The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-13 00:00:00

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THE SUN.
LONDON, MONDAY, OCT. 13, 1862.

We have now the official interpretation of the
President's recent proclamation. Mr. SEWARD
himself has furnished us with it. Re has made it
the subject of a circular addressed to all the diplo-
matic and consular representatives of the United
States in Europe—that is, to all the courts and
nations of Europe., Oar readers perused it on
Saturday, and they have seen, therefore, that our
recent comments on the proclamation are declared
to be just and fair by the American Chief Secre-
tary himself. According to him it is not a procla-
mation based on any principle, not one which re-
cognises negro rights and offers to redress negro
wrongs. " All the good and wise men of all
countries," he says,'" will recognise this measure
as a just and wise military act, intended to deliver
the country from a terrible civil war." . We do
not quarrel with this so far as it goes. We have,
from the beginning, told the Federals that they
never could conquer except through justice to the
negro. We have scouted the pro-slavery cant of
certain journals in this country, which have en-
deavoured to confound emancipation with a bloody
servile war. We have asserted, fearless cf con-
tradiction, that neither our own experience in
Jamaica, nor the dictates of common sense, could
teach us that to bless the enslaved with liberty
was the way to make them murderers, but
we have not like Messrs. SEWARD and LIN-
COLN represented Emancipation as a purely
" military measure." We have shown that it
was something far better; that it was a great
duty, one which this country paid £20,000,000
rather than not perform ; but one worth more
than ten times that sum to the United States in
-what it would save of the cost of the war. We
have always represented the bloody rebellion of
the South against the decision of the election into
which they entered, as releasing the PRESIDENT
from the technical slavery clauses of the constitu-
tion. and as legally authorising him to abolish the
evil which morality and Christianity had long ago
denounced as treason against the human race.
We now see Mr. LINCOLN and Mr. SEWARD'S
view of the posture of affairs. On the 22d of Sep-
tember, five days after the bloody battle of Antic-
t" Creek, when the combined losses, according to
IVP CIAL •
LAN, amounted to very nearly forty-five
thousand men, the President and his Secretary take
a most hopeful view of the Northern cause, and re-
gard the proclamation as the weapon which is to
complete their Ili
utnpb. True, the North must do
something
more than issue proclamations. They can
have no effect beyond the reach of Federal guns.
Still the representation •
le, that the Confederate
aggressive movement is checked, while the Federal
troops are reanimated ; the Southern "financial re-
sources decline rapidly," 1
good the financial posi-
tion of the North is
eSouthern '`means 1
of raising troops are exhausted,,,
while in the
North " the call for fresh troops I, being
responded to." In this position Of promptly
things the Pre-
sident plays his-last card. He places plainly
before
the people of America, that " if these states persist
in imposing on the country, the choice between the
dissolution of the Government and the ahnl• •
- num of
slavery, it is the Union and not slavery that must
be ruiintained and saved."

It: was thought by many, at first, that the pro:
e;.n:ation was much more intended for foreign than
The forwarding of this circular to
If so, however, Mr. SEWARD

we.

like it.

to have been aware that treating emancipa-
tion as merely a just "military measure" was not
exactly the way to commend his cause to tha sym-
pathies of Europe. We should rejoice, indeed, to
see American slavery blotted out as the result of
the war, but to make military success the sole rea-
son gor the proposal, is to deprive it of all its merit
here We may think it selfish wisdom, but we can-
not commend Itr. SEWARD except as " the LORD
commended the unjust Steward." The Secretary