GREAT PEACE DEMONSTRATION IN NEW YORK.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 86, 1 September 1863, Page 6 (Supplement)

GREA T PEACE DEMONSTRATION IN NEW YORK.

- The special correspondent of. the Times, writing from. New York on ths 5 th of June, says : —

" The great event nnd topic of the day is the Peace Meeting held ou Wednesday evening at the Cooper Institute, and in the streets and square adjoining. No such Crowded, enthusiastic, and unanimous assemblage of the people has ever taken place in New York. The Itepublican journals grudgingly admit that 'there must have 1 been ten thousand persons present, while the Democratic press claims that there were at least three times that number. Whatever may have been the exact aggregate, no one who saw and mingled in the mighty mass could doubt that as a political demonstration it was grand in its numbers, earnest in its purpose, and undivided in its sentiment, and that if Mr Lincoln had, been unwise enough to obtrude his military strength before it, or in any way to interfere with the free expression of its opinion, he would have taken the fijst fatal step to the provocation of riot, bloodshed, and revolution. Happily, nothing. of the kind was attempted, and the various speakers were allowed to proclaim their hold sentiments without the slightest interruption, except the cheers of the sympathising auditors. The meeting was entirely due to the energetic action of one person, Mr Fernando Wood, ex- Mayor of New York, and now one of "the representatives of the city in Congress, planned jt, organised it, brought it together, "drew up its resolutions, and spoke the great speeches of the evening ; bearing upon his shoulders all the weight anJ responsibility of the demonstration. Whateve may be said Of Mr Wood's personal and private character, his greatest enemy cannot deny that he knows better how to wield the fierce democracy of this city than any man living, or that he has far greater political influence within that sphere than any score of his contemporaries or competitors. And, under the circumstances, — with martial law prevalent over half the country, and Mr Vallandighasn an exile for having dared even to hint what Mr Wood spokebpenly — it will scarcely be denied, eilher by friend or foe, that his courage is equal to his influence, and that he proved himself the boldest politician in the country. Mr Wood said truly, in the course of his first speech to the inside audience, which crammed the large hall to such a degree as to make either sitting or standing uncomfortable. 'That no man equal to the crisis of the nation's peril had j'et arisen Heretofore, in every age, great national exigencies have produced the men for the occasion. The Almighty has not yet vouchsafed this blessing to us. Neither in the field nor in the Cabinet, nor in the many elevated spheres of private life, has the man presented himself with the brain, the heart, or the courage to seize and work out the great political problem to be solved in our case. Those who have the intellectual ability have lacked the nerve, and those with the newc have lacked the ability. And here is another wonder — that in this civilised population of over thirty millions, North and South, abounding with benevolence, purity, cultivation, and enlightened Christianity, none are found to raise the banner of peace. Mr Wood went On to say that he would be the one ; that without pretending to power or influence, and after patient study of the theory of the Government, and full appreciation of the issue, he, alone and single-handed, Would throw himself into the contest, let the conse quences be what they might to his country or to himself. 'My friends,' 1 he continued, 'I am for peaee, as the only possible hope for the restoration of the American Union. I am for peace because war has failed. You cannot cement two antagonistic eleinents by blood. I am against the war in the first place, because under the theory of our Government there is no power in the Federal Government to coerce delinquent States. If there be any coercive power in the constitution, it is legal and not military. If there be no military war power in the Constitution, the war is unconstitutional. Instead of being a war for the Union, it has become a war for the total sequestration and abolition of State Sovereignty, and has been used for the basest purposes of plunder and political power. . . . In the second place I

am for peace because the war is a failure and must continue to be so."