The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-04 00:00:00

dium is then applied to the purpose of correcting
the prevailing belief, and impressing the two
Western Powers with convictions more favourable
to the Federal cause. In its object this State
Paper is certainly intelligible. Mr. Seward is
perfectly accurate in his presumption that the
statesmen of France and England--he might have
included, indeed, those of the rest of Europe—do
consider to this very day that the old American
Union can never be reconstructed. It is natural,
too, that he should be desirous of removing this
conviction, but the argement which he employs for
this purpose is both ineffective and needless—need-
less because we all knew beforehand every particle
of his story, and ineffective because, even it we ac-
cept it exactly as it is presented to us, it leaves our
conclusions just what they were. The truth is, the
course of the American war has taken us by sur-
prise. When we first arrived at the conclusion that
the South could never be coerced into reunion a t
the point of the sword we still ,anticipated prompt
military success on the part of the North. Tne only
reserve affecting our judgment was a doubt about
the earnestness and unanimity of the South in
claiming independence. That condition being
satisfied, we considered that though twenty mil-
lions of men were certainly stronger than nine
millions, they were not so much stronger as to
have any chance of subjugating these nine millions,
dispersed as they were over an almost illimitable
territory. We hardly doubted the immediate
superiority of the North in the field. The general
expectation of Englishmen was that the South
wouid soon be overrunehat its sea-ports would bean
captured and occupied, and that strong Federal garri-
sons would hold its chief towns. In short, we antici-
pated that the first six months, or, at any rate, the
first year of the war, would sue the prostration of
the Confederates thus far completed; but it was
then that we thought the hopelessness of the work
would begin to be felt. If at that time we could
have foreseen that the successes of the North after
more than two years of desperate fighting would
amount only to the achievements now recounted
with so much complacency by Mr. Seward, we
should have thought the task of the Washington
Government more impracticable than ever. We
venture to add that Mr. Seward himself would have
been very much of the same opinion. We think
it may be said with some truth that it the Federal
Government had, at the beginning of the year 1861,
foreseen that in the middle of the year 1863 the
seceding States would still be free, Richmond and
Charleston still safe, and Washington in some little
danger, the war would never have been undertaken
at all. That Mr. Seward, at this period of the
strife, should be reduced to sing a yee en over the
deliverance of the North from the invasion of a
Southern army is about the strongest possible proof
of the hopelessness of his cause. The Federals
thought to sweep the Southern States with their
irresistible forces. At first they actually imagined
that three months and 70,000 men would suffice for
the work. A single battle taught them the extent
of this miscalculation, and though they still limited
the time to " ninety days" they expanded the arma-
ment to 700,0e0 soldiers. The 700,000 did no more
then the 70,000—in fact, they were defeated in the
East, and evenly matched in the West. All that
can he said at this moment of Northern exultation
is that the Federals have taken two places on the
Mississippi after sieges three times as tedious and
us costly,as they were expected to be, and that they
have not had their own capital occupied by the
enemy, as seemed highly probable two months ago.
Mr. Seward, while colouring his history as favour-
ably as he can, is compelled to talk of drawn battles
as events creditable to the Federal arms; and the
very paper which is designed to show the unques-
tionable ascendancy of the North speaks of the
" necessity of covering thenational capital," and the
absolute equality of the belligerent forces in its im-
mediate vicinity. There might be some purpose in
Mr. Seward's present exposition if either we in this
country or the Americans in the Federal States had
begun by regarding the belligerents as equally
matched, and the war as likely to be protracted on
even terms for a long series of years. This, how-
ever, was not the case, and we are therefore not
much impressed with the moderate balance of suc-
cess which Mr. Seward claims for his own side. In
point of fact, taking one field with another, the South
has had a greater share of victory than the North,
and its only conspicuous failure, indeed, was in an
attempt to bring the war to a close by the capture
of the Northern capital. Even now General Lee is
by all accounts more likely to reeume the offensive
than General Meade; and though we do not hear
that the Federals are preparing immediately to in-
vade the territories of the Confederates, we do hear
that the Confederates may be expected at any mo-
ment in the country of the Federals. This is not
much of a case for a Power pretending so distinctly
to superiority as to complain that the character of a
belligerent is accorded to its rival. On that point,
indeed, let any one read Mr. Seward's own descrip•
tions, in this very document, of the strength, the
numbers, and the bearing of the Confederate armies,
and then say if the South be not entitled to the
designation of a belligerent. Why, in recording the
battle of Antietam, the Federal Secretary is actually
compelled to expatiate on the identical qualities of
the contending forces, and to add that the Northern
soldiers were then proved, for the first time, to be
not inferior in heroism and valour. Practically, then,
the very gist and essence of Mr. Seward's argument
is fatal to its object. It' all is true that he tells us,
that all is infinitely short of what we were prepared
to take for granted two years ago, without being any
the more sanguine of Northern success. We thought
the North would overrun the South in a brief cam-
paign, but would then find its difficulties begin. Mr.
Sewerd tells us that after two years of mortal struggle
the North has not overrun a quarter of the South—
having the real difficulty still in prospect as before.
We only conclude from this that the Federals
have not even that superiority for which we gave
them credit; and that the relative strength of theMMr.
Confederates is by so much the greater.o French
If
Seward really wishes to make cooverts a
very
diffe.
and English statesmen, be must adopt
rent line of argument. He must. show us either
that the South is evincing a readiness to yield,
the or
that the North has a policy which admit
restoration of the Union without this
But he shows neither of these things. On the con-
trary, he tells us that the Southern President has
just proclaimed a levy en masse, while of his own
Government he says nothing, except that it is pre-
paring to prosecute the war as before. But what is
to be the end ? Europe thinks that the reconstruc-
tion of the Union by force of arms is an impossi-
bility, of Americans are
and a very great
numberEe also sees distinctly
of the same opinion.
that the South gives Not. the slightest sign of con-
cession, while even the fortunes of the war are not
upon the whole very unevenlydowebalanced. Not,
persist in our
therefore, without reason
original opinions on the subject ; but though Mr.
Seward has thus lost his pains, we can console him
with the assurance that,
so far as we are concerned,
they were needlesslym expended. It his object was
merely to deter us from intervention, it is safe in
spire of the failure of this argument. In the "do-
mestic controversies" which have cost upwards of
500,000 lives and at least 500 millions of money in
two years, we have not the least design of inter-
fering. The "adjustment of these little matters
we are ready to leave to Americans themselves as
"exclusively" as Mr. Seward can desire; and if we
add another remark upon a point so certain, it is
merely to suggest that people who thus busy them-
selves even superfluously in deprecating our inter-
vention might be a little less forward in threatening
US with the extremities which would drive us to
intervene.
DAILY NEWS.—After having haughtily rejected
the temperate remonstrances of the three Powers
on behalf of Poland, and continued to perpetrate in
that unhappy country atrocities that would have
disgraced any civilised power, Russia has, it is said,
become suddenly impressed with the truth of these
remonstrances, and determined at length to do enact
of tardy justice to the Poles. Acccording to the
rumour, the ruthless military despotism which drove
the Polish nation to despair is to be replaced by a
system of virtual self, government. Thekingdom is to
have an independent political organisation, with a
Diet of its own assembling at Warsaw, in a word,it is
to possess representative institutions and a national
government, its political connexion with Russia
tieing represented by an Imperial Viceroy at the
head of the executive. But according to the mar-
vellous rumour, even this is not all, or nearly all
in the way of constitutional reform, that Russia is
prepared to grant. If the Paris journals may be
trusted, the Poles in their gallant struggle have
aceieved constitutional freedom not only for them-
selves but for the whole Russian Empire. The
Emperor is said to hove matured the project of a
liberal constitution for the whole empire, with a
central organ, consisting of two chambers—a Senate
includes,
and Representative Assembly. The plan
besides-this central organisation, seperat2 liberal
constitutions for the provinces, which are to be
divided into nine districts, each having a local
Dlet or Provincial Assembly of its own. The
plan is in appearance eaet and imposing enough,
no doubt. But it is impossible to avoid being
seine retiet scepiical as to its x,:al vo<laz andplobAblv