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

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PRICE.— .. —..4d.
STAMPED ....sd.

President, by virtue of his position as Commander-
in-chief, had during a rebellion not only the right
to declare the existence of martial law anywhere in
the loyal States, but actually to delegate the power
to subordinates, I should have looked upon my in-
formant as a fit subject for the investigating power
of a Ccurt of Chancery as to his lunacy. And yet
to-day both these strange circumstances exist. The
President lays claim to this tremendous power.
. . Heaven preserve us if this be so!" For this
and other mild thunder Mr. Walt was arrested.
Mr. Olden, the Governor of New Jersey, not feel-
ing satisfied on the matter. is reported to have tele-
graphed to the President to know the charges pre-
ferred against the prisoner. The reply in one word
was " Treason." The Governor, still more dissa-
tisfied, sent a second telegram to Mr. Lincoln, dec-
laringg► that the arrest or incarceration of any citizen
of New Jersey, a State not under martial law, un-
less upon the usual affidavits and the hearing of the
case in the ordinary way before the ordinary tribu-
nals, was illegal; and that, if necessary, he should
feel it his duty to call out the whole of the State
militia to prevent the execution of the order. And
so the matter rests. If Mr. Olden has done as re-
ported, and has courage enough to abide by his
work, the Government will yield the point, and
after a week's incarceration Mr. Wall will be re-
leased with a reprimand. But even the Americans
—so ready to sacrifice their liberties for the sake of
an unreal and valueless if not impossible Union—
must confess, if passion will allow them to think,
that if the expressian of such sentiments be trea-
son, law and liberty in the Federal States are at
an end, and that a man might just as well live in
Venice or Warsaw as in Jersey or New York, or.
any city of the North. The statesmen of Wash-
ington do not attempt a precise definition of the
crime which they punish ; but it becomes
clearer every day that treason in a Repub-
lican is not the same thing as treason in a Demo-
crat, nor in a rich man as in a poor one. It is
treason to discourage enlistments if the speaker be,
like Colonel Wali, a member of the great but tem-
porarily defeated party that elected all the Presi-
dents prior to Mr. Lincoln; but it is not treason-
able to discourage enlistments if the offender voted
for Mr. Lincoln, or if he be a supporter of the Re-
publican party in his State, city, or district. Last
week a rich Democrat and a rich Republican were
arrested by the over-officious police and sent to
prison without trial for treason overheard by spies
and informers. The Republican was discharged,
with a warning by telegraphic order from Washing-
ton. The Democrat remains in custody. The
Republican expressed distrust of Mr. Lincoln be-
cause he would not abolish slavery. The Democrat
expressed distrust of the Government because it had
interfered with slavery, and notably because it had
abolished that institution; in the district of Co-
lumbia. To be a Disunionist is a crime in every-
body except in those who are the greatest of Dis-
unionists, and who, by their agitation of the slavery
question for five and twenty years, produced that
hatred and estrangement in the South which in
their turn produced secession. " Better," says Mr.
Casius M. Clay, " to recognise the Confederacy at
once, and stop the effusion of blood, than have a
restoration of the Union as it was." That is to
say, a restoration of the Union guaranteeing the
right of the Southern States to hold their slaves.
Mr. Clay, who spoke more treason than the poor
shot and shell manufacturer, has been intrusted
with a command in the Federal army, and has not
been sent to a police dungeon or to Fort Lafayette.
Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, said in the Senate, " I
much more desire to see slavery exterminated than
I do to see the Union restored." And he,
though a Disunionist, and consequently guilty of
treason, has not been introduced to the Provost-
Marshal. Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts,
Mr. Wendell Phillips, and others of the same
school, speak Disunionism every day of their lives,
and no Provost-Marshal's myrmidon ever taps them
on the shoulder; while for the offence, that ought
to be considered no offence at all in a free country,
of denouncing the Corruption and incapacity of the
Government, Mr. Ingersoll being a Democrat, has
been consigned to prison by military authority with-
out form of law, detained there for nearly a week,
and then discharged with a caution--to bring his
action for false imprisonment against the Provost-
Marshal at some future time, if he have courage and
patriotism to risk so much on behalf of his country.
But the President only punishes his political ad-
versaries. His friends are allowed to say what they
please. Besides, he avows himself to be both a Dis

unionist and a revolutionist, and cannot well punish
his friends for agreeing with him. The right of any
State to hold slaves is part of the Union and the
Constitution, which Mr. Lincoln has sworn to up-
hold. Were a majority of the people of New York
and Pennsylvania, leg ally convened for the purpose,
to decree that slavery should be re-established in
those States, Mr. Lincoln would have no right to
interpose or object, but would be bound by oath to
respect the decision and enforce it. But in his let-

ter to Mr. H. Greeley he says, "If I could save the
Union by destroying the rights of all the States, I
would do it ; and if I could save it by destroying the
tights of some, and leaving others alone, I would
also do that." Had a Democrat loader made such
a declaration with respect to the undoubted rights
of any Northern State, or declared that for the sake
of the Union he would extend slavery as readily as
he would abolish it. there can be little doubt that he
would not be allowed a second opportunity to say
or write such " treason," but that he would be safely
cabined in Fort Lafayette at a day's notice, to con-
sort with hundreds of similar unfortunates who
pine in that prison on charges of which they do not
know the nature, which may be utterly unfounded,
or which have been preferred against them in secret
by persons whose names they are not permitted to
discover.

And if a Government of lawyers (for Mr.L
Are all
Mr. Seward, Mr. Stanton, and Air. Chase are
upon
attorneys) cannot define treason, nor
agree
gfor those
incoln,
any certain form of impartial punishmentsarprised at
who may be guilty of it, no one canobeneral Butler
' the rough-and-ready mode whichti a
new compe-
virhic_handedness has
adopts in New Orleans, and
' titor for the distinction of stroll:
f St. Louis, 1,400
General Scho-
field, adopted in the luckless ciplpi.
miles higher up the Mississippi•
the district, has is-
field, the Military Governor of
or tribute of 600,000
sued an order assessing
southern sympathizers,
dole. upon Secessionists,.te city and county of St.
and other " traitors"
tglo be collected without delay,
Louis. The mom*" is
arming, and feeding the en-
, and used in clothlienigt
-, active service, and in provid-
ing militia %choirt, of such families of militiamen
sufrdestitute. This is sharp practice,
ing for the
left this master of strong battalions is
as may be
especiallY when
lawgiver all in one, and has to de-
fine udge,
degree.lurf: of sympathy which makes the guilt
amount in dollars which will be
fine the he
Is well as t -
as to purge it. But, sharp, oppressive, and
unconstitutional as it is, it is preferable to the
Washington system, which sends a man to prison,
and ruins his business, and his health, without
making the State a cent the richer by the process.
In illitads; the President's own State, it would
appear that treason—if by treason be meant sym-
pathy with the South--or a love of the liberties
supposed to be guaranteed by the Constitution, is
more systematic, if not more rampant, than in New
York. It is allc,,ed that there are in that State no
less than 15,000 members of an organization call-

ing itself " The Golden Circle," and of which every
member or " knight " takes an oath on being initi-
ated, which binds him to resist such encroachments

on the public liberty as the incarceration of people
in forts or bastiles without trial, and on the un-

supported testimony of spies and informers. It is

furthermore stated that the organization is widely
extended throughout the North and West ; that
members are to be found even in Massachusetts; and
that, happen what may in the conduct or fortune