The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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TI3IES.—AII the recent intelligence from America
shows that the attention of the people is now directed
to the removal of the gravest difficulties that can
press upon a nation. A devastated country has to
be restored, a disorganised community to be set in
order, an inferior and uneducated race is to be
governed in such a manner as will be consistent with
its own natural rignts, and at the same time with
the safety of society. These questions are so im-
portant and difficult, they excite such animosities
among men of extreme opinions and hasty temper,
that we might expect them to cause long and acri-
monious contests were there not reason to believe
that the great mass of the people are determined
that they shall be settled quietly. When it is hard
to see how a certain matter can be arranged it is
encouraging to feel that there is a fixed resolution
to arrange it somehow. This is the disposition of
the American people at the present time. All the
difficulties which the war has left have " got to be"
met and overcome. Already a beginning has been
made, and, with the advantages of an active people
and boundless resources, the devastation and
anarchy of the war are already disappearing.
Material prosperity makes the Northern people for-
giving, and endows them with the means of restor-
ing and again enriching the South. In every part of
the North the profits of trade have been enormous,
and taxation has not as yet pressed upon the peo-
ple. They see before them the vast plains of the
South capable of producing tenfold the crops which
have done so much to place America in the first
rank of wealty nations, but now lying in great part
waste and abandoned. They see the Northern
people, white and black, accustomed to the climate,
skilled in the agriculture which is best suited to it,
and ready, if properly managed, to go once more to
work and make their country the rich domain that
it was before the war. A large majority at the
North is, therefore, in favour of any reasonable
policy which shall reconstruct the South and give
it peace, order, and enterprise as soon as possible.
The course taken by the President is perfectly
in accordance with this set of public opinion.
There is undoubtedly a party at the North, as de-
scribed by our correspondent to-day, which desires
to impose the very hardest terms on the South, to
keep it under military rule for years, to forbid its
representatives from sitting in Congress, and to
punish the white rebels by placing the negroes on
the level with them or above them. This party will
do its utmost to influence the President, and if it
cannot influence him will oppose him. We have
no means of knowing its strength in the country,
but it seems likely that it will not be able to pre-
vent the reconstruction of the Southern States,
unless the public at the North be really brought to
believe that some substantial gain of the war is
about to be imperilled. As for the extreme party
which desires proscription or confiscation, it may
be put out of consideration altogether. To drive
out and rob the Southern people was a scheme
which had its advocates amid the fury of a great
war, but now that the sword is sheathed for battle
it is not likely to be drawn again for plunder.
Not even an exhausted population would be likely
to submit to the last outrages of conquest without
a struggle. The Confiscation Act has been quietly
set aside, and the good sense of Mr. Johnson in
doing this has been approved by public opinion in
the North, more especially since it is seen how great
has been the effect of his policy in reconciling the
Southern States to the humiliating task of repealing
their own ordinances, and publicly submitting
themselves to an authority they had disowned. The
Republican party, influenced by what is called the
Radical section of it, will, we presume, be unable,
even if it were willing, to prevent the progress of
reconstruction at the South—that is, the re-estab-
lishment of the State Governments and the with-
drawal of the soldiers. The powers of the Presi-
dent are so vast and his position so secure that the
direction of the Southern States is entirely in his
hands. Even Congress could only control him by
using its most extreme powers and straining to the
utmost the provisions of the Constitution. He is
Commander-in-Chief, and can withdraw every regi-
ment from the South if he pleased, and thus allow
the inhabitants to settle their own affairs without
inference from any one. He is a military chief
holding a conquered country, and can appoint any
man he pleases Governor or Provisional Governor,
with orders to do this or that, and he can recall
him if it is not done. No ordinary power in the
Republic can prevent him from carrying out any
scheme on which he has set his mind, so
long as it is in accordance with the wishes of
the Southern people themselves. The President
appears to know and to be using this au-
thority, and the alacrity with which the Soiithern
people second him, by abandoning their insurrec-
tionary position, and placing themselves anew in
Constitutional relations with the Federal Govern-
ment, shows that they see their opportunity, and,
with the promptness of their race, know how to take
advantage of it. It is probable that before the
meeting of Congress the position of the South will
be such that it will be impossible for any party to
demand the maintenance of military rule, much less
the spoliation which was decreed during the war.
In short, it is likely that all the difficulties of the
time will be reduced to one—the settlement of the
negro's position. On this subject there is, as may
be supposed, a wide diversity of opinion, and
is just such a subject as inspires the fiercest
animosities and antipathies. At the bottom of the
matter is the fact that the white American does not
like the negro, and that the European immigrants
love him, if possible, still less. At the North he
has been despised as a Parian, and at the South his
freedom is likely to bring on him a hatred which he
did not meet with when he was an obedient and
thoughtless slave. However, there are the four
millions of blacks who must be dealt with. They must
be governed in some special manner, .or allowed
to take their rank with -other citizens. It is on this
question that the great struggle of the next Session
of Congress will take place. Congress may not
easily prevent Mr. Johnson from giving the South-
ern States their own way at home, but it can impose
conditions on the admission of their representa-
tives to their 'seats at Washington, and, indeed,
pass a sort of secession ordinance by excluding
them. We are told that the Republicans or the
Radicals are ready to go this length, and that though
the President may leave the question of negro suf-
rage to each State Congress will not admit anysuch
independence. The constitutional right of Congress
to do this we are not able to discuss, but we cannot
but think that it would be reasonable in the Southern
States to avoid any such contest by a concession of
the suffrage to the more industrious and civilised of
the negroes. The great difficulty undoubtedly is
how to deal with a population which, whenever it is
withdrawn from the tutelage of the whites, has a
tendency to sink back into savagery. In a few
years a large number of the blacks will probably
have squatted on waste lands throughout the
Southern States, and have lost the little civilisation
they now possess. But a well devised property qua-
lification would exclude these, while it would not
prevent the more intelligent and industrious of the
race from attaining to at least the legal rights of
citizens. With such a qualification the negro has
long been allowed to vote in the State of New York,
and there seems no reason why the
principle should
not be adopted elsewhere. We do not believe in
the future fusion of the European and African, nor
even in their equality ; we rather expect that the
numbers of the inferior race will gradually diminish
now that it is brought everywhere into rude com-
petition with the stronger. But if its lot can be
ameliorated and its position secured by the admis-
sion of its members to civil rights, and if, as will be
no doubt the case, the numbers of these will be too
small to outweigh the power of the white popula-
tion, we see no reason why the South should struggle
against the principle which the Republicans wish to
enforce.

POST.—We are told that the Emperor is about
to return to Paris after a long and pleasant repose
from State affairs ; the Ministers of the various
governing departments of Imperial rule have already
returned to their posts, and the foreign Ambassa-
dors are once more making their weekly periodical
visits to the Hotel of Foreign Affairs on the
banks of the Seine. Count Walewski, the
new President of the Legislative Chambers,
has visited the Emperor at Biarritz, and
probably received a few hints on governing a
representative assembly which the coming session
will find animated with more political vitality than
that over which the late Duke de Morny presided
with such conciliatory courtesy. Such is the not
very startling information we get from Paris ; but
this quiet march of events, coupled with the long
and frequent absence from Paris of the Emperor
and his advisers this year, suggests some reflections
on the consolidation of the Empire under Napo-
leon 111. Neither the best friends nor the worst
enemies of Louis Napoleon would have believed ten
years ago that the Emperor might remain away from
Paris six months out of the twelve, during which
period he should pay a visit to Algeria and occupy
much of his time in writing a life of Caesar. The
Imperial constitution of France demands the pre-
sence of the Sovereign, and the irresponsibility of
Ministers obliges them to consult the Sovereign on
all important questions. The present year has dis-
closed, however, the fact that the governing machi-
nery under which our exciteable neighbours have
become so docile works very smoothly even when
the engineers are away. The Emperor and all his
Cabinet have been holiday-making throughout the
summer, and the affairs of State, both domestic and
foreign, have fallen into a state of coma such as the
political history of modern France seldom records.
A few politicians who remained in Paris this sum-
mer got up a faint breeze to break the dead and

somewhat uninteresting calm. We were told by
some enthusiasts from Paris to expect considerable '
and very important reforms at the opening of the
coining Parliamentary session ; Ministers were to
be made responsibile ; the press was to be exempt
from Government control, and once more we heard
the familiar expression about the early " Couron-
nement de l'Edifice..' But even such important
announcements did not produce any great impres-
sion on the millions of Frenchmen who read the
newspapers so diligently in cafes, and who, at a.
period not far distant, got up wonderful excitement
about very minute political events. Perhaps most
Frenchmen felt there was not much truth in the re-
form reports ; they may have estimated the charac-
ter of the Emperor correctly, and come to the con- •
elusion that his Majesty was more likely to let well
alone than make any new experiments in govern-
ing '•
a people that former Sovereigns have found ex-
ceedingly
difficult to rule. Be this as it may, there
are no signs of the Emperor having modified in any
way his views and convictions of what may be
called a successful system of governing the French •
people. So far as our information goes, Napoleon
111. is perfectly satisfied with his present advisers, ,
and no modification of his Cabinet is in contempla- •
tion. The season will probably be occupied with ,
more interesting questions than those which grow
out of the theory of Government. So far as we at :
a distance are able to read the Emperor's mind, he
seems to be disposed to prosecute domestic improve- 1
ment and promote material prosperity ; working i
with the existing Imperial constitution to bring :
about improvements in old laws, as well as provid-
ing new legislation such as the exigencies of the day • ,
demand. The Emperor looks more like peace now
than at any other period of the present reign. The '
French troops are coming home from that city which tl
in 1848 commenced a revolution, headed by Pius • ;'.
IX., which was indubitably instrumental eventu-
ally in placing Louis Napoleon on the throne of
France ; and good authorities are always telling us -
the Emperor wants to get his flag away from Mexico --.1
as soon as he can. The foreign policy of France
was never more pacific. Amid a real and national '
excitement to assist the Poles during their late re-
volt
the Emperor and his Cabinet contrived to calm
down the popular enthusiasm of a chivalric nation ;
peace counsels prevailed, and a great war, a Euro-
pean convulsion, it may be, was avoided. The
French Government has expressed itself pretty
strongly on the conduct of the German Powers, the
destroyers of the constitutional and progressive little
kingdom of Denthark, but even when half invited. •
by her Majesty's advisers to draw the sword for an r.
old ally unjustly attacked by superior forces, the
Emperor and his advisers calculated that to save !
Denmark France must go to war with all Germany;
and here again the counsels of peace prevailed. We -
cannot help thinking that a change is taking place,
,i
in the character of the French nation. We are
quite sure they are as brave and generous as of old;
we are convinced their sympathy is ever with the
weak and the oppressed all over the world, and we
are sure they are as proud of their army as when ,l
they inscribed its many victories on the grand. )
triumphal arch which graces with architectural
..
majesty the avenue of the Champs Elysees. What
we believe to be the fact is this—the public mind of -
France is more occupied with commerce, more bent ~
in obtaining wealth than in the days of Napoleon
I. or Louis Philippe. In this respect Frenchmen
are becoming more like Englishmen ; they have
half forgotten the attractions of street fights, revo- -
lutions, the flights of Sovereigns, and wars for an s
" idea." The French mind appears to be gradually . 4
turning round from glory to gain. They are a more -
politically contented people than of old, which we
cannot help thinking was singularly exemplified
this summer by the long absence from Paris of the
governing powers.