The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-03 00:00:00

Reconstruction of the Southern States.

The Mw York Herald continues the discussion
of the political question of reconstruction. That
the South made war on the Government and
attempted to destroy the country is not a matter
of opinion but of fact. This is the Northern view
of the war, and the fact that the North prevailed
establishes that it is the legal view of the war. By
the fact of attempting the life of the nation the
South put its own political existence in jeopardy,
and, in fact, as determined by the result, forfeited
that political existence. And this, to go aside
from the argument, was the light in which the
whole South saw the result at the first glance when
the war was over. The South at the close of the
war had no political rights that the Government
could be required to respect, and the bat it could
claim for its position was that it stood under the
law of nations, as a conquered enemy. But the
South could not justly complain of this, for it had
itself invited the State that suspended all civil
rights, and it must be content with the position in
which it was found when the war powers once
more gave way and the nation returned to the
Government of civil law. One of the asserted
principles in the war was that the slaves should be
made free. That was declared by proclamation,
and, lest a proclamation made during war should
not hold good for peace, steps were taken to put
that part of the Northern war platform into the
Constitution. Thus it was positively determined
by the nation that the abolition of slavery should
be a result of the nation's victory, and that another
result of that victory should be that Congress
should have one more specific power given to it--
the power so to arrange Southern society as to
carry out in letter and spirit the intention of the
country, that the South should again stand on a
level with the North only after its society was re-
organised by a full revision of the position of the
negro. Force is implied in all organisation of
society, and just now the force is on the Northern
side. It is to carry out the Northern will as ex-
pressed by that result of the war—the constitu-
tional amendment. The Northern victor, having
put down the enemy by force, offers the two pro-
positions of the amendment as his will, as the condi-
tion on which his conquered enemy may have the
foot removed from his breast and stand erect again,
and even come fairly in as an equal. That is the
real force of the constitutional amendment, and the
section that gives Congress the power for "appro-
priate legislation" is not less significant than that
which formally abolishes slavery. Since the aboli-
tion of slavery restores all men to the natural con-
dition, Congress has to regulate the position of
each by the necessary laws. Let it now, therefore,
simply pass a law regulating the suffrage, and
thus determine what the real position of the
negro is.

United States Customs Receipts.

The receipts from duties on imports at the four
principal ports of the United States, during
the month of December, 1865, amounted
to $9,841,552.76, and it is estimated that when
the returns from all the minor ports have been re-
ceived the amount will reach $11,000,000 for last
month. The total receipts from this source during
the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1865, was a little
over eighty-four millions of dollars, while the re-
ceipts for the first half of the present fiscal year,
ending Dec. 31st, 1865, will be as large as the total
receipts for the whole of the fiscal years ending
in 1864 and 1865. The following table exhibits
the receipts of the four principal ports, by months,
since the 30th of June last :

NEW YORK.

July
August
September
October
November
December

89,778,176.65
13,113,689.50
12,929,615.64
10,973,513.01
9,993,488.76
8,348,750.41