The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-21 00:00:00

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THE SUN.

L°NI)ON, FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 1862.

All anti
of the PitESI, as Englishmen are, the Message
been scanned
which we published yesterday,
must have
by thousands with intense
inlerest. They would be anxious to detect in Mr.
LINCOLN'S peculiar :It
:a: some clear indication that
negro emancipation
policy which he had at
length decided on as indispensablethe to that greater
object, as he deems it, reconstruction of the
Union. In this they would so
disappointed.
They woultl see that the widest soon be
x
ifon on which
they could fasten was the "initiations
tion," and that the direct object was to deprive the
original seceding States of any hope of securingvthe
ultimate secession of the Border States, should th
former ha cbie to secure first their own indepen_
dencf. Tbe hope of the Gulf States lay at first in
foreign help, and in the co-operation of the Border
States, these last being far more powerful than
tt,mselvos. The South now sees that there is not
the slightest ground to expect aid, nor, indeed, even
" comfort" or sympathy, from Europe. Their only
Taining trust was the Border States. In these
States, though the slaves were in proportion to the
Whites, but few as comparei with the planting
States, yet as the slaveholders were the more
wealthy and influential portion of the community,

the bias of power in Kentucky, and still more in.
Virginia, would be towards the Southern cause.
The PRESIDENT'S Message is designed to change
that bias. While the war lasts, and perhaps for
some time after it is concluded, the slaves must be
of uncertain, certainly of much smaller value ;
and a wealthy slaveholder would naturally
begin to think it were better for him to have
the means of hiring free labour, under
a strong Government, than to risk all in war, or in
unsettled relations between a Northern and a
Southern federation. To produce this effect is the
immediate object of the PRESIDENT'S Message.
The small band of pro -slavery writers and
speakers in England are already beginning to re-
duce to a minimum the proposals of the PRESIDENT,
but they are not viewed in the same way in America
itself. Making every allowance for the "sensation"
style of American papers, they regard the message
as, substantially, the commencement of a new public
policy. And we think they are right. The great
point gained is that emancipation, at a heavy cost,
is deemed better than destruction of the Union. In
this country we have felt no interest in its
reconstruction, if slavery was to be, as before,
its pervading element. If the Slave States
were to be so numerously represented both in the
Senate and the Lower House that they were at least
a veto power in the federation ; and, if they were
to pervade the North with a Fugitive Slave Law,
we in England, with our strong anti-slavery convic-
tions, all felt with Lord SHAFTESBURY that such a
reunion was no concern of ours. The PRESIDENT'S
Message aims at directly the reverse of this. If
it does not suggest emancipation in the Gulf
States, which we think it probable he does not
yet wish, it suggests emancipation in such a num-
ber of the most powerful Slave States—that is,
the Border States—as would give the entire pre-
ponderance in a reconstructed Union to the Free
States. Were the great Border States to accept
the emancipation of their slaves for a fair
compensation, the slave power in la new
Union would be subdued for ever. It would
be both politically and militarily insignificant,
and the Government of the States must hence-
forth be administered solely in the interest of free-
dom. Under these circumstances even the Southern
plantations would soon begin to feel the influence
of the greater power, and the remaining Slave
States would become gradually Free States also.
Far as such a policy may fall below what we
might demand as ardent abolitionists, it would be
uncandid to deny that it is a prodigious step in
advance. There has been nothing like it hitherto
in America. It is but a few years since slave-
holders kept out of Congress even a petition
on the subject of slavery—fewer still since
they forced the Fugitive Slave Law on negroes •
and now we have a President coming
forward to propose the abolition, by purchase, of
slavery, in several of the most important States of
the Union ! Such an advance marks the effect of
—the rebellion on the most impervious class of minds
those of the Administration itself—as being greater
than probably they themselves are aware of. It
shows that they now perceive that without deal-
ing with slavery the Union can never have again a
" stable equilibrium.: The PRESIDENT, venerating
as a lawyer the constitution and legal modes of
procedure, and having, besides, the less refractory
States to deal with, proposes the mildest measures,
avoids Pkcollisions with State rights, and offers to
make a sacrifice as heavy as the cost of war. But
the principle which indicates all this is that the
Free States must be secured in their predominance.
All the Border States but Virginia are now in the
hands of the North. Their allegiance might be fluc-
tuating or divided if they were left as Slave States,
and now the offer is—not to bribe them by compro•
miser in favour of slavery, but by an offer to make
the slaves freemen! Never had the Slave States such
an offer before. All Las been ouite in the other direc-
tion. Territory south of a certain line—a fugitive
slave law—legal decisions of increasing severity
against the slaves, and in favour of the most abso-
lute power on the part of his master—these have
been the " bids" and " compromises" offered by the
North to the South. Co-operation to convert it
at a heavy coat into Free-soil, proposed by the head
of the Executive—disguise and qualify hoW one
will—marks the most stupendous change of policy
which we can well conceive. It may not, indeed,
be carried out in its present form, but it is the sub-
stance, not the form, which inaugurates a new era
is the North.

At present it seems superfluous to discuss the
question of cost and funds. Notwithstanding the
pecuniary difficulties of the North, every American
must understand that no pecuniary investment
could be a better one for the future peace, unity,
and therefore prosperity of his country, than the
fair purchase money of emancipation. The will
once created, the way would assuredly soon be
created too. It would pay far better to incur
national debt to free their own country, than to
purchase new territory from Mexico. There are
many considerations to reduce the fair value of

Islaves much below what was the price when there
was no doubt of their profitable employment. But
that point we shall advert to on another occasion.
The great fact now stands forth before all America
and the world that the PRESIDENT of the United
States has proposed to "initiate emancipation."

Hopes are again reviving in regard to the Atlan-
tic Telegraph. And common sense assures us that
these hopes now are, to a great extent, reasonable.
At the last ordinary meeting of the still existing
and, we rejoice to think, not yet by any means
moribund Company, arguments were adduced in
favour of the re-commencement ab initio of this
long, and as it at one time seemed, permanently
abandoned enterprise. Since the submergence of
the electric cable, now lying trailed along the bed
of the Atlantic Ocean, from Ehrope to America,
from Ireland to Newfoundland, there is not a
moment's doubt as to the fact that immense prac-
tical improvements have been made in every de-
partment of electro-telegraphic cable manufactur-
ing, The mere profundity of the water under which
the electric cable has anywhere to be sunk, has
by this time been proved to be a matter of com-
paratively no importance whatever. Depth of
water—mere depth of water is no appreciable ob-
stacle in itself to the successful completion of any
undertaking of the kind. If conclusive evidence of
this were required it would be found with the greatest
facility ready to hand in the instance of the telegraphic
line now connecting Toulon with Algeria. That
talPeraphic cable is, in its extreme length, 600
miles from snolo t‘, chore—making allowance, that
is, for its slackness here and there, Ewa for its occa-
sional divergence from a straight line in the sub-
marine course taken by it from France to Africa.
Yet there it is firmly secured—there it retnains
to this moment, in
below th -
less by threethe
0 good working order, at a depth
e surface of the Meditetranean Sea only
Ocean,
fathoms than the depth
other cable below the surface of

Speaking
in
round numbers, the cable
running across the bed of the Mediter-
ranean from Toulon to Algeria, has required to
be submerged to a depth of 1,800 fathoms
round numbers the
altogether. Speaking still in