PARTY VIEWS AND PARTY SPIRIT IN AMERICA.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 11, 16 December 1862, Page 3

PARTY VIEWS AND PARTY SPIRIT IN AMERICA.

(From the Times.)

Our correspondent at New York, reflecting at this crisis of the American struggle on ihe sights and sounds around him, asks in his la-^t letter a most significant question. " If," says he, " the war lie not popular, ein it last ihtee months ?" Certainly t he reply seems obvious. If the people of t he North will not support the war. by whose suppoit will it be carried on ? If the South, is resolved to quit the Union, and the North will not right to retain it, where are wo to find either the means or the motives for prosecuting the contest ] These reflections app< ar conclusive, and yet the inference is upset by the acual stale oi' things. At this very moment, if the oiders of (Government haw been punctually executed, the free citizens of the .Northern Stale? are coerced into coercing their brethren of the South. The I. sth ol this mouth was their last day of liberty. After that date the conscription was to commence, and the work is probably now in hand. We may ask, ihen. whose wishes or decisions Mr. Stanton represenis when he t h u •* puts the screw on the whole national constituency. It is clear enough th it the consoi ipfion is thought abominable, but still it is not resisted, and there is apparently power enough at the command of the Government to enforce the President's decrees in the teeth of ihe popular will. Here is an example, then, of what may be done in this direction. The South fights to the death against the Union, and the North has not the least desire to Mir lit for it ; hut, for ;ill this, Mr. Lincoln and Ins colleagues c*n drive the North into the field against the South.

The truth is, that the war at lliis minule is neither popular nor unpopular, or rather it is both one ami the other. according to tlio point (if view from which it is rcganled The Noi therners have lost their stomach for fighting, but ihey have not yet got miy appetite for peace. They are not prepared to forego the struggle and retire from the contest on ihe terms of a separation from ilie .South. They cannot make up their minds to a dissolution of ihe Union, ami, therefore, a*< a necessary consequence, they cannot ohjeel to the prosecufiou of the war. In this sense t lie war is still popular, bee i use peace on the only terms possible would he unpopular. But, though the people of the Fedf.-ral States Htiil desire to lie belligerents, they have not the least de-.-iie individually to lie soldiers. The war, regarded as a stnt<rgle producing demands on their personal services, is unpopular in the extreme. 'I'lie very people who declare that the Union mu-t he indivisible are prepared to lurri their hacks on it altoge'her lather than h'_,'ht, for its indivi-ibiliiy, and are now lushing by thousands to the colonies of Bri'ain as preferal)le homes. Mr Stanton, however. Iwts £?t»i his eye upon the fugitives, and is stopping every otiilet before lie throws J 1 is net. The bulk of the cla-s liable to military service will he driven into a corner. They must either fi^ht or rebel, or find the heart to say what has not been said yet — that the war must cease, and the South may go.

Thee is, indeed, one party in the Northern States which has a distinct and, as it believes, an all-powerful principle still in view. The Abolitionists assert that if the President would hut declare lor immediate and unconditional emancipation, the war would at once assume a new and hopeful complexion. The North, they say. convinced by this declaration that compromise and misprison were at an end, would rush enthusiastically into what would have become a holy war, while the liberated slaves would bring to their benefactors the aid of a million arms. The views of this party may be seen in the extravagant piece of declamation on which Mr. Wendell Phillips recently ventured ; but, though the Abolitionists arc both sincere and active, heir policy Could never be successfully enforced. Their strength lies in their principles only, and ii is by no means certain that even these principles would be carried to the length of personal enlistment. Mr. Phillips assumes that if the war were made an anli-sla vt-ry war, volunteers would be forthcoming lo the utmost extent of the demand ; but that result has vet to he established. Admitting that half of the whole fighting class n** the North still remains unexpended, we do not think it follows thut a cry of emancipation would bring any great u umbers of these men into the field. The Abolitionists a re by no means so numerous as the Democrats, and the Democrats would be alienated by the anti-slavery cry in exactly the same proportion as the Abolitionists might be encouraged. It would not be a hopeful policy to offend three men for the sake of conciliating two. Probably the result of such a step would be to array all the Border States, us well as the Southern States, against a meie fragment of the Union.

Pi evident Lincoln sees all this clearly enough, and though he. may allow .Mr. Reward to talk of einanciphtion as an irresistible weapon which the North holds in reserve, both President and Secretary well know ihe, hopeles-ness of srich a policy. The whole body of Americans inhabiting the recently United States may he considered in an estimate of this question as divided into three parties — the Democrats, the Abolitionists, and the tteceders. The first desire the Union as it was, the second desire it as it ought to he {i.e., without slavery), while the third de-ire no Union at all. Now, the difficulty is to get out of these materials an overpowering combination of force against the particular principle of the Seceders. The Democrats and the Abolitionists both wish to preserve the Union, but on conditions totally different If the Government adapts as it has hitherto done, the conditions of the Democratic parly, and professes only the restoration of the oJd Union, pure and simple, the Aboli-

tionists clrire;e it with political impotence and moral her'sy. .. If, again, tlie conditions of the Abolitionist party were to be proclaimed 1 at Washington, the Demo<;rai.would thunder against the violation of the old Constitution. Mr. Lincoln cannot close with ei'hernf these parlies, and it is because he cannot lhat his speech at the «re?it " war meeting" was so meaningless md void. By his own personal convictions he is probably an Abolitionist, but he knows that the Constitution gives him no power to abolish slavery, and, though he may derive the requisite authority perhaps from the rights of war, he sees clearly that he would be none the forwarder for the proceeding. He did his best to sound the border States Ihe other day. and they let him know their mind. They would not hear of peaceable emancipation even in their own territories, still less would they ihink of kindling a servile war in the South

Hitherto ihe Union sentiment in the North has been strong enough, in the absence of any severe trial, to produce a a practical unanimity in the prosecution of the war. The Federals believed themselves powerful enough to put down the Confederates in thirty clays or so. They knew they were twenty millions against ten, nnd they had the monopoly of co vmerce by the command of the sea. So for a lime it wasNoith against South — Government against rebels — without much intermixture of deeper principles. The first thing was to restore the Union and re construct the Uuiied Slates in the eyes of the world, afier which it would be time enough to debate ihe questions arising out of the war. The war, therefore, was popular, but that period of its popularity is now over. The subjection nf the Sou'li is seen to be something very different from the mere suppression of a local insurrection l»y ihe forces of Government. It is a work calling forth efforts whirh nothing but deep convictions can die ate, and which, according to every probability, would be impracticable after nil. The Abolitionists enteriain these convictions, no doubt, but whe'her they would show ihem by actually taking arms in a war of extermina ion is another question altogether. The Democrats have no principle loftier than i hut of political union for the sake of political strength, and it is doubt firl whether they would maintain even this

principle on the terms of slave em^ncipalion. So, as the loose population of ihe States has ahcady been absorbed and expended in the first year's campaigns, as ihe hest half of the Militia has taken the field already, as the remainder ha« declined to volunteer, and as no principle is at work to create enthusiasm, Mr. Lincoln is proceeding lo coeice ihe South by the coerced service of the North. This makes the war unpopular ; but peace, a3yet, is unpopular also, ;irid so the Government can work its will. How long such anomalies can last is simply the next question to he decided.