The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-22 00:00:00

PR1CE....,..
STAMPED

ought at least to be ready to accept peace ou toms
which the South would make by no means onerous
or offensive.

This was in June ; but July followed, and with it
an almost complete reverse of fortune. Lee drew
back in confusion ; Grant broke through the Mis-
sissippi barriers ; the South-West was reconquered ;
the siege of Charleston progressed favourably. It
was now for the Republicans to bold their con-
vention, and the mob cheered them as loudly as it
had hailed the peace men of the previous month.
War is drawing to a speedy and happy conclusion,
why should it break short now ? Why should it
not be pushed on to the thorough restoration of the
Union, and the complete emancipation of the slaves ?
In the abstract, no doubt, every American of the
North harbours very strong feelings for the union
of his big country, and for those Abolition prin-
ciples which aim at the removal of the darkest of
stain fromo
itsf fraeiorobogannenreiru.g withp
all trheessstohuetmhern
he
terri-
tory and of enfranchising the whole negro race, and
the mass will follow you, no doubt, unwearied in its
the
possibility
p
exertions, and regardless of sacrifices. But can the
conviction of the feasibility of that great scheme of
restoration and emancipation rtally strike deep root?
Behold ! the Government was in some measure com-
mitted to it. The President's proclamation, his de-
cree of emancipation, confiscation, &c., have laid the
views and plans of the Government very openly
before the public. The " rebel" land was to be mili-
tarily occupied—subjected to martial rule, doing
away with the right of property of the present
owners, manumitting slave labour, and reorganising
free labour under Government superintendence.
Specious as the scheme seemed to many of the
sanguine Republicans, it, however, struck many as
not only monstrously inhuman and barbarous, but
also most supremely chimerical and impracticable.
Many people were disposed to look upon that procla-
mation of the President's as a mere brutunifulmen—
an empty threat, never to be carried into execution.
It was understood that several members of the Cabi-
net at Washington, no less than most of the leaders
of the Government party, were opposed to the
wholesale destructive measure. Strong remon-
strances and point-blank questions were addressed
to the President on the subject. Hence his letter
dated " Executive Mansion, Aug. 26," in which,
although he shifts his ground and wriggles about
with a lawyer's dexterity, he gives us, nevertheless,
clearly to understand that the war is to be followed
up to the bitter end.
Notwithstanding all the President's letters, and
notwithstanding the shouts and cheers with which
the wild effusions of Republican orators were re-
ceived at Springfield the other day, we must not
believe that the war party is very strong in these
Western States, or that the notion of " exhausting
the North to lay waste the South " finds many
hearty supporters here. So long as success crowns
the efforts of the Federal armies, so long as hopes
can be entertained that three, six months at the
utmost, may bring about the termination of the
strife, the people here endure and wait. But let us
only hear, for instance, that the siege of Charleston
has to be raised, or that Lee has been successful in
a new raid across the Potomac, and you will soon
hear the cry of the Springfield Democratic Conven-
tion of last June set up again. The common mass
follows here the impulse of every breeze, and its
leaders, when they are not ambitious adventurers
without principles, are empty pated fanatics whose
principles are as unsteady as those of the multitude
they presume to control.
I hops you will not charge me with exceeding
conceit if I declare to you my conviction that there
is very little political sense among party leaders
in this mighty Republic. The question of negro
slavery in the South was a very serious and painful
one at all times ; but that any one should propose
to solve it by the extermination of the whole of the
white, and the' no less unavoidable extinction of the
whole of the black race is something that baffles all
the comprehensive powers of an un-American mind.
Yet that is whit many repeat here daily with nn-
abeshed asseverance, and it must be hard but some
of them do really mean what they say.
The work of extermination, to whatever extent
it may ultimately be carried, is, while we are here
discussing, being hurried on with mad fury in the
South-West. I gave you in my last letter an extract
describing the deplorable condition to which New
Orleans and Louisiana have been reduced since
they fell into Yankee hands ; I have to-day to add
the following few lines :
At this season of the year the population of New Or-
leans is ordinarily 160,000 souls. In winter, during the
busy season, it reaches near 250,000. It is now but little
over 60,000, if the soldiers are left out of the count. Within
the past few days there has been an apparent revival of
business, owing to the arrival of the bulk of General Ord's
command, the 13th army corps. But, making due allowance
for the season, and other present circumstances, there are
evidences on every hand that the great commercial hal.,
portanca of the city is a thing of the past. Her trade in
the great staples, cotton and sugar, is gone. It is true
that some apparently successful experiments in sugar
culture have been made, and at the proper time some sugar
may be looked for; but the area devoted to these expe-
riments is comparatively very small. Both sugar and cot-
ton will for a year or two come to New Orleans in drib-
lets, where they formerly came in floods. Then, again, the
trade with the West Indies is gone, and cannot be recovered
for a long time. This is one of the calamities which was in-
flicted on the West and South West by the closing of the
Mississippi river navigation. Now that the river is again
open, a resumption of the whole trade may be expected,
but it must be a work of time. The shipping necessary is
otherwise employed. The attention of buyers has been
turned elsewhere, and will not immediately revert to former
channels. Trade restrictions, moreover, must be removed
before receiving and forwarding can be conducted in a legi-
timate and prosperous way.
- -

we may see by this that the evil wind of the war,
which has blown so much good to New York, has
done no such good turn for New Orleans ; and the
calamity was inflicted on the West no less than on
the South West. Push on the war to the bitter end ;
crush the whits race in the slave-holding States,
and set the negro free. We shall see how long a
time it will take before the recolonization of those
desolate territories, and the reorganisation of the
labour of " freed men working on compulsion," make
up for the losses and calamities inflicted not less
upon these North-Westerners who fought so stoutly
for the Union as upon the South-Westerners who
were bent upon its dissolution.
There are not a few persons about me who take
this view of public affairs. The solid well-being of
the country is to be sacrificed in pursuit of an ab-
stract notion of philanthropy. The happiness of the
whites must succumb, not only With no hope of im-
the certainty of impairing the
proving, but with
condition of the blacks. The slaveowners, whatever
may be said, were not the bitterest enemies of the
negro. The prejudices of the Northerners against
the African race were far more fatal to the few free
blacks that lived among them than even the over-
seer's whip which kept *hem to their task in the
South. This Western State of Illinois is in such
matters no better than it should be. It is perfectly
amazing to read among its statutes, statutes which
cannot be older than 40 or 50 years, such barbarous
enactments as the following—" No person of colour,
negro or mulatto, of either sex, shall be joined in
marriage with any white person male or female, in
this State ; and all marriage or marriage contracts
entered into between such coloured person and white
person, shall be null and void in law ; and any per-
son marrying or contracting to marry shall be liable
to pay a fine, be whipped in not exceeding thirty-
, nine lashes, and be imprisoned no less than one
year." This perfect gem of medieval jurispru-
dence, especially if we take into consideration the
corporal punishment, bears no earlier date than that
of the constitution of Illinois, in 1810. It was
brought forward for discussion before both houses
of the State Legislature as late as 1847 by men who
wished to wash the statute book of such illiberal
provisions, but the wise majority of Illinois free
citizens ruled that the law was very well as it was,
and should suffer no change. Surely a man need
not be as anxious for the amalgamation or rr.;.cu is