The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-25 00:00:00

'HE CIVI

AMERICA,

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, April 11.
It must have been with a heavy heart that General
Lee surrenderedto his grim and successful opponent
the brave and for four long years the victorious
army of Northern Virginia. Oppressed alike with
private and with public sorrows, for he had lost one
son by death and another by captivity in the series
of unavailing struggles against superior force which
ended on Saturday last, he resolved to prevent the
further effusion of blood, and to descend from the
lofty position of hero and patriot, in which he
formerly stood, and accept from his countrymen,
and perhaps from the world, the lower but not in
his case the disgraceful place of discomfited rebel.
With the small remnant of force at his command
there was no alternative that it would not have been
foolish, perhaps criminal, to adopt. Whatever may
be thought by the Americans, it is difficult for a
foreign spectator of the great event to decide to
which of the two Generals the highest meed of praise
should be accorded for true nobility of character, in
circumstances that might well have filled the mind
of the conqueror with elation, or depressed that of
the conquered with a feeling akin to humiliation.
But the truly brave man is bravest in adversity, and
even in our prosaic time, when heroism is rarely ex-
hibited and still more rarely recognised, there are
few, whatever their political opinions may be, who
will withhold from General Lee their sympathy and
respect, or who will not indulge in the hope, if the
American Republic is to be reconstituted on the
basis of true liberty for all men, that the services of
such a patriot and statesman as he should not be
lost to his country.
In surrendering the Army of North Virginia
General Lee seems to have guarded himself against
the aasumptian of any powers that he may still con-
sideras rightfully vested in Mr. Jefferson Davis, as
President of the Confederacy. Though Comman-
der-in-Chief of all the armies of Ithe South,
he surrendered to the enemy only the one army
under his immediate control, leaving to his superior
to hold aloft the banner of the Confederacy, if still
able or disposed to do so, and to the other armies in
the field under Johnston, Kirby Smith, or Forrest,
or make or refuse such terms as the fortune of war
might present. There are few, however, in this
city and throughout the North who do not believe
that the Confederacy is a thing of the past ; that the
rebellion is at an end, and the Union re-established
beyond the power of man to destroy or shatter it.
There has been a vast amount of very natuaal re-
joicing over the result; but as, in the commercial
parlance of this city, the surrender of Lee was " dis-
counted" as soon as the news arrived of the evacua-
tion of Richmond, there has been much less "bun-
combe" and fewer fireworks than were let off a
week ago. The Doxology has again been sung in
the streets, in the Corn-market, and even in the
" Gold-room;" the guns have been fired in the Park
and on the Battery, and orators have hurled the
usual amount of invectives against European Powers,
especially against England; but as yet all these cele-
brations have been but a comparatively faint echo
of the sturdier and heartier jubilation which burst
forth with irrepressible energy on Monday.
With few exceptions, among whom such persons
as Gen. Butler, Parson Brownlow, of Tennessee,
and the unhappy Vice-President are scandalously
conspicuous, there is a general inclination among
men of all shades of opinion to act generously
towards the Southern peopleand their leaders in this
their day of sorrow. There is a disposition not only
to mercy, but to magnanimity, and if some would
except Mr. Jefferson Davis, and none but him, from
the complete amnesty whieh the President is urged
to offer, on the sole condition of the immediate dis-
banding of all the remaining armies of the Confede-
racy, even those who make the exception express
the wish that he may not be captured, but may
escape to Mexico, and thence to Europe, and so
spare;the Federal Government the painful necessity
of dealing with him according either to civil or
to military law. The proclamation so earnestly ex-
pected has not yet appeared ; but Mr. Lincoln is to
make a speech this evening, which will probably
contain some disclosure of his intentions, and inform
the Southern people whether they are to expect such
treatment as the Poles receive from the Russians,
and the Hungarians from the Austrians, or whether
they are to enter into the full enjoyment of equal
citizenship. Mr. Lincoln being called for by an im- I
patient crowd at Washington refused to make a set
speech, on the plea that he was not prepared, and
that he was bound to be cautious, inasmuch as every-
thing he said " got into print." With characteristic
humour, he called upon the band of serenaders, whose
harmonies had drawn him to the balcony, to play
him " Dixie," the popular air of the South, adding
that it was one of the best tunes he had ever heard,
and that he considered it now belonged to the North,
having been duly captured with other spoils of the
war. The request was complied with, and " Dixie"
having been given with all the honours, was followed
by " Yankee Doodle," after which Mr. Lincoln
withdrew to his own apartments, and the crowd with
the musicians repaired to General Butler's hotel, with
the object of extorting a speech from him, or some
one else, if the President chose to be reticent. They
were as successful as they expected ; and the General
—who won no battle to give him a shadow of right
to dictate terms to the vanquished—delivered a little
speech, in such bad taste and in so truculent a spirit
as to make it a matter of thankfulness to his
countrymen, if not to the world, that not he, but a
better man, is at the head of the Republic.
The premium of gold fell but five per cent. yes-
terday morning on the news of Lee's surrender, or
from 49e to 44k. It rallied again slightly in the
afternoon, maintained the advance this morning and
throughout the day, and closed at the hour of post
at 47k, with every prospect of an advance to 50.
In Europe, where the delicate and complicated
machinery of the Constitution of the United States,
as drawn up and agreed to by the men of the
Washingtonian era, is but little understood, the
victory of the North, if it be final, will be considered
the victory over slavery. Doubtless it is that ; and
slavery, if not dead on the North American conti-
nent, is in articulo mortis, never again to be re-
vived, or even to be galvanised into the semblance
of vitality. But the victory is greater and more
comprehensive, and one which must affect the whole
future history of the white race as well as the black
in America. It is a victory of the unity and cen-
tralisation of power, against which, in their horror
of a despotism, the early fathers of the Republic
took especial and, as they thought, effectual means
to provide. It is a victory over the principle of State
rights, which they imagined to be the surest safe-
guard of Republican liberty. By the triumph of
the North—unless in the reconstruction of the
Union the Conservative party should exercise a pre-
ponderating influence—the Republic will become
such a Republic as France made herself in 1848, a
Republic One and Indivisible, with homogeneous
institutions in all its constituent departments, pro-
vinces, or counties ; and not a federation of Re-
pinisubtli?s, as Washington made it, diverse and self-
ned at home, and only one against foreign
nations. Not only refusing to be 'Warned by the
example of the French, but taking courage from it
to establish unity as well as union, although the
result of unity is as likely in their case as in that of
any other people to be a military despotism, the
North deliberately sacrificed its rich inheritance of
dominion over itself in order to purchase dominion
over others. It was not so much becausenot
slavery was
c
onsidered a crime or a mistake, for ten men in a hundred throughout the North—New England
excepted—were Abolitionists when the war began,
but because the institution of slavery was local,an
would not yield to Federal authority, that the people,
anxious to become a nation for the first time in
their history,
waged hostilities against their slave-
holding brethren with such vigour and pertinacity.
The triumph of the North is, in fact, a triumph
of the Revolutionists over the Conservatives. The
war was a war against the ideas, the principles, and
the policy of the colonialrebels who conquered Ame-
rican independence. Washington's Republic was rot
good enough for Mr. Charles Sumner, Mr. Wendell
Phillips, Mr. Henry Ward Beecher, and the Puritan
churches. In the same manner, but from a different
though concurrent reason, Washington's Republic
was not good enough for the active, presumptuous,
ambitious, and ill-wormed ultra-Republican