The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-02 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, Nov. 18.
General Butler is the hero, and the " olive branch!'
the symbol of the moment. How long the hero and
symbol will remain in favour none but a rash pro•
phet would venture to predict. The speech which
that grim and hitherto unpopular personage deli-
vered at the Fifth Avenue Hotel has exhibited him
in a new and unexpected light, and fairly taken the
town by storm. It is- asserted and believed that in
recommending magnanimity to the President as the
essential and crowning grain of the new strength
he acquired by his reelection Gen. Butler spoke on
the prompting of superior authority, and that Mr
Lincoln is prepared to offer an amnesty to the
Southern people and their leaders, and the re-estab-
lishment of the old Constitution in all its integrity,
on the sole condition of the return of the seceded
States to the Union. It is furthermore reported
that a commission of three, if not of seven, of the
most eminent statesmen and lawyers of the North
is to proceed immediately to Richmond to convey
this gracious message. And what is more extraor-
dinary than all is the simple faith of large num-
bers of the people of this city—Democrats as well as
Republicans—rich men and poor—that the South
will clutch at the offer; and that Mr Lincoln on
the delivery of his second "inaugural" on the 4th
of March ensuing will be enabled to announce to
an admiring, if not to an awe-struck, world that
the Union is reestablished—firm as it stood in the
second !Presidency of Washington, with slavery
left to the care of the South to abolish or maintain
as it shall deem fit, and with the combined armies of
Lee and Grant ready and willing to fight any enemy
or indeed any two enemies that:may offer, especially
France and England. Wall-street on Wednesday
after the departure of the Persia, took the matter
into such deep and earnest favour that gold could
not maintain itself at its previous rates, and its pre•
mium fell from 140 to 128—a decline of 12 per cent.
Yesterday it opened at 129 and fell rapidly to 1181.
Today it fell as low as 110, or a total decline of 30
per cent. since General Butler first gave it the down-
ward impetus. Political circumstances, however, are
not considered in Wall-street as sufficient of them-
selves to account for the rapid fall, as the determi-
nation of Mr Secretary Fussenden to anticipate the
payment of the interest of the gold-bearing bonds,
due on Jan. 1 next, and the consequent probability
of an adequacy of gold in the market for the neces-
sities of commerce during the next few weeks have
a tendency to restrict the speculation for a rise, and
to favour the operation of the gamblers who calcu-
lated on a fall, The more cautious bankers and
brokers are of opinion that the depression will be
temporary; that Mr F usgenden's projects to enhance
the value of the greenback, like those of his prede-
cessor, must of necessity fail ; that all hopes founded
upon the acceptance by the South of peace proposi.
tions on the Butler model are fallacious ; that the

war will continue for fully another year, if not for
the whole term of MrLincoln's second lease of power,
and that fresh loans and fresh issues of legal-tender
paper money will be the inevitable results.
No one seems to doubt, however, that some such
offer will be made to the South as General Butler
indicated. Bat if General Butler really spoke the
sentiments of the President, the victory of the Bth
inst. will have had the singular effect of converting
Mr Lincoln to the opinion of the minority. The
programme sketched by General Buller is no other
than the programme of General M'Clellan. If Mr
Lincoln adopt it he will virtually withdraw his hasty
letter, addressed to Niagara to all whom it may
concern, renounce his pretensions to abolish slavery
by proclamation—or without the concurrence of the
Legislature of the States in which the institution
exists—and accept the principles of the
Conservative Democracy. It is obvious that
he can only do this at the hazard of a
rupture with that branch of the Republican and
Abolitionist party of which General Fremont, Mr
Charles Sumner, Mr Frederick Douglas, Mr Thad.
dens Stevens, Mr Wendell Phillips, Mr Lloyd
Garrison, and the Rev. Dr Cheever are the orna•
ments and exponents. Perhaps he may consider
himself strong enough to incur it, and be wilting to
assume the responsibility. It is more probable, how•
ever, that the offer if made will not be made in good
faith ; that Mr Lincoln knows it will be rejected
and that the real object of making it is to create dis-
union in the South, to acquire for the North a re-
putation for generosity which it does not merit, and
justify to the world, at home and abroad, the resort
to that policy of subjugation and extermination
which Gen. Butler, even when advocating the ten-
der of the olive branch, seemed to consider as the
more effectual method of procedure. But if Mr
Lincoln makes the offer in good faith, or in bad
faith, as a matter cf generosity, or a matter of ex-
pediency, the Southern people and leaders are under
no obligation, either of necessity or policy, to return
a categorical answer. Their reply, if they will listen
to any terms whatever, may perhaps assume some
such shape as the following :—" We will treat as
equal to equal. Ley down your arms and we will
lay down ours, Let there be an armistice for three,
six, or eight months, that the several States of the
former Union may meet peaceably in Convention,
and therein decide whether a now and better Union
be desirable or practicable. It was by this mode that
the original Union was formed, It is by this alone
that it can be re-established." The South has
shown by the mouth of several of its most eminent
men, such as Vice. President Stephens, Governor
Brown, of Georgia, Mr Boyce, of North Carolina
and many others, and by articles in the Richmond,i
Charleston, and various leading journals in other
cities of the Confederacy, that it will favour an
armistice and a Convention of the States ; that it
looks with approbation, if not with positive plea.
sure, upon the principles enunciated in the Chicago
platform, which General McClellan, so fatally for
himself and his party, repudiated and rejected, and
that this last hope—a forlorn one it may be—of
restoring the Union will not be rudely or peremp.
torily dashed to the ground by the refusal of the
Southern States, severally and collectively, to take
part in the discussions that would follow an armis-
tice. No one in this city who has travelled in the
South, and knows anything of the character and
spirit of the Southern people, no refugee or exile
from the Border States who finds a temporary
abiding place beyond the theatre of the war, and
no constitutional lawyer who adheres to the doc-
trine of State rights as the cornerstone of the old
Union, believes in his heart that any offer of ame
nesty, or any guarantee to the South for the protec-
tion of slavery will have the slightest effect. They
argue that the offer of an amnesty to men who
think their cause noble and holy will be construed
into an insult ; and that the Southern leaders, as
well as the Conservative and Peace Democracy of
the North, are convinced that any restoration of the
Union distasteful to the Abolitionist and Federa
party would be no reunion except in name, and
might be merely the prelude to new misunderstand.
ing, new commotion, and a new secession, in which
Massachusetts and the other New England States
would perform the part of South Carolina. Peace
propositions of the Butler style are grounded on the
assumption that the South is worn out, disspirited,
and unable to raise either men or means to con-
tinue the contest. The assumption is not justified
by any authentic facts which have come to the
knowlege of Vee Northern people, or by the mili-
tary or political situation of the Confederate Go-
vernment. Now, as there have ever been, there are
four paths to peace :—Pirst, a recognition of the
Southern Confederacy 1,
-Y the great Powers of
Europe ; second, an armistice and a Convention of
the States; third, " war to the hilt," as General
Butler logically, but mercilessly, recommends;
and
fourth, the mutual exhaustion of the combatant,. Mr
Lincoln's re.election points in the third direction,
and may ultimately diverge into the fourth. It is for
General Lee and the Confederate armies to lead it
into the second by the achievement of such victories
over their enemies as would discourage the North,
and predispose the bulk of the people to acquiesce
in that General Convention of the States which is
the only rational, and which might prove to be the
most effectual, means of settling the difficulty.
The affair of the Florida continues to be a theme
of discussion in all circles. It begins to be ad-
mitted, even by some of the most violent 'minters
of the right of the Federal ship of war to follow a