The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-09 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAIL IN AMERICA.

(From the Timex' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, June 26.
The objects of General Lee, in his advance into
Maryland and Pennsylvania, are admitted by nearly
every one, except a few philosophical optimists and
Government contractors, to be nothing less than the

capture of Washington. Mr. Lincoln and his Cabinet,
RS well as Gen. Hooker, share this opinion. Were

Lee in command of the Federal and Hooker of the

Confederate army, Washington would be considered
safe. But with these generals where they are, there
is scarcely any person, who devotes the least atten-
tion to the subject, who is 'not of opinion thatWash-
in g ton is in imminent peril. The strange part of the
business, so far as the public feeling of this great
city is concerned, is that there is a very wide spread
and earnest wish that Lee may be successful. There
has been a great revulsion of sentiment among all
classes. The belief that the present administration
has neither brains nor honesty, and is incompetent
to conduct the war; that it cannot conquer the South;
that the South will indubitably achieve indepen-
dence ; and that it is better for all parties that it
should do so without further bloodshed—has spread
rapidly down from the upper into the lower strata
of the people ; or perhaps it should be said that it
bas spread from the lower strata of the working
classes upwards, until it has permeated the whole

mass of society, except the contractors, the preachers,
and the newspaper editors, It is openly expressed
in the ferry boats and the omnibuses. It is discussed
in hotel lobbies and reading-rooms. It is the per-

vading gossip of the few exclusive clubs of an " un
clubbable" community. It is a common subject o
remark when friends or acquaintances meet in the
streets. It is the staple topic of conversation in
private society, and appears to be so deeply rooted
and so universally diffused as to have hushed the
blatant trumpeters of war, and wedded the conflict-
ing passions, interests, and convictions of a great
people into the homogenity of one weary, disgusted,
and all but indignant prayer for " Peace." Mr.
Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation was the first
administrative act that drove the Northern people to
admit the hopeless immensity of the struggle in
which they were involved. When that direct pro-
vocative to servile war was followed by such acts
of suicidal folly as the arrest of Mr. Vailandigham
by Gen. Burnside, and his banishment by Mr. Lin-
coln, and the blundering oppression and illegality
manifested in a thousand ways by such petty des-
pots in shoulder-straps as Gens. Schenck, Haa
rise
scoll,
and Milroy ; all of them simultaneous with
of 50 per cent. in the provisione and the dread of a
compulsory conscription, the opinion of the majority
of the hardworking, struggling, striving, and sensi-
ble people seems to have gone right over to the
cause of the South. The change is palpable and
glaring. He who runs may read. There is no mis-
taking it. Even the New York newspapers, which,
with few exceptions, live in a little world of their
o wn, while they misrepresent the great world which
they do not see, begin to have a glimmering notion
that the sentiment of the masses has undergone a
change, and to wake up, though slowly, to an ap-
preciation of the new set of circumstances that has
taken possession of men's minds. This week the
change is much more obvious than it W2S ten days
ago when the first rumours of Lee's advance into
Pennsylvania were made public. At that time the
alarm of Governor Curtin excited a genuine, though
not a very large amount of sympathy; and troops
of militiamen were despatched by the Governor of
New York and New Jersey to his aid with an
alacrity which might have put to shame the
autherities'of- Washington, and which certainly
proved the •Auperiority of the State organization
over those of the Federel Government. This week
all is changed. If Pennsylvania re quires strong arms
to repel the invaders of her soil, she must find them
among her own citizens, or consent to bear the
penalty of her pusillanimity or apathy. New York
will send her no more men. The Governor of New
Jersey, instead of affording any additional aid, has
recilled the regiments he first despatched, having
no authority (according to the constitution, binding
within the State, and limiting its external action)
to extirpate his citizens for the relief of any neigh-
bouring commonwealth for a single day longer than
such citizens choose to be absent from their homes.
Meanwhile Pennsy:vania talees things in a peculiarly
Candidian manner. Her citizens laugh at the fears
of Governor Curtin ; and instead of welcoming the
militiamen of New York and New Jersey as friends
and brothers—rob them in the most shameless man-
ner in the prices of every article they require, treat-
ing them, in fact, as if they were alien enemies to
be fleeced and mulcted to the utmost verge of cupi-
dity on the one side and of endurance on the other.
In every part of the country the war mania seems
to have subsided. The chill has succeded the fever.
New England, which spoke so lustily, with a voice
like Chanticleer in a summer morning, of 900,000
volunteers which she would send from her teeming
homesteads and proselytising churches to support
the policy of emancipation, has not sent a man to the
relief of Pennsylvania. New York is chivalrous but
prudent, and does for her own dignity what she re-
fuses to do for President Lincoln, while the North-
West organises her young men in secret societies to
resist compulsory aid to a war which the common-
sense of the majority has long since ceased to approve.
Such is the situation. Gen. Lee is thundering at the
gates of the Capitol—or may not only thunder at,
but batter them down ; and the people, so far from
being very much alarmed, or very indignantly pa-
triotic, rather approves than condemns the Confe-
derate chief, and wishes that he were President
instead of Mr. Lincoln, to settle a difficulty which
it is out of Mr. Lincoln's reach even to appreciate.
In fact, the Federal Government seems to be
tumbling and crumbling like perdition.
In this crisis of the fate of the Republie it is in-
structive to note how prescient its early statesmen
were in predicting what has happened, and how
right up to the attack on Fort Sumter in 1861 were
all the advanced intellects of the time in advocating
a peaceable separation. The disruption of the Union
is no new idea. Washington himself foresaw it,
and in the touching legacy of his last words to the
American people he solemnly warned them of the
dangers that were visible to his prophetic eye,
though unseen by his careless contemporaries. Jef-
ferson, too, clearly saw what was coming, and in
endeavouring to maximise the rights of the Sove-
reign States of the Union, and to minimise the
power and action of the Federal Government, did
his best to preserve the empire which Washington
had founded, but which Washington's principles
were impotent to conserve. In the year 1839 John
Quincey Adams prefigured the true policy of the
North in the circumstances which have since arisen,
He measured the gulf which climate, slavery, and
antagonistic commercial interests would place be-
tween North and South, and deprecated the sword
as the arbiter of the difference. "The link of
Union between these States," he said, "is not in
the right, but in the heart. . . . If the day
should come—may Heaven avert it !—when the
affections of the people in these States shall be
alienated from each other—when the fraternal
feelings shall give way to cold indifference, or
collisions of interest shall fester into hatred,
the bonds of political association will not
long hold together parties no longer attracted by
the magnetism of conciliated interests and friendly
sympathies; and far better will it be for the people
of the disunited States to part in friendship from
each other than to be held together by restraint.
Then will be the time for reverting to the prece-
dents which occurred at the formation of the adop-
tion of the Constitution, to form again a more per-
fect Union by dissolving that which could no longer
bind, and to leave the separate parts to be united by
the law of political gravitation to the centre
This was the true philosophy. This was the lan-
guage of Mr. Seward in 1848 ; this was the language
of Mr. Lincoln, when he ascended the chair: this
was the language of every man who had an idea in
his head when Mr. Lincoln was unhappily elected ;
this was the language of Mr. Edward Everett, who
now preaches war "to the bitter end ;" and this,
too, was the language of the honestest politician in
America, Mr. Horace Greeley. To this faith, after
the sad disallusions of the last eighteen months,
Mr, Lincoln, Mr. Seward, Mr. Everett, Mr. Greeley,
a" a host of smaller men, are rapidly returning,
like Prodigal sons who have seen the errors of their
ways 414 come home repenting. Peace is in all

men's minds (those of the contractors, jobbers, and
war-Christians excepted) and if General Lee have
half the success which friends as well as es pre-
dict, he can extort it before many weelee and give
the American people the anniversary c f another
successful rebellion to celebrate, in a idi.ion to that
Fourth of July which has hitherto held their un-
divided affection.
But, pending the clash of arms which his mere
existence has excited, "the irrepressible negro" rules
the hour. The instinct, the sentiment, the pride,
or the prejudice of race and colour—whichever of
these terms may be the most suitable to express the
repugnance which the great mass of white men
entertain for a too close and intimate personal con-
nexion with the black, except in that of the strict
subordination of slavery—continually asserts itself.
In Federal America the negro is rot a chattel, but
ho is an outcast from all sympathy, except that of
the pulpit and of the sentimental tea-table, which
never admits him personally to its charmed circle.
Negroes must not be clerks in counting-houses,
banks, law-offices, railroads, or public companies ;
they must not serve as shopmen and assistants at
the linendraper's, the mercer's, or the dry goods
stores ; they must not dispense medicines at the
chemist's, or groceries at the grocer's ; they must
not act as policemen. If any carpenter, machinist,
.
ng
smith, engineer, or other skilledartificeremlo
many hands presumes to add those of a negroptrthe
s
number, the white hands imommedeiaottehlyer ssthriep keowr ofrake.,
and betake themselves to
tory where the " boss" unwisewillnotthbeedsiognityof their
asto
commit such an outrage on
negroan o
fcteonliftmore
ehaantdr
atrocious
oaun
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white man can by any possibility commit against a
negro; and, worst case of all, for a negro to assault
a white woman indecently is a crime that can only
be expiated by the blood of the offender—a crime so
flagrant and detestable that ordinary law is con-
sidered to be too merciful to deal with it, and the
slow course of justice (fast enough for a white
man's crime) is found to be inadequate to keep
pace with the burning desire of revenge that
takes possession of the white bosom. A case in
point has just occurred in the pleasant town of
Newburgh, on the Hudson River, about 60 miles
from New York. A stalwart negro, accused of
violating the person of an Irish girl, was, on
her testimony, arrested and thrown into prison on
Saturday night last to await his trial. Newburgh,
like any other town, city, and village in America,
swarms with Irish people. The story of the outrage
spread rapidly among them. On Sunday morning
they gathered in angry groups at the corners of the
streets to discuss it. The priest, fearing mischief,
hastened out to pacify his congregation, but his re-
monstrances and admonitions were in vain. The
cry of vengeance was raised ; and, without plan or
leaders, a furious mob of 1,500 persons rushed to
the gaol, broke it open, took out the unhappy
criminal, knocked him down, spat upon him, kicked
him, buffeted him, stoned him, trod upon him, and,
when nearly dead, carried him off to the nearest tree
and hung him, standing by till they were quite cer-
tain that he was dead, and that ail attempts to cut
him down and restore animation would be useless.
They then sot fire to the extemporised gallows which
bore his lifeless body ; but a violent rain soon com-
ing on the wood would not burn, and they retired,
leaving a colplo of policemen to take charge of the
remains. The Tribune, the friend and apostle of
the negro race, in denouncing this lawless act, de-
clares " that white men have repeatedly committed
the same outrage in worse circumstances, and the
law-has been allowed to take its course," adding,
what it has no right to assume, " that every man in
the mob would be ready to commit the very crime
which they made the pretext for putting the negro
to cruel death." The Tribune allows its xoal to warp
its judgment. It looks upon rape as a great crime,
whether attempted by a black man or a white, but
the mob whom it unjustly accuses of a predilection
for that particular form of wickedness is of a d.ffe
rent opinion, and considers that it is infinitely more
hideous if committed by a black upon a white. The
Tribune fiercely demands justice, and declares that
" every scoundrel who shared in the cowardly out-
rage is beyond question guilty of murder, and ought to
to be hung. No doubt the Tribune is perfectly right
in considering these men murderers. But it reasons
in vain when it demands their punishment. Public
opinion is stronger than law. The case is not one
for argument. Were every man of the Newburgh
rioters to be hung, as the Tribune recommends, to
appease the manes of the negro ravisher, and to vin-
dicate the insulted majesty of the law, their punish-
ment would only bring the law into disfavour and
contempt, and would by no means operate as an ex-
ample. If a negro in any other part of the Union
were to perpetrate the same crime upon a white
girl, the probabilities are that the same scene would
be re-enacted, though all the pulpits and presses of
the land were to teem with dissuasion. Europeans,
who seldom see a negro, are slow to understand this
prejudice, but that it is largely prevalent in America
is a feet no one who knows anything of the country
or the people will dispute. Unnfortunately, too, the
war has had the effect of strengthening it. The
working classes believe that if there had been no
negroes in the country there would have been no
war, and speak of them with a growing vindictive-
ness that augurs ill for that unhappy race—most
unhappy in those portions of the country where
humanity and philosophy, in accordance with re-
ligion, have declared that they shall be free. They
do not altogether agree with Mr. Lincoln and the
Postmaster-General—that the negroes ought to be
expelled from American soil ; but they assert that
all coloured people ought to be banished to the South
to take their chances there, and even to be enslaved
if the Southern planters or others should think fit.
This may be a very deplorable state of things, but
it not only exists, but is increasing. Although this
antipathy is strongest among the Irish, it is not
confined to them. It pervades all classes of the
American people—the Germans, perhaps, less than
any other—and is far too powerful for law to
seeddle with. Under such circumstances it will not
be considered extraordinary that the reports of the
excesses committed by the negro troops in Georgia
and South Carolina, under the leadership of the in-
famous Col. Montgomery, have excited a storm of
indignation in every part of the North, and have
compelled even the Tribune to visit
hCoowl.evilelro,nats-
reprobation,
dveeur
denunciations
mild,ia ti
ons which it
egoommpearyrevagiwthitihtst
hurls against the heads of the Newburgh rioters.
"The sack and plunder of unresisting towns," says
that -journal, " is not in ordinary circumstances a le-
gitimate military operation. There may be a reason
for the licence which Col. Montgomery allows his
troops ; but if there be one, it ought to be made
public, that his reputation and that of the national
cause be not sullied by the disgrace which such acts
unexplained bring upon them." The Tribune's own
correspondent at Hilton Head describes the scene of
plunder and
destruction without manifesting dis-
approval. He admits that Col. Montgomery, on
landing at Darien, formerly a town of 2,000 people,
found not a single armed inhabitant to dispute his
entry ; and states that he carried off every article
that he Gould make room for on board of his boats,
and that what he could not carry away he destroyed.
This done, he set fire to the town, and remained
with his negroes gloating over the mischief, until
he wss assured that the destruction was complete,
and that not one habitable tenement was left stand-
ing in the place. The correspondent winds up his
description by stating that " these bold, rapid, and
successful expeditions of Col. Montgomery aro
spreading terror throughout the entire coast, and
are compelling the rebels to abandon their rice and
cottonwould fibeeldas,t
alland all the
to be visited by him.e smaller villages which
The Tribune is indulgent to a man of its own faith,
but Colonel Montgomery is too strong for the
stomach of the American people. He cannot re-
main where he is without damage to the health of
the body politic. His warmest adherents either
disavow or seek an opportunity to drop him ; and
as he is a man without political influence, without
hold upon the ropes or wires that place and displace
functionaries in this country, the chances are that
Georgia will be relieved of his presence, and that if
he be not disgraced, which is scarcely probable,
since he is an Abolitionist, he will be transferred to
some new scene of activity, where he may serve the
Government without disgracing it.