The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-18 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

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(From the Times' Correspondent.)

NEW YOLK, June 5.
The great event and topic of the day is the Peace
Meeting held on Wednesday evening at the Cooper
Institute and in the streets and square adjoining.
No such crowded, enthusiastic, and unanimous as-
semblage of the people has ever taken place in New
York. The Republican journals grudgingly admit
that there must have been 10,000 persons present,
while the Democratic press claims that there were
at least three times that number. Whatever may
have been the exact aggregate, no one who saw
and mingled in the mighty mass could doubt that as
a political demonstration it was grand in its num-
bers, earnest in its purpose, and undivided in its
sentiment, and that if Mr. Lincoln had been un-
wise enough to obtrude his military strength
before it, or in any way to interfere with
the free expression of its opinions, he would have
taken the first fatal step to the provocation of riot,
bloodshed, and revolution. Happily, nothing of the
kind was attempted, and the various speakers were
allowed to proclaim their bold sentiments without
the slightest interruption, except the cheers of the
sympathising auditors. The meeting was entirely
due to the energetic action of one person. Mr. Fer-
nando Wood, ex-Mayor of New York, and now one
of the representatives of the city inCongrese, planned
it, organised it, brought it together, drew up its re-
solutions, and spoke the great speeches of the even-
ing; bearing upon his shoulders all the weight and
responsibility of the demonstration. Whatever
may be said of Mr. Wood's personal and private
character, his greatest enemy cannot deny that he
knows better how to wield the fierce Democracy of
this city than any man living, or that he has far
greater political influence within that sphere than
any score of his contemporaries or competitors. And,
under the circumstances—with martial law prevalent
over half the country, and Mr. Vallandigham an
exile for having dared even to hint what Mr. Wood
spoke openly—it will scarcely be denied, either by
friend or foe, that his courage is equal to his influ-
ence, and that he proved himself the boldest poli-
tician in the country. Mr. Wood said truly, in the
course of his first speech to the inside audience which
crammed the large hall to such a degree as to make
either sitting or standing uncomfortable, "That no
man equal to the crisis of the nation's peril had
yet arisen. Heretofore, in every age, great na-
tional exigencies have produced the men for the
occasion. The Almighty has not yet vouchsafed
this blessing to us. Neither in the field nor in the
Cabinet, nor in the many elevated spheres of private
life, has the man presented himself with the brain,
the heart, or the courage to seize and work out the
great political problem to be solved in our case.
Those who have the intellectual ability have lacked
the nerve, and those with the nerve have lacked the
ability. And here is another wonder—that in this
civilized population of over 30,000,000, North and
South, abounding with benevolence, purity, culti-
vation, and enlightened Christianity, none are found
to raise the banner of peace." Mr. Wood went on to
say, " that he would be the one; that without pre-
tending to power or influence, and after patient'
study of the theory of the Government, and full
appreciation of the issue, he alone and single-1
handed would throw himself into the contest, let
the consequences be what they might to his country
or to himself." "My friends," he continued, "I am
for peace, as the only possible hope for the resto-
ration of the American Union. I am for peace
because war has failed. You cannot cement two
antagonistic elements by blood. lam against the
war in the first place because, under the theory of
our Government there is no power in the Federal
Government to coerce delinquent States. If there
be any coercive power in the constitution it is legal
and not military. If there be no military war power
in the constitution, the war is unconstitutional. ..
Instead of being a war for the Union, it has become
a war for the total sequestration and abolition of
State sovereignty, and has been used for the basest
purposes of plunder and political power. .... In
the second place I am for peace, because the war
is a failure and must continue to be so." By
this speech Mr. Wood has placed himself in the
advanced guard of the Democratic party, which by
his decided action has been split more widely than
ever into two great divisions—the one calling
themselves " War Democrats," the other " Peace
Democrats." The War Democrats upon their own
principles are bound to support the Government in
the prosecution of hostitities, even although they
may urge Mr. Lincoln to dismiss his incompetent
Generals and his blinded, reckless, or corrupt Mi-
nisters ; but Mr. Wood and the Peace Democrats
take broader ground, assert wider principles, and
place a more distinct, intelligible, and honest issue
before the country. They demand peace as the
sine qua non, not without a hope that Union may
come afterwards, but peace at any price, at the
price even of the Union, rather than that war
should continue until it has trampled out the last
vestige of liberty in the North and prepared the way
for anarchy and interminable civil strife, only to
be ended by a series of bloody revolutions, and the
advent of half-a-dozen or a dozen military despots
contending one with another for the possession of
supreme power, over a decimated, demoralised, and
ruined people.
But is Mr. Fernando Woed the man for the time,
and will he by his example bring out the latent
peace patriotism that slumbers in the country, and
compel men of higher position than himself to fol-
low where he leads ? These questions are difficult
to answer. The Americans are not like other people.
They are turbulent in talk, bat not in conduct.
They love liberty, but they prefer material power
and prosperity. They detest oppression, but they
will not risk their lives or their personal safety in
resisting it. They sneer and snarl at authority, but
they obey it. They affect to despise the hostile cri-
ticism of Englishmen, but they writhe and groan
under it. Their forefathers foaght desperately for
seven years against the power of Great Britain, to
resist the imposition of a small tax on tea, but they
are rather proud than otherwise that in two years
they have incurred as large a debt as Great Britain
incurred in a hundred ; and nave no shame in pro-
claiming that, as they owe it to one another, they
will repudiate it as they please should the weight of
taxation ever become injurious to trade and com•
merce, or oppressive to the bones and sinews of the
labourer. They have great reverence for law, but
they condone the offences of law-breakers more in-
dulgently than any people in the world. They jest
at a titled aristocracy, but when it comes among
them they go down on their knees to worship it.
They have immense enthusiasm for any great and
good cause, but it is as evanescent as it is efferves-
esenial ntiThe sparkling wine of their zeal flattens into
beer before the glass can well be raised to their
havelips. 'they no reverence for any living man, or
for cg inexistence, except power and money.
They area martial people, full of military spirit
and personal
courage on the battle field ; but in
civil life they
cowards. There are hundreds and thousands of i
.al, wealthy, eloquent,
public-spirited, and patrxeiotic all over the
c
country, and notably in the city o New
itY otorkb,ewthhoe
privately denounce the War
; who
hold
over
lithe
source of woes innumerable yet to burst
land ; who see in its continuance thel
oss
of
liberty,
character,f fairly wonanci i its independence prosperity,
and
w h;
obtuhti,nk with the
t "aeh etSouthyelc
has
rl,
ception of Mr. Fernando Wood and his brother,
Mr. Benjamin Wood, there are scarcely three such
per sOrA s to be found who will stand boldly up in the
t hese sentiments,
face of the multi:ude to express,
and dare the Government to call them to account.
And yet the American people are so easily led, they
move so readily in masses, they nre so quickd
sympathetic when their passions are aroused, that
if ten or twenty such men, having fortunes, posi-
tion, and character, would but come out of the
inert mass and say in public what they say in
an
pri-
vate, it is probable—especially in this time o
conragement with the conduct d prospects ? t
t. dthe
war—that they would have such a following as
would inaugurate a counter-revolution and compel
the Government to agree to the armistice, which
begins to be demanded by the conscience no less
than by the interest of the great majority of the
people. But these men do not make their appear-
ance. They abdicate their citizenship by t heir silence.
They lead the silly Government to disbelieve in