The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-05 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(Flom the Correspondent of the TinL:s.)
NEW YORK, Sept. 22.
The vague sense of impending calamity which has
existed iu men's minds for the last week has been
justified by events. The long lane of Northern good
fortune has had its tueniug, and the South seems as
if it were about to retrieve its recent reverses and
emerge from the discouraging, but never hopeless
condition in which it had been placed since the
failure of Gen. Lee's expedition to Pennsylvania and
the capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. Ever
confident of success, filled with conceit, afflicted
with the mania of meddlesomeness, the Government
at Washington has attempted to do too much at
once, and has frittered away the Federal forces in
remote and unconnected expeditions with the hope
of striking a series of simultaneous blows against
the South and ending the war before the winter.
The results aro not hopeful. The Texan expedition,
fi om which so much was expected, has ended in a
humiliating defeat in the Sabine Pass; the siege of
Charleston has come to a standstill for want of ac-
cord between the military and naval coinneander!il
Fort Sumter, hastily but effectively repaired,
iloets the Confederate flag and defies Gen- Gilmore
r
to capture it ; and the Federals, without the
to destroy or ruin the gauntlets of the forts that
.de-
fend the brave little city, hesitate to destroye i
it y
Greek fire and guns at long range, lest th
indigna-
tion certain to be excited in Europe by the
barbarity
of the act should be of greater
value
to the Confe-
deraten cause than a victory by ' Beauregard.
i border, relieved
The inhabitants of the
of the presence of Gen.
navigation of the river
lGrant,issi
nssi havePP not only plucked
up courage to prevent theeed
by a Confederate force
by Federal vessels, but aided
Gen. Taylor, are believed
of 15,000 men, under
re
important position of Grand
to have seized ape!
And, worst of all, Gen.
Gluf, and to be busily engaged in converting it into
a second Iriesbur
a .magst..erly evacuation of Chatta-
nooga,Bragg, reinforcements from
after
has received immense
Mobile, '
Richmond and other quarters, and enticed
the
unsuspecting Itosencrenz to follow him towards
Lafayette and Dalton, Rosencranz appears to have
believed the stories which were currently reported
by his spies and scouts that the army of Bragg was
rapidly melting away and utterly demoralised. His
first contact with that army on Saturday last has
painfully undeceived him. The battle that occurred
appears from the meagre accounts which hove up to
this time been received to have been as obstinate
as those of Antietam or Gettysburg, to have been
attended with almost as much slaughter, and to have
left both armies in a position either to offer or to
accept battle on the following morning. But on
Sunday the results were of no dubious character.
The Confederates remained masters of the field, and
Rosecnranz, overpowered, if not outnumbered, was
compelled to retreat into Chattanooga to a gait rein-
forcements from General Burnside, who is 200 miles
distant, and will probably be cut off in the march.
Thus the position of three weeks ago has been re-
versed, and Rosecranz will either have to make as
skilful an evacuation as Bragg or be compelled to
surrender. The sensitive money-market has felt the
impulse of these disasters, and gold yesterday ad-
vanced from the 33 per cent, premium of Saturday
to 42. To add to the uneasiness of a public that is
quite as easily depressed as excited, come rumours
from Europe, from Mexico, and ham Richmond, all
tending to show that the irrepressible and inscrut-
able Emperor of the French has resolved on the
immediate recognition of Southern independence ;
that the Archduke Maximilian has accepted the
Mexican throne ; that an alliance, offensive and
defensive, between France,Mexico, and the Southern
Confederacy has been agreed upon ; and that Great
Britain, though not a party to the project, looks
upon it with favour and will not offer it the impe-
diment of the faintest remonstrance. The Republi-
can party feels had, as they say in America, while
the Democrats, rejoicing in everything that throws
odium on the policy and dims the prestige of the
Government sees in all these events the triumph of
their own party at the approaching elections, and
the certain ejection of the Republicans from power
at the next Presidential election.
Unfortunately, however, the Democratic party is
without leaders, and one of the most melancholy
proofs of the political degeneracy of the Americans
is the attitude which it has assumed. It is the
strongest party in the country in point of numbers
—the weakest in point of civic courage. Its funda-
mental principles are sound. It stands upon the
Constitution of 1787, and is honestly of opinion that
such liberty and such restrictions of liberty as were
satisfactory to George Washington and the founders
of American independence ; are good enough for
the men of the present day; yet it allows that Con-
stitution to be annulled in every vital and essential
particalar by a squad of imbeciles whom it despises,
and who are neither able nor fortunate enough to
give the poor deluded country the dazzling bribe
of military glory to compensate it for the loss of
liberty. It is true that some of the more promi-
nent Democrats make speeches in defence of the
rights of the people, and that thousands, and even
tens of thousands, congregate to hear and to cheer
at the " Buncombe ;" but there the matter ends,
and their " resolutions" are words that never ripen
into acts. As they do nothing, Mr. Lincoln,
his secretaries and his generals, take little
heed of them, except now and then to seize
hold of some particularly noisy or otherwise
troublesome orator and cart him over the border or
shut him up in Fort Lafayette. And as if Mr.
Lincoln were right in imagining that an occasional
example of this kind is quite sufficient to keep the
tame Dsmocracy in order, the leaders, if such sheep
can be called leaders, take warning from the fate
that has befallen the outspoken victim who has been
removed from the scene, and whisper their disappro-
betion in such mild phraseology that it is impossible
for any Government which respects itself to treat it
otherwise than with contempt. There is one vital
question before the country—the restoration of the
Union, or the acknowledgment of Southern indepen-
dence, and upon that question, though the Demo-
crats fume at the President and denounce his mea-
sures, they pretend to be of one mind with their
opponents. Under no circumstances will they con-
sent to a dis Union Peace. " No ! Coma the eleventh
plague rather than this be ! Let us rather be sunk
in the sea;"--and so they stultify themselves, and
degrade what otght to be legitimate and wholesome
opposition into mere factiousness and spite. They
say to the Government in effect :—" The war is a
Proper and a rightful war; only you do not know
h(rys to conduct it. Get cut of office and let us in,
and you shall see that we will restore the Union,
you by your blundering and stupidity are
doing your utmost to destroy." Mr. Lincoln cannot,
of course,He is
in office,
admit the necessity of political suicide.
h
°fn.ce and will remain in,—not only for
hi full
term of four years, but for another four, if
and
e can,
own ruin as allows
the Democracy to work out their
the e ni,affieaTartes, without troubling himself with
knows to be unzthunder" of speeches—which he
do him or hie pc:nlPanied with any bolt that can
It is as idle for YthanV damage.
time of day for the° I)emocrats to cry out at this
e Constitution as it, is,,,‘ati'lien as it was" and the
blage of the class in Inv: it would be for an assem.
to pass resolutions in swyorunreas-ehire and Perthshire
or for the dowagers of the F:tv.the House of Stuart,
declare that there was oo saivtlatu.°ll"R St. Germain to
the installation of the Count
(113.4 f°r France but in
Tuileries. Facts have killed alle tehharabord in the
sions. The Union perishedwhen "easi:deari
the at prate
fired against Fort Sumter, and the co gun was
was destroyed when Mr. Chase i
gtitution
his
greenback. Three stabs have been given eit
first
either of which might have been fatal, but which
in their combined operation have as effectually made
an end of it as Brutus made of Csesar. The three
were the emission of legal tender paper money,'
the conscription, and the suspension of the writ of
habeas corpus in States not in rebellion nor threat-
ened with invasion. And first of paper money. The
Bth section of the Constitution, which defines the
powers of Congress, says that it shall "coin money,"
but it nowhere allows it to print or order the print-
ing of bank-notes or promises to pay. In the 10th
section it expressly forbids any State to emit bills
of credit, or make anything but gold and elver
c vin a tender in payment of debts, Already. such