A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1741, 12 November 1862, Page 5

A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH.

Lieutenant Maury, late of the United States Na\y, and now a strong supporter of the Southern Confederates, has written a letter to the French Admiral, He Chahannc, on the origin, conduct, and prospects of the war in America. It is without date, hut was written after the recent battles before Richmond. We take the following characteristic passages from it:— “ it has now been hut little more than a year since this war was forced upon us. We, on our part, find to commence it without an army, without a navy, and even without a governmental organization. On the other hand, the enemy, surrounded with all tlio appliances of war, and complete in his organization, arranged his legions for battle, and rejoiced in his strength. We found ourselves purely an agricultural people, cut oft from the world, and suddenly thrown upon our own resources, while he was backed by all the appliances (he workshops of Europe could supply, or that commerce could furnish. Notwithstanding this, our people bravely and deliberately resolved to withdraw from all political association with the North, and to accept the consequences of it. There was no haste, coercion, or intimidation about this move. Never was the popular will more fairly expressed than when the Sou.hern people uttered their voice lor secession. Our enemies have sought to make the impression abroad that the reverse was .the case; that this so-called ‘Rebellion was hatched by a faction, and is led by a few Hrecatcrs.’ No such thing. We were pushed into it, all unprepared as we were, by the tyranny and the usurpations, and the factions of the North. * * * “ The negro is not, as the Yankee would have the world believe, the cause or object of the war. The tariff, and hatred of the Yankee character—these arc the true causes. They arc a nation of shopkeepers and pedlars; and under pretex of raising revenue to maintain the government, Southern industry was taxed to support Yankee workshops. With this they waxed fat,' and grew insolent, until their insolence hceamo unbearable.

“ We chose no longer to submit to their rule, and so sought simply to withdraw from all political association with them. We ask nothing of them. All we want is simply to he left and let alone; and the simple fact that they should attempt to force us to remain in political association with them, is proof enough as to the inequality of the benefit which the old Union conferred upon the two sections. “ The fuss and turmoil about slavery is merely incidental in this unhappy state of affairs. In the most Northern States it is against the law for a freed negro to come there. They will not allow a negro from the South to dwell among them. “ After supplying the North with whatever they required of our produce, and buying of the North, upon their own terms, whatever wo vcouircd of theC

manufacture, there remained annually to the South a quantity of surplus produce which requires 20,000 ships and more than 200,000 seamen to carry abroad and distribute among the markets of the world. “In the handling of this produce Northern factors and Northern shipping did the principal port. Besides this the laws of the Union gave the North the preference over all the world in the markets of the South. These were great advantages, and the North waxed fat and strong upon them. Their correlatives were wanting to the South—(or the South could sell dearer and buy cheaper in other countries. “ Twelve millions of such customers as inhabit the South are enough to make any people rich, and they are such as no nation can afford to lose. But let secession he acknowledged as an accomplished fact, and the North will lose lies preference this trade, and these customers, with all the benefits of their political association with us. It is, therefore, not for the negro but solely on account of pecuniary and scllish considerations, that the North is waging this war. She is vainly seeking to compel us fo renew an association that we abhor.

Hitherto we have acted pu-cly on the defensive. We have not sought to invade the North, but, panoplied in the triple armour of a jest cause, we have stood still, and ever since the battle of Manassas—now a year ago—quietly looking on while the enemy raised his armies and completed his preparations for war in his own way. Having destroyed his 4 grand army,’ we shall now carry the war into Africa, I hope, compelling him to withdraw his forces from our borders and to sue for peace.

“But peace is very difficult at present, I admit; in the North reason has lost its sway over the mind of the people, and the judgment ot their rulers has been taken away. In the South passion runs high. Therefore, in the present temper of the two peoples it would be impossible just now for them to agree upon the preliminary step to any lasting peace—viz., the adjustment of boundaries. We are, therefore, drifting into a war of exhaustion.

44 There are rumours of an armed inter vention from your side; but upon what basis this intervention is to take place the many-tongued dame has not deigned to enlighten us. Any such intervention cannot but work mischievously if it fail to recognize the right of the people in the disputed States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri freely and fairly to decide for themselves whether they will cast their lot with the North or South. Neither can it he supposed that intervention would recognize any dismemberment of present States.

Willi us this is not a war of conquest, but a war for a principle which is dear to every French heart —a principle by which your Emperor sits upon his great throne—the right of every people to he governed in their own way. ‘•The strong aim of mighty nations may force a peace upon some other basis, but any such peace will prove a hollow truce. “ There has, permit me to say, been already at least one error committed by France and England in this war. When these difficulties commenced all Europe viewed them through Northern media. This was natural enough, perhaps, for all Europe depended upon Northern statements for information. These have now been found to he erroneous; but not until France and England had committed themselves to a blockade that was against all rule. The effects of that blockade upon our industry is likely to prove lasting, and certain classes hi France and England may yet find cause to rue it, even if Ministers do not. “ You can well conceive that the blockade affords most effective encouragement to home manufactures in the South. The energies of the people have by it been diverted into new channels of industry, and manufacturing establishments are rapidly springing up on all hands.

“So that, when France and England decided to respect Lincoln’s paper blockade, they unwittingly, perhaps, called inducnces into play which are rapidly converting us into a manufacturing as well as an agricultural people. The opcrat'ves in your workshops may yet have cause to lament a policy which cannot fail to call into existence many rival establishments to your own, and which would not have found existence but for the course which the two governments taonght proper to pursue.

“ As for the preservation, restoration, or reconstruction of the Union, it is simply an impossibility. Laying aside all questions of military power and prowess between the two contending parties, the mere hatred of the one for the other, and which is obvious to every intelligent being who has attentively observed the events of the contest as they have developed themselves, is enough to destroy all hopes for any such union. “ Harmony between the States, goodwill among the people, are essential to any such reconstruction or preservation, and you sec enough even from your distant stand point to satisfy you that we are two people, and that so long as our favourite doctrine holds good—viz., that every rightful government rests on the consent of' the governed—no power on earth can unite us again, or make us one.”