The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-20 00:00:00

a few resolute or desperate men to take the leader-
ship to prove that the New World is as liable to
violent revolution as the Old, and that Ultra-Demo-
cracy is as fruitful of civil commotion as any aris-
tocracy or monarchy that ever existed.

Mr, Seward on the An erican War.

Mr Seward was at Auburn when the news of the

fall of Atlanta was received, and was called upon
for an address, which occupieE three columns of the
New York ?hues. Alluding to Atlanta he said :
The victory at Atlanta comes at the right place. The
rebellions district is in the shape of an egg. It presents an

equal resistance on its whole surface. —But if you could
break the shell at either of the two ends—Richmond and
Atlanta—the whole must crumble to pieces. While Sher-
man under Grant has been striking the big end, Meade under
Grant has been striking just as hard blows upon the lesser
end. The whole shell will now be easily crushed, for it has
grown brittle with the exhaustion of vitality within. This
glorious victory comes in good time for another reason. Just
now we are calling upon you for 300,000 more volunteers, if

you will—draughted men if we must—to end the war. You
were getting a little tired of long delays and disappointed
expectations. In Indiana a portion of the people, instigated
lly rebel plotters at the Clifton-house, in Canada, were im-
porting British revolvers in br,xes, which passed the Custom
Rouse as stationery, under pretence of arming to defend

themselves, but really to resist the draught and bring the
Government down to ruin through a subordinate and auxi-
liary civil war. True, no arms have been imported here.
Yet delegates went out from among you and sat down in
council at Chicago with those Indiana conspirators, and

agreed with them not only that importation of arms should
be defended in the election canvas, but also to demand the
cessation of the war upon the ground that success in restor-

jug the Union is unattainable. Already under the influence
of the cheering news from Atlanta all this discontent and
despondency has disappeared. We shall have no draught
because the army is being reinforced at the rate of from five
to ten thousand men per day by valuation. _

- - -
He regretted the absence from the meeting of
many influential men :
Why are they Rot here to rejoice in the victories that
will thrill the hearts of the lovers of freedom throughout
the world ? Alas, that it must be confessed, it is party spirit
that holds them aloof. All of them are partisans. Some are
Republicans, who cannot rejoice in the national victories
because this war, for the life of the nation, is not in all re-
spects conducted according to their own peculiar radical
ideas and theories. They want guarantees for swift, and
universal, and complete emancipation, or they do not want
the nation saved. Others stay because they want to be
assured that in coming out of the revolutionary storm the
ship of State will be found exactly in the same condition
as when the tempest assailed it, or they do not want the
ship saved at all—as if anybody could give such :guaran-
tees in the name of a people of 30,000,000. Others are Be-

mocrats. They received from their fathers the axiom that
only Democrats could save the country, and they must save
it by Democratic formulas and combinations which the
progress of the age has for ever exploded. They cannot
come up to celebrate achievements which condemn their
narrow and hereditary bigotry. Others, of both the Re-
publican and Democratic parties,aro willing that the nation
shall Ise saved, provided it is done by one of their chosen
and idolised chiefs, which chief they mutually denounce and
revile. They cannot honour Grant, and Sherman, and Far-
ragut, and Porter, because by such homage they fear that
Fremont and M'Clellan's fame may be eclipsed. Neverthe-
less, there are enough here of the right sort—(" Yes, that's
true")—enough of men who once were Republicans, but
taking that word in a partisan sense, are Republicand no
longer ; and men who once were Democrats, but taking that
word in ita narrow application, are Democrats no longer; all
of whom are now Union men, because they found out at the
beginning of this tremendous civil war, or at some period
in its progress, that no man, no parts, no formula, no creed
could save the Union, but that only the people could save it,
and they could save it only by ceasing to became partisans,
and becom'ng patriots and Union men. (Cheers for the
Union.) Yes, my friends, when this war shall be ended in
the restoration of the Union, no man then living will exult
in the recollection that during its continuance he was either
a Radical or a Conservative, a Republican or a Democrat,
but every man will claim to have been throughout an unre-
served and unconditional Union man.

Respecting the coming Presidential election he
said—

Why should party spirit, especially at this juncture,
divide the American people? And why should I, a mem-
ber of the Executive Administration, allude to it on such
an occasion as this ? The answer is at hand. The Con-
st itutiou of our country commands that Administration to
surrender its powers to the people, and the people to desig•
nate agents to assume and exercise them for four years. You
receiye the Executive Government in a condition very dif-
ferent and highly improved. You found it practically ex-
pelled from the whole country south of the Delaware, the
Ohio, and the Missouri, with the moat of the army and
navy betrayed or fallen into the hands of the insurgents,
and a new and treasonable Confederacy,with the indirect but
effective co-operation of foreign Powers, establishing itself
on the Gulf of Mexico. We cheerfully give the Government
back to you with large and conquering armies, and a tri-
umphant navy, with the hateful Confederacy falling into
pieces, and the rebellious States one after another returning
to their allegiance. Regarding myself now therefore not as
a Secretary, but simply as one of the people I, like you, am
called by my vote to determine into whose hands the precious
trust shall now be confided. We might wish to avoid, or at
least to postpone, that duty until the present fearful crisis
is past. But it cannot and ought not to be avoided or ad-
journed. It is a constitutional trial, and the nation must
go through it deliberately and bravely. I shall therefore
cheerfully submit fur your consideration the course which 1
have concluded to adopt, and the reasons for it. First, I
be; you to remember that the present is not a common or
customary Presidential election. It occurs in the midst of
civil war, arising out of a disputed succession to the execu-
tive power. Disputed successions are the most frequent
causes of civil war, not only in republics, but oven in monar-
chies. A dispute about the succession of the President pe-
riodically begets an abortive or real revolution in each o f
the Spanish •American republics. So the disputed succes-
sion of the Spanish throne begot that memorable 30 years'
war which convulsed all Europe. A dispute whether Juarez
was the lawful President brought on the present civil war,
with the consequence of the French intervention in Mexico.
A dispute whether the present King of Denmark, who suc-
ceeded to the throne last winter, is lawful heir to the duchies
of Schleswig and Holstein brought about the civil war in
that country, which through German intervention has just
now ended with the dismemberment of the Danish king-
dom. It is remarkable also that civil wars produced by dis-
puted succession invariably begin with resistance by some
one or more of the states or provinces which constitute the
kingdom, empire, or republic which is disturbed. It was so
in the United States of Mexico. It was so in the United
States of Columbia, and the case was the same in the United
States of Venezuela. Now it is certain that in 1860 we
elected Abraham Lincoln lawfully and constitutionally to
be President of the whole United States of America. Seven
of the States immediately thereon rushed into disunion, and
summoning eight pore to their alliance they iet up a revo•
lutionary Government ; they levied war against us to effect
a separation and establish a distinct sovereignty and inde-
pendence. We accepted the war in defence of the Union.
The war, he maintained, was at its crisis :
It is clear therefore that we are fighting to make Abraham
Lincoln President of the whole United States, under the
election of 1860, to continue until March 4, 1865. In voting
for a President of the United States, can we wisely or safely
vote out the identical person whom, with force and arms, we
are fighting into the presidency.
(No) You justly se), no.
It would be nothing less than to give up the very object of
the war at the ballot box. The moral strength which makes
our position impregnable would pass from us, and when that
moral strength has passed away material forces are no longer
effective or even available,
By such a proceeding we shall
have agreed with the enemy and have given him the vic-
tory. But in that victory the Constitution and the Union
will have perished, because, when it shall have once been
proved that a minority can, by force or circumvention, defeat
the full accession of a constitutionally chosen President, no
President thereafter,[though elected by ever so large a ma-
jority, can hope to exercise the executive powers unopposed
throughout the whole country. One of two things must fol-
low that fatal error. Either a contest between your newly
elected compromise President and the same usurper, in
which the usurper must prevail, or else a combination be-
tween them through which the usurper or his successor,
subverting your Constitution and substituting his own, will
become President, King, or Emperor of the United States,
without foreign aid if he can, with foreign intervention it
it
necessary. (That's so.) To be sure is so ; nothing is
more certain than that either the United States and their
constitutional President, or the so-called Confederate States
and their usurping President, must rule within the limits
of this Republic. I, therefore, regard the pending /awe•
dential election as invelving the question whether hereafter
we shall have Constitution and a country left us. How shall
we vote, then, to save our country from this fearful danger ?
(Vote Lincoln in again.) You have hit it exactly, my
friend. We must vote Lincoln in again, and fight him in at
the same time. If we do this the rebellion will gerish and
leave no root. If we do otherwise, we have only the alter-
natives of acquiescence in a perpetual usurpation, or of
entering on an endless succession of civil and social wars.
Upon these grounds, entirely irrespective of platform and
candidate, I consider the recommendations of the Conven •
tion at Chicago as tending to subvert the Republic. (It's
so, that's a fact.) It will seem a hard thing when I imply
that a party like the Democratic party can either mediate
or blindly adopt measures to overthrow the Republic. All
experience shows that it is by the malice or madness of great
parties that free States have been brought down to destruc-
tion. You often hear alarms that a party in power is subvert-
ing the State, and it sometimes happens so. But nine times
out of ten it is a party out of power that in its impatience
or ambition overthrows a Republic. . . They say lam
always too sanguine of the success of national candidates and
of the national arms. But it seems to me that the veriest
croaker in all our loyal camp rill take new courage and be-
come heroic when he secs that the last hope of the rebellion
hangs upon the ratification of this abominable and detest-