TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CHANCES OF PEACE IN AMERICA. THE civil war in America is revealing to all men a fact which one or two observers had suspected before. The special circumstances of the United States, the vast extent of territory, and constant admixture of blood, the total absence of compression either from Government or from a superior class, or from poverty, or from armed nations beyond the border, the teaching of a press chiefly managed by working men, and per- haps some climatic influences, have developed a separate, and, in many respects, unique national character. The American is not simply an Englishman in shirt sleeves, but that and some- thing more. Qualities which we are accustomed to consider absolutely opposed, daring and boastfulness, perseverance and levity, philanthropy and contempt for life, lawlessness and a tendency to submit to authority, religious fervour and a dis- position to regard God as a valuable but familiar acquaintance, seem all united in the Yankees. Their generals boast like Gascons, but it is after a defeat, when Gascons contemplate suicide. Their masses are moved with every breath like a Parisian mob, but they adhere to their end with the tenacity of Italians or Englishmen. What other population on earth would endure the way in which the Government, during three days of terrible battle, suppressed all information, or bearing it, still feel the patriotism which induces them to send their last sons to the war? There may be something very strange or very con- temptible in the easy serenity with which New York takes the intelligence of a great defeat and the loss of 10,000 men, but those who fail to perceive that there is also something strong, that mobility and weight are for once united—as in quick- silver—will misread most of the American signs of the times. The war may be waged for an impossible end, but there must be a grand capacity for action in the race which, without generals and without statesmen, despising its rulers, and distrusting its officers, with incessant defeat in the field and incessant blundering in the Cabinet, with an attorney for king and an explorer for hero, has for two years fought on, and with the end as distant as ever is ready to fight on still, it is easy to sneer at the ludicrous side of a character we none of us yet understand, and incidents which so startle our preconceived notions that we take refuge in a malicious giggle, but the enjoyment is purchased at the ex- pense of foresight. Hooker is laughed at, justly, for his gasconades, but they are identical in spirit with Napoleonic bulletins, and have apparently just the same effect. It is no doubt shocking to English ideas, accustomed to the esprit which springs up in old armies, to see New York Zonaves claim their discharge on a field like Chancellorsville, but it is folly to forget that this very regiment, so dishonourable in our eyes, fought to the last moment of its contract, and marched homewards out of the smoke, leaving seventy-five men in every hundred in their graves. It was not cowardice obviously which sent them away, and short of that impossible solu- tion, the feeling which dared in such a scene to enforce a contract remains simply unintelligible. Only do not let us make the mistake of supposing that the man who marches on a cannon to-day because he agreed to do it, and refuses to march to-morrow, with a whole army scorning him, because he did not agree, is a man of weak or fluctuating will.
The failure at Chancellorsville, like the failure at Fredericks- burg and on. the Chickahominy and at Bull's Run, has settled nothing whatever. The material loss was probably the same on both sides, for the stragglers who swell the gaps in the Northern muster-rolls usually float back in a vague undisci- plined way, and for moral effect the North seems a little more resolute than before. The turning point of the contest is not there or at Vicksburg or on any other battle-field, but in the minds of the people who, and not their chiefs, are conducting this war very much as a populace would conduct it anywhere, with no coherence, or skill, or defined object, but with the invincible tenacity only found in popular organizations. The single issue is whether those people, amidst all their " gassy " talk and unbearable conceit, are at heart in grim earnest ; whether their brag is vapour merely, or the vapour from molten metal; whether they mean, as they say, to accept all things sooner than disunion. If not, they are beaten, and had better make such peace as they can before Mr. Davis issues orders from Washington ; if they are, they will accept the conscription, as the South have done, and placing the whole youth of the nation in the field, keep up the struggle till the South dies of the exhaustion of constant vic- tory. That is the real issue, and, like all national issues; it is a moral, and not a physical one. The time of the nine months' men expires on the 1st of June, and most of them will f, home, at all events for a month's holiday. The attraction of bounties has evidently diminished, partly from the enormous rise in wages, partly from the gradual consumption of the very limited class which in America is greatly tempted by a few dollars. It is a conscription or peace, and the Govern- ment is evidently of that opinion. The President met the news of Chancellorsville by a proclamation appointing Provost- Marshals, and declaring that the draught applied to all aliens who had announced their intention of becoming citizens—a notice which, unless he is wholly in earnest, gratuitously increased the mass of discontent. He evi- dently means to try whether the people will support him or not, and the only question is as to his success. No Englishman can, we believe, venture on a decisive opinion, and very few Americans. The thoughts of Wisconsin are not those of New York, the Germans of Ohio differ widely from the dour Yankees of Connecticut. But we would just point to one or two facts too often forgotten in club talk on Ameri- can affairs. It is quite certain that the material force of the Government, its power of compulsion on a pinch, is habitually underrated. It is clear to all who have watched its proceed- ings in the anti-negro riots which have of late been so dis- gracefully frequent, that it can and will defy the opposition, armed or passive, of any single place. That is apparent even from the wretched incident of Mr. Yallandigham's arrest, where an entire electoral district-100,000 men—were com- pelled to surrender a man they were prepared to defend. Against States the Government would be poweiless ; but any one or two States would probably be coerced by opinion, and by that tendency to side with the majority which is the curse of American politics. The President would be supported by all above thirty-five—and it is men above thirty-five who are wealthy,—by all the army not dis- charged before the draught is complete, by all who have once submitted, and who will be specially bitter against skulkers, by the whole pulpit and the entire press. if the dislike to the measure is universal, or nearly so, there is an end of the matter and of the war; but if it be, as we suspect it is, only partial, there is force enough for such coercion as, for example, Italy employs. Moreover, the conscription leaves an alternative in money, and the carelesaness of Americans about money is almost inconceivable. Enormous efforts will be made by the unwilling to avoid the draft without resisting the law, and a wealthy population really driven to open its purse-strings with a feeling that it is but for once in a life can contribute sums no regular taxation would ever exact. The result in many districts will be a fund so large as to tempt all labourers except the few who will not go on any pretence or under any inducement. The draught covers an enormous surface, the influx of emigrants from Ireland and Germany has this year been as great as ever, and between patriotism, bribery, and coercion, the chance of obtaining one-third of the levy decreed is, at least, a good one. We believe that the President will obtain just enough to keep the war on foot without winning it, and so drag on to the time when the South, worn with incessant blows at an india- rubber surface, shall ask for peace on terms which it is possible to concede. The prospect is not a pleasant one, either for the enemies or the friends of the North ; for its ememies, because the South will only win independence by abandoning its dream of empire ; for the North, because it has been compelled to resort to the least defensible of all modern devices, the kidnapping of human beings for purposes of slaughter. That is what a conscription really is, even in France where it is scientifically organized, and even when sanctioned by a popular Government it can be excused only by the argument of despair. But this, a long straggling war, protracted till neither party has the power to obtain its real end, indefinite extension or subjugation, is the only probable issue of the recent events.
The actual issue, reasoning from analogy, will be one now hopelessly improbable.
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