THE WAR AND THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]
New York, November 5, 1864. GOLD, which was at 215 on Saturday last, rose to 250 on Wednes- day of this week. What was the reason of this great and sudden rise? Price had been driven out of Missouri, he and his border ruffians, most ingloriously ; Beauregard and Hood, whatever they may be able to do, had and have yet done nothing to loosen Sher- man's foothold in Georgia, or even to disturb his equanimity (I had the pleasure of reading a long private letter fresh from him yester- day) ; Sheridan was master of his situation, Grant still held his gradually lengthening lines at Petersburg, and yet for three days there was enough uneasiness to make gold go up like a rocket. The sensitiveness of the public mind had magnified a movement of Grant's which was a feeler into a failure. The army correspondents of the newspapers, in their natural anxiety to prevent a sudden depression just at this time, helped much to cause one. They reported the movement as only a reconnaisance in force. It proved to have been something more, and to have been fruitless. The secessionists who are living here and the Peace men and the Copperheads "improved the occasion," gloried in a repulse, and were jubilant over a disaster. But they were much farther out of the way than the correspondents.
The affair was simply this. It took place on Thursday, October 27, as you have previously learned. General Grant thought that he might possibly find General Lee weak enough upon his extreme right to make an attempt to force his lines there practicable, and he determined to make an examination, and in such a way that if his supposition, or rather his hope, was well founded to make the assault. Therefore Butler was ordered to make so much of a demonstration upon Lee's left as would keep his attention to that point, and three army corps with six days' rations moved upon the right. But Lee of course was found there in full strength, and taking advantage of a fault in tactics which exposed the left flank of one corps, made an attack upon it. There was some brisk fighting. Two guns were taken and retaken, a few hundred prisoners were captured on both sides, there was an attempt at a cavalry charge on the part of the Con- federates which failed most miserably, and both armies resumed their former positions, except that Grant gained a few miles to the westward on his ever prolonging left. People have discovered their folly, and gold has gone down again to 232, but the election of Mr. Lincoln will keep it at least at that point I think. I say that General Lee was of course found on his right in full force, because even if he were as poor a general as your Yankee correspondent would make, he must know that there is just the spot where Grant must attack if he attack in earnest, unless he wishes Lee to get clean away from him. On the south and west of his right Lee has a line of retreat, on the north and east if he is defeated he must stir render, or go into the Free States, or into the sea. The movement somewhat puzzles me, for I wonder how Grant could suppose that he could catch Lee in so very profound a nap.
One word about an international topic. The London Times of October 15 says :—" The American cress has for a long time given us the fullest information as to the visions that float beforp the eyes of the politicians of the North with reference to the opal- clu.sion of the war." Those visions are stated to be that NArth and South "can unite together for the purpose of subjugating the
colonies of Great Britain." Let me assure my readers that there is not one word of truth in this assertion. What the Times may have found upon the subject in the New York Herald I cannot say, but no paper of any decency or influence has made such a proposition. Nor is there any such purpose or desire in our peo- ple. I would not, however, spend time upon this mere denial, but the correction gives me the opportunity of saying that the prospect of the union of the British American Provinces under one government is looked upon here with equal interest and pleasure. We hope that the onion will be formed, and that it will be effectually and strongly made, and not after the fashion of a confederacy. We desire this for the good of Canada, and we think that it would be well for us if there were upon our northern border a nation, instead of a loose aggregation of provinces—a nation of sufficient magnitude and strength to give us the impression of a firm boundary northward, and to bring us into official contact with a compact contiguous government which we must respect, as well as with a people whom we hope to make our friendly rivals. Let me add here that if Mexico should really adopt Maximilian, or any other prince, and with reasonable unanimity establish a liberal monarchy, no people would be better pleased than we. Great Britain or France cannot desire a stable government in Mexico more than we do ; and we see plainly that that motley mass of effete Spaniards, half-breeds, and Indians is incapable of a democratic republic like ours, or in fact of a representative republic government of any kind. It is not a monarchy that we regard with aversion in Mexico, but a certain monarch that we look upon with distrust and appre- hension. We have no faith in Louis Napoleon, no respect for him, in spite of his ability. We all of us believe him to be a crafty, unscrupulous, sagacious despot, who has absolute command of a large army officered by his creatures, and filled with men who, under any ruler, are ready to sacrifice themselves and others for that blood-blown bubble called /a gloire. We believe that if he thought that he could hold his ground he would seize Texas and the mouth of the Mississippi without the least compunction, and as much more as he could get. We do not want an acre of Mexico, we do not care whether she is governed by an autocrat or a mass meeting so long as she is governed, but we resent the imposition of a monarch by force of European arms upon an American people.
These topics, however, are far from that one which now fills all our minds, which absorbs us soul and body. Before these lines reach you the general election will have taken place, and its immediate consequences will have become known to us. We are now in the height of the greatest political excitement that has ever agitated the nation. Yet it is rather a deep-seated anxiety than a fierce excitement. Perhaps no nation was ever so profoundly agitated, except France at the time of her first revolution, and it may reasonably be doubted whether France at that time, outside Paris and a few other cities, felt the agitation which now thrills through every reclaimed acre of a country where every tiller of the soil and every pioneer can read and vote. The cities, and not they only, but all the towns, are now nightly vexed with political meetings—those least attractive, least reasonable, least respectable of all our public doings. A political meeting here is not in any proper sense of the phrase a deliberative body, even under the most favourable circumstances. Our meetings are in- variably called, as perhaps you know, by one party only, and the members of that party only are invited to be present. The speaking is therefore all upon one aide, and any attempt to bring forward views opposite to those of the committee who " engineer " the meeting would be resented as an insult. And an indecorum it certainly would be, because an unwarranted intrusion. Indeed a man holding such op- posite opinions is only present as it were upon sufferance, be- cause he was not asked to come by the people who got up the meet- ing and bear all its expenses. Under these circumstances of course discussion is impossible, and in fact never takes place. The speeches and the resolutions are all prepared beforehand, and the performance is gone through according to an arranged programme. In this respect we are far inferior to you, and after the platitudes and bombast which with rare exceptions are poured fluently out by the speakers at one of our meetings for political or kindred pur- poses, it is refreshing to read the report of one of yours, in which there is really a discussion, and men with stout good nature main- tain opposite opinions, and a vote is taken with the expectation, if not the certainty, that there will be some noes. Some of our m tings are very striking and very absurd. One of them took place here last evening, one the evening before last in Broo yn, which is just across the East River, and is really but a
part of New York. These are torchlight meetings. Enormous associations formed for the canvass, and calling themselves War Eagles, or Wide Awakes, or Empire Clubs, or some other nauseous name get these meetings up. Thousands of people go in pro- cession, tramping through the streets with illuminated tran- sparencies, torches in such numbers that the whole air reeks with petroleum smoke, Roman candles, and other fireworks, large bells, and even cannon, which are carried on vans and fired as the pro- cession moves along. It was but the other evening that one of these guns was fired within a few feet of my head when I least expected it, and just behind me the concussion brought down all the gay jars in the window of an apothecary's shop with a simultaneous crash. After much annoying nonsense of this kind the procession stops at an appointed open space, where stages have been erected, and there with the spectators a meeting is held, at which some- times ten or twelve thousand people are present. Is it strange that speaking under such circumstances is blatant nonsense All this, however, will soon be over. It has nothing to do with the present state of affairs in particular. We have had these torchlight meet- ings for many years. There only remains this evening for such vagaries, which disgrace our people and our form of government. For we profess to rule, and do rule, through the intelligence of the people, in spite of these coarse and puerile proceedings.
The election takes place on Tuesday next. The Chicago Demo- crats have given up the hope of carrying it, but they are straining every nerve to make Mr. Lincoln's majority as small as possible, and in particular to carry the State of New York. Their object in the latter effort is not limited to the control of the power and patronage of the State Government. They are proclaiming loudly that the Government is attempting to carry the election by fraud and violence. They say that General Dix has already begun to intimidate Democratic electors, because he has issued a proclama- tion intended as a warning to refugee secessionists that they will be taken care of if they attempt fraud or violence. George San- ders, the Confederate agent, has the impudence to say in a letter published in Montreal that General Dix has directed "the Federal soldiery to take possession of the polls in New York" upon elec- tion day. Now General Dix is a lifelong Democrat of the straitest seat, whose honour is unimpeached, and, moreover, his order con- tains this paragraph :—
" No military force will be embodied at or in the vicinity of any of the polls, and there must be no interference in any manner with the exercise of the right of suffrage, or with those who are charged with the performance of any duty connected with the election in any of the States in this department, under their constitutions and laws. But if the civil authorities should call on you to aid them in keeping the peace, you are authorized and required to do so, acting in strict sub- ordination to them."
How fatal to the liberties of a people who have inherited Magna Cherie, the Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus, &c., dec., and all that sort of thing So say the Democrats, so-called, and they wish to take the position that the election is carried by intimidation, and should the people of New York not declare themselves largely in favour of Mr. Lincoln and fail to unseat Governor Seymour, they then will, if they see the way clear, attempt to resist the Govern- ment on the ground that it is not constitutionally chosen. But I think that they will not see their way clear even if the State should go for General M'Clellan, and that is more than doubtful. The next fortnight, however, is the crisis of the country, and the supreme test of the strength of our Government and the stability of our people. A civil, war of unparalleled proportions, an en- venomed and desperate faction in sympathy with the open enemies of the country, a free press and free speech, absolutely free except within military lines, incendiary invasion from the territory of a friendly power imminent upon our border, revolution openly threat- ened within by the party in favour of the rebels, and in the midst of this to be called upon to decide who shall administer the Government, who shall be king for the next four years ! Did ever any nation, any government suffer a strain anything like so severe without being rent in pieces ? I know of none. All history is dead against us. But, as I have said before, history affords us no guiding example, can teach us very little. For history never yet had to do with an instructed democracy of English folk trained through centuries for self-government. I look forward to the issue with profound anxiety, but with unswerving confidence. The Republic will stand.
A YANKEE,
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