The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-16 00:00:00

great animation, and in Maine, where the election
comes off in a week, there is but little excitement.
Public demonstrations will probably be to a great
extent abandoned this fall, although politics vie with
railroad accidents in making up the burden of private
conversation. A new speech from Montgomery
Blair, in which he handles Seward, Stanton, Chase,
and that ilk without gloves, and recommends a
general pardon of all the Southern people, has raised
some commotion, and provoked bitter comments
from the Radicals. It is another wedge added to
those already splitting the Republican party into
factions.

The Radicals are getting frightened at the Con-
servative drift of the Administration. The Chicago
Republican, recently started as the Radical organ in
the North-east, is not pleased with the Mississippi
Convention, and advises Congress to scrutinise its
doings very closely. The fact that the President
publicly expressed his approval of the deliberations
of the Convention does not abate the Radical ill-
humour in the slightest. The New York _lndepen-
dent says Johnson has " disappointed the hopes of
the country." The Anti-Slavery Standard is out this
week in a general indictment against the President
for permitting the Southern Governors to do as they
please, in the course of which it says :

"Day by day the fruits of our victories are taken from
us and handed over to our enemies by a man in whom, as
Governor Perry, of South Carolina, says, the South has
complete confidence. If the South has, the North certainly
has not. is there no remedy for this ? None evidently,
unless the House of Representatives has the moral courage
to impeach Mr. Johnson before the Senate. The appoint-
ment of these men and their continuation in office in open
defiance of the law of the United States offers a sufficient
ground. Then let the house do the work that is before it,
and liberate us from Mr. Johnson."

Such sentiments as these of course give the feel-
ing of a very small portion of the North, for at the
very time they were uttered a printed call for a pub-
lic meeting in New York to endorse the President's
policy was in circulation. But the President stopped
it, saying he highly appreciated the kindness prompt-
ing the act, but he had grave doubts whether such
a movement would do good. The public mind needs
to be tranquillised, not excited, and his policy is be-
ing carried out very successfully, and he certainly
acted very wisely in preventing a meeting which
would certainly provoke a similar assemblage of
RadicaTh to fiercely denounce him. Johnson is not
prepared for the split in the Republican party ; he
fears the Radical majority in the approaching Con-

gress.

\ln lowa the Republicans have already divided
into factions on the negro suffrage question, and
separate tickets are nominated in many counties.
The Democratic Convention having declined to
nominate candidates, and the anti-suffrage Repub-
licans having made great overtures for the Demo-
cratic vote, it is pretty certain that in October the
Radicals will be overwhelmingly beaten.
Washington is filled with Southerners who have
come to petition for pardon, and the President is
still at a loss how to dispose of them. He had
abandoned the idea of having a bureau of executive
pardons, and the result of his indecision is that for
over a week scarcely any one has been pardoned.
Secretary Seward's circular granting passports to
such Southern people as wish to leave the country
is considered to be a movement towards the exile of
the Southern chiefs. Nothing has yet been done
that looks like trying Jefferson Davis or any of the
leaders of the rebellion, and though rumours daily
come to us that preparations are being made for
Mr. Davis's trial no one believes them. The rumours,
however, have caused some friends of Mr. Davis in
Richmond to start a subscription list to raise money
for his defence. A great pressure is being made to
procure the release of Alexander B. Stephens from
Fort Warren, but thus far has resulted in nothing.
The President intends to release R. M. T. Hunter
from Fort Pulaski on parole. Albert Pike, of
Arkansas, and Judge E. S. Fisher, lately nominated
for Governor of Mississippi, have applied for par-
don, and the report is that the President will grant
the application of the latter, thus settling the ques-
tion that whoever is indicated by the Southern
people as their choice for civil office will at once
have every disqualification removed. Gen. Joseph
E. Johnston is proposed for the office of President
of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, a post for
which his military and engineering experience fits
him in many ways.
In various parts of the country indictments for
treason have been found against Confederate ofli- I

cers, and several have been arrested to answer the
charge. The course of the Government is not yet
indicated, but as these indictments violate the agree-
ments on which all these officers gave their paroles
it is quite probable the proceedings will soon be
stopped. Meanwhile two officers have been arrested
in Nashville, a half-dozen in Baltimore, and requisi-
tions are pending from the Governor of Pennsyl-
vania to the Governors of Virginia and West Vir-
ginia for the surrender of Geus. Ewell, Early, and
some others for the raids into Chambersburg. A
decision on all these questions muse soon be ren-
dered by the Government law officers or there will

be trouble. The trial of Wirtz, the Andersonville
gaoler, continues at Washington, the evidence being
nothing but a disgusting detail of the sufferings of
the Andersonville prisoners. The counsel of Wirtz

having twice left the court on account of the over-
bearing conduct of the military judges, have again
consented to defend the prisoner, their bold conduct
having taken some of the starch out of the judges.
Wirtz has made a strong appeal for pecuniary aid,
and a subscription is going around for him in New
York. Recently in Nashville two discharged Fede-
ral officers made a most unprovoked assault upon
the Confederate General Wheeler, and the affair
coming to the ears of General Thomas, command-
ing the department, he severely reprimanded the
officers for their cowardly behaviour, and told them
that had they been still in the service they would
have been court-martialed.

On August 30, the people of Richmond, Virginia,
held a large mass meeting, which was attended by
the principal citizens, at which they expressed great
indignation at the persistent attempts of a portion
of the Northern press to cast suspicion upon their
efforts to resume their former friendly relations with
the Union, and recommended the people throughout
Virginia to hold meetings and pass similar resolu-
tions. The Virginians have good reason to com-
plain, for it is part of the Radical scheme of dis-

franchising the South to persistently state that they
wish to continue the war and keep aloof from the
North. That the Southern people hate the North is
plain, but nevertheless, under present circumstances,
they wish to restore the Union. The first civil court
in Central Virginia has just been opened at War-
renton, but although civil law is making some
headway in Virginia, it makes none in North
Carolina, where the military officers refuse to give
up criminals for trial in civil courts, or to allow
Governor Holden more than nominal authority. In
South Carolina Governor Perry spends his time in
making speeches to tranquillise the people, but he
holds only an empty honour. No Roman province
was ever more thoroughly garrisoned or despotically
ruled by the military than South Carolina is. The
planters complain that the negroes will not work,
and with most remarkable zeal troops spring up on
every side to force the blacks to fulfil their contracts.
It is said the havoc of war has reduced the value of
property in South Carolina from $400,000,000 to
less than $50,000,000.
The reports
parts
foutrages upon negroes continue to
o
come from all
extent Sreopuo are
reported
rh,e
at though
ei
edvtlyel
dei
dying
g are
in
quite vague and to some
Louisiana the negroes
thear are
great numbers from absolute inability to procureidea
food. In North Carolina the blacks have an
that the Government intends to provide them all
with farms, and to such an extent bas this belief
spread that the Commissioners of the Freedmen's
Bureau at Raleigh has been compelled to issue a
circular contradicting the report, and
live.tel lingthenegroes they must work if they wish to
Re-
cently 900 negroes assembled together near Mobile,
and, after lamenting their misfortunes, resolved,
having made a practical trial of the freedom the
war had brought them, to return one and all to
their masters.

The English cattle plague is making itself felt in
America in a way that gladdens the hearts of the
merchants. Orders for 6,000 barrels of beef have
been recently sent to America on English account,
and orders for still larger amounts are on their