The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-19 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)

NEW YORK, Feb. 3.

Though the House of Representatives, under the
auspices of the Committee of Ways and Means, has
passed a financial project, authorising the issue of
300,000,000 dols. of Treasury notes, and loans to
the extent of 600,000,000 dots., it does not follow
that Mr. Chase approves the measure, or that,
-whether he approves it or not, the Senate will con-
sent to it. So complicated are the details of all finan-
cial business that comes before Congress, in conse-
quence of the absence of the Secretary of the Trea-
sury from the deliberations of both houses, the semi-
officiel character of the Committee of Ways and
Means, and the power of the Senate as well as of
the President to reject or modify, that it is difficult
to understand at any time what chance there is of
the passage of a money bill which the Financial
Minister has recommended, or even to know what
parts, if any, of such bill or bills are due to his in-
spiration, Mr. Chase is understood to disapprove
any further inflation of the currency, and the Pre-
sident, in giving his consent two weeks ago to the
issue of 100,000,000 dole, of greenbacks, distinctly
stated in a I,peeitli message that, were it not for the
pressing needs of th: army, he would not have sanc-
tioned any such proceeding. The House of Repre-
sentatives ( nterteins different opinions, and has not
only passed a bill for adding 300,000,000 dols. to the
100,000,000 dols, of inconvertible paper that is in
process of distribution to the army, but has shewn
throughout the whole course of its deliberations on
the subject that it thinks paper—unrepresented by
gold—the grand and only panacea for all national
evils—the source of unlimited wealth, of which it is
next to impossible to issue too much, were 10,000
steam engines dailyand nightly at work to supply it.
The tneeefact that the house had authorised the print-
ing and issuing of 300,000,000 dols. of greenbacks
sent, up the premium on gold last weekto 60percent.
The mere fact that thefinance committee of the Senate
is understood to disapprove this portion of the project,
or is not likely to consent to it, when made known
yesterday, sent down the price of gold nearly 4 per
cent. ; while the negative but very important fact
that nobody knows or understands orcan guess what
is ultimately to be done creates a bewildering ex-
citement on the Stock Exchange, and converts half
the traders and merchants of the city into reckless
gamblers. The rise of prices continues. Every
article imported from Europe suffers the first and
greatest enhancement. The goods manufactured in
the country undergo the same process, to the enrich-
ment of the manufacturers, but not to the increase of
the national revenue; and food, fuel, and every other
article of first necessity mounts in price in a manner
which may not be distressing to gamblers and con-
tractors, but which is very alarming to every one else,
especially to the poorer classes who live upon fixed
wages and salaries, and find that the thousand dol-
lars of a year ago now represent no more than 600
dols. Tney discover that the remaining 400 dols. are
their compulsory contribution to the cost of the wars
To this they add the taxation which not even the
humblest can escape, and ask themselves what inte-
rest they have in a war which punishes them so
severely, and why they should aid in the subjuga-
tion of the Southern people at the frightful cost of
their own reduction to misery and pauperism.
While such is the financial situation, with a pros-
spect of its growing worse, the military situation
gives little sign of amendment. Operations on the
Mississippi await the completion of the "cut," or
canal, opposite Vicksburg, which is to enable the
Federal gunboats and ironclads descending from
Memphis to pass to the other aide of the city and
attack it in flank. The last accounts represent the
water to be flowing into the cut to the depth of
four feet; but as the Mississippi is 60 feet deep at
Vicksburg, it may not result from this partial success
that the course of the river will be diverted, or that
Vicksburg, though attacked by gunboats both above
and below, will be captured or destroyed by those
agencies. Pending the attack on this city, the
ooerations languish at Port Hudson ; and, as the
distance between these two places is nearly 500
miles, in the course of which the Confederates may
have raised fortifications and placed obstructions
utterly unknown to the Federal officers, it is not at
all clear that even the capture of Vicksburg would
enable the Federal gunboats to co-operate with
General Banks for the reduction of Port Hudson.
The failure of General Burnside's movement
against Fredericksburg—the impossibility of any
advance towards Richmond by General Hooker in
the present state of the weather and the roads, even
were such an advance not prohibited for other and
perhaps more cogent reasons, has released the army
of General Foster at Newbern from the duty origi-
nally assigned to it, which was to march upon Rich-
mond from the South, simultaneously with Burn-
side from the North. If present indications are to
be relied upon, that army has received orders to
proceed southwards to take part in the attack upon,
Charleston, which most people in the North consi-
der to be a doomed city, only to be saved from utter
destruction by immediate and unconditional sur-
render. There can be little doubt that Charleston
is in imminent danger, and the destruction of a
Federal steamer in the Stone river would lead to
the inference, if the attack have not already com-
menced, that it cannot be delayed for many hours.
Northern pride requires a pabulum, and nothing
which could be administered to glut its hungry
appetite would be so bitter-sweet as the utter ruin
and destruction of this offending city. rill that,
or something almost as satisfactory to its sense of
offended dignity, be done, the North will be in a
bad humour, and there will be an impediment en
the way of that peaceful settlement which it begins
very ardently to long for, in spite of its anger.
Congress meanwhile acts as if it were determined
to do as much mischief as it can during the short
remaining term of its existence, and leave as large
as legacy of difficulty as possible to its more Demo-
cratic successor. Whatever individual members
may say, whatever amount of respect and love they
may express for the Union, and whatever determi-
nation they may exhibit to fight out the quarrel
with the South to the " bitter end," they act in
their corporate capacity as if they were hopeless of any
other result to the struggle than a speedy separa-
tion. Their whole legislation tends in this direc-
tion. The object appears to be twofold—first, to
such a degree to exasperate the South as to render
a reconstruction of the Union impossible, and, se-
condly, so to centralise and consolidate the power
and the government of the North as to make it in
effect the homogeneous and united nation which it
has always claimed to be since the outbreak of the
war. In these two objects may be found the clue to
its whole policy as recently displayed. The abolition
of slavery in the district of Columbia was a direct
provocative—planned, debated, and carried through
by men who did not believe in the restoration of the
Union. The abolition of slavery in the territories
was another movement of the same kind, having its
root in the same idea ; and, last of all, the Procla-
mation of Emancipation to the slaves of " rebels,"
and the incitement of the negroes to take up arms
against their masters,was forced upon the President
against his better judgment by men who were con-
scientiously of opinion that the " Union was a
league with Death and a covenant with Hell,"
and ought not to be restored. Congress never
really entertained the idea that Mr. Lincoln had
power to liberate the slaves by his proclamation.
The members knew full well that it was just as easy
for him to abolish the British monarchy or the
French Empire by the stroke of his pen and the
countersignature of Mr. Seward as to set free the
four million of black labourers in the cotton States
without the consent of their masters. The real
object of the abolition party in both houses was to
disgust the Southern leaders and people, and to
shut the door of compromise without the hope of its
Gen.
Butler To this end also they sustained
Butler in all his arbitrary acts at New Orleans, and
meditate at this moment his re-appointment to that
city, with larger powers for evil than he before pos-
sessed. With the same idea of provoking the South
they passed the revolutionary Act for erecting a
moiety of the sovereign commonwealth of Virginia
into a separate State, and urged the President, who
had strong constitutional objections to the measure,
not to veto it as he originally felt disposed to do,
N lestor
t0:11 the settlement of the boundary lines between
and South, at the conclusion of the war, no
part of Virginiashould be awarded to the North.
And,
finally, as if to prove to the Northern people
how utterly hopeless the war must be, it has urged
the Government, which boastst that it has a million of
white men on the rolls
oe,
t army,
arm y, to resort tothe
aid of 150,000 armed negr nes
enable
the task that
this million of white men are
Seen from this point of bi to accomplish.
view, the action of the
fragment or Rump of Congress now sitting in Wash-
ington becomes intelligible. It will remain
for
his-
tory to decide whether, with such foregone conclu-
sions prescribing and dictating its n
poeee it would
not have performed a nobler and more Christian
part if it had offered peace to the "wayward sis-
ters" before the lives of half a million of men had
been sacrificed in a contest pre-arranged to be un-
availing. the The other and correlative object,
consolida-
tion of the North, is more legitimate; but it is pur-
sued in such a manner as to render it extremely
doubtful if it can be accomplished without
of
a vice
lent revolution. As it was not only the question
slavery that produced the dissolution of the Union,
but that of State rights, Congress appears resolved
to abolish State rights altogether, to reduce the
Federal commonwealths to the position of counties
or provinces, and to invest the Federal Executive
with powers not intended by, or expressly prohibited
by, the Constitution. To this end it is usurping, or
has usurped, authority which can only be legiti-
mately exercised by a National Convention of the

whole people, and has virtually inaugurated a revo-
lution as unmistakable as that which commenced in
France in 1789, though in a centrary sense and
direction. The French revolution was in the name
of the people and for the idea of liberty. The Ame-
rican revolution, as this Congress understands it,
will he in the name of a minority, for the establish-
ment of a despotism. Many significant measures to
this end have already been introduced, and bid fair
to be carried. Mr. Chase's scheme for remodelling
and federalising the banking institutions of the
Ste tes is the that and most harmless of them. The
second is the bill for authorising the President to
suspend the habeas corpus at his own discretion and
on his own single responsibility, without the inter-
vention of Congress—a clear violation of the Con-
stitution—by virtue of which he will become auto-
crat, despot, and imperator of the republic, owning
no law but that of necessity, of which he is to be the
judge and interpreter. The third is the bill of Sena-
tor Wilson, a noted shoemaker of Massachusetts, for
increasing the militia of the several States by a con-
scription, converting it from a militia into a national
guard, and conferring the chief command upon the
President. Under the still existing constitution of
the United States the Militia are enrolled in the
several States, are not movable beyond the State
limits, and are under the command of the State
Gravernors,:who, by their aid, are warranted in re-
sisting the encroachments of the Federal power, if
it seeks to override or annul the State laws and con-
stitutions. All this is to be set aside by Mr. Wil-
son's bill, w hich virtually seeks to abolish the States
of the Federation, and fuse them into one jurisdic •
tion as effectually as if they were English counties
or French departments. Besides this, it introduces
in a new form the conscription which the Central
Government was last year compelled to abandon
under the pressure of public condemnation and the
fear of a Northern rebellion. It may, perhaps, be
for the ultimate advantage of the North that it
should cease to be a federation of Sovereign States,
and that these should all resolve themselves into one
immense and homogeneous Empire, over which the
President should rule as an Autocrat. But it is doubt-
ful whether the people are prepared to take that
view of the case, and whether the attempt on the
part of Congress to force these measures through
both Houses before the 3d of March may not lead to
perils as well as perplexities, or expedite a new se-
cession in quarters where the Government is by no
means prepared for such a catastrophe.
The bill for the arming of 150,000 negroes to fill
ep the gaps in the national armies, which are not to
be supplied by all the inducements of high bounty
money or all the terrors of the conscription, was
passed yesterday in the House of Representatives by
a majority of 85 against 55. Mr. Stevens, who had
charge of the bill, admitted in the debate that not
50,000 white men could be raised by recruiting, and
that it was absolutely necessary to raise an army of
negroes to end the war. He further admitted that
a large number of the Federal Generals and officers
were sympathisers with the South; and insisted 1
that such of them as had threatened to resign if
negro troops were called into the field ought to be
tried by court-martial and shot. The bill, however,
as passed, was clogged with conditions which its
framers neither anticipated nor approved. The
negro officer, however great his merits or military
talents may be, is never to exercise authority
over a white man, and the negro regiments are
to be commanded by white men in all the supe-
rior grades, the negro not being considered suffi-
ciently intelligent, or safe, to be entrusted with
high command. If he is to save the Republic,
as Mr. Beecher says, he is to save it as a private
soldier, or at most as a corporal. Neither must he
save it as a private soldier if he be a bondman in
Kentucky or other Border State, or be allowed to
save it at all if his master be a loyal man. In obe-
dience to the warning of the Border State repre-
sentatives, who urged that if any negra recruits
were raised within their boundaries the recruiting
officers would infallibly be shot by the outraged
people, au amendment was proposed and carried
that no Africans from loyal Slave States and districts
specified in Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of Emanci-
pation should be received as soldiers or sailors in the
service of the Federal Government. But, as if to
make amends for this insult upon poor Sambo—
inflicted, too, at the very time when his services
were in most request for the salvation of the
Union,—the Senate exhibited a totally unexpected
literally with regard to him. It had been pro-
posed to pay ten millions of greenbacks for the
emancipation of 100,000 slaves in Missouri, pro-
vided their emancipation were effected in 20 years.
The generous and impatient Senate, under the
prompting of Mr. Charles Sumner and the great
shoemaker of Massachusetts, Mr. Wilson, passed
an amendment to the effect that the sum should be
20 millions, provided the emancipation were com-
pleted within one year.
It may perhaps be thought in England that all
this legislation on the subject of the negro is popular,
or it would not be attempted. Bat such is not
the case. The antagonism which exists between
this Congress and the people on the subject of the
negro is remarkable. The Congress is as much an
assembly of theorists as the first French Conven-
tion, while the people are about the most practical
and prosaic people in the world, and despise and
oppress the negro in a manner which the nations
of Europe ought thoroughly to understand before
they praise the North too much for its supposed
love of Negro freedom, and condemn the South too
emphatically for the blot of slavery on its
escocheon. Congress passed a law for setting
free all the slaves in the district of Columbia,
whether they belonged to loyal or disloyal
owners. And what is the result to the negro ?
He is free, no doubt; but has he the rights and
privileges of a free man ? And can he assert the
social position to which true liberty entitles him if
he be honest, industrious, well-behaved, and law-
abiding ? Mr. Horace Greeley, who ought to be an
authority on the question, reports in the negative.
" Among the whole number—over 60 " justices of
the peace in Washington", says yesterday's Tribune,
"there recently could not be "found one to issue a
writ on the plea of a coloured man for the arrest of
a white man who had stolen his property; and it is
conceded to be impossible for a coloured citizen to
prosecute in either one of the courts a claim against
a white man, Even their testimony is excluded
from the courts, in plain violation of the laws passed
last summer for their protection."
Of a piece with this confession of the powerless
ness of law when it runs counter to the social pre-
jadices of the people is the recent activity of Go.
vernor Andrew, of Massachusetts, in the arming of
a negro brigade in the little aggressive State of which
he is the chief magistrate. When requested to re-
ceive an immigration of a few thousand free negroes
he declined with peremptory disgust, and treated
the proposal as an insult. He is now arming the
negroes within his jurisdiction as fast as he can;
not that they may remain to do garrison duty, and
allow the white men of the State to fight the battles
which they have done so much to provoke, but that
they may depart to the South, never to return.
Negroes do not thrive physically, morally, or finan-
cially in Massachusetts. They compete with white
men for labour, and bring down its wage, and they
become in their old age and helplessness a burden
upon the community. For these and other reasons
the far-seeing Governor wishes to be rid of them as
speedily as possible, and finds no means so ready as
to make soldiers of them. There may be much
apparent philanthropy in the talk of those who
act with the Governor in this matter, but the real
philanthropists are not the Governorand his friends,
but such people as the reverend gentleman men-
tioned in my last letter, who would abolish all dis-
tinction, social,
political, and ethnological, between
the white man and the black, by the single though
not very facile
But
theoretically the
the
process of amalgamation of the races.
they
Abolitionistslov e
the are
negro. not
A m
Practically a lga m at io nis
theyts.
hate him; and wish with Mr. Lincoln that the
whole race could be transported back again to their
native Africa, or anywhere else, where they might
be seen no more by " the free and enlightened citi-
zens of our glorious Republic."
The Divine Author of Christianity said, " Blessed
are the peacemakers." A person claiming to be a
Christian, and holding the position of Chaplain to
the Senate of the United States, renounced the
blessing, and declined to be of the number of the
peacemakers yesterday in the following remarkable
prayer which he offered up before the commence-
ment of Senatorial business :
" Oh Lord, our God, we entreat Thee to hear the prayer
of Thy servant, which we come to make this day for the
officers and men of our army and navy. Be pleased to give
them endurance, and in all their sufferings stay them with
Thy strength, and bestow upon them the spirit of foresight
and of combination to smite and to scatter the enemy when-
ever and wherever he may be found. May they not be
baffled by the storms of Heaven, and may no unpropitious
condition or elements of the material creation impede or
post pone their progress, We pray Thee that, if it shall be
Thy will, even the very processes of physical nature may be
suspended for a time, while this fartul problem of Repub-
lican liberty and free institutions is wrought out. If it must
be by war—which we do most earnestly and sadly deplore
in itself—we pray Thee that it may be speedy and effectual
war ; and Oh, Lord, we pray, if Thou wilt hear our petition,
that
the tiIOOLISIT GITIBEntsu of those who profess to follow
illusion of an UNHOLY PEACE may be for ever stifled
and we pray that this great people may be neither blinded
nor deceived
by the fatal influence of such insane counsels.
0 Lord, silence for ever the tongue thatshall
madness and folly; wag with such
yet we pray Thee that Thou wilt gi
ve
us Thine own peace in T • time give
Thine own and
Jesus Christ. Amen." way, through
the rev. gentleman may think himself, and possibly
is, a good patriot ; but the Christian spirit is sadly
deficient in his prayers. And when he supplicates
Heaven to work miracles rather than that the
armies on which his lopes are fixed should be de-
feated, he confesses—inadvertentlY, of course—that
human means may fail to secure the end which he
so ardently desires. And were such prayers offered
up in the presence of soldiers, and not in that of