The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-23 00:00:00

your on the scheme. The instinct of liberty was
alarmed; but as Gen. hllilellan, the favourite can-
didate for the Presidency, would undoubedly re-
ceive the all but unanimous vote of the soldiery of
the army of the Potomac, and a large portion of

:hat of the army of the Cumberlani,hey were in-

duced in an evil hour to waive their opposition and
join with the Republicans in the silly cry that it

would be ungrateful to deprive American citizens
of the suffrage, merely because they were doing
military duty at the cannon's mouth. Me vote both
in the State and the city was lighter than usual,
but was about two to one as far as the numbers

have yet been made up in favour of the proposition.
A little incident that occurred a fortnight ago in

the army of Gen. Meade may serve to show how in-
juriously the system may be made to work both
against the soldier and the public. A young Irish-
man, son of a naturalised American, who had en-
listed for the bounty money, declared in camp, in
the hearing of an officer, that if the soldiers were

allowed to vote in the Presidential election he would

vote against Mr. Lincoln, and that if he had a thou-
sand votes they should all be given the same way.
For this breach of discipline he was placed under
arrest, and at the last accounts was still in cap-
tivity without prospect of release. This is not
liberty for the soldier; will it be liberty for the
people ? Time will show—and perhaps more

speedily than the Americans imagine.
There are, it appears, some things which are too
bad even for General Batler. Under his command
in the new disirict to which he has been appointed

[s a certain Brigadier-General Wild, who two months

ago distinguished himself at the head of a negro
regiment in a raid which he undertook to make
through a defenceless portion of the State of North

Carolina, Wild, envious perhaps of the great re-
putation of his chief, not acquired in the battle

field, but in the persecution of women and non-
combatants, looked around for a victim on whom

he could practise in a similar manner. He found

one in the person of the Rev. S. H. Wingfield, o

Portsmouth, an Episcopalian clergyman, who w: a

reported to be a Secessionist and a disseminator of
traitorous dogmas. Without giving Mr. Wingfield

warning of his danger, or any opportunity to defend
- -

himself against a charge which might have been
grossly exaggerated, or altogether unfounded, the
brigadier issued a special order (No. 44) to meet
. _ .

the case. In this he declared his belief that " a
wholesome example was necessary for the benefit of
Mr. Wingfield in particular, and the class of the

community which he represents in general, to teach
men of education and ability that they could not be
allowed to nse the talents God had given them for

the purpose of stirring up strife against the Govern-
ment of the United States." He therefore ordered

the arrest of this gentleman of education and ability,
and turned him over to a provost-marshal to be kept
to hard labour for three months in cleaning the
streets of Norfolk and Portsmouth, " thus," as he
graciously added, " employing his time for the bene-

fit of the Government he has abused, and atoning i❑
a small way for his disloyalty and treason." But
the bolts of Jove must not be seized by inferior
hands, and the novice in demonology must not be
allowed to use the magic books of the master, lest
evil should come of his temerity. General Butler,
if not scandalised, was offended at the act of his
subordinate, and, in a highly characteristic order,

dated five days subiequently to the arrest of Mr.
Wingfield, released that gentleman from the de-

grading portion of Gen.Wild's sentence and remitted
him to military confinement—" not," said the aw-
ful and implacable Butler, " because the punish.
ment is unjust, bat because ifs nature may be sup-
posed to reflect upon the Christian Church, which,
by his connexion with it, has already been too much
disgraced." Thus Butler gained a double triumph.
He snubbed a too presumptuous subordinate, and
launched a second insult at the head of a gentleman
who is unable, even if ho were willing, to retaliate.
If there were any esprit de corps among clergymen,
irrespective of their creeds, it might be worth the
while of the Northern preachers to raise their voices
against the tyranny of which General Butler has
set the example. The day may come when military
ruffians may wield all the power of the North, when
naqjor-generals and brigadiers may, in Mr. Lincoln's
phrase, " run the churches," aro not only decide
what is loyalty in the pulpit, bat what is " truth"
and what is " Christianity." There may be in the
armies of the United States many embryo heroes
who do not believe in " Beecher," who have no faith
in " Cheever," who have no reverence, for "Tong,"

and if the turn of the revolutionary wheel should
invest any one of thin with supreme authority in
New York, it might be awful to rcflsct to what hard-
ships, indignities, and persecutions these now shining
lights of the loyal churches might be exposed it
what is now loyalty should receive another epithe t
from the mouths of men in power. But the Northern
pulpit is silent cn the subject. In the eyes of halt
the clergy of New England an&New York, Butler
is a saint and a hero—a pillar of orthodoxy as well
as of loyalty—who " runs the churches" for the glory

of God, the support of the national life and the honour
of the fisg. Is this the spirit of the Puritan Fathers ?
Or is it a new spirit altogether, the existence of
which is incompatible with civil or religious liberty ?
The Union League of this city, an association
composed principally of war contractors, jobbers,
political clergymen, and other devoted adherents
of the Administration, organised on Saturday last
a novel spectacle for the amusement of the multi-
tude. Regiments of white men going to or return-
ing from Southern battlefields have long ceased to
attract notice. They pass up or down Broadway
without exciting even the cheap compliment of a
cheer or the flutter of a pocket handkerchief. It
seems, however, to have struck the mind of some
more than usually imaginative member of the
League that if white heroes could no longer move
the crowd to sympathy or rapture, black heroes
might. The idea took root and flourished. The
fair ladies who, though not members of the League,
were mothers, wives, sisters, or sweethearts of
those who were, took up the notion with avidity,
and wrought with their own delicate hands a silken
banner to be presented to the 20th Regiment of
New York Volunteers, a black regiment, com-
manded by white officers. The flag was publicly
presented to them in their square on Saturday; a
"spread eagle" address was read, and a " spread
eagle" speech was made in presence of a large mul-
titude ; the white Colonel returned a " spread
eagle" reply on behalf of his black fellow-soldiers ;
the officers, all white men, having been regaled
inside, at the Everett-house, and the rank and file
having been regaled on less sumptuous and luxu-
rious fare outside in the open square, marched down
Broadway, amid the vociferous cheers of a great
multitude of spectators. The black soldiers looked
very fine fellows. They were dressed in bran new
uniforms, marched jauntily along, with their new
banner fluttering in the sunshine, and seemed a
thousandfold more delighted with themselves and
with their reception than white soldiers would have
been under similar or any circumstances. A year
ago such a spectacle in New York would have been
a perilous experiment on the temper of the people ;
and, if attempted, would have led to serious
breaches of the peace. It may be asked if the prin-
ciples of those who acknowledge the negro as a man
and a brother, and as a person as fully entitled as
themselves to all the political rights and social
privileges that belong to honest manhood, have
made such progress in the interval as to have effaced
the ancient antipathies and prejudices of race, and
produced that moral sympathy between white and
black which is hereafter to produce that physical
" miscegenation" to iwhich the advanced humanita•
rians of this continent look forward as the perfec-
tion of our species ? The answer is, decidedly not.
The crowd which cheered the negro soldiers cheered
in derision. They looked upon every black recruit
as a satisfactory reason for the non-employment of
a'white conscript. "The greater the number of
black men who fight in this war, the smaller the
number of white men who will be required." " Let
the niggers go—and if they never come back, so
much the better. 7 "Black food for powder is better
than white." Such, without the profanity and ob•
scenity with which they were mingled, are but '
few specimens of the comments of the crowd which
witnessed the precession, though, like the beri•
banded and garlanded bulls of ancient Greek sacri-
fices, the joyous negroes knew nothing of the fate to
which they were eo coolly egueiguvd.