The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-14 00:00:00

THE ( CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
NEW YORK, Sept. 1.

Last we ek the praises of Admiral Dahlgren and
Gen. Gilrnore were in all men's mouths. The almost
total destruction of Fort Sumter was held to be equi-
valent to the capture of Charleston. The raising of
the " stars and stripes" over the ruins of theFort—
where eight and twenty months ago that haughty
banner 'had received its first humiliation—and the
triumphal entry of the Federal commanders into
the do( ;flied city, were held to be facts as clearly de-
ducibl e from foregone circumstances as that night
woulel. follow day. The Union Leaguers, the war
Christians, and the Exterminators were loud in the
exp ressions of their joy ; and to the quick imagina-
tions of the Northern people it seemed as if the war
ws.s entering upon its last half hoar—that the grand
finale was about to be performed amid a crash and
founder of great guns such as the world had never
heard, and a magnificent display of red and blue
light—the Greek fire being predominant in bril-
liancy of effect and destructiveness of execution.
Mr. Lincoln was ready with a proclamation of am-
nesty—that, come what will, is never to be issued
until vengeance is done upon Charleston ; and the
contractors and speculators who have waxed fat
-apon a war expenditure, were to be kept in good
humour by the prospect of a reconciled North and
South, uniting their legions to chastise Great Bri-
tain and France for their insolence and want of

sympathy. The journals of all shades of politics

Were busily engaged in proposing or opposing the
cauditions of reconstruction, and settling among
themselves whether slavery was or was not to be
'tolerated in any portion of the regenerated Union.
hut this week all is changed. Disappointment has
succeeded to extravagant hope and anticipation.
Sumter is a heap of ruins, it is true—but
upon that heap of ruins the Federals have not
yet been able to hoist their flag. The Confederates
bold the place tightly in their grasp. Admiral
Dahlgren's or Gen. Gilmore's guns may shoot down
the Confederate banner 10 times in a day ; but 10
times in a day it is raised again in its place, amid
the delighted buzz as of the people of Charleston,
who watch the spectacle from the windows. Fort
Wagner is neither taken nor destroyed. The mon-
ster guns that bombarded the city from a distance
of five miles have all burst under the stress of the

work they had to perform. The Greek fire has ceased
to rain upon the streets, either because the Federal
officers were shamed out of the use of it by the re-
monstrances of Gen. Beauregard and the foreign
Consuls ; or because—which is more likely—the
supply of the " villanous compound" is exhausted.
And Charleston itself is as strongly guarded, and as
difficult of capture, as it was before a gun had been
fired at Sumter. Even if Sumter were taken, and
Northern pride, not to say vindictiveness, gratified
by the display of the old flag on its ruins, nothing
would be accomplished towards the possession of
Charleston, the great object on which the Northern
people have set their hearts. Sumter seems to be
but one of a score of obstructions equally formid•
able—and each to be as obstinately contested,

before Charleston itself can be considered in
real danger. Last week four hours were to make
an end of the rebellious city and to crush the spirit
of the South. This week the public is told that
perhaps three or four months may elapse before
these great ends aro achieved, and we are in the
meantime advised to moderate their impatience, or
give it vent, as they usually do when they are dis-
appointed in abuse of old Mr. Welles, the Secretary
of the Navy, and, of obstinate Mr. Stanton, the in-
tensely unpopular Secretary at War, for having
combined to deprive Dahlgren of guns and Gilmore
of men sufficient for the task they had undertaken.
Under the circumstances Mr. Lincoln has locked up
his original proclamation of amnesty in his writing•
desk, and prepared a different document, in which
Mr. Seward has not been allowed to insert oven a
word, which is to be read the day after to-morrow
to the Republican conventions that meet at Syra-
cute in the State of New York, and Springfield iu
Illinois.
Both of the great parties are to hold their conven-

tiona within the neat few days, the real though not
the ostensible objects being to " roll logs" for the
Presidential campaign that will speedily convulse
the Northern States. The Republicans, dezircus of
a new designation, have fixed upon that of
4‘ Unionists ;" bat as the Democrats claim to have a
greater right to that title, inasmuch as they would

accept "union" even with guarantees to slavery,
the Republicans object to union with slaveholders
on any terms, suggest that instead of Unionists the
party in power adopting Mr. Theodore Tilton's and
Mr. Wendell Philipp's ideas on the subject of a
mixture of the Anglo-Saxon and Negro races should
call themselves " Amalgamationists." Tho Demo-

crais on their part have no wish to change either

their name or their principles, and will, during the
remainder of Mr. Lincoln's term of office, organize
themselves into a strong and compact phalanx, and
make one last and desperate effort to save their coun-
try from the ,military despotism into which it is
rapidly drifting under Mr. Lincoln's guidance. Cer-
tain it is,if they fail this time by their own dissensions
or by any species of mismanagement,and allow either
the re-election of Mr. Lincoln or the election of Mr.
Chase, there will be an end, not only of the De-
mocrats as a party, but of the Democratic form of
Government which the people have inherited from
the immortal signers of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence. The Republican ;party is not only in the
minority in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsyl-
vania, but generally throughout the middle and
north-western States. It will continue to lose sup-
port in proportion as the war languishes or the
South achieves victories, The Democrats, on the
contrary, gain in strength by the protraction of
war—whether that protraction be due to the incom-
petency or ill-fortune of the Federal generals and
administration—or to the valour, the perseverance,
and unflinching determination of the South. Every
ae,t of the Government tends to swell the Demo-
cratic army. The policy of emancipation, the inva-
sion of State rights, the harsh conscription, the ar-
bitrary arrests, the military insolence, the rise in
price of all the necessaries of life, and the conse-
quently increased cost of maintenance to the work-
ing and struggling classes, and, last of all, the new
butden of Federal taxation, which begins to be felt
bev.
uousands of middle-class families that never
bin":e.e_xperienced the unwelcome sensation, all corn-
Party
La throw into the ranks of the Democratic
eumsteue„
tountless waverers who, under other cir-
tics, as viraight have held aloof from party poli-
hitherto sent" vast numbers of reflective men,
have awakenetletted with the Republicans, bat who
licanism but st° the sad conviction that Repub-
a strong Goyernni:ther name for centralisation and
strong Governmenellt, and that centralisation and
presentret.but other names for despot-
ism. At the
the only republican can-
didates for the Presidency who have the ghost of a
chance are Mr. Lincoln ItY,,!
Qiviliscri Chase; and on the
Democratic side Genenti
possibiyetillan and Governor
Seymour. All four may
terhaps allow
arena in the progress of events,
__ls_aPpear from the
on
tlein. Fremont
such candidates of the extremists':
311.aee otheris, butth e
on the one hand and Gen. Butler
howevezoeratic
according to present indications
M'Clellau the I,
Republican and Gen.
favourite. Mr. Chase must beware,
as his chances are, they will diminish ci, the Great
l grad
gold increases—a fact of which he • pre-
mium on a
to be painfully cognisant, and of which on all Dees.,
sions, and in every emergency he does his utmost
to prevent the realisation.
Mr. Seward, accompanied by most of the foreign
Ministers, has been making a tour of the lakes of
Western Now York, and after visiting the Falls of
Niagara has crossed over into Canada---a country
where no ringing of a bell on his right hand or his
left can consign a real or supposed opponent either
to Fort Lafayette or the cell of a police-office, as he
boasted to Lord Lyons that it could in Washington.
He has visited among other places the " ambitious
little city" of Hamilton; and if he has associated j
with any Englishman, Scotchman, or other colonist,
has perhaps discovered that the conquest of Canada,
if attempted by his Government, will be almost, if
not quite, as tough a job as the subjugation of the
Smith. On this subject it iscurious to note the igno•
ranee or malice of the American press. The Dem
cratic, equally with the Republican journals, affect