The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-18 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, July 3.
The remarkable apathy of New York continues
undisturbed. According to all present indications,
not even the capture of Washington would startle it
into action. Perhaps, were General Lee to take pos-
session of Philadelphia, and exact from its prim
Quakers and prosperous Germans an imperial ran-
som of 10,000,000 or 20,000,000 dole. in gold, not
greenbacks, New York might be awakened to the
necessity (not of sending 200,000 or 300,000 sturdy
and patriotic vo!unteers to repel the invaders; but)
0

casting its voice i❑ favour of an immediate cessa-
on of hostilities and a conference to debate the
ertns of peace and separation. There is no warlike
enthusiasm whatever. Many regiments march up
Broadway, returning from the war, but few march
down to take part in it. The bankers and merchants
do not, as they did six or eight months ago, ope❑
their purses to offer hundreds of dollars in bounties
to volunteers, and if they did the volunteers would
not answer to the call or be captivated by the money.
Even the orators of the Royal Leagues are silentand
refrain from offering to their imperilled country the
cheap aid of their " Buncombe." An English gentle-
man who has been absent from New York for six
weeks, shooting the wild buffalo on the far western
prairies beyond Kansas, returned yesterday. Having
learnt from the newspapers on the way that Balti-
more, Philadelphia, and Washington were menaced
r)y one of the most stupendous invasions recorded in
history, he naturally expected to find this great city
n a state of intense commotion and filled with all
the warlike pomp, parade, and bustle that usually
attend tee crises of a nation's fate. But he found
nothing of the kind. No drum-beat or trumpet-
c,ll; no meeting of legions for the attack or the e.e•
ence ; no cessation of ordinary business; no appeals,
oral or verbal, to the patriotism of the multitude;
no meetings of grave city dignitaries to discuss the
danger and the means to avert or lesse❑ it ; no
council of the venerable heads that direct the finan-
cial and commercial enterprise of one of the chief
cities of the world ; no knots of earnest citizens
gathered at street corners in earnest colloquy on the
dangers of the present or the chances of the future
were to be heard or seen. Everything was precisely
as before; the same busy men and frivolous women
blockaded Broad way in the pursuit of business or
pleasure ; the same bounding life and exuberant
prosperity displayed themselves at every turn; the
equipages of the " shoddy" contractors rolled
through the fashionable avenues, or hurried to the
Central-park to display the too gorgeous finery, the
too pretentious jewelry of the fair occupants, grow❑
too suddenly rich to be quite at ease in the unusual
position into which the good foi tune of their hus-
bands and fathers and the bad fortune of their coun-
try had thrust them. And this unconcern of all
classes is so remarkable that every one sees and
admits it. The newspapers moralise over, but do
sot understand it, not one having any other expla-
nation to offer than that the people are disgusted
with the war and with the Givernment, and hope
that Gen. Lee will take Washington and make a
prisoner of Mr. Lincoln, and so end a difficulty that
seems to present no other so feasible and so happy
a solution.

The Peace Democrats, who promise speedily to
absorb the greater portion of the community, are
not, however, quite idle. The invasion that, stirs
them to no martial ardour stirs them to demand an
immediate armistice, and to support the demand
by a course of reasoning which proves that the love
of liberty has not yet been trampled out of the
heart of the American people by all the measures
which Mr. Lincoln's Administration and his brutal
military satraps have adopted for the purpose.
naree important meetings have been held since
General Lee's occupation of Northern soil, which
show how the current of the popular feeling has
begun to flow, or-rather to rush—the one at River-
head, in Long Island, which was attended by up-
wards of 3,000 people ; the seeond at a place called
Dingman's Ferry, in Pike county, Pennsylvania
near the conterminous lines of the States of New
York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and which
was attended by delegations from the Peace Demo-
cracy of each of the three, eetimated to number
12,000 persons; and the third at Middletown in the
State of New York. The resolutions adopted at the
first were an able, logical, consistent, and courageous
exposition of principles which, if adopted now, would
end the war immediately, and which, if acted upon
by Mr. Lincoln when he came into office, would
have rendered the war impassible. While recognis-
ing the Federal Constitution as an eminently just
and well-balanced embodiment of political wisdom,
they denied that it warranted coercion against any
State that chose to secede from a Union which, in
the estimation of the people and the Legislature and
regularly constituted authorities of such State, had
ceased to be desirable or in accordance with its
wishes or interests. "If from any cause, real or
imaginary," said the first resolution, " any one or
more of the States of the Union, in the exercise of
that Sovereignty which is their highest attribute
and the eole ground of their existence as States,
shall see fit to withdraw from the obligations im-
posed and the benefits conferred by the Constitution,
we recognise no grant of power in that instrument
to the Federal Government, created by it, or to the
combination of States left after such a secession, to
compel such seceding State or States to return to
a Union -which they have deliberately repudiated,
and which, deriving its whole life from the princi-
ple of consent, dies on the instant that consent is
withdrawn." This is clear and emphatic. It is the
doctrine which the South has made good at the
cannon's mouth ; and which to all present appear-
ance will be made good by similar agencies at the
North and the North-West, if the Federal Govern-
ment do not seize the favourable moment before it
have been too greatly humiliated to propose that
peace with the South which may otherwise be ex-

toned. The second resolution affirmed in a similar
spirit that the State of New York was a sovereign
power, subject only to the Constitution of the
United States, so long as her people shall elect to be
governed by it. The fifth resolution declared,
" That the dictates of a common humanity, the best
interests of the entire country, and the good repute
of a republican form of government demanded a
cessation of hostilities in this fratricidal war, and
neither false pride nor political etiquette should
stand in the way of a possible mutual reconciliation
or reconstruction of the Government." The eighth
denied the constitutional legality of the Conscrip-
tion Act, and called upon Governor Seymour to ar-
rest its execution within his jurisdictien until the
question of its validity had been decided upon by
the Supreme Court, pledging the meeting to sup
port the Governor in any justifiable steps he might
take to resist so palpable en infraction of the Con-
stitution of the State of New York. Other resolu.
!ions denounced the attempts of the Federal Ad-
ministration to suppress the right of free discussion,
and signalised fur particular odium the illegal ar-
rest and exile of Mr. Vallandigham, as an outrage
not only on all the principles on which American
institutions are founded, but as a gross invasion of
the rights of the Sovereign State of Ohio, by the
Constitution and organic law of which it wa..a ex:
pressly enacted that no citizen should be transported
out of the State for offenses committed within the
same. The resolutions are in every way eloquent,nani
and are palpably the work of no inferior
The two other meetings were chiefly.w
re
for the presence of Mr. Fernando Wood,
dlaragt
the reiteration by that gentleman of all the
though peace
meats in favour of peace,.
should end in separation,
the great Democratic meetinggn
we ever reconcile
he asked, shall all this end'
of discord ? Can we atop
whic.heslvfeeenfiuir
ysteardkv.a,nlicendwa,,t,
these antagonistic elements of
nitnryt:
thels therefield
Can we prevent the
this deluge of innocent b
afteeru
against less than 700,000 on
nearly 1,500,000 went flannyalwanayd untotwer,bankruptcyyjonogf theaelcleotui
with a debt larger to-day
itain • with a loss of liberty to
the part of the South;B
than that of Great r
the American people more apparent than is felt by
the
subjects of any crowned head in Europe-6
there,
say, any way by which North and South
can
a bebrought to an amicable solution and deter-
mination I
on of this dreadfnl conflict ?" Mr. Wood was
iu
hopeful that not many months, or even weeks,
would pass before the exhausted people would
realise the impossibility of any longer continuance of

so bloody a war, and that the very violence of the
hurricance was the best guarantee that it would not
be of long continuance. At the same time he guarded
himself against the supposition that he approved the
invasion of Pennsylvania by Gen. Lee. It was an
assault upon the sovereignty of Pennsylvania which
he condemned, and which he hoped would be igno-
miniously repulsed—by Pennsylvania : a way of
putting the case which the astute speaker meant to
be, and which was, a vindication of that principle
of State rights which the South was in arms to up-
ho/d. These three meetingasliwereknot only attended
by influential people of and classes, but
they were so unanimous that dissentientnroatnae. voice
Or hostile hiss or interruption
Thewas raised. at any
period of the proceedings. various
tpharties
.that
have hitherto ruled and distracted
hUnion
are crumbling to pieces. The party led by
Fernando Wood, and ((bout to be joined in incryeallierd
vigour and influence by Mr. Vatlandigham, is the
only party that is growing and consolidating; and
whatever may be the case with the Republicans, the
War Demouats appear as if they would speedily
cease to be. They must either join the Republicans,
to whom their war principles affiliate them, or they
must take service under Mr. Fernando Wood, who
by a bold stroke has made himself the foremost
man of the North, and enunciated a policy which is
sure to prevail in the long run—and which ought
to prevail in the short run—unless social anarchy
and national bankruptcy have greater charms for
the Northern people than peace and liberty, and a
compact though diminished territory.
The only prominent member of the Republican
party who has publicly spoken since the invasion of
Pennsylvania is Senator Chandler, of Michigan, a
gentleman of extreme fanaticism on the subject of
( mancipation, of great influence over the mind of
Mr. Lincoln, and particularly noted for his hostility
to Gen. M'Clellan, to the Copperheads, and to peace.
No apostle of extermination has been more ardent
than he, Not even Miss Anna Dickinson or Mr.
Wendell Phillips has expressed more pleasure at the
prospect of a negro insurrection ; and what, it may
be askew, does this most ultra of American Doc-
trinaires and Jacobins think of the present aspect
of American affairs ? Does he despair of the re-
public ? Not at all. Does he think that the South
is the stronger of the two contending giants ? Not
a whit, On the contrary he thinks, with an op..

timism that would do honour to a contractor, that
circnmstances were never so favourable for the
North as now, and that so soon as the army of Gen.
Meade confronts the army of Gen. Lee it will whip
it. " While I appreciate," he adds, " the sufferings
of Pennsylvania, and while I appreciate the 'scare'
and regret it, yet I have never felt more hopeful
than I do to-day of the final overthrow of
the rebellion and the final success of the Union
arms. I see the Ban rising, and see this black flag
of rebellion fading, fading, fading, and I expect to
to see it in three months from to-day lying in the
dust never more to rise from its low position." Mr.
Chandler sees a great deal, but others less imagina-

tive have seen that this old period of "three months"
was to have wrought eighteen months ago—a year
ugo—three months ago—many wonders that have
never come to pass ; and have learnt to disbelieve al-
together in " three months," and any thing they may
produce. Mr. Seward is the father of the phrase,
but little can he have thought of the progeny of

illusive hopes, false assumptions, deliberate self-
deceptions, and unmitigated lies that were to grow
out of it. It has been the " Jack o' Lantern "of
Federal statesmen, and has led them into quagmires
of political disgrace, from which they cannot escape
without dirt upon their reputation.

July 4.

New York continues apathetic, and gold—nzirabtle
dictu—continues to fall, although the " Waterloo "
of the war commenced at Gettysburg on Wednesday,
with great loss to the Federals, and was renewed on
Thursday and yesterdaywith results as yet unknown.
The apathy is not to be explained, except on the
supposition that the popular disgust with the war is
so excessive that most people would be glad of a Con-
federate victory, provided only it were great and de-
cisive enough to bring peace in its train. The fall in
gold, in face of actual and prospective disaster, is
only to be accounted for by the fact that specula-

tion in stocks has, to a great extent, superseded
that in the pr'cious metals; and that Mr. Chase
has it in his power to bear the market whenever
he pleases within a margin of four or five per cent.
Latterly, whenever the news from the seat of war
has been ominous of impending evil, gold has gone
down, because the agents of the Treasury, acting on
instructions from headquarters, have gone into the
market offering it for sale in ten times greater amounts
that anybody wished to buy it, or than the legiti-
mate wants of foreign commerce required. But it is
obvious that Mr. Chase's powers in this line are
limited, and that the barometer of men's fears, us
marked by gold, compared with paper money, based
upon a credit that may be overthrown in an hour,
is only subject to manipulation of this kind in com-
paratively calm weather. When the storm bursts
Mr. Chase will have no more power to control it

,han he has to control the physical convulsions n
.he atmosphere.

Much alarm is represented as prevalent in Wash-
ington and Baltimore, but New York cares little.
The shops are closed to-day in honour of the
" Fourth of July," the flags are waving from all the
vesssels in the harbour, and from the church steeples
and public buildings and private dwellings of
Broadway is the mode customary with this great
city when it makes bolyday. The steamboats are
with pleasure seekers betaking themselves to Long
Branch, to Staten lsiand, to Long Island, to the
Highlands of the Hudson, to the pleasant shores of
the Sound, to every place within easy distance,
where weary men of business and toil can have a
day's rural enjoyment with their wives and chil-
dren, and forget alike their private care and their
public sorrow. The little boys swarm in all the
streets, letting off squibbs and crackers ; for the
juvenile heart of the American population Indepen-
dence-day answers to Guy Faux-day in England,
and is commemorated with riot and fireworks, with
this difference that American impatience does not
wait for night to indulge in pyrotechny, but com-
mences
n done
it with the earliest dawn of day, to
sore annoyance of everybody but the boys
blackguards. Mr. Lincoln was to havea
his part in celebration of the day
whiche
recalls
th
to the American mind the triumph of b y making
success-
ful rebellion of George Washington
ndemnation
a speech in Philadelphia in co
countrymen,
of the second rebellion of Washington's
but was compelled, in consequheinnocge of the imminent
's
danger of Philadelphia, to forerfs
own
gunboats one pleasure and
keep within easy distance of h
the Potomac. There is to be a great Democratic
:at the
meeting this eveningAcademy of Music, at _
which Governor Seymour, of New York, and ex_
Governor Seymour, of Connecticut, have promised
to attend. Doubtless these eminent Democratic
chiefs—neither of whom ever utters a word of
lei,a3," or any kind of
" spread eag buncombe—will
speak to their countrymen
in a manner befitting the
real memories of the day, and the awful crisis of the
ustionaffortune, in which for the 87th time it has
dawned over a country, no longer free, happy, or
united, but rent in twain, as Washington feared and
Jefferson foresaw ; its liberties lost or perishing,
and its fairest regions deluged with fratricidal
blood; as Daniel 'Webster predicted in some of the
sublimest as well as most mournful words that ever
tell from the lips of a statesman.

CONFESSION OF MURDER.— A soldier of the 50th
Regiment, named Louis Sayers,E.
stateda few days since to
Provost-Sergeant Wort, of the 22d Regiment, that he could
net rest, and he wished to be given into the hands of the
police for the murder of a girl named Ellen Smith, in
Epping Forest. He said that he had been living with the
Young woman in London, that she was 13 years of age, and
that she pressed him se much to marry her that on the 27th
of September last he took her down on an excursion to
Epping Forest, and while there he stabbed her with a knife,
and buried the body in the forest, in a spot which he knew
well, and could point out. After consideration he was
given over to the police, who are at present investigating
the affair. The West Sussex Gazette says, Louis Sayer, the
soldier who accused himself of the murder of a young
woman, has again been brought before the magistrates.
The whole affair now turns out to be a hoax, for Sayers,
when taken Wore the Epping magistrates, refused to say
alword about it, and was sent back to Parkhurst prison under
escort, to be dealt with by the military for the trouble and
expenses he has caused.