The London times on Lincoln's last letter.
The London
Times, of the 14th, closes an editorial reviewing the condition of American affairs, as follows:
‘
But the political news is far the most interesting and important part of the intelligence we publish to-day.
The letter of
President Lincoln to the New York State Convention of the Republican party is pitched in a very different key from the letters we have been accustomed to receive from
Mr. Seward.
It is remarkable that at the most successful moment of the war, while daily expecting to hear that the fall of
Charleston had followed that of
Vicksburg, the
President speaks in a graver and more sober tone than has yet reached us from the
Federal Government. "The war," he says, "progresses as favorably since the issue of the Emancipation proclamation as before it." If that is all he can say we do not wonder at his adding that it would not do to be "sanguine of a speedy and final triumph. " He appears, in fact, to be opening his eyes at last to the hopeless political difficulties which would surround him in any dealings with the seceded States.
It is satisfactory to see that he repudiates the force of treating as of any importance the pretended Union sentiments of packed meetings in
Mississippi and
Tennessee--"Any compromise to be effective must be made with the rebel army or those who control it, or with the population it command;" and he denies that any overture has ever been made to his Government by either of these Powers.
The Confederate Government show no sign of making any such proposals.
The comparatively quiet intelligence which we publish to-day tells of patient and determined resistance at every point; and, with characteristic awkwardness, while admitting that the only advances toward peace can come from the army and its leaders,
Mr. Lincoln throws the greatest possible difficulty in the way of their ever thinking of any such overture by letting it be understood that the leaders of the secession would be the only persons excepted from any amnesty.
While
President Davis, and the able men who surround him knew that whatever might be the result to their country their submission would be followed by their own ruin, and possibly their execution, they will certainly strain every nerve to induce the
Southern people to fight to the last.
’
Mr. Lincoln declares; too, that no compromise embracing the maintenance of the
Union is now possible.
He commits himself, in so many words, to a war of conquest, to last possibly, by his own admission, for years, and without having any definite plan or policy whatever for the
Government of the country he proposes to conquer.
With such a prospect it is natural that not even the anticipated fall of
Charleston was sufficient to rouse him to any language beyond that of sullen resolution.
The chances of the conquest itself are distant enough, if the reinforcement of his armies proceeds as it has hitherto done in the
Eastern States.--The gunboats that patrol the
Hudson, the artillery that commands the squares, and the twenty or thirty thousand men who garrison New York, have produced a return of not quite 2,000 conscripts.
Even these are not likely to be of much use it he has to begin enforcing discipline in his new army by shooting seven substitutes for conscripts who had deserted.
The negro troops will not help him, if the
Southern States, as seems to be the case, have made up their minds to the arming of the slaves.
But when the last Confederate army is annihilated what does he imagine he could do with the miserable remnant of the
Southern population and the mass of helpless-negroes?
He confesses that his hands are tied by the emancipation proclamation, and that he can do little else than let things alone.
Will the
Americans be content to let the great ship of their Republic drift any further helpless and rudderless into this vast and fearful storm, with a pilot who confesses that he cannot guide her, but must let her drive before the wind?
