The Sun. — 1862-10-13 (London, England)

THE SUN. LONDON, MONDAY, OCT. 13, 1862.  We have now the official interpretation of the President's recent proclamation. Mr. SEWARD himself has furnished us with it. Re has made it the subject of a circular addressed to all the diplomatic and consular representatives of the United States in Europe—that is, to all the courts and nations of Europe., Oar readers perused it on Saturday, and they have seen, therefore, that our recent comments on the proclamation are declared to be just and fair by the American Chief Secretary himself. According to him it is not a proclamation based on any principle, not one which recognises negro rights and offers to redress negro wrongs. " All the good and wise men of all countries," he says,'" will recognise this measure as a just and wise military act, intended to deliver the country from a terrible civil war." . We do not quarrel with this so far as it goes. We have, from the beginning, told the Federals that they never could conquer except through justice to the negro. We have scouted the pro-slavery cant of certain journals in this country, which have endeavoured to confound emancipation with a bloody servile war. We have asserted, fearless cf contradiction, that neither our own experience in Jamaica, nor the dictates of common sense, could teach us that to bless the enslaved with liberty was the way to make them murderers, but we have not like Messrs. SEWARD and LINCOLN represented Emancipation as a purely " military measure." We have shown that it was something far better; that it was a great duty, one which this country paid £20,000,000 rather than not perform ; but one worth more than ten times that sum to the United States in -what it would save of the cost of the war. We have always represented the bloody rebellion of the South against the decision of the election into which they entered, as releasing the PRESIDENT from the technical slavery clauses of the constitution. and as legally authorising him to abolish the evil which morality and Christianity had long ago denounced as treason against the human race. We now see Mr. LINCOLN and Mr. SEWARD'S view of the posture of affairs. On the 22d of September, five days after the bloody battle of Antict" Creek, when the combined losses, according to IVP CIAL • LAN, amounted to very nearly forty-five thousand men, the President and his Secretary take a most hopeful view of the Northern cause, and regard the proclamation as the weapon which is to complete their Ili utnpb. True, the North must do something more than issue proclamations. They can have no effect beyond the reach of Federal guns. Still the representation • le, that the Confederate aggressive movement is checked, while the Federal troops are reanimated ; the Southern "financial resources decline rapidly," 1 good the financial position of the North is eSouthern '`means 1 of raising troops are exhausted,,, while in the North " the call for fresh troops I, being responded to." In this position Of promptly things the President plays his-last card. He places plainly before the people of America, that " if these states persist in imposing on the country, the choice between the dissolution of the Government and the ahnl• • - num of slavery, it is the Union and not slavery that must be ruiintained and saved."  It: was thought by many, at first, that the pro: e;.n:ation was much more intended for foreign than The forwarding of this circular to If so, however, Mr. SEWARD  we.  like it.  to have been aware that treating emancipation as merely a just "military measure" was not exactly the way to commend his cause to tha sympathies of Europe. We should rejoice, indeed, to see American slavery blotted out as the result of the war, but to make military success the sole reason gor the proposal, is to deprive it of all its merit here We may think it selfish wisdom, but we cannot commend Itr. SEWARD except as " the LORD commended the unjust Steward." The Secretary