The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-15 00:00:00

Unwarranted, has had the effect of putting the
originators of the meeting upon their guard, and
of inducing three out of four of those who tend to
be present to arms themselves with concealed
weapons, in order to be ready for all co ingencies.
It is a fact, useless for the Governui ,e . to conceal
from itself, that there is electricity in f o air, some
thing like that which preceded the French revolu-
tion of 1848. The people of the North have made
up theid minds that, come what may, they will not
yield the constitutional right of public meeting and
free speech to discuss grievances. At the meeting
held at the city of Newark, in the adjoining State
of New Jersey, on Saturday last, a body of soldiers
with fixed bayonets marched up the main street and
took up a position on the left of the grand stand.
The comments of the crowd were loud and defiant;
and when a body of citizens from the rural districts
bearing a white flag inscribed with the name of
" Vallandigham" surrounded with a laurel wreath
endeavoured to pierce through the crowd, and
were opposed by the soldiers, acting, it is to be pre-
sumed, in obed'ence to orders, there was imminent
danger of a collision and a deplorable loss of life.
The Sheriff of the coenty was upon the spot, and,
acting with great promptitude, he sought out the
military commandant, informed him that the Civil
power was adequate to preserve the
peace, but that
if, contrary to law and propriety, he persisted in
keeping his soldiery in the crowd to insult the
citizens, met in conformity to ancient usage and
undoubted right of free discussion, the com-
mandant would be responsible for the bloodshed
that might ensue, and that the Sheriff would
do his best to prevent it by calling out the Militia.
The remonstrance had unexpected success. The
soldiers were withdrawn, and the proceedings ter-
minated quietly. On Monday a similar meeting,
convened to express the sentiments of the Demo-
cracy and people of Philadelphia on the i:legal trial
and arbitrary sentence of Mr. Vallandigham, was
attended by 20,000 (some accounts say 40,000)
people in Independence-square; and, although the
soldiery did not make their appearance, they were
in readiness in the immediate neighbourhood, each
man provided with several rounds of ammunition
and a day's rations. The speakers, suspicious of
danger, were all armed. These are ugly symptoms,
and the Government at Washington will be criminal
if it despise them.

President Lincoln seems to have become a con-
vert to the views of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
and Mr. Wendell Phillips, that " God and the
negro" are to save the Republic—if it is to be
saved either by Divine or human agencies. Volun-
teering has ceased ; bounty money attracts none but
a few Irish and German immigrants; the enrolment
of names for the conscription which may never, per-
haps, be enforced, and certainly not in the State or
city of New York, leads to disturbance in places of
public resort, which shows how odious in the sight
of the labouring classes is compulsory military ser-
vice ; and the armies already in the field are melting
away like ice in the summer sun. What can Mr.
Lincoln do, under the circumstances, but take the
advice of Messrs. Beecher and Phillips and the
" war-Christians" generally, who maintain that
negroes will make better, or, at all events, more
willing soldiers than Irishmen, Germans, or white
Americans? The fiat has accordingly gone forth
from Washington to Hilton Head, to New Orleans,
to Cincinnati, to Nashville, to all points where there
are Federal officers in command, to strain every nerve
to induce " contrabands" and free negroes to take
service in defence of the Government that protects
them. If persuasion fails, some of the Federal
Generals resort to force to compel the negroes to
perform military duty, and hunt runaways who
have no stomach for the fight with as much pertina-
city and cruelty as slaveowners were formerly
accustomed to display in hunting those who pre-
ferred liberty to bondage. Governor Andrew, of
Massachusetts, has made himself conspicuous in
this matter, and has attracted within the bounds of
his little Commonwealth all the able-bodied young
negroes whom his influence and that of his friends
and coadjutora could reach. On Friday last the
54th Massachusetts Volunteers—the first negro
regiment that has ever been completed—was re-
viewed by the Governor on Boston-common, pre-
paratory to its departure for South Carolina. The
lecturers, preachers, teachers, and strong-minded
spinsters for which that intellectual but narrow-
minded and bigoted city is famous, attended in large
numbers upon the occasion and greeted the regiment
with enthusiastic applause. In bran new uniforms, i
splendidly equipped, with the stars and stripes
carried before them, and preceded by a full band of
coloured musicians, the regiment, after being re-
viewed by Mr. Andrew, made a triumphal proces-
sion through the streets to the port, where they
embarked on board the steamer which was to con-
vey them to Hilton Head. Massachusetts loves
the negro theoretically, but practically places him
under social ban and excommunication. It is, there-
fore, hinted by the cynical that there is much more
joy over the departure of the dark warriors than
there will be on their return, should any of them
be so fortunate as to escape the dangera of
the field and the gallows, and so ill-advised as
to attempt to settle in Boston when the war is
over. On the following day a deputation from New
York, entertaining the views of Mr. Beecher and
Governor Andrew on this subject, waited upon the
President at Washington, to urged upon him the
immediate necessity of raising at least 10,000 negro
soldiers. They were introduced to the President
and Mr. Secretary Chase by Mr. Charles Sumner,
and met with a cordial reception. Mr. Lincoln
declared, " That he would gladly receive into the
service " not merely 10,000 but 10 times 10,000
"coloured troops." He expressed at the same time
his determnation to protect all who enlisted, and to
consider every black soldier taken captive by the
rebels as equivalent in all respects to a white sol-
dLr captured by the Federal armies. "He had,"
he said, " a confident expectation that they would
be of essential service in bringing the war to a
close; and thought that the command of such troops
would afford scope for the highest ambition." The
main object of the depUtation was to counsel the
President to offer the command of the negro army
to General Fremont. Mr. Lincoln promised to do
so, and hoped with all his heart that General Fre-
mont would accept it.
How successful this marshalling of the negroes
will be, and what effect it will have on the existing
armies of the republic, remains to be seen. From
all present indications it does not appear likely that
as many as 10,000 men will be raised ; and the

failure of all the efforts of General Hunter (who,
next to General Fremont, is the most zealous friend
of the negro soldier whom the war has produced)
to induce the swarming " contrabands" around
Hilton Head to abandon the notion that the Federal
Government owes them a subsistence and that they
owe the Federal Government nothing in return, or
to raise even a couple of regiments among them, is
ominous of similar unsuccess in other regions less
fortunately situated. Nor does the enlistment of
the negroes, whether successful or unsucessful,
recommend itself highly to the white .men
who :have undertaken the fighting part of
the war. Among the non-fighting bellige-
rents, who make money in their stores and
counting-houses out of the needs of the army,
there is, it is true, a strong disposition to accept
negro aid as better than none. In proportion as
the white armies diminish, their objections against
black armies grow fine by degrees, till they disoPe '
pear aalrteogneotthoeorn.
tEraveetenrtshaoused native-bornsutlersh
uAmericanse
l
pas-
sionately attached to the Union,but nwotosorfrantic
inn
theirarde rapidly
oas to shoulder the rifle in its be-
half,y
dl
gaeotlti.er. ng rid of their prejudice
• antipathy against ,the
African
in their
fewmonths' residence - Not so the Irish
onregi-
ments-whose
this side of the Atlantic.
' Adjutant-General Thomas, a new convert to IV4
v
Beecher's faith, that the negro is to
lic, lately made a speech to the
Ninetieth native Erin bursts
y sava to the negro, unsuspected
gely forth after a
:ale B
Volunteers, composed almost wholly of Irish
.-.
the
Repub.'.
in which he informed them that he had been aelrishmen,'
thorised by the President to organise negro regi-
ments wherever he went, that the negroes made.,
excellent soldiers, and that the President's new
policy in relation to the black race, in which he (the
Adjutant-General) entirely concurred, would be the
salvation of the country. In conclusion, he called