The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-21 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVEN

Uonvention, agreeable as it has proved to Mr Lincoln, is notthe
only affliction of the kind he will have to endure.
The supporters of a an opposition candidate—but
whether it be Gen. Fremont, or Mr Chase, or a
greater or less than either whose name is yet to be
divulged—resolved to forestall him even in Balti-
more, and several days ago engaged the large hall
of the Maryland Icstitute for this evening (the
6th), paying the price demanded in advance. So
quietly was the matter managed that when on
Friday last Mr. Lincoln's " wire pullers" made ap-
plication for the hall, expecting no difficulty, they
found to 4heir chagrin that it was pre-engaged, and
that t'ae Lincoln Convention ran the risk of being
hwaseless and homeless. In this emergency they
made application for the Front-street Theatre,
which is capable of accommodating from 3,000 to
4,000 persons, and succeeded in obtaining it. At the
time at which I write no one seems able to pene-
trate the mystery of to-night's Convention, and as
this letter must be posted before the proceedings
commence, the mystery must, as far as I am con-
cerned, remain unsolved until my next. The con-
sequence of this unusual state of affairs is that Bal-
timore swarms, not alone with delegates to the two
Conventions, but with " wire pullers," "log rollers,"
" axe grinders," and other trading and professional
politicians, who have a purpose to serve by the suc-
cess of one or other of the candidates. Hotel or
boarding house accommodation is difficult to be ob-
tained, except by those who took the precaution to
bespeak beds a week ago, and the price of board
and lodging has been raised about 500 per cent. by
the hotel keepers, by whom a Convention is consi-
dered their harvest and opportunity ; during the
existence of which such a thing as a conscience is
not thought of, however suggestively it may prick,
and when such a word as extortion is banished alike
from memory and the dictionary.
Baltimore, however, is much too near the seat of
war to be wholly engrossed with the contest for the
Presidency, and feeds itself upon rumours, true and
false, from the armies of Grant and Lee. Every
hour produces a new story, which the next hour
neither confirms nor disproves—stories tinged, if
not wholly invented by the wishes of the story-
tellers, and which much oftener speak of disasters
than of victories to the Federal cause. From
General Grant's despatches to Mr. Stanton—of
which the War Secretary only publishes such por-
tions as are favourable to the Federal army, or
serve to keep up the spirits of the Northern people—
it is evident that no general action had taken place
up to Saturday, the 4th, and equally evident that
such action was imminent from hour to hour, And
at a time like this, when every man is of value, it
seems strange and unpatriotic—at least to an Eng-
lishman's eyes—that whole regiments of hardy
veterans should leave the front to return to their
homes, and wash their hands of the war and of all
that belongs to it. Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon,
while the bells were ringing for afternoon service,

the sound of the drum and fife, followed by the air
of the " Star Spangled Banner," played by a full
military band, was heard in the street. Opening the
window and looking out upon Monument-square, I
find the place full of soldiers. Thinking it was a
reinforcement for General Grant, 1 descended into
the square and mixed with the crowd of spectators.
I soon learnt that these hardy, sun-browned, and
dirty-looking
veterans were the Pennsylvania re-
serves, who were not rushing to the battlefield to
crush the rebellion, but rushing from it, bscause their
time had expired. Thtir numbers were said to be
upwards of 4,000, though it afterwards appeared
that they were less than 2,000; that they formed
the sole remnants of 12 regiments, originally of the
full complement of 1,200 men each, or 14,400 in all;
that they had enlisted for three years in the first
flush of the excitement that followed the Confede-
rate attack on Fort So-oter that they had fought
Burnside,
d au
with and
G Hnoeork ;
in all the battles of INl'Dowell, M'Clellan, Pope,
i
had crossed the
pi;
Grant,
that they
fought under his orders
e tr
a.t the Wilderness and Spottsyivania Court-house,
marched with him in his long. and dangerous circuit from Spotty-slvania to the Chickahominy, and that

as he walks along the streets is sufficient to confirm,
are even more "rebellious" than their fathers,
brothers, husbands, or lovers, as ladies are wont to
be in all parts of the world where the passions are
excited by political strife. They have a habit in
their pleasant climate of sitting after nightfall upon
their " stoops," or marble door step, in preference
to their drawing rooms, in the full, or it may
the scanty, elegance of their evening costume, to
gossip, or sing, or knit, by the light of the moon.
And while, as now, a battle is supposed to be
raging in their not very remote vicinity—a battle
or series of battles which may decide the fate of
North and South, and point the way that Maryland
must ultimately go—and when, with a favourable
wind, it may even be possible, in the silence of
the night, to hear from afar the faint echoes
of the artillery of the contending hosts, they
gather in this primitive fashion, with more than
the usual excitement of expectation, to keep up
the rebellious spirit by the interchange of sentiment
and the outpouring of their hopes and fears. Now
and then may be heard, in defiance of the lazy, but
perhaps the not altogether unsyrnpathizing, police-
man who saunters along his beat through the
fashionable quarters of the town, the melancholy
chant of " Maryland, my Maryland," sung to the
air of a German Burschenlied ; the livelier strain of
the " Bonnie Blue Flag," or to English ears the
nobler melody of " God save the South." Like
the ladies of Scotland, commemorated in the ancient
ballad, who sat with their " gold combs in their
hair" and their fans in their hands, waiting for the
return of Sir Patrick Spens, they sit upon their
doorsteps waiting for General Lee, or any other
Southern hero who will be good enough to take
their city in his victorious march to Washington,
and liberate them, once and for ever, from the dull,
leaden, obdurate, relentless tyranny which General
Butler inaugurated, General Schenck continued,
and General Wallace perpetuates, These three
attorneys, having nothing of the soldier about
them but the uniform and the shoulder-straps, have
severally and collectively managed to concentrate
upon their heads an amount of feminine hate from
Baltimore and all ►laryland which, in default of
historical record, will be sufficient to send down
their names to a late posterity with as much odium
as that which attaches to " old Bogy" in all the
nurseries of Europe.
It is in a city with a character like this that the
friends of Mr. Lincoln determined to hold the Cons
vention to nominate him for a second term of
office, and to this city I have come from New York
to be present at the first process of the quadrennial
manufacture, the ultimate result of which is a Pre-
sident of the United States. It is not to be sup-
posed that in this respect Mr. Lincoln's friends
run any risk of the expression of hostile opinions,
or still less of an adverse decision on the part of
the people among whom they thrust the preten-
sions of their candidate. A convention is like a
Parliament. No one has a right to speak, ex
cept a member duly elected, If the public be
admitted to the deliberations, it is a matter of ex-
pediency and favour—not of right ; and any objector
or disturber may be summarily expelled. In Balti-
more, however, there is ecareely the risk of so much
as a dissentient hiss or an ironical cheer. The native
residents will ❑ot attend, even cut of curiosity, and
there is a sufficiently large population of placetnen,
contractors, officials, and persons who directly or
indirectly are making money out of the war, as well
as of Federal soldiers quartered in the neighbouring
forts, to make it certain that the Convention will
not lack an appreciative audience. Mr Lincoln's
friends intended to forestall opposition in the Pre-
sidential contest by being first in the field, but they
had no sooner announced their time and place than
the supporters of Gen. Fremont took what the Lin-
colnites call a " mean advantage," and summoned a
Convention at Cleveland, in Ohio. Here they built
their platform, called themselves by the new name
of the " Radical Democracy," and unanimous nomi-
nated their candidate a full week before Mr Lincoln's
friends could be brought together. The main planks
of the platform do not, it is true, dovetail very
squarely ; for a vigorous prosecution of the war and
a vigorous preservation of the liberties of the people
nre more incompatible than Americans understand,
or care to acknowledge ; they may serve, however,
to elect a candidate upon, and, if so, they will an..? et-

General Fremont and the Presidency.

General Fremont has addressed the following
reply to the committee of the Cleveland Conven-
tion accepting the nomination for President :
" Gentlemen—ln answer to the letter which I have had
the honour to receive from you on the part of the represen-
tatives of the people assembled at Cleveland on the 31st of
May, I desire to express my thanks for the confidence which
led theta to offer me the honourable and difficult position of
their candidate in the approaching Presidential contest,
Very honourable, because in offering it to me you act in the
name of a great number of citizens who seek above all things
the good of their country, and who have no sort of selfish
interest in view. Very difficult, because in accepting the
candidacy you propose to me I am exposed to the reproach
of creating a schism in the party with which I have been
identified. Had Mr Lincoln remained faithful to the prin-
ciples he was elected to defend, no schism could have been
created ; and no contest could have been possible. This is
nut an ordinary election; it is a contest for the right even to
have candidates, and not merely, as usual, for the choice
among them, Now, for the first time since '76, the question
of constitutional liberty has been brought directly before
the people for their serious consideration and vote. The or-
dinary rights secured under the Constitution and the laws
of the country have been violated, and extraordinary
powers have been usurped by the Executive. at is directly
before the people now to say whether or not the principles
established by the Revolution are worth maintaining. It;
as we have been taught to believe, those guarantees of
liberty which made the distinctive value and glory of our
country are, in truth, inviolably sacred, then there must
be a protest against the arbitrary violation, which had
not even the excuse of necessity. The schism is made by
those who force the choice between a shameful silence or
a protest against wrong. In such considerations origi-
nated the Cleveland Convention. It was among its ob-
jects to arouse the attention of the people to such facts,
and to bring them to realise that while we are saturat-
ing Southern soil with the best blood of the country,
we have in the country the abures of a military
dictation without its unity of action and vigour of execution;
an administration marked at home by disregard of consti-
tutional rights, by its violation of personal liberty and the
liberty of the press, and as a crowning shame, by its aban-
donment of the right of asylum—a right especially dear to
' all free nations. Abroad its course has been characterised by
a feebleness and want of principle which have misled Euro-
pean powers, and driven them to a belief that only commer-
cial interests and personal aims are concerned, and that no
great principles are involved in the issue. The admirable
conduct of the people, their readiness to make every sacri-
fice demanded of them, their forbearance and silence under
the suspension of everything that could be suspended, their I
many acts of heroism and sacrifices, were all rendered ft uit-
less by the incapacity, or to speak more exactly by the per-
sonal ends for which the war was managed. This incapacity
and selfishness naturally produced such results as led the
European Powers, and logically enough, to the conviction
that the North, with its greatly superior population, its im-
mense resources, and its credit, will never be able to recover
the South. Sympathies which should have been with us from
the outset of the war were turned against us,and in this way
the Administration has done the country a double wrong
abroad, It created hostility, or at best, indifference among
those who would have been its friends if the real intentions
of the people could have been better known; while at the
same time neglected no occasion for making the most
humiliating concessions. Against this disastrous condition
of affairs the Cleveland Convention was a protest. The prin-
ciples which form the basis of its platform have my unqua-
lified and cordial approbation, but I cannot so heartily con-
cur in all the measures which you propose. I do not believe
that confiscation extended to the property of all rebels is
practicable, and if it were so I don't think it a measure of
sound policy. It is a question belonging to the people
themselves to decide, and it is a proper occasion for the
exercise of their original and sovereign authority. As
a war measure, in the beginning of a revolt, which
might ba quelled by prompt severity, I understand
the policy of confiscation—but not as a final measure of re-
construction after the suppression of an insurrection. In the
adjustments which are to follow peace no considerations of
vengeance can consistently be admitted. The of ject of the
war is to make permanently secure the peace and happiness
of the whole country, and there was but a single element
in the way of its attainment. This element of slavery may
be considered practically destroyed in the country, and it
needs only yeur proposed amendment of the Constitution to
make its extinction complete, With this extinction of slavery
the party divisions created by it have also disappeared ; and if
in the history of the country there has ever been a time when
the American people, without regard to one or another of the
political divisions, were called upon to give solemnly their
voice in a matter which involved the safety of the United
States, it is assuredly the present time. If the Convention
at Baltimore will nominate any man whose past life justifies
a well-grounded confidence in his fidelity to our cardinal
principles, there is no reason why there should be any divi-
sion among the really patriotic men of the country. To an 3
such I shall be most happy to give a cordial and active sup.
port. My own decided preference is to aid in this way, and
not to be myself a candidate. But if Mr Lincoln should be
renominated, as I believe it would be fatal to the country
to endorse a policy and renew a power which has cost us the
lives of thousands of men, and needlessly put the country
on the road to bankruptcy, there will remain no alternative
but to organize against him every element of,conscientious
opposition with the view to prevent the misfortune of his
re-election. In this contingency I accept the nomination
at Cleveland, and, as a preliminary step, I have resigned
my commission in the army. This was a sacrifice it gave
me pain to make. But I had for a long time fruitlessly
endeavoured to obtain service. I make this sacrifice only
to regain liberty of speech, and to leave nothing in the
way of discharging to my utmost ability the task you have
set for me. 'With my earnest and sincere thanks for your
expressions of confideneo and regard, and for the many
honourable, terms with which you acquaint me with the
actions of the cornmitt:e.—l am, gentlemen, very respect.
fully and truly yours, "J, C. FEEXONT.
"New York, June 4."

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(established 1830),12, Hatton-garden. City branch -6. Moor
gate-street, Bank.—AnvT.

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their time having expired some days previously, they
had left his army on the Ist of June and marched
two days from the front to the White-house;, Nite!lre
they were conveyed in steam tmntports to Wash-
ington, and thence again by rail to this city, on
their way home Their battered banners, as well
as their tattered clothes, bore witness to the work
they had performed, and the hard service they had
undergone, and as they marched through the
crowded streets it was impossible not to admit that
20,000 new recruits, even if not composed of Irish
and German mercenaries, could not make amends
to General Grant for the loss of 2,000 such fine
fellows as these, seasoned to war, inured to hard-
ships, and who had, moreover, the additional merit
of having enlisted for pure love of the cause, at a
time when bounty money was not considered a
provocative of heroism. No cheers greeted them
as they passed, footsore and weary, along the dusty
way; and net oven the members of the Lincoln de-
legation who crowded the balconies and doorsteps
of Barnum's Hotel to witness the spectacle so much
as clapped a hand or waved a handkerchief to wel-
come the returning braves. Was it because they
stuck tee closely to their bargain to merit the appro-
bation of the true patriots and able wire-pullers
who desire Air. Lincoln's re-election ? Not so; for
there portion of these 2,000 men—amount.
s 60
tihgehljonfg,
thet Bhinacronluumm ns,
or 60—who brought up the rear of
men—amount-
ing wasabou onet
who no sooner came within
balconies than the suppressed
cheers of the Lincoln delegation broke forth, and
the hands clapped and the handkerchiefs waved in
a storm of delight. It may also be asked if these 60
or 60 had determined to return to the battlefield
which their comrades had abandoned ? They had
not, They were on their way home like the
rest, and were about to turn their swords
into ploughshares, their spears into pruning-
hooks, and to study war no more. Then,
of course, their names were familiar to Mr.
Lincoln's friends and supporters for their deeds of
heroism ? Wrong again. They were merely negro
teamsters, waggon-drivers, and trench-diggers, who
had borne some of the shock and all the hardships
of the campaign, and who received a greeting denied
to their white comrades, solely because their skins
were black. No one, not hardened by inveterate
prejudice, would deny the negro any merit, in peace
or war, that was justly his due; but to honour him,
independently of his merit, and solely on account of
his colour, is quite as much a prejudice as that which
formerly held, and in most parts of the country stil
holds, him as a social pariah for the same reason,