The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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' TIMES.—It is well known that within the last
few weeks great efforts have been made in this
country to obtain demonstrations in favour of the
, Federal cause. It is said, probably wtth truth, that
agents of the Northern Government, provided with
funds from America, have been at work on the
' familiar business of agitation, in order to restore
their discredited party at home by making it ap-
pear that English opinion supports them in their
acts. But, wherever the agitators come from, they
have been especially busy for the last two months.
It has been promised that the real sentiments of
Englishmen should at last be made known. It
meetings could be organised, if the subject could be
properly discussed, and public opinion set free from
a Press which misrepresented it, then America might
see that the feelings and the judgment of the old
country were with her in her noble crusade for the
freedom of the negro. The result of the great move-
ment was given in this journal yesterday. For weeks
it has been announced tha there was to be a " mon-
ster demonstration" in Lcndon in favour of the
North. Provincial meetings had been already held,
and had been most provokingly avoided by any one
whose opinion was of the slightest importance. But
in London better luck might be hoped for. This is
a great metropolis, and on the 29th January, a week
before the meeting of Parliament, it must be full of
persons of considerable eminence and of all shades of
opinion. The most distinguished names of a coun-
try where freedom of thought is carried into eccen-
tricity were sure to be within reach of the Emanci
pation Society's circulars and and advertisements.
What doubt, then, what an imposing meeting, at-
tended by men of genius, of high attainments, of
great social position, of political renown, would bear
witness to the interest with which large and influ-
ential sections of English society follow the pro-
gress of Mr. Lincoln's policy ? If even what is called
the world—the frivolous, unthinking people who
take their opinions from the Press, who dislike Yan-
kees for their pertness and boasting, and admire Lee
and Jackson for their unexampled heroism,—if even
jealous politicians or illiberal soldiers stood apart,
surely there would be enough of the more original
thinkers to fill a platform? More than this, in
the centre of this great capital, with its hundreds
of churches, in the neighbourhood of men who have
spent their lives in advocating every charitable
cause, it might have been thought that a meeting
professedly in favour of Negro Emancipation
would not have wanted names of eminence.
After weeks of preparation the meeting took
place the day before yesterday. The speakers were
a minor novelist and two or three Dissenting
ministers, who seem to be of the usual intellectual
calibre. Not one man whose opinion the country
would listen to on any political subject, not one
statesman, not one person endowed with genius,
however self-willed and erratic; no representative of
the Peerage, only one of the House of Commons,
not one of the Church, or the gentry, or the com-
mercial world—was found to stand on that platform
and make himself responsible for Mr. Lincoln's pro-
clamation. Of the eminent men who in past years
have struggled, and will still struggle on for years
to come, against oppression and evil-doing all over
the world—of the philanthropists whose names are
identified with this very phase of negro emancipa-
tion—there was not one who felt that he could in
conscience come forward and encourage a ruthless
invasion, and a still more hateful scheme of domes-
tic warfare, by giving aid and comfort to Mr. Lin-
coln's tottering Cabinet. The persons we alluded
to were left alone to hold forth to the audience.
What they said it is needless to comment upon, for
it is quite in accord with their personal insignifi-
cance. For our own part we cannot but rejoice that
there has been at length an organised attempt to
evoke English opinion in favour of the war. It is well
to know the full strength of one's own opinions, and
to be able to calculate with certainty on the mea-
sure of assent which the world will give to them.
That for two or three months a number of men
have been agitating to change the sentiments of
Englishmen on this important subject, and that
the result of the mountain's labour is the birth of a
most ridiculous mouse, is especially satisfactory to
us, who have for so long been labouring to promote
a peaceful settlement of an unnatural quarrel. We
now know that, in spite of importunity the most
pertinacious and offensive, every man with a poli-
tical character to lose has stood aloof from the
Federal partisans in this country. Even the mem-
bers for our populous boroughs, though their posi-
tion often compels them to succumb to schemes of
this kind, Lave in this case felt it necessary to their
own dignity and the feelings of their respectable
constituents to give a rebuff to the agitators. Hap-
pily, the situation of affairs in America is becoming
such that the friends of peace in this country need
tear no misrepresentations of the " Emancipation
Society," or of the' wire pullers'' who itzotd I)•.!it,i;
:t. Whiir welli tit .a,i tat; -It are c,mgr 1 ulat'ng P e
sident Lincoln from this side of the water, the public
1
opinion of his own country is becoming every day
more settled against him. The Proclamation, by
the confession of its authors, 'N as intended to eo two
things--first, to conciliate European opinion ; and,
secondly, to terrify the south into submission. Th ,t
the first object has not been attained we think is
pretty clear, and the other, which is by far the more
important, has been equally missed. Whatever may
be the merits or faults of Mr. Lincoln's policy, his
Proclamation has had but one effect, and that is to
make the Confedetites more fierce and resolute than
ever. When the last news left more than a fortnight
had elapsed since the Proclamation, and no sign of
wavering had appeared at the South. The Confede-
rates had opened the new year with a victory at
Galvaston, and at Vicksburg had inflicted on the
Federals a defeat hardly less bloody, and quite as
important as that of Fredericksburg. Two military
disasters and a rise of gold to 50 premium are the
first fruits of the masterly document of the 2d of
January, and a still more important matter is the
widespread anger of all but the Republican zealots.
New York has spoken through Mr. Seymour, and
now the Governor of Kentucky, a firm Unionist,
and a man to whom the North is mainly indebted
for keeping the State from Secession, denounces the
President and his schemes in a State paper which is
certainly one of the most remarkable we have ever
read. There are at last signs abroad that the bank-
ruptcy of the North, the desolation of the South,
and the ruin both of white man and negro will pro-
i yoke some political reaction in the Federal States.
At such a conjuncture it behoves us to stand aloof,
and not to applaud assumptions of arbitrary power
which are being sternly rebuked by the ablest men
of the country where they have taken place.
POST.—For the first time we find ourselves in a
position to believe that the question of the Greek
succession is virtually arranged. The various pro-
posals on this subject which have been before the
protecting Powers have succeeded each other with
such rapidity that the intelligence of one day has
antiquated that of the preceding one. Hitherto
there has, properly speaking, been no candidate for
the Greek throne. We have ourselves on successive
occasions mentioned the names of the princes most
in favour among the Greeks and with the protecting
Powers. In an unofficial sense, indeed, there may
have been many who would gladly have accepted
the throne if offered to them by the three protec-
tors. But between those who would not accept it
and those to whom it was not offered there has been
no candidate formally put forward until the present
announcement of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg as the
nominee of those who are entitled to recommend
one to the Greek people. We believe that the
course of the negotiation was as follows. After the
joint withdrawal of the names of Prince Alfred and
the Duke de Leuchtenberg from the list of possible
candidates—during the course of which other names,
such as those of the Archduke Maximilian and
Prince Nicolas of Nassau, were discussed at the
Courts—it was resolved to offer the throne to King
Ferdinand of Portugal. This prince, however, was
better known to the diplomatic world than to the
Greek people ; and his own retired habits of life led
him to decline the proposal. By that time a con-
siderable number of royal and serene names, never,
perhaps, seriously entertained, had been eliminated.
It was then subsequently resolved to make the same
offer to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. But
after some negotiation with this prince his condi-
tions of acceptance were regarded as inadmissible.
t,