TILE CHICAGO CONVENTION :—VALUE OF CURRENCY IN NEW YORK.
[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]
New York, September 3, 1864. Bora the military and the political news of the week are im- portant. General Sherman has taken Atlanta, and has done it somewhat sooner than Lieutenant-General Grant and the War Department expected that he would. After defeating the rebel army Sherman entered Atlanta yesterday about noon. On the 23rd of August Fort Morgan, the last defence of the harbour of Mobile, and which in rebel words was to have been defended to the utmost extremity, after a bombardment of twelve hours, to which little resistance was made, surrendered unconditionally with 60 pieces of artillery. When the formal surrender was made General Page, a chivalric Virginian, and several of his officers, taking a hint from Captain Semmes, presented themselves without their swords ; and others who did bring their swords and give them up had previously broken them. Admiral Farragut had reason to believe that after the cessation of hostilities much ammuni- tion and many gun carriages had been destroyed. Now this may be a very high-spirited style of doing things ; but we regard Semmes' flinging his sword into the sea and the behaviour of General Page and his officers as an unmanly mingling of theatrical claptrap and girlish spite. Admiral Farragut notices with com- mendation the very different behaviour of Colonel Anderson on the surrender of Fort Gaines. General Grant, or rather General Meade, still holds the Weldon Railway. On Thursday of last week General Lee, massing a large part of his army under cover of woods, suddenly attacked General Hancock on the extreme end of our lines, where he was engaged in destroying the road at Reams station, about twelve miles from Petersburg. The attack came at one time very near being successful ; and as it was, by its unex- pectedness and Hancock's unprepared condition, as well as by the desperate fighting of Lee's troops, it cost us about 3,500 men, 2,000 of whom were taken prisoners, and 9 guns. But the rebels in the end were obliged to abandon the field with the loss of about 5,000 men, and by their own account five general officers, four killed and one wounded, and leaving their killed and wounded of rank and file on the field.
The Chicago Convention has met, constructed its platform, made its nominations, and—not adjourned, but declared itself a perma- nent body, and the canvass for the November election has opened fiercely. I turn away in loathing at the mere anticipation of the bitter abuse and nauseous nonsense which will be uttered on both sides during the next two months. The permanent chairman was Governor Seymour of New York, whom I and scores of others saw treating the Irish rioters of last year as if he were their obsequious servant, instead of the chief magistrate of the common- wealth whose peace they were violently disturbing, allowing one of them to pat him on the back, and entreating them all to respect life and property in order that he might obtain the redress which he was seeking for their wrongs l General expectation was not disappointed in the nominee of the Convention. It was almost as much a foregone conclusion that General IF Clellan would be nominated by the friends and apologists of Jefferson Davis and his cause, as that Mr. Lincoln would be asked to retain office by those who are determined to maintain the Government and the integrity of the Republic at all hazards. And yet the first ballot upon General M'Clellan's nomination had a significance well worthy of remark, indicative as it was of the relative proportions of the two political elements there represented. He received 2021 votes, and Thomas H. Seymour, Democratic ex-Governor of Connecticut, 23 ; and 23 to 202, or about 1 to 9, is the proportion of " peace men" even in the Opposition party. As I passed Tammany Hall yesterday afternoon, which•has been for many years the Democratic political head-quarters of the North, in fact of the country, I saw an enormous transparency covering half the front of the building, on which the names M'Clellan and Pendleton were set forth as the "regular Democratic nominations," while underneath them, in huge letters, was President Jackson's vehement declaration, " The Union must and shall be PRESERVED." In fact the peace party, which went there determined to have matters their own way or " break things generally," were put down flat and hard, and then coddled with talk and promises and the immediate sop of the nomination of a peace man as Vice-President. But on the second day of the Convention, when the names of the various candidates for the nomination were brought up (each one of them, like a dead Academician, avec son 'doge), a Mr. Harris, of Mary - land, not content with lauding his candidate, Ex-Governor of Connecticut,—the eulogized and the eulogizer being both not only peace men but subsaissionists,—attacked General M'Clellan, and amid mingled cheers and hisses called him " a tyrant " whom he was there "to indict." He read General M'Clellan's order of arrest of the Maryland Legislature, and said that " all the charges of usurpation and tyranny that can be brought against Lincoln and Butler could be made and substantiated against Ill'Clellan." Now the worst of this was that it was true, as all the world well knows. And so there was an uproar, the peace men cheering and the war men hissing, and some one called out to Mr. Harris to "vote for Jeff. Davis." But even after a remonstrance from the chairman Mr. Harris went on to say that General M'Clellan was " the assassin of State rights, the usurper of liberties [what that is I don't exactly understand], and that if he were nominated he would be beaten, as he was at Antietam ;" that he, Mr. Harris, could not go home and ask his people to vote for such a man, and that " he would not vote for him himself." This last declaration being pronounced out of order, because if Mr. Harris would not vote for the nominee of the Convention he had no right to take part in its deliberations he was about to take his seat when some one near him said that he was " a damned traitor" who ought to be "turned out of the Con- vention." Whereupon Mr. Harris turned round and knocked the man down. Now a gentleman, or what we Yankees call a gentle- man, would have passed by such a speech at such a time without notice ; or, if he thought it worth while to give it any attention, have called upon the Convention to preserve order and protect its members. Yet Mr. Harris, being from Maryland, should not be judged too harshly. For it should be remembered how hard it is for a slaveholder to be a true gentleman in this age of the world. Many of the wealthy among them get a thin varnish of external form and ceremony, but an accidental scratch like that received by Mr. Harris goes through his coating and shows the coarse texture of the real substance beneath,—that it is not fine-grain polished.
To return to the Convention, during the evening of this eventful day the various means of that stern discipline which has always been exercised in the Democratic party were effectually applied, and the next morning all was harmony again, and the military " tyrant" M'Clellan was nominated for President, with the peace sub-submissionist Pendleton for Vice-President.
On the whole, the Chicago Convention has done its work well. It has succeeded in uniting as far as possible the various sorts of Democrats which it represented, it has placed in nomination a man who has a great popularity, and who is regarded as the victim of political persecution, and it has put forth a platform upon which almost any Democrat who is willing to work for the re- habilitation of his party, and ask no further questions, can find some kind of standing-room. General M'Clellan, if elected, will discharge the duties of the office with ability, integrity, and per- sonal dignity. The story that before entering the Union army he offered his sword to the insurgents and met with a refusal I do not believe, although it comes very directly to me from two agents of the Confederates now in Europe. But he is so thoroughly committed by word and deed to a policy of the most stringent war measures against the rebels that as a peace candidate he will be torn to pieces in the coming canvass. Yet if the Union party is not steadier and more compact than at present it seems to be, he will be elected, and should he become President, peace will for all that be just as far off as it is at this moment, when to my know- ledge there are commissioners from Georgia in Washington seek- ing entrance for that State into the Union.
Your Emigration Commissioners have issued notices giving infor- mation and caution to emigrants which it is hoped will protect them against " Federal " crimps and sharks. This is as it should be. You will observe that our authorities have done much more, more even than yours seemed to think that they ought to do. We all here trust that these measures will foil the schemes of every crimp or shark who shall endeavour to bring a man into the army of the United States otherwise than of his own free will and in his sober senses. But I observe in the copy of these notices pub- lished in the London Times an error which is worth correcting. After a statement of the normal value in sterling of the dollar and the cent, it is added that " under the present circumstances of the country they will not buy more than one-third as much of the necessaries of life as they would formerly buy." Hero is a great mistake, the result of speaking from inference rather than know- ledge. The commissioners supposed that because the gold or silver dollar is now worth 250 cents in paper, and has been sold for 280, the price of the necessaries of life had risen in like proportion. But nothing like such an advance has taken place, as any householder could tell you. For instance, the same cut of beef which before the war cost 15 cents the pound in silver, now costa but 25 cents in paper ; the same quality of flour which
then cost 8 dols. the barrel of seven quarters now costs 14 dols., the 10-cent loaf has diminished in size and weight about one-third ; butter, owing to the long continued and widespread drought which burned up the grass all over the North, has increased in price in much greater proportion,—but that has only doubled. The same oysters which cost 25 cents the dozen before the war now cost but 30 cents. Houses which were rented for 900 dols. in gold in 1860 now can be had for only 1,000 dols. in " greenbacks." Omni- bus faro rose only last week from 6 cents, which it was before the war, to 8 cents ; and fare upon the railways has not risen in nearly so great proportion. Hence you will see that the price of the necessaries of life, so far from having trebled, has not doubled, and in fact has not increased on the average 75 per cent. It is only in cotton goods and imported articles, most of them mere luxuries, that the advance in price has been equal or even approaching to the rise in gold. The man who will wear English cloth and French cassimere must pay 2 dols. 50 cents at least where before the war he paid 1 dol. But I sent the other day to my tailor, a London man, some cassi- mere, over which he and his French foreman had to consult together a long while before they pronounced a hesitating opinion that it was Yankee made, and hence I think imported cloths need no longer be reckoned among the necessaries of life. The fact is that our resources, manufacturing as well as agricultural and mineral, enable us to carry on this war, vast as it is, and to go to our farms and our merchandise and live just as we did before, and to use an inconvertible paper currency at a comparatively small advance in the nominal price of the necessaries of life. We could, although we would much rather not, do without Europe, and not miss anything necessary to comfortable, refined, and cultivated life, and should we do so we could get on with cowries or wampum for money, so long as we had confidence in our ability to pay in the end.
New York, September 10, 1864. NINE days elapsed between General M'Clellan's nomination and his acceptance, which was made public but yesterday. In fact the letter informing him of his nomination is dated only the day before yesterday. Dates accommodate themselves to circumstances in such cues; but there is no doubt that this most unusual interval between the action of a nominating convention and the corres- pondence with the nominee was necessarily occupied by Governor Seymour and his friends in the very delicate business of dealing with General M'Clellan, and endeavouring so to guide and mani- pulate him that the manner of his acceptance would not utterly alienate the honest Peace Democrats. The effort has not been successful. General M'Clellan is a man of personal honour ; and without openly affronting the Peace Democracts he tramples their peace platform under his feet. He tells the committee that in his opinion " the existence of more than one government over the region which once owned our flag is incompatible with the peace, the power, and the happiness of the people ;" that "the Union is the one condition of peace"—we [the Democratic party] ask no more, and that should peace and Union be refused upon these grounds " the responsibility for ulterior consequences will be with those who remain in arms against the Union." Make what you can but war out of this, I can make nothing else. The truth is that the peace men, having been used and complimented by the Democratic leaders, are now brushed aside with little ceremony, and the question is Union with Slavery or war on one side, or Union without Slavery or war on the other. The Demo- cratic party, seeing now the condition to which the slaveholders are reduced, seek to avail themselves of the fruits of the war car- ried on under the administration of their opponents, while casting upon those opponents the odium of having made that war neces- sary, and of having conducted it corruptly and inefficiently. The " dodge " is a shrewd one, and it really seems as if by means of it, and by the attractive power of the hope of public plunder, the Democratic leaders were about to re-unite the party by whose division only the election of Mr. Lincoln be- came possible. As the Democrats are now fighting for mere con- trol of the Government of a re-established Union it is worthwhile to look at their chances of success. It is yet too soon for the safe expression of an opinion as to the result of the election, but we can see how it must be gained or lost.
I suppose that most of my readers know that the candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency are not voted for directly by the people, but that each State chooses according to its population a certain number of electors, New York, for instance, 35, and Delaware 3, who elect the President and Vice-President, and who form the body known as the Electoral College. But as these men are always pledged to vote for certain candidates, it may be sup- posed that the result of the election is the same as if it were made by a direct vote of the people. Not so in one very important respect. For instance, in the election of 1860 Mr. Lincoln had in the Elec- toral College (which by the way never meets) 180 votes, Brecken- ridge, 72 votes ; Bell, 39 ; and Douglas, 12. Mr. Lincoln's majority over all his opponents was therefore very large, 57 in the Electoral College. But in the popular vote, although he had a small plurality over Douglas (the Democrat who, observe, received most votes from the people, yet least in the Electoral College), he was in a minority of nearly 1,000,000 as against all his opponents. This was caused by the division of the Democratic party, which had three candidates in the field. It is plain, then, that if the Democratic party can be united upon one man Mr. Lincoln will be defeated, unless a change has taken place in the convictions of a considerable proportion of that party. This its leaders deny, saying on the contrary that Mr. Lincoln's Administration has alienated even those who first supported him. At the last elec- tion Mr. Lincoln received 1,857,610 ballots, having from the States now under " Confederate" control not a single ballot. Mr. Lincoln's three opponents received 2,804,560. But in examining present probabilities, it is obviously necessary to subtract from this number the number of votes cast against Mr. Lincoln in the States now in insurrection, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. Upon a careful calculation I find that the number of ballots cast against Mr. Lincoln is thus reduced to 2,095,298, leaving the majority against him on the popular vote in the States now under control of our Government 237,688. If, then, the old Democratic party still holds together, and votes together, Mr. Lincoln will surely be defeated at the coming election, even without the aid of the ten States which four years ago cast all their votes against him. But will the Demo- cratic party hold together? I think that it will to a very much greater degree than the new Union party are inclined to believe. A very heavy vote will be cast for General M'Clellan, and unless the experience of this war has purged the commonweal and puri- fied us more than I fear it has, there is a chance of his election, although, as you will see, a defection of 150,000 votes from the party will give the popular vote to Mr. Lincoln. He must carry New York or he will be defeated.
The ceaseless assertions, direct or implied, of the superior courtesy, good-breeding, and decorum, not to say humanity, of the insurgent slaveholders, which we see in many of the leading journals of Europe, are frequently brought to our minds by dis- play of that peculiar daintiness and dignity of speech by which we know that they have been distinguished from us for many years past, in fact for a generation. Here is a specimen of the high-bred slaveholding style, which I quote from the Richmond Whig of September 7, not on account of any striking singularity about it, but on the contrary, because it gives my readers a characteristic specimen of the " chivalric" utterances intended for the home market :— " The military situation at this moment, though not altogether so bright as we could wish, is decidedly hopeful. After the late massacre and captures on that famous dead-fall, the Weldon Railroad, Grant smokes his cigar in supreme tranquillity, awaiting the arrival of a fresh drove of hundred days' men to drive into Lee's slaughter house. He is too discreet a butcher to use up his entire stock of cattle at a single throat-cutting, for this might betray his policy to the poor victims. A certain interval between each butchery is always allowed, not merely for rest and fattening, but for dispelling any mental uneasiness which may ensue in consequence of such frightful and useless carnage. Dur- ing this interval he permits his herds to divert themselves with extensive ditching and incessant shelling and sharpshooting."
It is by this way of speaking of Yankees that the slaveholding oligarchs and the professional elasaes around them, who are their mere tools and creatures, have sought to breed a coarse hatred of men and things north of the Potomac ; while they themselves came among us, were received with courtesy and kindness to their manifest pleasure, and married our brothers and our sisters, at the very time that at home they were reviling us in language which, although it disgusted the few of us who ever saw it, we thought unworthy of much attention. Now, however, we see that it meant business, and that our social intercourse and ties of blood were mere pastime and byplay. The same journal of the Virginia aristocracy on the day before, speaking of General Grant, said :— " It is a notorious fact that a quart of Bourbon, with two ounces of quinine and an equal amount of Dupont powder added, produces no more effect upon the clearness of his brain or the superb erectness of his carriage than an ordinary glass of sparkling Catawba would upon one of the ornamental incumbrances that constitute his personal staff."
Now the truth is that General Grant abstains entirely from wine and spirituous liquors of every kind, and does all he can to ensure the strictest temperance in his military family. He messes with his staff, and neither whisky, brandy, nor wino are allowed at the mess-table. Perhaps you may not have heard that Mr. Lincoln, when some envious military busybody accused General Grant of intemperance, asked with great earnestness, " Are you sure, then, that Grant gets drunk ?" " Oh I sure, Sir, shame- fully drunk 1" " Well, then"—with an air of special confi- dence—" oblige me by doing your best to find out the particular liquor he drinks, for I should like to send a cask of it immediately
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