the public
peace does not lie in that direction. A defeat at
Grant and a call for another half a million of men,
to be taken from the ranks of labour by conscription,
are the rocks ahead. The people respect the civil
law but they chafe at the introduction of a military
law which would deprive them of their liberty, and
is in opposition to their prejudice and whole course
of life and thought. They detest and abhor the
conscription, and rather than submit to it they will
run any risk of violence in opposing it, as every
houseowner and capitalist in New York well knows,
and as every public man of the least foresight is but
too thoroughly convinced.
Neither is there much danger of such a mult;plicity
of candidates as will greatly increase Mr. Lincoln's
chances. Banks and Butler are out of the way—
ruined by military failure ; and there remain but
Grant, M'Clellan, Lincoln, and Fremont. In the
event of
.any mishap to Grant, it seems as if the real
struggle will lie between the Revolutionists and
Radicals under Fremont,and the Conservatives under
M'Clellan, and that poor Mr. Lincoln will have to
quit his perilous honours and his thorny chair in
1865, and retire to Illinois to practise law in the
county of Sangamon. Happy will it be for him i.
at the. end of his troubled career, health, a good
appetite, and the power to indulge in his little
jokes be still left to him ; happy also if he do not
expect the gratitude which he will never obtain, or
nay other place in his country's history but that
reserved for all weak men of good intentions, who
do mischief without meaning it, and ruin the coun-
try which it was their ambition to save.
The price ofgold, which yesterday ran suddenly up
to 94/, the highest yet attained, dropped to-day to
881; but not in consequence of any favourable news
from the army or other circumstances tending to
restore the drooping spirits of the people, but because
Mr Chase was represented in Wall.street by an agent
authorised to sell a surplus, real or supposed, in the
National Treasury. The agent threw half a million
of gold and sterling bills into the market, with the
sole object of reducing the premium, and accom-
plished it, Mr Chase thereby sacrificed the sum of
30,000 dole, and upwards, for the poor satisfaction
of making financial matters look six per cent. less
gloomy to-morrow on the departure of the Persia
than they would have done had he not been in
readiness to discount for a time the bull operators of
the Exchange. No one expects gold will remain at
the lower level to which it was thus furced, not even
if victory in Georgia or Virginia should occur to
prevent a too rapid rise. It is understood better
than it used to be that it is the immense volume of
the paper currency and not the varying military
fortunes of the day which causes the depreciation
in greenbacks. No victory that does not end the
war will put paper and gold on a level; and that
the war will be ended even by the capture of Rich-
mond few are now so sanguine as to believe.

The Ci