The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-15 00:00:00

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of Irish and Americans arrived, who were received
with the same exuberant welcome from the people.
It is expected that within a fortnight no fewer than
38 Nbw York regiments will have returned—men
inured to war, whom Gen. Hooker and the Govern-
ment can ill spare, but who obstinately refuse to re-
enlist under commanders in whom they have no
confidence and for a cause which they have ceased

to approve.
A number of the strong-minded young women and
aged spinsters, together with a sprinkling of the
female doctors, lecturers, and preachers for whom
New England is famous, have formed themselves
into a "Loyal League," the objects of which arc to
discourage shopping at millinery, mcrcery, and
other establishments, the proprietors of which do
not thoroughly approve the war and Mr. Lincoln's
policy ; and to cease all social intercourse with gen-
tlemen and ladies who so far sympathise with the
Southern people as to think that eight millions of
them ought not to be exterminated for the sake of
giving immediate and unconditional freedom to four
millions of negroes. It is probable that the real
gentlemen and ladies of New England will not
grieve overmuch at exclusion from the tea-tables of
such vulgar Xantippes, and equally possible that
the prosperous traders of the cities of New England
may not suffer much pecuniary loss for want of the
custom of people who are probably as poor in purse
as they are in charity. The movement is of no fur-
ther importance than to show how much more
odious a civil war is than any other, and what an
evil influence it exercises upon the minds of that
gentle sex whose privilege it is, and whose pleasure
it should be, to allay violent and bloodthirsty pas-
sions rather than excite them. Another kind of
"league," formed by the women of New England,
deserves as much praise as this deserves reproba-
tion. Having heard that the soldiers in camp are
liable to scurvy and other cutaneous diseases, for
want of an adequate supply of fresh vegetables, and
especially of onions, some kind-hearted rather than
strong-minded women have formed themselves into
an " Onion League," the main objects of which are
to promote the growth of onions, and to forward
them free of charge for the use of the soldiers in all
the armies of the Republic. Such patriotism may
be homely, but it is true. Better the humblest
sister of an " Onion League" than a whole wilder-
ness of female ranters like Miss Dickenson; for
the same reason that one Florence Night-
ingale in the hospitals of the Crimea recommends
herself more heartily to the love and good-
will of all mankind than 50 regiments of viragoes,
unsexed, unnatural, and consequently disagreeable.
Frederick Douglass, the negro orator, and beyond
all comparison the most able man of his colour in
America, lectured in Dr. Cheever's church, on Wed-
nesday, to a large audience, of whom three-fourths
were whites, on the "Present and Future Prospects
of the Coloured Race" in this country. He took
high ground on behalf of his people, and asserted
that nothing but civil and political equality, and
the full enjoyment of all the rights, privileges, and
immunities of any other portion of the community
would satisfy the negro race either during or after
the war. He said nothing about social equality,
being a man of too much good sense to moot the
point among a people whose whole course of public
and private life is a protest against it whenever it
becomes a question of a man or woman with the
smallest portion of black blood in his or her veins.
He said it had been charged that the negro in a
state of freedom would die out, like the red race,
before the onward progress of the white man ; " but
he opined if slavery had failed to kill him, he would
not be exterminated by liberty." Herein Mr.
Douglass mistook both the fact and the argument.
It is asserted and proved that in the free North,
principally from climatic and partly from social
causes, the annual number of negro births is ex-
ceeded by the number of deaths; and that, con-
sequently, the race is surely, though it may be
slowly, in process of extinction. It is not asserted
that either in a state of slavery or of freedom
in the South—where the climate is highly con

genial to their increase—the negroes would die out.
The idea is that they would be driven out, or exter-
minated as the red men have been, if there were no
means of compelling them to labour upon the soil.

This idea is not only entertained by the Southern
slave-owners, but by the President of the United
States, who sees no hope for free negroes anywhere
within the boundaries of the late United States, and
thinks the best thing that can be done for the whole
black population is to transport it back to its native
Africa, or drive it down into Central America. Mr.
Douglass may be excused for thinking differently,
but it is not the negroes, but the white men, who
will decide the great question of the destiny of
these people, so useful in the South—so hated, des-
pised, and oppressed in the West and the North.
So difficult is the question that even the Govern-
ment of Mr. Lincoln, which has declared itself in
favour of the freedom of the race, has unexpectedly
found itself acting the part of the slave-owner,
without these guarantees for kind treatment which
the personal relations of the master to his slave
inspire and perpetuate. Adjutant-General Thomas
in Louisiana, finding himself encumbered with too
many negroes, who had freed themselves by the
simple expedient of running away from their mas-
ters, has issued an official order, proposing that the

plantations of rebels seized under the Confiscation
Act shall be leased out to substantial farmers for
the benefit of the Government, and that the Govern-

meat shall supply the lessees with compulsory negro
labour, to be paid for at a certain daily rate. In
other words, he proposes to re-establish " involun-
tary servitude"—the polite Southern euphemism
for slavery—paying a money wage instead of a
wage in kind, as was the Southerncustom ; and with
this difference to the disadvantage of the negro that
when he is unable to work he shall no longer be en-
titled to receive any pay. The Tribune, whom none
will accuse of hostility to the Government, or to
any of its agents employed in the difficult task of
giving freedom and sustenance to the slave, de-
nounces the project as nothing but slavery under
a new guise. " Under such a system," it says, "it
is inevitable that the estates will be leased by
speculators, and no amount of care or superinten-
dence by the Government commissioners will be able
to protect the negroes from oppression, cruel treat-
ment, and overwork. Except that punishment by
the lash is forbidden, they will be if possible worse
off than on the same plantations under their
masters and in undisguised slavery. The owner of'
an
slaves had the inducement of self interest net to go
from
in
Thebeyond
les
sae certainei
s freed m
pointfr
anhyissuexch restraint,
action s and abuses,and
by
the terms of his contract, which is to expire in less
than a year, his only interest is to get all possible
work in the shortest possible time out of his
la-
bourers. Idle stipulations, itnpossible of
enforce-
ment, will not fetter an unscrupulous speculator
such as most of these lessees are likely to
.e. What-
ever the contract says about humane
be operative just so far as direct treatment will
compulsion make it so, and no supervision and
further."
The Northern public has
negro question. The war
is yet much to learn on the
of the opening its eyes to some
dangers Which
i
malignant philanthropists gnorant philosophers and
encoun-
tered ; have so rashly and the negro
in the North, t himself is learning, especially
in other that whatever may become of the war
respects no good is likely to result to his
unfortunate race—placed between the upper mill
stone of slavery and the nether millstone of free
pauperism and social degradation.
It may be remembered that the military authori-
ties of Indiana arrested Judge Constable of Illinois,
on the judgment seat, on the charge of having ille-
gally set at liberty some persons brought before
him accused of desertion. Judge Constable, hav-
ing been Detained in prison for neany a month,
succeeded in bringing his case before the Supe-
rior Court of his native State, by whom ho WLIB
ordered to be immediately discharged from
custody. Judge Constable has no redress for the