The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-05 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(From the Correspondent of the Times.)

NEW YORK, Sept. 22.

The vague sense of impending calamity which has
Etisted in men's minds for the last week has been
justified by events. The long lane of Northern good
fortune has had its turning, and the South seems as
if it were about to retrieve its recent reverses and
emerge from the discouraging, but never hopeless
condition in which it had been placed since the
failure of Gen. Lee's expedition to Pennsylvania and
the capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. Ever
confident of success, filled with conceit, afflicted
with the mania of meddlesomeness, the Government
at -Washington has attempted to do too much at
once, and has frittered away the Federal forces in
remote and unconnected expeditions with the hope
of striking a series of simultaneous blows against
the South and ending the war before the winter.
The results are not hopeful. The Texan expedition,
ltom which so much was expected, has ended in a
humiliating defeat in the Sabine Pass; the siege of
Charleston has come to a standstill for want of ac-
cord between the military and naval commanders ;
Fort Sumter, hastily but effectively repaired, still
floats the Confederate flag and defies Gen. Gilmore
to capture it ; and the Federals, without the power
to destroy or ruin the gauntlets of the forts that de-
fend the brave little city, hesitate to destroy it by
Greek fire and guns at long range, lest the indigna-
tion certain to be excited in Europe by the bacboanrifte.
y
of the act should be of greater value the
derate cause than a victory by Genor, relieved
rd.:
The inhabitants of the Mississippi t; auregard.
b
of the presence of Gen. Grant, have
not only plucked
up courage to prevent the
nav'gl.tion of the river
Confederate force
Gn.
by Federal vessels, but
of 15,000 men, under aided
bj a
aylor, are believed
to have seized upon the eimportant position of Grand
GILL?, and to be busily engaged in converting it into
And,
worst of all, Gen.
Bragg, after a v
a second Vieltsb
masterlyurg evacuation of Chatta-
n°o4B, has
immense reinforcements from
Mobile, Richmond, receive d
and other quarters, and enticed
the unsuspectin r
osencranz to follow him towards
Lafayette and
l‘ton. Rosencranz appears to have
believed the stories which were currently reported
by his spies and scouts that the army of Bragg was
„idly melting away and utterly demoralised. His
fir'st' contact with that army on Saturday last has
vainfalle, undeceived him. The battle that occurred
itepears from the meagre accounts which 'eve up to
this' time been received to have been as obstinate
as those of Antietam or Gettysburg, to have been
attended with almost as much slaughter, and to have
left both armies in a position either to offer or to
accept battle on the following morning. But on
Sunday the results were of no dubious character.
The Confederates remained masters of the field, and
Rocenranz, overpowered, if not outnumbered, was
compelled to retreat into Chattanooga to a wait rein-
forcements from General Burnside, who is 200 miles
distant, and will probably be cut off in the march.
Thus the position of three weeks ago has been re-
versed, and Rosecraez will either have to make as
skilful an evacuation as Bragg or be compelled to
surrender. The sensitive money-market has felt the
impulse of these disasters, and gold yesterday ad-
vanced from the 33 per cent. premium of Saturday
to 42. To add to the uneasiness of a public that is
quite as easily depressed as excited, come rumours
from Europe, from Mexico, and from Richmond, all
tending to show that the irrepressible and inscrut-
able Emperor of the French has resolved on the
immediate recognition of Southern independence ;
that the Archduke Maximilian has accepted the
Mexican throne; that an alliance; effersive and
defensive, between France,Mer-ico, and the Southern
Confederacy has been agreed upon ; and that Great
Britain, though not a party to the project, looks
upon it with favour and will not cff,fr it the imee-
ditnent of the faintest remonstrance. The Republi-
can party feels had, as they say in America, while
the Democrats, rejuicing in everything that throws
odiute on the policy and dims the prestige, of the
Government sees in all these events the, tr.umph of
their own party at the approaching elections, and
the certain ejection of the Republicans from power
at the next Presidential election.

Unfortunately, however, the Donoeratic party is
'without leaders, and one of the most melancholy
proofs of the political degeneracy of the Americans
is the attitude which it has assumed. It is the
strongest party in the country id point of numbers
—the weakest in point of civic courage. Its funda-
mental principles are sound. It stands upon the
Constitution of 1787, and is honestly of opinion that
such liberty and such reatrictious of liberty as were
satisfactory to George Washington and the founders
of American independence; are good enough for
the men of the present day; yet allows that Con-
stitution to be annulled in every vital and essential
particular by a squad of imbeciles whom it despises,
and who are neither able nor fortunate enough to
give the poor deluded country the dazzling bribe
of military glory to compensate it for the loss of
liberty. It is true that some of the more promi-
nent Democrats make speeches in defence of the
rights of the people, and that thousands, and even
tens of thousands, congregate to hear and to cheer
at the " Buncombe ;" but there the matter ends,
and their " resolutions" are words that never ripen
into acts. As they do nothing, Mr. Lincoln,
his secretaries and his generals, take little
heed of them, except now and then to seize
hold of some particularly noisy or otherwise
troublesome orator and cart him over the border or
shut him up in Fort Lafayette. And as if Mr.
:Lincoln were right in imagining that an occasional
example of this kind is quite sufficient to keep the
tameDernocracy in order, the leaders, if such sheep
can be called leaders, take warning from the fate
that has befallen the outspoken victim who has been
removed from the scene, and whisper their disappro-
bation in such mild phraseology that it is impossible
for any Government which respects itself to treat it
otherwise than with contempt. There is one vital
question before the country—the restoration of the
Union, or the acknowledgment of Southern indepen-
dence, and upon that question, though the Demo-
crats fume at the President and denounce his mea-
sures, they pretend to be of one mind with their
opponents. Under no circumstances will they con-
sent to a dis Union Peace. "No ! Come the eleventh
plague rather than this be ! Let us rather be sunk
in the sea ;"—and so they stultify themselves, and
degrade what ought to be legitimate and wholesome
°PPosition into mere factiousness and spite. They
say to the Government in effect :—" The war is a
raper and a rightful war; only you do not know
"`iv to conduct it. Get cut of office and let us in,
Ana
le Lao,
'You shall see that we will restore the Union,
lon. by your blunder"ing and stupidity are omg lour
destroy. Mr. Lincoln cannot,
of
course:almost to
He is in
otavizat the necessity of political suicide.
his full te,", and will remain in,—not only for
he can, euti": four years, but for another four, if
own ruin as 5',3,1" the Democracy to work out their
the " rnemertllalYslvithout troubling himself with
knows tole, uezo °nate of speeches—which he
do him or his/Z:114110d with any bolt that can
It is as idle ter -tilt" damage-
time of day for the 1-)eloocrats to cry out at this
o Constitution as it is,:all4l"' as it was" and the
blage of the class in Lee? Would be for an assem-
to pass resolutions in eavoltliremoihire and Perthshire
or for the dowagers of the °I the house of Stuart,
declare that there was eeseivnbYurg St. Get main to
the installation of the Counanont
ellaalbord in the
for 'Prance but in
Tuileries. Facts have killed all
tia
theeeold preten-
sions. The Union perished
when
fired against Fort Sumter, and the ex." "
gun was
was destroyed when Mr. Chase titai
issued his first
greenback. Three stabs have been given to
it
either of which might have been fatal, but wilieh!
in their combined operation have as effectually made
an er.d of it as Brutus made of Ceesar. The three
were the emission of legal tender paper money,
the conscription, and the suspension of the writ of
fees not in rebellion nor threat-
habeas corpus in S
ceed with invasion. And first of paper money. The
Bih section of the Constitution, which defines the
powersbutit
nowhere -
of Congress, soya that it shall "coin money,"
allows it to print or order the print-
ing •• premises to pay. In the 10th
itincegti°oin. bi:ljeko-wxptesely l'oesids any State to emit bills
of credit, or make anything but gold and silver
coin a tender in payment of debts, Already such