The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-05 00:00:00

THE WAR, IN AMERICA,

(From the 21mes' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, DEC. 23.
From Saturday morning until last night the town
has been in a state of unusual political excitement
in consequence of the resignation of Mr. Seward
and Mr. Chase. The disruption of the Cabinet
from any action of either of those important mem-
bers was not expected, though the public was quite
prepared to learn that Mr. Lincoln had " put his
foot down" on General Halleck and Mr. Stanton,
and replaced those very unpopular officials by
new men. To-day the excitement has subsided;
the difficulty in the Cabinet has been temporarily
smoothed over; Messrs. Seward and Chase have
consented to resume office upon conditions, which
conditions are surmised but not publicly stated.
Gen. Halleck and Mr. Stanton have been relieved
of responsibility for the failure and butchery of
Fredericksburg by the valorous avowal of General
Burnside—that no one prompted him, no one coun-
selled him, no one interfered with him, and that he,
and he only, is to blame for the disaster. Good,
easy Mr. Lincoln, has thus made things pleasant
again, though only for a little while. His inhar-
monious Cabinet will support and adhere to him
until his Abolitionist drivers shall become obstre-
perous, or until some new disgrace or calamity to
the Federal arms shall arouse the slumbering anger
of the patient and sorely abused people of the North.
There will bo then a second crisis, and a far severer
one than that which has jest terminated.
It was not so much the announcement of Mr.
Seward's resignation as of the underhand agencies
by which it was effected that excited people's alarm
and wonder, and caused reflective men to shudder
at the chaotic state of public affairs, and the all but
hopeless anarchy into which the Government is
drifting. While people, according to their reason
or their passion, were calling for peace, an
armistice, or a vigorous prosecution of the war,
and while both parties were indignant and dis-
gusted at the flagrant incompetency popularly
attributed to the whole Cabinet, but more espe-
cially to General Halleck and Mr. Stanton, a se-
cret caucus of the ultra-Republican and Abolitionist
members of the Senate was held, at which it was
resolved to make Mr. Seward the scapegoat of the
disaster at Fredericksburg, and to urge upon the
President the dismissal of that Minister. Mr.
Seward heard of the proceedings in spite of all the
care that was taken to prevent their coming to his
knowledge, and, being apparently as much dis-
gusted with his colleagues, with the Republican
Senators, and with the state of the nation as the
outer public is with the conduct of the war and the
general aspect of affairs, he prevented the further
action of the conclave by sending in his resigna-
tion. The results were of a nature that the sena-
tors did not anticipate, and placed the President in
a dilemma from which it was not easy either for
his friends or his opponents to discover how he
could extricate himself without damage or danger.
Mr. Chase alleged, perhaps unjustly, to be playing
a game of his own, in which Mr. Seward was his
opponent, unexpectedly followed Mr. Seward's
'example, and placed his resignation in Mr. Lin-
coln's hands. But neither Mr. Stanton nor General
Halleck thought it necessary or expedient to ease
the President of the load of opprobrium which they,
and they principally, had contrived to cast upon
the Administration by retiring, and leaving him
free to appoint more popular if not more efficient
Ministers. Had they done so, the President by se-
lecting Gen. M'Clellan to succeed Gen. Halleck,
and Gen. Banks or Gen. Dix to succeed Mr. Stan-
ton, might have satisfied the country for a time,
persuaded Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase to recall
their resignations, and patched up a truce in his
Cabinet, by which it might have been held to-
gether until the spring, or until General M'Clellan
had either achieved a great victory or suffered a
great defeat. But the President had had enough of
Gen. M'Clellan, and did not desire to call into hi
councils a man who would infallibly have come in
as the master and dictator, if he had consented to
come in at all ; and he had, besides, personal reasons
for not wishing to deprive himself of the services of
Mr. Stanton, whom he thinks to be as honest, as
efficient, and as vigorous as he is unpopular, and
whom he resolves shall not, if he can help it, be
sacrificed to an unjust clamour. He had also a very
reasonable and well-founded objection to the dicta-
torial attitude assumed by the anti-slavery doctrin-
aires and "exterminators" in the senate, who had
taken it upon themselves to usurp his functions of
Cabinet making, and pres-cribe to him what Secre-
taries he should appoint or dismiss. Believing,
moreover, as he appears to have done, that although
his cabinet might not be a very good one, he would
fail in constructing a better from the ranks of either
the Democratic or the Republican party, he resolved
to defeat the dictators of the secret caucus, the
friends of M'Clellan, and the enemies of Stanton,
by one and the same course of action, which was no
other than the very simple expedient of persuading
Messrs. Seward and Chase to withdraw their resig-
nations. In this he succeeded after a struggle of
three days, commanding them with "pleasant impe-
riousness" to resume their portfolios. The two
obeyed with equally pleasant submissiveness, and
once more Mr. Lincoln stands before the country as
master of the situation.
But the unpleasant part of the business, as events
will speedily show, is that the situation is a very bad
and untenable one. It is true he has asserted his
authority against the unwise and violent theorists
who are pushing him along the facile grooves of
revolution, and refused to part with the most Con-
servative of the politicians who share bis confidence;
but he has not succeeded either in satisfying the
Ultra-Abolitionists, who have his soul in their keep •
ing, as Mephistopheles had that of Faust, or in
persuading the public that his administration can
or ought to stand, or that he or any of his Secre-
taries can save the country from the countless perils
that environ it. After the Ist of January some of
these perils will take a formidable shape, if he
issues on that day his threatened proclamation of
freedom to the slaves of rebels. This and many
other dangers will have in due time to be con-
fronted, not only with a diminished support on the
part of the people, but, worst of all, with a dimi-
nished and diminishing army.
It is, in fact, the military, rather than the politi-
cal, situation that causes disquiet. The telegraphic
reports that are permitted to reach New York from
the headquarters of the Army of Potomac represent
the troops to be in " high spirits," and "eager for
a renewal of battle." Were it possible to make peo-
ple believe these statements, or to hide from them
the real state of matters, the military censors of the
telegraph might flatter themselves with the notion
that, if they had not inspired confidence, they had
at all events prevented mistrust, and done some-
thing to render unfashionable the crime of despair-
ing of the republic. But these reports deceive no-
body. The tell falsehoods in the evening, which the
Post-office in the morning succeeds in dissipating.
According to the newspapers, General Burnside's
army is in nowise daunted by its late disastrous re-
pulse, but, like the war-horse of Scripture, snuffs
the battle from afar, and rejoices in the hope and
prospect of victory. But between the published
telegram and the private and unpublished letters
from soldiers in the field there is a wide discrepancy.
The one is all optimism--the other all pessimism.
The one speaks of valour, strength, and discipline
—the other tells a tale of discouragement, weak-
ness, and desertion. General Burnside admits a

loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, of nearly
10,000 men. Reports from the camp, while they
do not assert a much greater loss under these seve-

-al head, introduces a new element to account for
,he rapid depletion of the Federal ranks. Ten

thousand only may have been killed and wounded;
but twice the number have disappeared since the
day of battle. Twenty thousand soldiers have, in
American parlance, "skedaddled" by ones, twos,
and threes ; and, in some instance, by whole cora-
-1 panies. In fact, if these letters from officers as well
as from soldiers may be believed, the once great
Army of the Potomac is rapidly melting away. It
has no longer its former confidence in General
Burnside ; it never had any in the subordinate briga-
diers, colonels, and captains appointed by political
influence to command it, and threatens to disappear
altogether before the winter scows shall lar4Te ,

ing's Herald :—" He understood that an effort was
to be made to placate the South to induce the rebels
to lay down their arms, by our setting the example,
and to have the West, Per.nsylvania, and New York

come in, and New England left out in the cold. He

defied them to keep her out. New England was
the pickpockt of the globe—the picklock of the
world_ She could go where air could go; she could
fly where birds could fly; she would be found where
the seasons could travel. Did they think that by
geographical and political lines they could keep New
England at home? Why, New England would vex
them more by the printing press after she was sepa-
rated from them than she had ever done before.
There should be a murrain of it. Did they think
they could keep New England's daughters from
being fair, and would they have a league and cove-
nant that Southern and Western men should not love

:hem ? It they would not allow New England to

regenerate the rest of the oountry by her religion she

would immediately marry her daughters to them,
and do it by the original process of—[Mr. Beecher
dropped his voice to a whisper, so as not to be heard
by the score or two of ladies just behind him, and
amid a general outburst of laughter repeated the
word ' regeneration,' without the first syllable.]"
The phrase "pickpocket of the globe," though
apt enough to describe the New England contrac-
tors, who have grown enormously rich out of the
profits And plunders of the war, was probably a