The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-17 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

triumphantly, " any question that by the law of war
property both of enemies and friends may be taken
when needed ? And is it not needed whenever the
taking of it helps us or hurts the enemy ? Armies,
all the world over, destroy enemies' property when
they cannot use it." According to this reasoning,
Mr. Lincoln's Generals, instead of freeing the
enemy's negroes, might destroy them, just as they
would the enemy's horses or pigs, or any other pro-
perty they could not consume or carry away. Of
course Mr. Lincoln intended to convey no such mean-
ing, although some of his Generals, in placing negro
regiments in positions where their annihilation was
all but certain, with the object of proving to the
world that negroes could fight if they pleased, have
acted as if the destruction of such "property " were
Tiite as allowable as the destruction of stone walls.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
NEW YORK, Sept. 4.

Mr. Chose having to provide 60,000,000 dollars
to pay the arrears due to the army and navy, has
come into the market as a borrower of 50,000,000
dollars. He proposes to raise the money by the
issue of th at amount of promises to pay in sums
of 10 dol'ors and upwards, bearing interest at
five per ce at. per annum. The banks of New York
have a-4re ad to take 35,000,000 dollars, and those
of Boston 15,000,000 dollars of the amount.
These pror uses to pay partake of the double cha-
racter of an Exchequer Bill and of a bank note.
In the first capacity they bear interest, and in the
second they are declared to be legal tender for al.
debts, pubic and private. As these issues must of
necessity b e followed in quick succession by others of
like or a greater amount, if the army and navy are
to be paid, the contractors settled with, and the war
pushed forward, a feeling of distrust bas communi-
cated itself: to the speculative public. The non-suc-
cess of the operations before Charleston, the grow-
ing doubt whether Admiral Dahlgren and General
Gilmore will not fail as egregiously to capture the
city as Ge:a. Hunter and Admiral Dupont did be-
fore them; the calculation, based on unmistakable
data, that these futile attempts to wreak vengeance
upon South Carolina have already cost the Federal

Government in round numbers the handsome sum of
500,000,000 dols.,which any professional accountant,
surveyor, or assessor would certainly declare to be
300 per cent. in excess of the value of the fee simple
of all the land in the city, and of every house,church,
bank, office, or other building within its bounds, and
all the movable property therein contained; and a
similar calculation that the little treaeure acquired
in Vicksburg was not purchased at a smaller cost,
from first to last, than 400,000,000 dole., have con-
tributed each in their degree to excite the fears of
many bankers, brokers, and merceants who see no
way out of the corner into which the Government is
driven except by further issues of baseless paper,
and who know that such issues inevitably lead to
financial collapse and national bankruptcy. To these
sources of disquiet have to be added, first, the pos-
sibility—and. as many think, the extreme proba-
bility—that General Lee will take advantage of
the depletion of the army of the Potomac, many
thousands of whose veterans are doing unnecessary
duty in the quasi-hostile occupation of the city of
New York, to flank Gen. Meade and march upon
'Washington ; and secondly, the letter of Mr. Lin-
coln to the Springfield Convention, which puts the
extinguisher upon all the hopes of peace which have
recently taken possession of the public mind, by
showing that as long as he is President he will listen
to no terms from the South except unconditional
surrender, to be coupled with immediate emancipa-
tion. Nor is this, formidable as the list may be, the
whole catalogue of causes that have come into
simultanec us operation to disturb the money market
and shake the card castle of Mr. Chase's finance.
The European harvest is known to be so abundant
as to make it certain that Great Britain and France
will not this year be very large purchasers of Ame-
rican breadstnffs ; that, consequently, the importa-
tions of dry goods and other articles from Europe
which the necessities or the luxuries of the Ameri-
cans may require will have to be balanced not with
corn and flour, as in other times, but with gold.
How much or how little these several causes of
anxiety or alarm may have affected the sensitive
barometer that marks its fair audits foul in the prices
of stocks and the premium on gold it is not easy for
the most patient student to predicate with accuracy.
Possibly the main motor of the panic that has taken
possession of Wall-street for the last three days was
Mr. Chase's appearance as a borrower. However
that may be, the card castle has bad a rough
shaking. Shares in the "fancy" railways—mani-
pulated by the leviathans of speculation—have come
tumbling down, and gold has gone clambering
up. A few men have made large fortunes, for Mr.
Cease does not keep his secrets so effectually as not
to let his relatives, his personal friends, and some
Western politicians and financiers, on whose services
he relies to get a large -Western vote for the Presi-
dency, know a few days, or even a few weeks be-
forehand, that he is going to issue fresh greenbacks,
contract a. loan, or otherwise operate on the share-
market and the price of gold. But while these
favoured few, and the " ring" or clique that sur-
rounds them, have either kept clear of mischief, or
made money, ruin has seized upon hundreds of the
smaller and less privileged class of speculators, who
have learnt, to their cost, the old but ever recurring
lesson that gambling is no certain road to wealth,
and that industry and the legitimate pursuits of
commerce, though they may not always lead to for-
tune, and never to sudden riches, are the only safe
avenues on which the wise man will travel who ex-
pects to make a sure provision for his old age, and
leave a competency to those who are to follow him.
While gold has advanced nearly 11 per cent. since
Saturday last the decline on railway stocks has
varied between 2+ and 31 per cent. ; New York
Central has fallen 94 ; Erie, 15 ; Illinois Central,
111 ; Fort Wayne, 16+ ; Harlem, 28 ; Harlem pre-
ferred, 31 ; Michigan Southern, 22+ ; Chicago and
Alton, 14 ; and Cleveland and Pittsburg, 11. Go-
vernmentstocks have also felt a downward tendency,
and have declined from + to per cent.
The President's letter, which has done so much to
produce the mischief and to disabuse the public of
the idea of a speedy peace, is a characteristic and, in
some respects, an important document. Ardently
desiring peace and a restoration of the Union, he
sees and knows of no method securing these objects
but by the vigorous prosecution of the war. Com-
promise he believes to be impossible, for the all-
sufficient reason that the Southern leaders and
armies will listen to no terms short of absolute in •
dependence, an independence to which he, as Presi-
dent, cannot consent, and which he must continue
to combat by every means in his power. He fur-
thermore admits, though not in express terms, that
the recent successes of the Federal armies have in
reality done nothing to convince the South of the
hopelessness of its cause, or induce it to make
offers of submission. All this is undoubtedly true,
though its public confession by the President is
aleulated to cool the boiling enthusiasm of that
Large and impulsive portion of the Northern people
, were until yesterday of opinion that Gettys-
"rß, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson were three blows
so
oorne s
nearly
arly
fatal to the South as to require but one
m ° complete its subjugation, and which, ac-
cording to
the
programme, was to fall with crushing
Charleston, weight at and make an end once and
for ever of
Southern independence.
I\l r. Lincoln does not share the views of the
many ardent Unionists and defenders of what they
e nation," who insist that his
Ic)aroliclatmheatiolnifeofot
the nation,"
was a mistake—a
rr bull against the comet,'
WiT-han unconstitutional inter-
ference with matters wihicb, as President, he
had nothing to do,andof which
the
bitterest
has mainly
been to unite the South in
the
oretrheshto hostilityhopelessly
to the North, and to divide the N
into angry and relentless faction,.
Mr. pLinecssolyn
believes
to r none
ecall of theorsemodnify thigs, and consequentlymati
gives savours ne)re strong
r his
proclamation.
The reasou which ho
of the attorney's oc© at Springfield
than ofy
the 'White House at Washington. "The procla-
mation," he says, " is either valid or not valid. It
it is not valid, it needs no retraction ; if it is valid,
it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead ea,
be brought to life." This isr. line of argument
which shows more of the "crankiness' of a lawyer
than of the sagecity of a statesman. If it be not
valid, its promulgation might yet betray such an
animus against the Southern slaveholdara as to goad
them into a more &tea mieed resistance to Mr.
liacolh'e armies than they might otherwise have
displayed, in which case its invalidity would be no
real bar to any retraction which he might think it
expedient to make. And, in the same way, if it
were is valid as the law, the Constitution, and the
fact could make it, the same authority that
issued could withdraw it, if the public interest de-
manded. Another argument which Mr. Lincoln
uses in defence of his proclamation would, if admitted,
prove a great deal too much for his case. " The
Constitution," he says, " invests the Como:leader-in-
Chief with the Law of war in time of war. The
most that can be said, if so much, is that slaves are
property. Is there, has there ever been," he ukt

On the general principle of the employment of
negro soldiers Mr. Lincoln's reasoning is as satisfac
tory as it is unnecessary. There is no just reason
why the free negroes of the North, and these who
have made themselves free by running away from
their Southern masters, should not, for the military
purposes of the Federal Government, be placed on a
footing of perfect equality with white men. Neither
the law of the Northern States nor the Federal Con
stitution forbids their employment as troops, and it
military necessity or political expediency requires
their services the Northern people would be unwise
if they did not use them to the utmost extent.
But the objection to negro soldiers lies among white
soldiers, and is social and ethnological, not legal or
constitutional. Though white brigadier-generals,
colonels, majors, and captains are willing enough
to command negroes, white private soldiers obsti-
nately refuse to serve along with them. The ne-
groes must be kept scrupulously apart or the whites
will mutiny—a state of affairs which remains
wholly unaffected by Mr. Lincoln's vindication of
his undoubted right to enlist soldiers without re•
ference to the colour of their skins. The negroes
are quite aware of the prejudice, and although they
offer themselves in sufficient numbers to form three
or four regiments, there are more white candidates
for the higher posts of command over them than
there are black soldiers to be commanded.
Although it is asserted that this letter is wholly
Mr. Lincoln's own composition, and that Mr.
Seward more especially has been prevented either
from mending or marring it, there are indications
that some other hand than Mr. Lincoln's has re-
vised and endeavoured to elevate its style. When
the Federal navy is described as " Uncle Sam's web-
feet" the world may be sure that the image is Mr.
Lincoln's own, but when with a rhythmical cadence
it is announced "that the father of waters again
flows unvexed to the sea," the hand of Mr. Seward,
or of some other quondam schoolmaster of the '
Cabinet, may be suspected, if not positively traced.
The whole composition will no doubt be as widely
read in Europe as in America. In its concluding
prayer North and South might well agree. " Peace
does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will
come soon, and come to stay, and so come as to be
worth the keeping in all future time." Without
sharing Mr. Lincoln's beief that peace is any nearer
than it seemed to be at any period of the war, not
only North and South bt,t the whole civilised world
may say " Amen to this sweet prayer."
Another and a much shorter letter of the Presi-
dent, characteristic of the simplicity of his mind
and the original kindliness of his nature, excites
attention, and inspires hopes that he has at last
seen the error of his ways in his constant interfer-
ence with the plans of his Generals. It is addressed
to General Grant, thanks him in cordial, though
not in eloquent terms for the victory achieved at
Vicksburg, and admits that several times during the
progress of the operations that were ultimately so
successful he had his misgivings that the General
was wrong, that he (Mr. Lincoln) would have acted
otherwise had he been in the same position. The
President candidly admits that in all this he was iu
error. Taken in connexion with the fact that in his
letter to the Springfield Convention Mr. Lincoln,
for the first time, admits that General M'Ciellan
gained a victory at Antietam, and that that battle
was as " bravely done" as Murfreesborough or
Gettysburg, people are inclined to hope that Mr.
Lincoln will for the future remember that he is only
an ornamental and nominal Commander-in-Chief;
that he knows nothing of the art or science of war,
and ought, therefore, either to leave his Generals
untrammelled by his advice until, for cause assigned
he and his Cabinet see fit to remove them. The
tribute to General Grant is honest and hearty. Thar
to General M'Clellan seems to be an accident—due
to a slip of the pen rather than to a studied desire
to do justice.

The draught in the cities cf New York and Brook-
lyn and the towns and villages of Staten and Long
Islands has been brought to a close, and in a fort-
night or three weeks the Government will be able
to count how many men it has produced. No dis-
turbance whatever has cccurred during its pro
gress, except one provoked in a ginshop by a
drunken major and a drunken colonel, and of which
a drunken Irish lad of 20 was the victim. The
presence of 50,000 men, and the reliance of the
poorer conscripts that the city would pay their ex
emption fee, has kept all things quiet, and, in spite
of the irritating presence of the soldiery, they are
likely to remain so. The Mayor and Controller
have publicly advertised for 10,000 substitutes, to
each of whom, if accepted, they offer the sum of
300 dole., so that the conscription has resolved itselt
at last into a system of volunteering, with the only
difference that the city of New York provides the
funds for the purpose of paying the bounty money,
instead of Mr. Chase. Sensible people think that
tho Government would have acted more wisely if
it had saved itself the odium of the proceeding,
even although Mr. Chase may be a gainer of three
millions of dollars by the transaction. It is notice-
able that very few native Americans consent to
serve personally, either as original conscripts or as
substitutes. The five substitutes shot for desertion
last week in presence of the Army of the Potomac,
and of 25,000 shameless civilians, who ought under
no circumstances to have been admitted to the spec
tacle, were all foreigners—Germans, Italians, and
Irish. Out of every 100 substitutes who offer them-
selves not three are American born, but mainly
Irish and Germans, some of them newly arrived,
who have net been 10 days in the country, and
others discharged volunteers, whom the war has
unfitted for honest industry.
There are yet no signs of the withdrawal of the
army of occupation, although not the shadow of a
necessity exists for its presence. The well-known
author and introducer of the Act of Conscription,
Mr. Wilson, shoe manufacturer, of Massachusetts,
and senator for that State in the last and present
Congress, custodian of the conscience of Mr.
Lincoln, and prime mover in all the projects
that have for their animus the laying waste
of the South with fire and sword, and
the extermination of all its people, with
the sole exception of the negroes, has, however, in
a speech made at Brunswick, in Maine, given a rea-
son for the invasion of the peaceful community of
New York, which may well make the citizens shud-
der. " There are," said he, " forty-four regiments
in New York to help the Government to enforce the
draught, and there is not a soldier among them Rho
would not rather shoot a Copperhead, put a bullet
through his brains, than he would shoot a rebel."
Mr. Wilson took the trouble to repeat this asser-
tion twice, iu order that there might be no mistake.
If by " Copperheads" ho meant all those who dis-
approve the war and the policy of the Government
—se class who form a largo majority of the people
ev
l_locparlylsilattaere excop tin New England—and if these
Copperheads, entertain towards the Black Repub-
Abolitiouists half of the hatred and malice
to Which Mr. Wilsoa
frequently
and Secretary
Stanton soreetimes •
give utterance, it will fare ill
:fatr if ever the Copperheads,
with the party in
through the agencyP t
ousting he ballot-box, or any other,
bitterness
seats the present
of feeling is on
occupantsshal lsucceoefdoiffin
poisons all social the increase on both sides,p
ral America as
inter-
course, and bide, fair to render
disagreeable a place of residence as Congou or
Dahomey to every one but a soldier, a cn,,tractor, a
Secretary of State, and a "war Christian;'

Full benefit of reduced duty obtained by put..
chasing Horniman's pure Tea; very choice at 38. 4d, and
4s. "High Standard "at 4s. 4d. (formerly 41, Sd.), 18 the
strongest and most delicious imprted. Agents in every
town supply it in packets,

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, SEPITMBER, 17, 1863.


v-~=-✓° o

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—Among the many marvels and paradoxes
of the American Revolution there is none greater
than the part played by President Lincoln himself.
That such a man should have been called upon to
guide the destinies of a mighty nation during a
grand historical crisis is surely strange enough, but
that he should have blundered and vacillated as he
has, without for a moment losing confidence in
himself, or altogether forfeiting that of his coun-
trymen, is stranger still. His language on the
great questions at issue has varied so much at
different times as to show that he never can
have had anything worthy of being called a
policy, unless it be that which he described in the
wisest of all his homely sayings as a resolution
to " keep pegging away." It we compare his
early addresses and his first Presidential Message
with his subsequent letters and his speeches, or
with his last Message, we find a degree of incop-
sist:- ncy which is perfectly ludicrous. The great
problem with which he has had to deal has of
course been slavery, and it would be possible to cull
from his declarations on this subject passages in
favour of every principle from Abolitionism to ab-
solute non-intervention. Between the elaborate
compensation-scheme proposed in tha Message of
December, 1862, and the Proclamation of January,
confiscating the slaves of all the seceding States as a
measure of military necsssity, there is a theoretical
abyss which na argument can span. So far, however,
from seeing this, the President justifies both indis-
criminately in the letter to the" unconditional Union
men" of Illinois, which we published yesterday, and
manages to confound both with the arming of no,
groes on behalf of the Union, which has nothing:to
do with either. This letter is in otber respects so
remarkable a document, and so characteristic a
specimen of the President's style and habits of
thought, that we cannot do better than extract the
most ambitious paragraphs of it for the benefit of
our readers
:
The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes
unvexed to the sea, thanks to the great north-west for it.
Nor yet wholly to them; 300 miles up they met New
England, Empire, Keystone and Jersey hewing their way
right and le. t. The sunny South, too, in more colours than
one, also lent a lai,nd. On the spot their part of the history
was jotted down in black and white. The job was a great
national one, and let none be banned who bore an honour-
able part in it. And while those who have cleared the
great river may well be proud, even that is not ad It is
hard,to say that anything has been more bravely and better
done than at Antietam, Murfreesboro', Gettysburg, and on
many fields of less note.
Nor must Uncle Sam's web feet be forgotten. At all the
waters' margins they have been present, not only in the
deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the
narrow, muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a
little damp, they have been and made their tracks.
Thanks to all tor the Great &public, for the principle by
which it lives and keeps alive for man's vast future. Thanks
to all.

Peace does not appear so distant as it did.
How any man in his sober senses could have sat
down to compose such a rhapsody as this, or having
composed it, could have read it over with gravity
and ordered it to be printed, passes our compre-
hension. It is something between a prophecy and
an oracular response, with a dash of Yankee slang
and terms of expression which remind us alter-
nately of Ossian, of the incoherent utterances of
the :Maori Chiefs, and of schoolboy translations
of corrupt choruses in Greek tragedians. Crom-
well never spoke and Mr. Carlyle never wrote
afnything so hopelessly obscure, and the persons,
there be any such, to whom such a jargon
can appear impressive or even intelligible must
have faculties and tastes of which we can form
no idea. One is really tempted to think that Mr.
Lincoln cannot have been himself when he penned
to grotesque a production. Herodotus tells us that
the ancient Persian deliberated drunk as well as
sober on important affairs of State, but we may be
sure that the conclusion of a debate was conducted
in tie latter condition. It is difficult to believe that
the American President can have observed this pie-
caution, though he winds up with the timely injunc-
tiou, "Let us be quite sober,"and solemnly warns his
readers not to be over-sanguine of a speedy triumph.
And yet it would not be fair tdjudge of the whole
letter by his wild and vague declamation. The
early part, though by no means free from faults of
grammar or compatible with our notions of lite-
rary dignity, is not devoid of a certain rough honesty
and force. It is this, tempered by a lawyer-like
smartness, that secures to Mr. Lincoln, in spite of
his arbitrary weakness, a certain popularity among
a people who enjoy a joke even wben it is practised
at the expense of themselves or the dearest interests
of their country. In the address before us he
boldly takes the bull by the horns, and defends him-
self against the censures of the Peace par y. This
defence deserves serious attention, inasmuch as it
purports to define the objects of the war for the
future. "I am as desirous of peace as any of you,"
says Mr. Lincoln," but how can we attain it ? Only
in cne of three ways; either by forcibly suppress-
ing the rebellion, or by giving up the Union, or by
some compromise." The second of these expedients
he declines to discuss, and the third he considers
impracticable without adopting the second. "I do
not believe that any compromise embracing the main-
tenance of the Union is nog-possible. All that I learn '
leads to a directly opposite belief." Nothing re-
in sins, therefore, but to embrace the first course
and " keep pegging away." An European critic,
accepting this trilemma as exhaustive, would proba-
bly fix on the alternative which President Lincoln
dismisses so summarily, and endeavour to show that
the aim' of the North, instead of refusing to contem-
plate final separation, should have been from the first
to dictate its terms. Let us look at the matter, how-
ever, from the writer's own point of view, andassume
that no compromise excluding a restoration of the
Union would be satisfactory to the North. Does it
follow that this restoration can be effected by force
of arms ? Mr. Lincoln's logic would have been
equally good, and ho would have shown a higher
statesmanship, if he had demonstrated, as he easily
might, that no reunion worth the name could be
brought about by war, and that consequently some
form of compromise must ultimately be enter-
tained. But no overtures of this kind, he assures
us, have yet been made by the leaders of the rebel
army or by any of those who control it. Can there
be a stronger proof of she indomitable determination
of tee South not to have the Union as it was, and
can any State be compelled to be a member of a
Confederation against its will ? We cannot help sus-
pecting that Mr Lincoln himself feels this difficulty,
for he is at much pains to distinguish b-tween the
Southern people and the Southern army, and to prove
that the true sentiments of the former cannot be as-
certained tiil the latter is annihilated. Two years ago
such views might have gained credence, but they
are now quite exploded. There is not the slightest
reason to doubt that the Government and army
of the South represent the white population gene-
rally. It is conceivable that that population may
be exterminated or so crushed as to make such a
peace with the North as the Polish insurgents might
make with Russia, but it is inconceivable that they
can be beaten and insulted into loyalty. A still
deeper fallacy underlies the President's apology
for the Proclamation of Emancipation. He adheres
to the statement that it was a military necessity, and
appeals to the testimony of military commanders
in favour of its strategical value. But when
he comes to deal with the political objections to
it, on the ground that it substituted Abolitionism
for Unionism as the future casus bell, he betrays
a very shallow cunning or a strange blindness.
His argument is, that while some are fighting
for the freedom of the blacks, others may just as
well fght for the restoration of the Union, and
inasmuch as the success of both causes depends on
the same event, no antagonism between their par-
tisans should exist. " Whenever you shall have
conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall
urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt
time then for you to declare that you will not fight
to free negroes." Can Mr. Lincoln fail to see that
the Proclamation in question must have extinguished
any lingering spark of regret for the Union in the
South, and thus have rendered the chance of recon-
ciliation infinitely smaller than before ? An Illinois
Unionist may well think, though we do not, that
the seceding States would have returned to their
allegiance, after all, had their rights over their
slaves been respected, but he knows that by obey-
ing the counsels of the Abolitionists the North has
now incurred their implacable enmity. Whatever
such a man may think of the President's confident,
belief that " General Meade's army can keep Lee's
army out of Pennsylvania, and I think can ulti-
mately drive it out of existence," he must perceive
that in the meantime he is being taxed, and perhaps
made to serve in the ranks, to promote an end with
which he has no sympathy. _ _

PosT. —The approaching Prussian elections will
soon show how wofully the Ministry have overshot
their mark. The ground on which the King pro-
fesses to have dissolved Parliament is that he is re-
solved to forget past differences with his people, and
that he offers up the Lower Chamber es a common
scapegoat for both parties. He makes also, in his
recent declaration, other more direct constitutional
professions, and gives the public to understand
that he will listen temperately to their discus-
sion of his budget. But can his present
Ministers possibly take this part ? They have
hitherto only maintained their existence on the
supposition that the conformity of the Icing's
policy to their own outrageous demeanour
in the Chambers gave the presumptive shelter of
the Crown to the course to which they were com-
mitted. If, however, the King's announcement
has any meaning at all, it imports that he is pre-
pared to make ar honourable surrender of the un-
constitutional prerogatives to which he laid claim
during the sitting of the last Parliament. But he
cannot do this without first making a surrender of
the Ministers who are identified With those asSump•

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