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

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, Sept. 6.
As the recent rapid growth of a peace sentiment
among the masses of the people was not so much the
result of a belief in the wickedness or impolicy of
the war as of a daily increasing disgust with its

management and of despondency as to its issues,
it is not surprising that the victory of General Sher-
man at Atlanta ant! the evacuation of that city by
the Confederates should have revived the fast- ading

enthusiasm of the multitude, and caused impulsive

,housands to shout " War I" who last week could

do nothing but shout "Peace !" Although the re-
sults and even the value of the victory are un.
known, and although General Hood's army is still
capable by a hold stroke of retrieving its ill-fortune,
and inflicting upon General Sherman a heavier re-
verse than that commander has yet suffered, the
Republican party is in raptures. In commercial
phrase, the evacuation of Atlanta has "sent up
Lincoln stock" and depreciated M'Clellan stock in
a corresponding ratio. Another such victory, to be
achieved either by Sherman in Georgia or Farragut
in Mobile, would, in the estimation of the govern.
ing party, make an end of M'Clellan as a Presiden-
tial candidate, and secure the reelection of Mr
Lincoln. New York has been as gay as a carnival
since the day the news arrived, and Broadway,
from Bowling-green to Gracechurch, has gleamed
with star-spangled banners from balcony and
housetop, from steeple and portico, and from
every available position where a flag had room to
flutter, or a knot of people to congregate. All
through the North similar manifestations of re-
joicing seem to have been hastily organised, or
broken out in spontaneous combustion, wherever
the Abolitionist and Ministerial party was
in the majority. The Democratic party has
not received the news with the same cheerfulness,
but has looked on dubious, if not sulky. Its ten-
dency to injure the Democratic and to favour the
Republican candidate was so fully appreciated that

as long as it was possible to doubt the fall of At.
lanta, the Opposition ignored or disbelieved it,

When the fact was placed beyond dispute, not on
the vague authority of the Secretary of War, but

on the positive testimony of Gen. Sherman himself,
the Democrats suddenly remembered that Sherman
was an officer of M'Clellan's appointing, and that
if it had not been for the far-seeing sagacity of the
hero of Antietam, the services of the hero of At-
lanta might have been lost to the Republic.
The Democratic party affected to treat Mr Lin-
coln with some show of respect as long as he was
merely President in esse. As soon as, by his accept-

ance of the Baltimore nomination, ho became a can-
didate for re election, and a President in posse, they
declared their reticence to be at an end, and their
determination to use all the means allowable in
party warfare, whether of direct charge, of covert
insinuation, of denunciation, of accusation, or of all
the artillery of hate and spite, to prevent his success
at the polls. The Republican party has resolved, it
appears, to play the same game against Gen. MlClel-
lan. Before his nomination the wire-pullers, leaders,
and organs of the Republican and Abolitio❑ faith
pretended to consider him a soldier of fair abilities,
a competent engineer, a. man of respectably medi
eve talent, and a gentleman Jf blameless private
life, but not a representative American, or a person
fit to be in trusted with high duties, either civil or
military, in a perilous crisis of the public for-
tunes. But now they have wholly changed their

tactics. If Mr Lincoln is to be disparaged as an
" imbecile," General M'Clellan shall be posted as a
" traitor." If Mr Lincoln is to be held up to public
odium for having infringed public liberty by the
arbitrary arrest of the members of the Legislature of
Maryland ; by the incarceration without offence,
proved or committed, of senators, members of assem.
bly, judges, and eminent citizens, Gen. M'Clellan
shall also be held up to greater obloquy for having
been the ready instrument of the tyranny which it
now suits his purpose to condemn. If Mr Lincoln
have failed to restore the Union, Gen. M'Clellan
shall be accused of a worse crime—the crime of
having offered in the early days of the war his
sword and his services to the Confederate cause. II
Mr Lincoln has not been able to bring the war to a
satisfactory and honourable close, it is because such
a General as M'Clellan was so long allowed to re-
main in command of the Army of the Potomac, and
had neither the military genius nor the inclination
to strike a heavy blow at the rebellion when oppor-

tunity served. Such is the character of the attacks
now made upon him in every quarter where the
chiefs of the Republican party have the power to
appeal to public opinion, and such with increasing
virulence is likely to be their character until the day
of election. Another class of his opponents make
believe to consider that his reputation is a matter of
national concern, that he is as yet one of the purest
and most eminent military servants of the Republic,
that nothing which his enemies can do can injure
him, that he runs no risks, except from his friends,
and that neither friend nor foe can deal such a blow
against his character as ho himself can inflict by
acceptance of the Chicago nomination. That he, a
soldier, and a good one, should hope to stand
upon a peace platform they hold to be suicidal
folly, and urge him in the most respectful terms
to refuse the nomination unequivocally and
peremptorily, and trust to President Lincoln
i-or the present and the page of history for the
future to do juetice to his mignanimous self.denial
and en:ightened appreciation of public duty. The
voice of this particular charmer is musically pitched,
but if Gen. APClellan should listen to its siren
tongue, he will indeed prove that his enemies have
formed a truer estimate of his mental calibre than
his friends and that it is possible for a man to be
at the same time a brave soldier and a timid civilian.
As it would have taken 30,000 or 40,000 men to
preserve the peace of New York, if the Administra-
tion had determined to enforce the conscription
among its bitterly hostile population, it has been
finally decided that New York has done so well by
volunteering, and has, moreover, provided so many
sailors for manhing the Federal navies that it would
be an act of extreme irij ustice to so loyal and patriotic
a commuity to drag from his home and work a
single citizen who did not care to risk his life under
Grant or Sherman. Thus, as far as New York is
concerned, the grapes of the conscription are held
to be sour at the best, and not worth pulling ; and
if that rich city, into the ports of which so many

thousands of warlike Germans and quarrelsome
Irishmen are weekly and daily pouring from Bre-
men, Cork, and Liverpool, will but take tithe of the

new comers as before, pamper them with green.
backs, and clothe them in the uniform of the Fede-
ral army to fight in a cause of the merits of which
they know nothing, worthy Mr Lincoln, who can.
not just at this time afford to make himself unneces-
sarily unpopular, though still insisting upon the
principle of the draught, will graciously consent to
forego its application in the individual instance,
and trust to other States and cities to be more
docile and obedient than the metropolis. Mr Lin-
coln has acted wisely in this respect. There is no
disguising the fact that the working classes of
New York are in an ugly temper, and that if their
ill-blood were once excited to fever heat by poli-
tical or social passion, the worst excesses of
the mobs of Paris or Vienna would find their
counterpart here. The crowded cities of the 0:d
World have no monopoly of the" dangerous classes."
Though there is room and to spare in America for
scores of millions of agriculturists, there are large
classes who prefer to congregate in towns, and who
will not move out of them to better their fortunes
by the hard labour of subduing the wilderness.
They are either hopelessly idle, hopelesslyd:shonest
or incurably vicious, and New York contains almost
as many of them as London or Paris; and far more
than any other city in the world, these two excepted.
Were the tocsin of riot to sound, whether the call
to the multitude were aggravated by the grievance
of a conscription for the constantly-augmenting
price of th© necessaries of life, it would only need

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 newsof the

fall of Atlanta was received, and was called upon
for an address, which occupies three columns of the
New York ?Imes. Alluding to Atlanta he said :
The victory at Atlanta comes at the right place. The
rebellious 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
by rebel plotters at the Clifton-house, in Canada, were im-
porting Britikh revolvers in bcxes, which passed the Custom
House as stationery, under pretence of arming t) 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 &fended in the election canvas, but also to demand the
cessation of the war upon the ground that success in restor-
lag 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 not 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 !hem aro partisans. Some axe
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 De-
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 be 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
Fr_mont 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 Republicans no
longer ; and men who once were Democrats, but tali ing that
word in its narrow application, aro 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 eontinuanco 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 1, a mem-
ber of the Executive Administration, allude to it on such
an occasion as this ? The answer is at hand. The Con-
stitution of our country commands that Administration to
surrender its rowers 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 most of the army and
navy betrayed or fallen into the hands of the insurgents,
and a new and treasonable Conf ederacy,with the indirect but
effs,ctive co-operation of foreign Powers, establishing itself
ou 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 for 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 aro the most frequent

causes of civil war, not only in republics, but even 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 cf 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 riore to their alliance they sot up a revo•

infirmary 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 State&, can we wisely or safely
vote out the identical person whom, with force and arms, we
are fighting into the presidency. (No) You justly say 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 onco been
proved that a minority can, by force or circumvention, defeat
the full accession of a constitutionally chosen President, no
President thereafter„. though elected ty ever so large a ma-
jority, can hope to exercise tote
executive powers unopposed
throughout the whole country. One of is o thing„ 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 ho can, with foreign intervention it
necessary. (That's so.) To be sure it 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 presi-
dential election as involving 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 perish 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 f tates 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 nice times
out of ten it is a party out of power that in its impatience
or ambition overthrows a Republic. . . They say I am
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 will take new courage and be-
come heroic when he sees that the last hope of the rebellion
hangs upon the ratification of this abominable and detest-

able compact by the American people. . . And what a
time is this to proclaim such a policy,conceived in treachery,
and brought forth with shameless effrontery. A cessation
of hostilities on the heels of decisive naval and land battles
at the very moment that the rebellion, without a single fort
in its possession on the coast, or on either of the great rivers
or lakes, is crumbling to the earth, and at the same time a
dozen new ships of war are going to complete the invest-
ment by sea, and 300,000 Volunteers are rushing to the
lines to complete the work of restoration and pacification.
He defended the President against the accusations
brought against him by the Democrats respecting
slavery :
The chief complaint against the President is that ho will
not accept peace on the basis of the integrity of the Union,
without having also the abandonment of slavery. When
and where have the insurgents offered him peace on the
basis of the integrity of the Union ? Nobody has offered it.
The rebels never will offar it. They are determined and
pledged to rule this Republic or ruin it. I told you here a
year ago that, practically, slavery was no longer in question,
that it was perishing under the operation of the war. That
assertion has been confirmed. Tne -Union men in all the
Slave States that we have delivered are even more anxious
than we are to abolish slavery. Witness Western Virginia,
Maryland, Missouri, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas.
Jefferson Davis tells you in effect the same thing. lie says
that it is not slavery, but independence and sovereignty for
which he is contending. There is good reason for this. A
hundred dollars in gold is only a year's purchase of the
labour of the working man in every part of the United
States. At less than half that price you could buy all the
slaves in the country. Nevertheless our opponents want a
distinct exposition of the President's views on the ultimate
solution of the slavery question. Why do they want it ?
For the same reason that the Pharisees and Sadducees
wanted an authoritative resolution of the questions of
casuistry which arose in their day. One of these sects be-
lieved in a kingdom to come, and the other denied the re-
surrection of the dead. Nevertheless they walked together
in loving accord in search of instruction concerning the
spirit world. " Master," said they," there was a man of our
nation who married a wife and died, leaving six brothers.
Those brothers successively married the widowed woman,
and afterwards died. And last of all the woman also died.
In the resurrection which of the seven shall have this
woman to wife." Now, what was it to them whether one
or all should have the woman to wife in heaven ? It could
be nothing to the Sadducees in any case. What was it to
any human being on this side of the grave ? What was it
to any human being in heaven except the woman and her
seven husbands ? Absolutely nothing. Yet they would have
an answer. And they received one. The answer was, that
while in this mortal state men and women shall never cease
to marry and to die, there will be in the resurrection neither
death nor marrying nor giving in marriage. Although al-
together unauthorised to speak for the President upon hy-
pothetical questions, I think I can give an answer upon the
subject of slavery at the present day—an answer which will
be explicit, and I hope not altogether unsatisfactory. While

,he rebels continue to wage war against the Government o:

the United States, the military measures affecting slavery
which had been adopted from necessity to bring the war
to a speedy and successful end, will be continued, except
so far as practical experience shall show that they can be
modified advantageously with a view to the same end.
When the insurgents shall have disbanded their_armies and
laid down their arms the war will instantly cease, and all
the war measures then existing, including those which
affect slavery. will cease also, and all the moral, economical
and political questions, as well questions affecting slavery
as others which shall then be existing between individuals
and States and the Federal Government, whether they
arose before the civil war began, or whether they grew out
of it, will, by force of the Constitution, pass over to the arbi-
trament of courts of law and to the councils of legislation."
Mr Seward concludes as follows :

The sun is setting. So surely it shall rise again, so
surely do I think that the great events we have now cele-
brated prelude the end of our national troubles, and the
restoration of the national authority with peace, prosperity,
and freedom throughout the whale land, from the lakes to
the gulf, and from ocetip to ocean.