The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-01 00:00:00

CHIEF JUSTICE CHASE.

The numerous reports and the strong denuncia-
tion affecting Mr. Chase have moved him to write a
letter, which has found its way into print. The
country desires to know what position he has de-
cided on taking, in view of the unconcealed desire
of many leading Democrats to run him as their
candidate for the Presidency. Ills letter reassure:
his Republican friends as regards his principles, bat
will scarcely aid the Chief Justice in securing the'
Democrazic noniination. A repro, who went to
Washington to see the Chief Justice on the subject
of Negro Suffrage, gives this as the result of the in-
r vie w :—"II had al ways been an anti-slavery man
and always expected to be ;he had never gone down
to any man or party. In 1818, in Ohio, neither of
the greatp-trti2s could elect a Senator without the
aid of the liberty party. The Democrats made a
proposition to its membors, and agreed for their
Bopp t to rope 1 the black laws and elect a Fre,
Soiler to the United Stites Senate. lie was him-
self elected on that condition, and the bill repealing
the blaCk laws passed as he ha I himself drafted it.
Ile had not gone down to them—they had come up
to him. If his friends placed him in a similar posi-
tion now, he was ip their hands." Ile and Pendleton
are now most prominently spoken of ; yet it is hard
to believe that eit her has a chance. Pendleton mean::
repudiation—Chase, negro suffrage. If the Demo-
crats choose the former, they go in weighted, so as
to have no hope in the race, and they will bring on
their party not only defeat but disgrace, for it
would be stigmatized henceforth, both at home and
abroad, as the party of dishonesty. If they take
Chase they. throw away their trump card as a party,
although the Chief Justice may cast a heavy
weight into their scale. If the Democrats can win,
it will be by working on the Northern prejudice
against the Negro. This is the shoal the Chicago
Convention so skilfully steered to avoi 1, but
could only pass by heaving overboard the
ballast of principle, and they will find when
again in deep water that their craft is all the more
cranky and liable to be capsized. The Democrats
have got no principle, and they can take short cuts
over any shoals to the haven of office, the harbour
they desire. Therefore if they throw away their
power of working the prejudice of the white against
the black, they throw away their best chance of
success. We would be well pleased to see Chase
nominated, and the struggle narrowed to two such
good champions as he and Grant. But we fear that
his unqualified declaration of principles will destroy
his chance, for it is notorious that with such a
programme hundreds of thousands of Democrats
would refuse to vote or would support Grant as the
better D.:moent of the two. .
" WASHINGTON, D.C., May 25, 18Gi.

"My dear Sir, —You are right in believing that
I shall never abandon the great principles for the
success of which I have g'ven my entire life. I ad-
here to my o'd creed of equal rights without one jot
or tittle of abatement. I shall be glad if the new
professors of that creed adhere to it as faithfully.
am amazed by the torrent of invectives by which lam
drenched; almost everything alleged as fact is false-
hood, out of the whole cloth. Where an alleg ttion
has a little fact in it, the fact is so perverted and
travestied that it beco.nes falsehood. I known) mo-
tive for all this, except the disappointment that Im-
peachment hts not thus far proved a success, coupled
with a belief that I have done something to prevent
its being a success. I have not been a par.isan of
Impeachment, certainly ; but I have not been a
partisan on the other side. As presiding officer
over the trial, my conscience testifies that I have
been strictly impartial, and I am sure that any one
who reads the report will say so. Individually, I have
my convictions and opinions, but I have very seldom
give an utterance to them. Indeed, Ido not think
that the case, in any of its aspects, has been the
subject of conversa.ion between myself and more
than four or five Senators; an I then Only casually
and briefly. No Senator will say that I have sought
to influence him. The real ground of denuncia-
tion is that I have not been a partisan of convic-
tion, and his denunciation I am willing to bear.
They. may denounce and abuse me, and rea 1 inc
out of the party if they choose. I folio .v my of
iiffits, not the new. What the developments of
he future may be I know n it. I neither ex, ect
nor desire to be a ctnlid ite for °dice agAi.i. I
would, however, gratify in: exceedingly if the I)
'noeratic party would take ground which would
assure the party against all attaini)ts to subvert
the principle of universal suffrage, established in
right, and to be established in all the Southern
Constitutions. Then, I think, the future of the
great cause for which I have laboured so long
would be secure, and I should not regret my ab-
sence from political labours.

" SALMON P. CHASE."

THE LONDOiV PAPERS ON AMERICA.

The Times occasion'tlly, once a month or so,
gives some American news. It has an American
correspondent at Philadelphia! whom, we presume,
it has picked up casually, and who when in the
humour drops the Times a line. His letter pub-
lished on Thursday was dated June 12th, and
although REVERDY JOHNSON'S appointment as
Minister to England had been unanimous!y con-
firmed by the Senate on the 11th, the corre-
spondent did nol consider it worth while to men-
tion the circumstance. Whole weeks pass without
the publication of a word of American intelligence
written for the leading journal of Europe, and
when it does condescend to notice the Union it i 3
from an occasional writer boo de 1 in Philadelphia,
who gives little more than a column, and omits all
mention of such an item as the selection of the
Ambassador to St James's. It is no won ler that
the English are culpably ignorant to their own
great detriment, of American affairs. It is impos-
sible for people to be interested in news who know
nothing of the bearings of the questions discusse i,
and of all the educational means in that way the
limes ought to be the most powerful. Englishmen
acknowledge the overwhelming importance of their
relations with America. The Times itself has often
asserted that given the friendship of the Union
that of all other nations is immaterial ; yet it does
nothing to forward an object it professes so highly
to appreciate. No American papers are circulated
in England, and the people are wholly dependent
for their knowledge of America on the great London
dailies, lo_king more especially to the Times. If
they see nothing of the news of the country they
know nothing of it, and think nothing of it, until
circumstances force it on their attention, when they
have suddenly to judge questions of which they are
profoundly ignorant. Then, they make gross mis-
takes, to the annoyance and disgust of Americans,
who scarcely know whether to attribute them to
stupidity or malignity, for they cannot understand
the extraordinary ignorance. Even American
newspapers in small towns have Loudon corre-
spondents ; and although the Times the other
day sneered at an item of English news
from America wherein it was announced that
the PRESIDENT was to be prayed for with
the QUEEN, yet, as a rule, the information
is not only full, but accurate in a high degree.
When reviews like the Spectator write articles on
American subjects, they are usually skipped, for
what is the use of following the reviewer in the ela-
borate discussion of a matter the alphabet of ss hich
is unknown. And when au article is read, as it pro-
bably runs wholly counter to the ridiculous preju-
judices entertained by the realer, it only excites
irritation. Thus, from beginning to end, the great
American war was fought, the English people
knowing little more about the real merits of the
questions, the objects, and the relative powers of
the combatants, than they do of the Russians in
Bokhara. But no matter what may be the want
of knowle.lge, it in no way prevents sides being
taken. had the Englishmen who got red in the
face, and felt inclined to fling off their coats, effec-
tually to pu those who differed about the war, been
questioned, they would have been compelled to
acknewle lge their ignorance. True sympathy can-
not exist where the one is so unacquainted with the
other, and the first step towards the cultivation of
kindly relations is to dissipate this ignorance. Not
long ago we discussed the desire of the British clod
to 'eave 'alf a brick at a stranger, and we know that
this feeling is general not only through the nation,