The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-11 00:00:00

THE SUN, UONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, -NOVEMBER 11, 1862.

GUILDHALL, 16th October, 1862.—The COM-
MITT EE for LETTING the CIT Y'S LANDS will
MEET at GUILDHALL, on WEDNESDAY, the teth No-
vember next, at One o'clock precisely, to receive PRO-
POSALS for a BUILDING LEASE for eighty years of a
PIECE of GR( )UND on the North Side of QUeenhithe Dock,
in the City of London.
Plans of the Groun may be seen, and further particulars
and forms of tender obtained, upon application at the Archi-
tect's Office, Guildhall.
FERDINAND BRAND, Comptroller.

THE WAR IN AMERICA.

(Iron the Times' Correspondent.).

NEW YORK, OCT. 28.

" Hope springs eternal in the breast" of Ameri-
cans. The Republic " never is, but always to be,
blest" and victorious. Though M'Clellan's army is
well known to be in no condition to make an ad-
vance; though his men complain loudly of the want
of the common necessaries of life ; though their pay
is several months in arrear ; though the veterans
who have gone with him through all his bloody and
bootless battles are beginning to desert, to re-enlist
at distant places for the sake of the bounty money,
to desert afterwards perhaps for the second time ;
and though the new volunteers remain in the dis-
tricts where they were recruited because the Go-
vernment has neither blankets nor rifles to distri-
bute among them, the public is daily amused with
announcements that the army of the Potomac is to
march immediately against the toe and " crush the
rebellion" in one final and magnificent victory. Yes-
terday the semi-official announcement was made
from Washington in all the papers that the army
and navy would not much longer remain inactive,
but would commence a plan of operations promis-
ing the accomplishment of the most important re-
sults, the preparations for which were so nearly
completed, and were on such a scale of grandeur
" as to preclude even the probability of failure."
Popular credulity is inexhaustible on this conti-
nent. The crime of despairing of the Republic is
not acclimated. The people are quiet, patient, and
enduring beyond any other people on the earth,
and are content to wait with their eyes shut and
their mouths open for the rewards which worthy
Mr. Lincoln is preparing to drop between their
teeth. If they taste the sweets they will be very
much pleased, and if they get nothing they will not
be greatly disappointed. They have not much
heart in the business either way. They have
been fed upon vain promises too long to be very
enthusiastic about anything except a real, in-
dubitable, and proved success, of which the whole
course of the war has as yet afforded but one ex-
ample—the capture of New Orleans. Politica!
preachers like the Rev. Dr. Cheever may exclaim
from their pulpits, "In the name of God, let us
fight to the day of doom for the abolition of slavery ;
let our own generation go down to the grave fight-
ing !" but the public does not respond to such fervid
insanity, and, with the instincts of a commercial
nation, begins to count the cost and the advantage,
and to long for the time when the army or the
navy shall gain such a victory as may enable the
Federal Government to retire from the struggle
with the credit of magnanimity and some of the
honours of success.

To-day the public are informed that the army of
the Potomac has actually made an advance along
its whole line in the direction of Winchester.
Rumours were yesterday circulated that General
Lee had vacated that position and retired. to Gor-
donsville, where he intended to await attack; bat
it is quite impossible to ascertain the truth of the
report.. M'Clellan's advance is positive, but the
retreat of the Confederates and the evacuation of
the Shenandoah valley are not generally accredited.
Bat one thing is certain,—whatever may be the
military reasons for this show of activity, real or
assumed, it will occupy the public mind till the
el€ctions on Tuesday next, and please the impatient
Republicans, who are always crying out for ener-
getic measures, and who imagine that M'Clellan has
only to throw himself upon the Confederate army at
Winchester or elsewhere to annihilate it at a blow.
Had the army gone into winter quarters, as many
believe it ought to have done, considering all the
circumstances, there is no knowing how many dis-
gusted Republicans and Abolitionists would have
refrained from voting or gone over to the Demo-
cratic side. But this movement keeps them in good
humour, and secures their votes to their party. This
may not be the sole reason of M'Clellan's
" strategy" in this instance, but it is scarcely pos-
sible to avoid believing that it has had some in-
fluence on a movement which few suppose he has
made without official prompting.
The naval operations which, like the military
movements promised in the mysterious official
paragraph from Washington, are to be on such
.a
scale as to preclude the probability of failure are
understood to refer to a renewsl of the expedi-
tions to clear the river Mississippi which were de-
feated during the summer by the successful resis-
tance of the city of Vicksburg. Gen. Butler has
hard work to feed the daily increasing hordes of
negro paupers in New Orleans, together with a
starving population, without trade or commerce, to
say nothing of the wants of his own army of occu-
pation ; and the Government naturally feels that
the work is both harder and more expensive than it
would be as long as flour and other provisions sell
at New Orleans for double and treble the price at
which they are to be obtained at St. Louie. They
are therefore anxious that the produce of the West
should freely pass down that great artery to the
famishing city. In addition to this great economic
consideration it is not creditable to Federal prowess
and ingenuity that the one great. " snag" of Vicksburg
should continue to block the whole commerce of the
West. An immediate attempt will consequently be
made
under m
theid a be
el emflmo tainl lda
coo:. gunboats
Pano rdt
eort,h et
or
deoeevlbee,yt
haifs and
other obstructions, if not to pierce
into the heart of the cotton regions through the
great tributary rivers.
And here the question presents itself,—Are Ad-
miral Porter and his captains to confine their opera-
tions to this single achievement, or are they to pro-
claim freedom to the slaves as their gunboats make
their way up the Yazoo, the Red River, and the
other streams of the cotton regions? Are they to
distribute the President's Proclamation as they go,
and make known to all the plantations the promise
to the black and the threat to the white race held
out for the Ist of January ? Already the slaves in
Louisiana have been excited to revolt, and in one
o take to
country, the
plantatron the negroes have murdered the overseer,
have escaped in a body to the number of 160, either
t
swamp o r andto find bend a
aterror g
eto the
under
the
sur-
roundingprotecting aegis of General Butler. The policy of
piingpaerrtc i
cu h
ia
rt
me riversssion is with Fed
loudly it
advocated
gunboatsted b
by
th ao
An
btohlis
i.
tionist press and pulpit. If attempted before the
Ist of January it will not only be an infamy in
itself, but a breach of faith on the part of the Pre-
sident; whereas, if only attemptedaggravated
grava ted afterhy
treachery. that
the infamy will not bee
The capture of Vicksburg is legitimate
warfare.
The liberation of the Mississippi
is an object for
which the Federal Government ought earnestly to
strive by all the means at its disposal ; but any
attempt to excite servile insurrection before or after
the new year will react fatally upon the Federal Go-
vernment, and excite as much horror in at least
one half of the North and West as it will in Europe.
Gen. Buell, whose name for the last three months
has excited almost as much ire as that of General
M'Clellan in the gentle bosoms of the
ultra-Repub-
licans, and whose game of chess on the great board
of Kentucky with Gen. Bragg has been keenly
watched by the bewildered public, Which saw but
in no degree understood the play, has been removed
from his command, in compliance with the urgent
remonstrances and demands of the Abolitionists
and Exterminators. Gen. Rosencrans, his succes-
sor, is not a graduate of West Point, and is expected
therefore, to be willing to carry on hostilities with-
out regard to the jayenile friendships and reminis-
_

cences of that celebrated academy. At present the
West Point officers are somewhat out of favour
both with the President and the public; and the
professional jealousies which kept such thorough
soldiers as Generals Banks, Sigel, and others from
the positions to which their natural aptitude and
undoubted zeal and patriotism entitled them to
aspire, are not likely for the future to stand in the
way of military merit which was not fortunate
enough to be first developed in that ambitious little
nursery of warlike brothers. Both Buell and Bragg
have fallen under the displeasure of their respective
Governments ; but Bragg, if he did not achieve all
that was expected of him in Kentucky, ought at all
events to receive from the Confederate press and
public the praise of having out-manceuvred Buell,
of having withdrawn safely into Tennessee with an
immense stock of greatly-needed stores and provi-
sions, filling it is said 4,700 waggons, and of being
furthermore in a position whence the capture of
Nashville is so easy as to be all but certain.
The officious governors who recently met at
Altoona are again it appears bestirring themselves
to perplex, if not to overawe, the President, and
are to reassemble at Washington within a few days.
It is asserted that they have used their influence to
secure the removal of M'Clellan and of Buell ; that
their success in the one case has emboldened them
to presevere in the other ; that it was they who im-
pelled or compelled the President to order the ad-
vance of the army of the Potoilac ; that they object
to call the Southern army belligerents, to exchange
prisoners with them, or to look upon them in any
other light than as traitors, rebels, and murderers
—just as they consider Captain Semmes, of the
Alabama, and all the other naval officers and men
in the Confederate service to be pirates and outlaws ;
that they desire the prosecution of the war to the
last extremity of extermination, if need be ; and
that they call upon the President to supersede his
proclamation of negro freedom on conditions by a
new proclamation of immediate freedom without
conditions, except compensation to loyal owners.
If such be their aims and objects, MnJeffevresoryn
Davis and the Southern people ought to be
much obliged to them. They are as good as an
hithertomepdauyt
to
oabt roud
mltekhbi eraodtferefusedtthosConfederateeeertoxioonousersi
nd:Northern
eer
trr chtnt
the
ueipnscie
probabilities
whether
sl
het
ei.Theyotnh Theyewr hdt
iih which
ehgof
force
:si:
se
shtt
peace,hhaoees
popular
or
the unwilling South would be a calamity half so
great and so deplorable as the loss of Northern
liberty, and the establishment of a despotism under
the guidance of such sanguinary doctrinaires and
philosophists as these.

The part taken by the clergy in the war has been
marked and decided both in the North and the
South. In the North, while the Episcopalians have
been neutral, the Presbyterian, the Puritanic, and
even the Unitarian pastors have been aggressive,
violent, unreasonable, and vindictive. If the solu-
tion of the difficulty could have been left to their
hands, and they had the means
to convert their
bloodthirsty theories into facts, the extermination
of the Southern people would long ago have been
attempted. They have evinced the true spirit of
persecutors, and some of them in this city have
manifested as little reluctance to the use of the
stake and the gibbet against the friends of the
South as inquisitors Spain would have exhibited
against heretics. In the South the clergy have been
less violent and more charitable, with the single
exception of the renegade Parson Brownlow. The
Episcopalians have prayed for the President of the
Confederate instead of the United States, and in
New Orleans and Nashville, and other places tem-
porarily occupied by Federal armies, where they
have not been permitted to offer up prayers for Mr.
Jefferson Davis, they have refrained from substi-
tuting the name of any other magistrate. This course
of proceeding has in many instances led to the clos-
ing of their churches, and in Nashville to the im-
prisonment of several of the most zealous cleygymen
by order of Governor Johnson. In New Orleans,
with such a man as Butler to deal with, the preachers
have been unusually cautious ; but hitherto that
redoubtable General, foiled, or at all events, damaged
in reputation by his attack upon the ladies, has been
chary of meddling with the church or the chapel.
But the rigour of his rule has been contagious
among his subordinates, and the little Jacks in Office
havetakeninpstraidnece of inimmitialittianrgytyranny
theinsolence of their
master. A recent letter from New Orleans narrates
a curious
occurred in that city. On Sunday, the whichl2tli hasinst.,
a person in civilian costume entered the church of
St. Paul, nearly opposite to the head-quarters of the
General, and took his seat among the congregation.
The service proceeded in the usual way, until the
preacher cArne to that portion of the ritual when
prayer should have been offered up for the chief
magistrate. Substituting no other name for that of
the President of the United States, he simply
exclaimed,
omitted the passage, and was proceeding to the next,
oceldeoe nd ! t " Amiday that
when the stranger rose up, and with a loud voice
o
elaim
Hold d
ment caused among the congregation by the inter-
ruption,l:ie had attended
utter of excite-
p
church with the expectation of hearing the service
read without mutilation, that he had been disap-
pointed, that he was a major in the army of the
United States, and that he felt it to be his duty to
close the church immediately, and keep it closed
nutil a " Christian" minister could be obtained to
offiepte in lieu of the person who had just aese-
crated the sanctuary. The major, therefore,
ordered the people to " clear out, " and
being obedient, as Americans always are,
they "cleared out" accordingly. It does not appear
whether General Butler approved or disapproved
the proceeding ; but if the church remains closed it
must be supposed that he has sustained the action
of his subordinate. It is not imperative in the
North or West . that a clergyman should pray for li
the President, or that he should pray at all, if he
have any objection to do so; but in the dominions
of Butler the case appears to be different. The
alliance of Church and State, repudiated all over
America, is enforced in these unhappy regions by
the sword; and Butler, like the Pope at Rome, or
the Czar at Moscow, is not only the temporal bat
the spiritual ruler, and claims as much right to re-
gulate men's prayers as to clean the streets, fee run-
away negroes, or hang " traitors" who pull down
his flag. The reporter of the occurrence states that
" after the doors were closed the major left, and the
congregation dispersed one after the other in any
mood but one consistent with the Sabbath day,"
i
and perhaps, as he might have added, without any
of loyalty and good feeling towards the
Northern Government that could authorise or per-
mit such an outrage.

The city of New York, unlike Boston and Phila-
delphia, has not made any formal application to
the Governor to postpone the operation of the
draught, which is fixed to commence on the 10th
of November. The applications for exemption have
within the last few days been exceedingly heavy.
Many thousands of persons above the age of 45
have been inscribed on the list ; and it is computed
that fully 30,000 Irishmen and Germans who have
never taken out letters of naturalisation are ready
and intend to prove their non-liability. The cities of
dienral and the State Go-
New York and Brooklyn, not vvaidthdsitlagndteintghethheeuliabtey-
ll deficient, it appears, in nearly
e
10,000 men. The bounty having failed to attract
money
aeelrinnt
eymy
Go-
vernments, pnf
rtt
soh.; a
rra
eiecdsh
still
ry
the citizensF e
the requisite number, the conscription is inevitable.
What prices the young and wealthy merchants,
bankers, and professional men, upon whom the lot
falhy are
ls;weillpay for substitutes remains to be seen
but likely to be high. In some parts of
the country as much as 3,000 dole. (X 600)
been paid, together with a weekly provision for
the
w wife
a r
and family of the substitute as long as
the lasts.
Irishmen and Germans of warlike
tastes, therefore, will have a fine opportunity of
making money. Their nationality exempts them

from the draught, but does not incapacitate them
from volunteering; and if the lot will only be accom-
modating enough to fall upon the wealthy, and
upon those who are engaged in war contracts and
in cheating the Government, the 10,000 men will be
raised without difficulty. Should it fall upon a
large percentage of poor men, it is not quite so cer-
tain that ultimate trouble will come out of it.
The removal of the quotations of gold from the
official lists has not had the effect anticipated by
Mr. Chase and the bankers and brokers who
yielded to his suggestions in the matter. Gold
maintained itself yesterday at a premium of 31+,
per cent., and silver at 251, both manifesting a
tendency to rise.

M.R. EMERSON ON PRESIDENT LIN-
COLN'S PROCLAMATION.

Ralph Waldo Emerson contributes to the Novem-
ber number of the Atlantic Monthly the following
masterly review of the President's proclamation of
emancipation, its purpose, and its probable effect:
"In so many arid forms which states encrust
themselves with, once in a century, if so often, a
poetic act and record occur. These are the jets of
thought into affairs when, roused by danger or in-
spired by genius; the political leaders of the day
break the else insurmountable routine of class and
local legislation and take a step forward in the
direction of catholic and universal interests. Every
step in the history of political liberty is a sally of the
human mind into the untried future, and has the
interest of genies, and is fruitful in heroic anecdotes.
Liberty is a slow fruit. It comes, like religion, for
short periods, and in rare conditions, as if awaiting
a culture of the race which shall make it organic
and permanent. Such moments of expansion in
modern history were the Confession of Augsburg,
the plantation of America, the English Common-
wealth of 1648, the Declaration of American Inde-
pendence iu 1776, the British Emancipation of
slaves in the West Indies, the passage of the Re-
form Bill, the repeal of the corn-laws, the magnetic
ocean telegraph, though yet imperfect, the passage
of the Homestead Bill in the last Congress, and
now, eminently, President Lincoln's proclamation
on the 22d of September. These are acts of
great scope, working on a long future, and
ou permanent interests, and honouring alike
those who initiate and those who receive them.
These measures provoke no noisy joy, but
are received into a sympathy so deep as to apprise
us that mankind are greater and better than we
know. At such times it appears as if a new public
were created to greet the new event. It is as when
an orator, having ended the compliments and plea-
santries with which he conciliated attention, and
having run over the superficial fitness and commo-
dities of the measure he urges, suddenly, lending
himself to some happy inspiration, announces with
vibrating voice the grand human principles involved
—the bravoes and wits who greeted him loudly
thus far are surprised and overawed ; a new audi-
ence is now found in the heart of the assembly—an
audience hitherto passive and unconcerned, now at
last so searched and kindled that they come for-
ward every one a representative of mankind, stand-
ing for all nationalities. The extreme moderation
with which the President advanced to his design—
his long-avowed expectant policy, as if he chose to
be strictly the rexecutive of the best public senti-
ment of the country, waiting only till it should be
unmistakably pronounced—so fair a mind that none
ever listened so patiently to such extreme varieties
of opinion—so reticent that his decision has taken
all parties by surprise, whilst yet it is the just
sequel of his prior acts—the firm tone in which he
announces it, without inflammation or surplusage
—all these have bespoken such favour to the act,
that great as the popularity of the President has
been, we are beginnin to think that we have under-
estimated the capacity and virtue which the Divine
Providence has made an instrument of benefit so
vast. He has been permitted to do more for Ame-
rica than any other American man. He is well en-
titled to the most indulgent construction. Forget all
that we thought shortcomings, every mistake, every
delay. In the extreme embarrassments of his part,
call these endurance, wisdom, magnanimity, illu-
minated, as they now are, by this dazzling success.
When we consider the immense opposition that has
been neutralised or converted by the progress of
the war (for it is not long since the President anti-
cipated the resignation of a large number of officers
in the army, and the secession of three states on the
promulgation of this policy)—when we see how the
great stake which foreign nations hold in our affairs
has recently brought every European power as a
client into this court, and it became every day more
apparent what gigantic and what remote interests
were to be affected by the decision of the President
—one can hardly say the deliberation was too long.
Against all timorous counsels he had the courage to
seize the moment; and such was his position, and
such the felicity attending the action, that he has
replaced government in the good graces of mankind.
Better is virtue in the sovereign than plenty in
the season,' say the Chinese. 'Tis wonderful what
power is, and how ill it is used, and how its ill use
makes life mean, and the sunshine dark, Life in
America had lost much of its attraction in the later
years. The virtues of a good magistrate undo a
world of mischief, and, because nature works with
rectitude, seem vastly more potent than the acts
dbdrTrotottowihhaefffeaahnasteemrtAegriiciebhsoiladgtfa,aoewbgrawcosdantos
acts of
resistance
governors, vea
get
whichroumn or
midsummer
ssou,
fraud
governors
atwhichmhudee rpa de
and
areoadpwyl
oes
violence
ikeoeamlvneaesdntr
attet
ohe
geometrical
encounter.
repair
oar
uie
rdn t
incessantebbrye.
ehsft
droao:iercpysoetaceuhenuearetusrnoliaiostnwwfehec
ehws,
cohaaat
Irrnoohte.buae
eirvaysresAew,
bta
nufNyi datlr
lcoaenwuvysdolteowtrmomyri
fkht
November,
eachn:nht
ahsuronepmgdredho:
dreadful
etleomlacomdtfibfi
fenoe
necessaryuurnndsl
itirAeecoatioarbmoyitntnfeh its costs and uncertainties, seems now to
e
will have passed over our beating hearts and plot-
that this measure should be suddenly marked by
any signal results on the negroes or on the rebel
masters. The force of the act is that it commits the
country to this justice—that it compels the innu-
merable officers, civil, military, and naval, of the
republic to range themselves on the line of this
equity. It draws the fashion to this side. It is
not a measure that admits of being taken back.
Done, it cannot be undone by a new administration.
For slavery overpowers the disgust of the moral
sentiment only through immemorial usage. It can-
not be introduced as an improvement of the 19th
century. This act makes that the lives of our heroes
hlhiaekvaele
promise the redemption of the black race—that lies
not with us—but it relieves it of our opposition.
The President by this act has paroled all the slaves
vu
in America—they will no more fight agatrime
and
and it relieves our race once for all of its c
success is
false position. The first condition
ofWe h are se-
curedreco-
in putting ourselves right..
don, and planted
vered ourselves from our false position, a victory
ourselves on a law of nature• . It does not
.s
" If that fail,
And earth's base built
d itself of the best
The Government has assureevery
spark of intellect,
stituency in the world
religious heart, every
every
feeling,
every virtuous
poet, every philosopher, the
every
man of honour,
'• • the health of the country,
of the cities,
generosity
of the mechanics, the endurance of
the strong arms
passionate conscience of women, the
farmers, the
The pillared firmament
of distant nations—all rally to its sup.
sympathy
course we are assuming the firmness of the
port. Of
policy thus declared. is
It must not be a paper pro-
clamation. We confide that Mr. Lincoln is in ear-
nest, and, as he has been slow in making:up his
disasters. a
llr
yte makest a l
e d a
vic-
tory t
h