The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-22 00:00:00

THE WESTERN STATES.

(From the Spe;ial Correspondent of the Times.)

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, Sept. 6.

A great Republican Convention, or monster meet-
ing was held last Thursday at Springfield, the poli-
tical capital of this State. Hopes were entertained
for some time that Mr. Lincoln would attend the
gathering, but he acquitted himself of his promise
by a letter which has already been before the public
for several days. Deprived of the prestige of the
Presidential presence, the Springfield Meeting sank
to an affair of second-rate importance, and was not
even remarkable for a very numerous attendance.
The power of the masses in this democratic country
lies exclusively in the ballot. Any meeting which
is not intended as the immediate preliminary to an
election is mere waste of breath. It is idle to con-
sider its resolutions as the manifestation of the popu-
lar mind. The people here do not know their own
mind; they echo the sentiments of those two or three
cracked fanatics or designing politicians who under-
take to be their mouthpieces. There is a prodigious
amount of bawling, ranting, pushing, drinking, and
rioting; but when the crowds go asunder there are
very few indeed who have taken the resolutions to
heart, who care to treasure them up in their
memory, who consider themselves bound to act up
to their import.
I have said from the outset, in one of my very
earliest letters, that the Americans do not under-
stand their own affairs any better than the stranger
who, upon his first arrival, will be at the trouble to
take a careful and dispassionate survey of what lies
before him. The Americans never knew what they
wanted—their wishes have been perpetually swayed
by the various phases of the war into which they were
most unwittingly drifted. There were a thousand
of the most relentless Republicans at the outset
who subscribed to Mr. Edward Everett's principle,
"that if the Southern States were unwilling to abide
in the Union, they bhould, in God's name, be al-
lowed to go asunder." That slaves and slave-
owners should quietly take themselves off was the
wish particularly of those black Abolitionists to
whom at that time no other means of a thorough-
going emancipation presented itself. The war that
broke out did not for a long time materially affect
this general disposition. The Southerners had in-
sulted the flag, they had set up the standard of
rebellion ; they must be taken to task for it, they
must be soundly beaten, severely punished, but
then, when enough was done for the honour of the
Federal arms, they must be left to "fry in their
own fat," to wallow in their own ground with their
unwholesome negro, and the great Republic must
wash its hands of that hereditary guilt, it must
cease to be a partaker of that liberticide iniquity.
Slavery, no doubt,
was a very sore subject with
many a noble and honourable man of the North. I
have lived in Boston in the days of Chan ning—tbe
days in which humane, moderate, and truly benevo-
lent men were turningiin their minds if there was
indeed any possibility to wash out that foul blot of
negro slavery from the American escutcheon. I
have known abroad, at Geneva, at Florence, at
home, distinguished citizens of the States who
wasted away an existence which might have been
most valuable to their country simply because they
would not sanction with their presence the con-
tinuance of an institueon which was in their opinion
mensee who how d this matter
many
equally virtuous
weighed at war with all the laws of God and man. But
at then,
tI have
en,
well-meaningaan
of negro slavery with the vital interest of the
Union, who looked upon the condition of the South
as a disease which admitted no cure, and who, in
i
the alternative of lopping off a
member which,
however corrupt, was essential to the existence
of the body, decided that the sore subject of
negro slavery should be bushed up, that vaunt-
ing Abolitionism should be tabooed, that a tacit
compromise should be established with the South,
and the interests of so many millions of whites
should never be jeoparded for the sake of the rights
of a few million of blacks.

Party spirit
War merely for or against negro slavery had
become an impossibility in the States; but, unfor-
expansive
its increase
alti
inunandrtahiatneegslgi
ntyir,taeutne
ihtsaiej
govnSee
mo. e Southerners
eurcbeolxtni
oci es eatpiffrbv
aoye
imdr
bsot.eht
iean tg their -
and spread, they took more than their allotted share
was mixed uP with what was originally a mere
social controversy ; a moral question assumed all
the bitterness of political animosity, hence the elec-
tions of 1860 and the hostilities of 1861.
_

The war, however, exasperated the parties, but it
did not change or displace them. From the begin-
ning there was a large Democratic party, to which
a very great many of the Republicans joined them-
selves, who were anxious above all things that the
war should bo a short one—a kind of tournament
for the honour of the stars and stripes rather than an
arrangement which either should bring back the
South on the old conditions, or should allow it to
go its own way without further contention.
These two parties, the War Party and the Peace
Party, have been leading the Northern multitude
to and fro ever since. I see nothing about me but
a vast passive mass, say of 99 men out of 100, who
to the impuLse, now of one side,
have been yielding
now of the other, es ready to shout far the Demo-
crats at the Springfield meeting
of June last as
to bawl
with the Republicans at the Springfield
meeting of last Thursday.
In the month of June of this year the Democrats
of Illinois visibly had the upper hand. General
Leo had crossed the Potomac; his cavalry threat-
ened Washington, Baltimore, Pittsburg, or Phila-
delphia; Vicksburg and Port Hudson held out
against all odds. There was no hope of speedy vic-
tory, no chance of a happy termination of the war.
The peace men had it all their own way. Enough
had been done for the honour of the Federal arms,
and time who hld to signally mismanaged the nor