The Sun.
London, England, 1862-09-16 00:00:00

CIVIL LIBERI Y IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, SEPT. 1.
While this war of blood is raging in the South
and the South-West, and in most of the Border
States, it is not unprofitable to turn from the hor-
rors of the battlefield to contemplate that other war,
of a different description, which is raging through
the North, a war of the Government struggling
for its existence, and which it not only wages
against the South, but against its own citizens and
every principle of liberty on which the Republic
was based. The tiovernment, weak one day and
strong the next, sees "treason" everywhere, and
runs blindly against it to crash it if possible, and,
if not, to punish it. Jesting Pilate asked what
was " Truth ?" The Northern people, who are in
no jesting mood, nor likely to be for many years,
are seriously asking their Government what is

" Treason ?" Every day the offence increases, yet
none of the smart lawyers in the Cabinet seem to
be able to define it. It is treason to discourage
enlistments. It is treason in a journeyman
painter to say that Mr. Lincoln is a "humbug,"
but it is not treason in a highly accomplished
orator and profound thinker to say that the Pre-
sident is a " tortoise"—a man without a backbone,
and utterly incompetent. It is treason to say that
Stonewall Jackson is a far Letter general than Pope
or Halleck. It is treason to say that the Govern-
ment is corrupt, and the public debt oppressive. It
is treason to say that the habeas corpus ought not
to be suspended. But it is not treason to say that
" the Union is a league with death and a covenant
with hell ;" that slavery ought to bo abolished in
South Carolina, without the consent of the People
of that State ; and that union, merely for the sake
of union, is preferable to liberty of speech and ac-
tion—preferable to unindebtedness, preferable to
prosperity public and private, preferable to every
social blessing for which men have been accustomed
to strive since the dawn of civilisation. But among
all the charges of treason upon which people have
been lately torn from their homes and business and
consigned to the horrors of police dungeons, or the
more dignified miseries of Forts Lafayette or War-
ren, by the authority of the Government, the one
upon which a working mechanic named Marx was
arrested in this city last Saturday is the most sur-
prising. If the Society of friends in England is not
aroused to sufficient activity to memorialise the Go-
vernment for his release, or to send a deputation to
Washington to remonstrate with Mr. Lincoln, all
that can be said is that peace in Russia and peace
in America are not equally dear to the followers of
George Fox, or the believers in John Bright. Marx
was employed in a shot and shell manufactory, and
being, of course, quite familiar with the deadly na-
ture of the articles he compounded and constructed,
exclaimed to a comrade as he saw a squad of fine
fellows, in their new uniforms, marching down
Broadway, the drums beating, the star-spangled
banner floating proudly over their heads, &c., and
the admiring women and little boys surveying the
brave spectacle, " There goes another lot of d--
fools to be shot." He was overheard by a
policeman, arrested for treason, carried before
the Provost Marshal, and by that awful func-
tionary detained in prison till Mr. Stanton or
Mr. Seward shall decide his future fate. Marx
scorned to deny his words, but added, more
in explanation than in vindication, that he only
spoke the common opinion of the shop. Bating the
oath, which Mr. Bright would probably not employ,
there was nothing in the poor workman's opinion,
backed as it was by his professional experience, that
that eminent statesman would not have approved,
and which he did not frequently express when his
country was engaged in the Russian war. It is to
be hoped, if this little incident reach his ears, and
if his views upon war, the military art, and the
construction of shot and shell, remain unchanged,
that he will admit that it is safer to say in England
that a soldier and raw recruit is a fool, than to say
so either with or without a profane past participle
in America.

This case of Alarx is sufficient to prove that trea-
son is a very vague as well as elastic charge in the
present temper of the Northern Government and
people ; but, bad as it is, that of the ten persons
—brokers, merchants, and others, in Wall-street,
arrested for organising a joint-stock association for
procuring substitutes for enlistment, is still worse.
Though these persons were imprisoned on an ex post
facto law, though one—if not two—of them had
actually subscribed large sums to favour enlist-
ments, and was known as a rabid patriot, eager for
the sanguinary prosecution of the war—he and his
companions have fared alike, and have all been
consigned to Fort Lafayette. The case of Colonel
James W. Wall, of New Jersey, is quite as signi-
ficant. That gentleman made a speech afocv days
ago, s
itizeris
ago, denouncing the arbitrary arrest
without warrant--a speech full of illustrations
learned, no
from the history of England, a speech
„bieh the 101-
doubt, and very much to the purpose,
and in ' ' ,6
licularly novel or profound, a
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