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

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

_________4____
(From the Times' Correspondent.)

NEW YOEK, June 5.

Toe 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
tt least three times that number. Whatever may
have been he 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 bald 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 inCongress, 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 es ent 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-
handed would threw 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. I am 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 1
contending one with another for the possession of
supreme power, over a decimated, demoralised, and
ruined people.
But is Mr. Fernando Wood 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- 1
low where he leads ? These questions are difficult
to answer. The Americans are not like other people.
They are turbulent in talk, but 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 fought desperately for
seven years against the power of Great Britain, to
xesist 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 have 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 cana •
merce, or oppressive to the bones and sinews of the
labourer. They nave 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 titeed aristocracy, but when it comes among
them tney go down on their knees to worship it.
They have immense enthusiasm for any great and
good cause, bur it is es evanescent as it is effervcs-
e"nt• The spcakiit.g wine of their zeal flattens into
s.mall beer before the glass can well be raised to their
They have no reverence for any living man, or
far anything is existence, nce, except power and money.
They are a
martial people, full of military spirit
and personal
courage
civil life they
and thousands of infte ward'' There are hundreds
let,teal, wealthy, eloquent,
public-spirited, and patriotic
country, and notably in thec't People all over the
of New York, who
privately denounce the War ; who hold it to be the
source of woes innumerable yet ttei
obarst over the
land ; who see in its continuance h
toas fhelibsouth
liberty,
character, and prosperity, and who think
with the
hoe fairly won its independence ; but,
his
ception of Mr. Fernando Wood and brother,
x‘
Mr. Benjamin Wood, there are scarcely three such
person .o • td who wlll stand boldly up in the
s eur
i,ce of the mu!li!ude to express these sentiments,
and dare the Government to call them to account.
Aud yet the American people are so easily led, they
move so readily in masses, they are so quick and
sympathetic when their passions are aroused, that
if tea 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 pri-
vate, it is probable—especially in this time of.
the
dis-
couragement with the conduct and prospects of
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 their silence.
They lead the silly Government to disbelieve in

their existence, because they make no sign, and are
virtually the fomenters of the public miseries which
they deplore—because they are either too sordid to
care, or too timid to straggle for the perishing liber-
ties of their country. No such men k p back in
the South. It is because such men e r keep back
in the North, or take the wrong side, that the war
drags on, and will continue to drag on until the ex-
asperated and desperate South shall carry the sword
and torch into the cities of the North, or Europe
shall mediate to stay the bloodshed that might be
otherwise interminable.

Next to this remarkable meeting, the most impor-
tant fact of the hour is the annulment by the Pre-
sident of the arbitrary " Order " of Gen. Burnside,
in which he suppressed by military force the Chicago
limes newspaper. In the same document he pro-
hibited within his department the circulation of the
New York, World—which had commented some what
too freely on his blundering incapacity to please this
stupidest of all the military tyrants whom the war
has produced. The President only annulled the first
part of his "Order"—that which related to the Chi-
cago 7imes—and said nothing of the World; but
Gen. Burnside, with a gleam of sense that shows he
has not so entirely lost his wits as most people sup-
posed, was good enough to inform the conductors of
the latter newspaper by telegraphic despatch that
he had " revoked the entire Order," and that the
World would be allowed to circulate in the West as
before. Mr. Lincoln has not lately done anything
so wise and prudent as this. If he had been equally
prudent in the case of Mr. Vallandigham, and
quashed the proceedings of the court-martial which
sentenced him to imprisonment, instead of aggra-
vating that sentence into banishment—the banish-
ment of a man who had as much legal and consti-
tutional right to disapprove Mr. Lincoln's policy in
war or peace as Mr. Lincoln has to act as President
of the United States—he would save himself and
his Administration from much perplexity as well as
disgrace. Perhaps even yet, with the echoes of the
great peace meeting in this city still ringing in his
ears—echoes in which the name of Vallandigham
was louder and more frequent than any other word
except peace—Mr. Lincoln will not deem it too late
to annul or revoke the sentence on the able and
honourable opponent whom he has treated as a cri-
minal. Vallandigham in exile is a power in the
State. Tne people of the North-West, aided both
by the War Democrats and the Peace Democrats in
New York, New Jersey, and PennsylNania, have
made a hero of him of whom the Government has
made a martyr; and every day that he remains in
the South will increase the popularity of his name,
and his chances, not only of election as Governor of
Ohio, but of nomination to higher dignity. It ap-
pears that it was owing to the earnest advice and
remonstrance of Mr. Seward that Mr. Lincoln was
induced to annul General Burnside's order for the
suppression of the Chicago Times. It also appears
that Mr. Seward was equally urgent in endeavour-
ing to persuade the President to veto the proceed-
ings in the case of Mr. Vallandigham. It would
have been well for Mr. Lincoln if he had taken
the good advice in both instances, and would be
still better, at the eleventh hour, if, not content-
ing himself with the remission of a sentence
which ought never to have been imposed,
he would proclaim at one and the same time
that Mr. Vallandigham was free to go where
he pleased, and that General Burnside had
been ordered to fight somewhere or other, in subor-
dination to some c'earer headed commander than
himself, and that he was no longer the military
dictator of Ohio or of any other space of ground
larger than that which could be surrounded by his
own tents on the banks of the Rappahannock.
The press of New York, having taken the alarm at
General Burnside's high-minded imperialism, has
convened a meeting of editors of all shades of
opinion, from those of the Journal of Commerce to
those of the Tribune, to debate the great and to them
very essential question whether they have any rights
at all in a time of war. Although the meeting was
summoned before it was known that Mr. Lincoln
had disavowed and countermanded Gen. Burnside's
suppression vi et armis of the Chicago limes, the
editors have resolved to take counsel together, as if
that wise interference bad not taken place, rightly
calculating that Mr. Lincoln's prudence may be
geographical or intermittent ; that he may have
one course of policy for the touchy and dangerous
North-west, and another for the fat and quiescent
city of New York; and that, whether he have or
have not, it is inexpedient co rely too securely upon
the action of a chief magistrate who is as often
wrong as he is right. The meeting is to take place
on Monday next.

The question of the validity of the Act of Con-
gress which declares Treasury notes or greenbacks
to be a legal tender for all debts public or private
has again come before the courts of law in this city,
and has been decided against the Government by
Judges Ingraham, Sutherland, and Peckham. Prior
to the war a Mr. Roosevelt lent a certain sum on
mortgage of real estate, giving his check to the
mortgager on the Chymical Bank in this city, the
said check being payable in gold, or in notes at par
with gold. The mortgaged estate was subsequently
sold by the mortgagor, subject to the claim of the
mortgagee, and the purchaser in due course—the
war being then raging, and gold at a high pre-
mium—offered the nominal amount of the mort-
gage in greenbacks. Mr. Roosvelt, the mortgagor,
re. used to accept, and insisted upon full payment
in gold, or in such a sum in depreciated green-
backs as would represent the exact sum in gold
which he had originally advanced upon the security.
The purchaser refused, and hence the action. This
is the second time that the case has been before the
tribunals. On the first occasion the Judges decided
in favour of the greenbacks as a legal tender. The
purchaser, not being satisfied with the second deci-
sion, has given notice of appeal. Consequently the
case will be re-argued for the third time before the
Supreme Court, whose decision will be final. As is
natural, the debtor and creditor class take different
sides in this convent, the debtors maintaining the
power of Congress, and the virtue of greenbacks,
while the creditors insist, per contra, that a loan of
gold, or gold's worth, must be repaid in gold, if the
debtor would not become a swindler, under the pre-
sumed authority of a law which they declare to be
neither legal nor constitutional.

JUNE 6.

So many positive and wilful falsehoods, mingled
with so many unintentional exaggerations, or de-
preciations of imperfectly reported or misunderstood
facts, arrive daily and hourly in this city, that it is
next to impossible to ascertain what is the real state
of affairs on the Mississippi. It is clear, however,
that Vicksburg and Port Hudson will not be cap-
tured without an obstinate andeprotracted defence,
should they be captured at all, and that the Admini-
stration and its friends are no longer so sanguine on
the subject as they were three days ago. General
Grant has not force sufficient for the work in hand,
and the War Department is sending him fresh
troops with all the celerity it can spur into its jaded
officials. Gen. Joseph Johnstone is receiving rein-
forcements at least as numerous ; and if the rumour
which comes from Cincinnati—that he is marching
upon Memphis—be confirmed, the Federal Govern-
ment, even should it be rewarded with Vicksburg,
will find that it has only unloosed the knot of the
Mississippi at one point to have it firmly tied in
another and quite unexpected direction. The at.
tack on Port Hudson, led by General Banks, ap-
pears, from the imperfect and hurried reports that
have reached this city this morning by the steamer
froma New Orleans, to have been desperately and
ussfuily resisted. The Federals admit a loss of
nearly 3,00 ti men in the first day's battle, exclusive
of 60') negroes of the 2d Louisiana Regiment, and
a " heavy loss," unnamed, on the second day, when
the contest
rankbetoin
renewed.ke The Federal loss in
officers of high
killed and wounded is
unusually severe, betokening that the struggle has,
u
so far, been one of the
moat
lgh
scene
of
by steamer from
have operatiena, is
The news, having bean brc
obstinate of the war.
--
the immediate vicinity of the
not open to the same doubts as might
attached
to it had it percolated through the bureaux of Mr.
Stanton at Washington; and must be accepted, as.
far as it goes, as not very encouraging to the Federal
cause. While the battle rages at this remote ex-
tremity of the country, the Government continues
ill at ease on the subject of the safety of Washing.
ton,
maintains in command on . the Rappahannock

an incompetent and unpopular General, and allows
the miserable personal pride of two or three mem-
bers of the Administration to prevent the re-appoint.
merit of M'Clellay, the only General who enjoys
the ccofidence of the majority of the people and the
love of the army, and who proved at Antietam that,
if he could not take the Southern, he could cer-
tainly save the Northern capital. The state of
affairs at all points deepens in interest. Every one
expects great events to occur during the month,
and if among them there should have to be recorded
the triumphal entry of General Lee into the city of
Washington, and a proclamation to the Northern
people offering them peace on condition of the re-
cognition of Southern independence, it is extremely
likely, in the present temper of the Northern people,
that their surprise at such a turn of events would
be very much greater than their dissatisfaction.