The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-08 00:00:00

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THE SUN.
LONDON, ,SATURDAY, NOV. 8, 1862.

It seems as if a vest part of the press of this
country must range itszllf on the side of the
North or the South. Why we should be partizans
of either we cannot comprehend, since we have
all seen from the beginning that neither party was
contending for the only object in which Englishmen
can feel any interest. It has been noticed again
and again that the
PRESIDENT was perfectly neu-
tral on the question of slavery, that he declared in
his inaugural, not only that he could not legally
interfere with slavery where it already existed, but
that " he had no desire to do so," and recently, at so
,late a period of the war, in reply to a letter from
gr. HORACE GREELY, he declared that "the
Union'," with slavery or without it, was his only
object; that the abolition or retention of slavery
must, so fa: as he was concerned, depend upon
which would be,-1 save the Union. Since then, tak-
ing the North as a knit, it has been confessed from
the beginning to be personally averse to the negro,
and not to be engaged in a war for his freedom,
while the South was avowedly fighting for two
things—its independent existence and its slavery—
have we not a right to strike our own balance, and
to wish for success to that party whose triumph will
most farther our own object.
The Not'th then, we affirm, though for purely
selfish reasons, is fighting for one object, which
every Englishman hopes to see attained—the
tatzon of slavery. That was the grand point
which Mr. LINCOLN would not cm;pede to the
Southern delegates. They might keep their
sla very as long as they liked—they might have an
honestly worked slave law—the personal liberty
acts of the Northern State legislatures might be
repealed—but one thing Mr. LINCOLN firmly said
might not be—!he South might not extend its
" domestic institution" into the territories of the
United States. That prohibition had been, he
said, the distinctive policy of his party, it was
his own conviction that it was a right policy,
and that the Constitution ought to be worked
for the extension of freedom, not of slavery.
On this " honest ABE put down his foot." We
know that the reason of his party's firmness
on this point is selfish—it is that free labour cannot
demean itself to compete with slave labour, and
that it was essential therefore to exclude slavery
from all the west yet untainted with it. But
surely, whatever the motive, with this end we must
al; cordially concur. No honest English journal,
vihtn!'ever its predilections, ought to keep this out of
sight. If the south triumph, all the vast unsettled
western territory will be open to the slaveholder,
and the slaveholder s fighting that it may be so. If
the North triumph, slavery must be content with
its own territory, which, vast as it is—larger, in-
deed, than the North—the unthrifty system of slave
labour has already to a great extent exhausted of
its
best lands. Which do Englishmen prefer ?
Three things have undoubtedly chiefly created
that great .
extent of sympathy felt in this country
with
the Southerners. Those who battle for inde-
pendence will
Eng-
lishmen ; the word
have the good will of
word has a magic charm for us.
Next, the United
States, relying or; magnitude and
unity have been
the most bullying andintolerant
h
nation the world latelyt seen, their favourite
government, that
or h
South is chiefly answeraeblC"r, not excepted; the
all this swagger,
wilfulness, and bounse, for
a
IPlomatic intercourse
with European nations ;
forhitherto the South has
ben in power ; still, as the vastness
was the cause of it, there has of the Union
been a
widely
spread feeling that the independence Of the
South would bind both the new sections
the old Federation to better behaviour. LutiY, to
of
au this has been added Southern success. in
irrel it i impossible not to sympathise with
successful courage oa the side of the weaker, quite
independently of the merits of the dispute. We
should do it in witnessing a fight between two
dogs. The South started at such a disadvantage in
point of numbers, and wealth, and naval power,
and manufacturing resources, as compared with the
North, and the latter seemed so COD fidout of being
able to overwhelm the South by mere
that,armies
in the old Assyrian or Persian style, i has
been, impossible not to look with something akin to