The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-05 00:00:00

~~~ ~~1~~

IyEWSPAPER
a---ekeee. sera, \a, are
t:4Yantsee
eta ap
ELI -
evidence of the direction in w =teat."l4,
popular opinion hes get, that nt-74etA e :A; el,
belonged to an Abalitionist, or to
extreme Republican and Federal pa . 41, nOB
appears that Mr. Lincoln is not prepared to take;
such a step; but that whatever overture of peeee
and reunion he may think proper to make will be
teemed for hie annual Mesaage to Cengtess, to be
de)ieeved on the 4th at December. Bis time is so
fully occupied with the preparation of that (heti-
: ment that the Waehing ton nereepapere hare been
instructed on his behalf to request the public to
postpone their visits either of congratulation cr of
business fur the next 12 day; and leave the Pie,i -
dent to the seclusion of his study.
Hitt, however roseate may ba the an tieipCttieLs of
peace to grow out of anytaing that the President
may 86Y, nr any terms he may utf,r, it is to General
Sherman Volt the people are prieeipally looking
u
for the ri alisation their hopes. His mystetio,is
m 1 nlt x
pwitititzilledst!,ooo nien south from Atlanta is not
yet
but any one who presumes to assert
nt latatito,
nwmhaatyevheer,
thhis oenh. jo;cetrneontt hiiss pnoiotn te
eof rtadi
ti-
o
cs uncveieoedds,
fiosre
idgenneoru. n cue,dheaAsdaraibnaisdtractiitoizae,nt—heorpreassn,,
and the people have made up their minds that Sher-
man knows no such word as " fail." The more sap.
guine expect to hear before many days that he has
marched either unopposed, or from easy victory to
victories still easier, through 300 miles of fertile
and hitherto undevastated territory, feeding himself
as he went, and placed himself before Mobile, Sa-
vannah, and Charleston, preparatory to his final
junction with General Grant, and a combined on.
slaught upon Richmond. Nothing is to mar, im.
pede, or prevent the success of the mighty project.
When the Atlantic cities and Richmond are taken,
when the armies of Lee are scattered, and when
that great General himself is a fugitive to the
wilds and morasses, or the jungles of the cotton
States, bearing with him the forlorn remnants of his
once proud hosts, together with the Southern Presie
dent and the most prominent members of his Ad-
ministration, the urbane, the beneficent, the heroin
President Lincoln is to offer the olive branch
in a grateful speech, carefully prearranged by Air
Seward. He will hint no word of extermination ;
ae will withdraw his decrees of confiscation; he will
say nothing about slavery, except that it may take
its chance to live or die as circumstances may dee
tide ; and he will not only offer Mr Jefferson Davis
forgiveness, but a place in his Cabinet, and Gen. Lee
a high command in his armies, if they will cordially
return to the Union which they spurned in days
when they were unaware of its power, and lend their
aid, their influence, and their talents to the vindicas
tion of the Monroe doctrine, the expulsion of Maxi.
milian from Mexico, and the presentation to Eng.
land of that " little bill" for the depredations of
Captains Semmes and Maffitt, which, if it be left
unpaid, will cost " perfidious Albion " nothing
less than Canada and the whole of British America,
as well as her leading place in the councils of civili.
sation. The Americans neither act nor dream by
halves. All their exaggerations assume the largest
possible shapes; and if in their present exhilaration
they indulge in visions that are somewhat too ex.
travagant, they will make amends on the other side,
if the wheel of fortune should revolve unfavourably,
and paint to themselves for a little while a future
as black and gloomy as that to which they now look
forward is rainbow-like and splendid. Gen. Grant
—one of the twin heroes who is to effect the glorious
consummation upon which all hearts are set—except
those of Copperheads and Englishmen (John Bright,
Richard Cobden, and Professor Smith, of Oxford,
not included)—has been in New York incognito
during the last few days, and returned yesterday
to his headquarters with the army of the Potomac.
As he could go nowhere but to an hotel, and as
he could not be half-an-hour ie any hotel
without being recognised by some of the crowd
of loungers who frequent the bars and lobbies
of such establishments, it speedily became knoarn
that the great man was at the Astor-house, A sere•
nade was promptly arranged in his honour, and as
Mr Reuben Fenton, the newly elected Governor of
New York, was in the Louse at the same time, it was
arranged to make that virgin functionary a joint
recipient of this mark of popular regard. The re 4
porters of the Herald and other papers heard of what
was intended and duly prepared their pencils and
note books to take down the speeches which it was
the object of the serenaders to extort from the dis-
tinguished sti angers. But General Grant has a
dislike of speech making and a horror of publicity,
and peremptorily refused even to show himself nun
less the reporters pledged themselves on their ho.
nour not to mention his presence in the city until
to-day (Tuesday), or 24 hours after be should
have taken his departure. The reporters behaved
themselves as gentlemen should, and not a word was
printed until this morning about the General's pro.
ceedinge. It appears that the General was most
enthusiastically received by the Astor-house habie
tun and loungers and a large accession of the pass-
ing, public, that he obstinately refused to speak a
word, deputed his friend Gen, Sickles to return
thanks in his stead, that ho bowed to the audience
three or four times, looking all the while exceedingly
uncomfortable, and that lie withdrew from the
popular gaze as soon after Gen. Sickles had cone
eluded as was consistent with propriety. He after-
wards called privately upon Gen. Winfield Scott,
who has been amusing his leisure since he retired
from the command of the Federal army by writing
and publishing his autobiography, and received from
that illustrious veteran a copy of the work, with the
inscription on the flyleaf that it was presented by
the oldest to the ablest General in the world.
" Call no man happy until he is dead," was an
ancient adage. " Call no man able until he
has done his work" might be its modern
synonym in military affairs, though General
Scott is apparently of the opinion that ability
may be shown in an unfinished work as well
as in a completed one, and that the failure to take
Richmond will not derogate from the claims of his
protege to rank higher than all the generals of Etaa
rope or Asia, to say nothing of such a fellow-Virgi-
nian as Robert E. Lee. The American Nestor, it
must be owned, is a sturdy flatterer—but, as he
was once a strong fighter, his weakness may be
pardoned.h
ehas
not General
forgotten Grant's
how to
admirers
blush,re andthat,
porto f him
that
bs a ir
ravgeal. I
s a lit y be presumed that onon,mhae is in some respects as
sensitive
ah
as
this occasion at least the tell-tale blood came mant-
ling to his cheeks, when conscience told him that the
compliment was the result of age and good nature
rather than that of truth and hard experience.

Governor Fenton, as a professional politician, ac.
customed to make speeches, had less reason and less
desire for reticence than General Grant,and favoured
the serenaders and the crowd of spectators with
his opinions upon his own election and that of
Mr Lincoln. Ire considered the double event to
be highly satisfactory, as no doubt it is to both of
these high personages. But what was extraordia
nary, at least as regards Mr Lincoln's triumph, was
Mr Fenton's assertion that ‘, It was a triumph of the
great principle of man's right of self-government."
To other people not in Mr Fenton's position, or
seeing through his eyes, or through Northern spec-
tacles, Mr Lincoln's re-election looks meoorelelikoef the
triumph of the very opposite principle, the denial of
the right of self-government to the Pp
Confederate States, who think that they are as well
entitled to sever their political partnership with
the North as the ancestors of both the Northern
and Southern people were to dissolve their political
connexion with Great Britain, Mr. Fenton
went on to say that his and Mr Lincoln's
victory was that of "democracy over an aria.
tocracy that would create a despotism upon the
ruins of liberty"—the very result that the North is
attaining under Mr Lincoln's auspices with a rapia
day unparalleled in the history of the world. Mr
Lincoln, it is true, is not an aristocrat--very far
from it—but what of that ? A homicide is none the
less a homicide because he happens to be a plebeian,
and if Mr Lincoln's fatality is to destroy the liberty
of the North, in the attempt to subjugate the South,
ywillfind but small consolation in the fact
Democrat, in the European rather
tphoastterhiet
was a
than in the American sense of the word —and that
he was by no means a member of any aristocracy
hitherto known among men. With these exceptions
the new Governor's speech was not remarkable, ur •
less it be for its unfavourable contrast in point of
vigour of expression and statesmanship of character
with all the public utterances of Ms able but some.
what timid predeoeuor, Mr Seymour.