Class _E-LGl__ 0. SoEiBNEE has just published LIFE OF GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT. By J. T. Hkadley, author of " Washington and His Gen- erals," " Napoleon and His Marshals," " Life of Havelock," &c. With a fine Portrait on Steel. In 1 vol., 12mo. Price, 75 cents. Extract from Preface. " In view of the struggle on which he has entered, I have thought it desirable to trace his past history up to the present time, on which such momentous destinies hang, to refresh our memory with an ac- count of his gallant deeds, and to contemplate, from the new point we occupy, the man to whom we have committed our destiny. " Those who are interested in the military career of the chief leaders of the rebel army, who won all their laurels under the Stars and Stripes and leadership of the noble old patriot they are now in arms against, will find some account of them in the latter park of the work." y 2^ ^ u THE UPRISING OF A GREAT PEOPLE, THE UNITED STATES IN 1861. * FROM THE FRENCH OF COUNT AGENOR DE GASPARIN, It BY MARY L. BOOTH. FOURTH EDITION. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER, 124 GRAND STREET. 1861. Entered, jiccording to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by CHARLES SCEIBNEE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. By State :er fr traBBferfrotn Depart.! JOHN F. TROW, PHI-JTKR, 8TERE0TTPFR. AVD ELECTROTTPEB, 46, 48 & 50 Greene Street, Kew York. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. At this moment, when we are anxiously scrutinizing every indication of European feeling with respect to the American question, the advent of a book, bearing the stamp of a close philosophical, jjolitical, and practical study of the subject, and written, withal, in so hopeful a spirit as to make us feel with the writer that whatever may result from the present crisis must be for good, can- not fail to be of public interest and utility. So truly prophetic is this work in its essence, that we can hardly believe that it was written in great part amid the mists that preceded the inauguration of Mr, Lincoln. All prob- abilities appear to have been foreseen, and the unerring exactness with which events have taken place hitherto precisely in the direction indicated by the author, encour- ages us to believe that this will continue until his predic- tions will have been fulfilled to the end. Clear-sighted, philosophical, appreciative of American genius and accom- plishment, critical, yet charitable to tenderness, stigmatiz- VI translaiok'b preface. ing the fault, yet forgiving the offender, cheering our na tion onward by words of encouragement, bravely spoken at the needed moment, menacing Europe with the scorn of posterity, if, forgetting her oft-repeated professions, she dare forsake the side of liberty to traffic in principles; such is the scope of what a late reviewer calls " the wisest book which has been written upon America since De Toe- queville." Few men are better qualified to judge American affairs than Count de Gasparin. A many-sided man, com- bining the scholar, the statesman, the politician, the man of letters, and the finished gentleman, possessed of every ad- vantage of culture, wealth, and position, he has devoted a long life to the advocacy of liberty in all its forms, whether religious or political, and has ended by making a profound study of American history and politics, the accuracy of which is truly remarkable. A few facts with respect to his career, kindly furnished by his personal friend. Rev. Dr. Robert Baird, of New York, will be here hi place. Count Agenor ifitienne de Gasparin was born at Orange, July 4, 1810. His family is Protestant, and of Corsican origin ; his father was a man of talent and posi- tion, and served for many years as Prefect of the District of the Rhone, and afterwards as Minister of the Interim- under Louis Philippe, by whom he was highly esteemed. He received a liberal education, and devoted himself es- pecially to literature, till 1842, when he was elected by TKANSLATOR S PREFACE. Vll the people of the island of Corsica to represent them in the Chamber of Deputies. Here began his political ca- reer. At that time, religious liberty was in danger of perishing in France, assailed by the powerful opposition of the tribunals and the administration. De Gasparin declared himself its champion, and, in an eloquent speech in the Chamber of Deputies, which moved the audience to tears, ho boldly accused the courts of perverting the civil code in favor of religious intolerance, and claimed unlimited freedom for evangelical preaching and colpor- tage. He also made strenuous efforts to effect the imme- diate emancipation of slaves in the French colonies, and published several essays on the subject. He devoted himself especially to the protection of Protestantism, and founded in France the Society for the Protection of Prot- estant interests, and the Free Protestant Church, yet, de- testing religious intolerance everywhere, he did not hesi- tate to denounce the Protestant persecutions of Sweden as bitterly as he had done the Catholic bigotry of France. He was for some time in the Ministry of the Interior, and was private secretary of M. Guizot, Minister of Pub- lic Instruction. In 1848, while travelling in Italy with his wife, a talented Swiss lady, the author of several works, he received intelligence of the downfall of the gov- ernment of Louis Philippe. This event closed his public career. He addressed a letter of condolence to the de- throned monarch, to whom he was warmly attached, then VIU TKANSLATOR 8 PREFACE. retired to Switzerland to devote himself to literature and philanthropy, being too warm an adherent of the Orleans dynasty to take part in the new administration. Politi- cally, he is, lilie Guizot, an advocate of constitutional monarchy. Since the Revolution, he has continued to reside in Switzerland. He has published numerous works on philosophical and social questions, among which may be instanced : Esclavage et Traite ; De V Affranchissement des Esclaves; Interets generaux du Protestantisme Franqais, Paganism et Christianisme, and Des tables tournantes, du surnaturel en general, et des esprits. His present work, so hopeful and sympathizing, rec- ommends itself to the attention of the American public ; and even those who may dissent from some of his posi- tions or conclusions, cannot but admire his vigorous com- prehension of the outlines of the subject, and be cheered by his predictions of the future. As the expression of the opinion of an intelligent, clear-sighted European, in a position to comprehend men and things, concerning the storm which is now agitating the whole country, it can scarcely fail of a hearty welcome. I commend the follow- ing interpretation, which I have sought to make as con- scientiously literal as due regard to idioms of language would permit, to all true lovers of liberty and of the Union, of whatever State, section, or nation. Marv L. Booth. New York, June 15, 1861. PREFACE. In publishing this study at the present time, I expos© myself to the blame of prudent men. I shall be told that I ought to have waited. To have waited for what ? Until there shall be no more great questions in Europe to dispute our attention with the American question? Or until the American question has shaped itself, and we are able to know clearly what interests it will serve, in what consequences it will end 1 I am not sorry, I confess, to applaud duty before it is recommended by success. When success shall have come, men eager to celebrate it will not be wanting, and I shall leave to them the care of demonstrating then that the North has been in the right, that it has saved the United States. To construct the philosophy of events after they have passed is very interesting, without doubt, but the work to be accomplished to-day is far more serious. The point in question is to sustain our friends when they are in need of us ; when their battle, far from being won, is scarcely begun ; the point in question is to give our sup- X PREFACE. port — the very considerable support of European opinion — at the time when it can be of service ; the point in question is to assume our small share of responsibility in one of the gravest conflicts of this age. Let us enlist ; for the Slave States, on their part, are losing no time. They have profited well, I must admit, by the advantages assured to them by the complicity of the ministers of Mr. Buchanan. In the face of the inev- itable indecision of a new government, around which care had been taken to accumulate in advance every impossi- bility of actiiog, the decided bearing of the extreme South, its airs of audacity and defiance have had a certain eclat and a certain success. Alreadj* its partisans raise their heads ; they dare speak in its favor among us ; they in- sult free trade, by transforming it into an argument destined to serve the interests of slavery. And shall we remain mute 1 Shall we listen to the counsels of that false wisdom that always comes too late, so much does it fear to declare itself too early 1 Shall we not feel impelled to show in all its true light the sacred cause of liberty 1 Ah ! I declare that the blood boils in my veins ; I have hastened and would gladly have has- tened still more. Circumstances independent of my will alone have retarded a publication prepared more than a month ago. Orange, 3Iarch 19, 1861. COISTTENTS. Chap. Pagb Introduction, 9 I. — American Slavery, 13 n. — Where the Nation was drifting before the Elec- tion OF Mr. Lincoln, 20 ni. — What the Election of Mr. Lincoln Signifies, . 35 IV. — What we are to think of the United States, . 52 V. — The Churches and Slavery, .... '72 VI. — The Gospel and Slavery, 92 VII. — The Present Crisis, 107 VIII. — Probable Consequences of the Crisis, . . .141 IX. — Coexistence of the two Races after Emancipation, 194 X. — The Present Crisis will Regenerate the Institu- tions of the United States, .... 225 Conclusion, 244 A GEEAT PEOPLE RISING. INTRODUCTION. The title of this work will j)roduce the effect of a paradox. The general opinion is that the United States continued to pursue an upward course until the election of Mr. Lincoln, and that since then they have been declining. It is not difficult, and it is very necessary, to show that this opinion is ab- solutely false. Before the recent victory of the ad- versaries of slavery, the American Confederation, in spite of its external progress and its apparent pros- perity, was suffering from a fearful malady which had well-nigh proved mortal ; now, an operation has taken place, the sufferings have increased, the gravity of the situation is revealed for the hrst time, perhaps, to inattentive eyes. Does this mean that the situation was not grave when it did not appear so ? Does this mean that we must deplore a violent crisis which alone can bring the cure ? 1* 10 INTKODUCTION. I do not deplore it — I admire it. I recognize in this energetic reaction against the disease, the moral vigor of a people habituated to the laborious struggles of liberty. The rising of a people is one of the rarest and most marvellous prodigies pre- sented by the annals of humanity. Ordinarily, na- tions that begin to decline, decline constantly more and more ; a rare power of life is needed to retrieve their position, and stop in its course a decay once begun. We have a strange way of seconding the gen- erous enterprise into which the United States have entered with so much courage ! We prophesy to them nothing but misfortunes ; we almost tell them that they have ceased to exist ; we give them to understand, that in electing Mr. Lincoln they have renounced their greatness ; that they have precipi- tated themselves head foremost into an abyss ; that they have ruined their prosperity, sacrificed their future, rendered henceforth impossible the magnifi- cent character which was reserved to them. Mr. Buchanan, we seem to say, is the last President of the Union. This, thank God, is the reverse of the truth. But lately, indeed, the United States were advan- cing to their ruin ; but lately there was reason to INTKODUCTION. 11 mourn in thinking of them ; the steps might have been counted which it remained for them to take to complete the union of their destiny with that of an accursed and perishable institution — an institution which corrupts and destroys every thing with which it comes in contact. To-day, new prospects are opening to them ; they will have to combat, to labor, to suffer ; the crime of a century is not re- paired in a day ; the right path when long forsaken is not found again without effort ; guilty traditions and old complicities are not broken through with- out sacrifices- It is none the less true, notwith- standing, that the hour of effort and of sacrifice, grievous as it may be, is the very hour of deliver- ance. The election of Mr. Lincoln will be one of the great dates of American history ; it closes the past, but it opens the future. With it is about to commence, if the same spirit be maintained, and if excessive concessions do not succeed in undoing all that has been done, a new era, at once purer and greater than that which has just ended. Let others accuse me of optimism ; I willingly agree to it. I believe that optimism is often right here below. We need hope ; we need sometimes to receive good news ; we need to see sometimes the bright side of things. The bright side is often 12 INTRODUCTION. the tnie side ; if Love is blindfolded, I see a triple bandage on the eyes of Hate. Kindliness has its privileges ; and I do not think myself in a Avorse position than another to jndge the United States because they inspire me with an earnest sympathy ; because, after having mourned their faults and trembled at their perils, I have joyfully saluted the noble and manly policy of which the election of Mr. Lincoln is the symptom. Is it not true, that at the first news we all seemed to breathe a whiff of pure and free air from the other side of the ocean ? It is a pleasure, in times like ours, to feel that certain principles still live ; that they will be obeyed, cost what it may ; that questions of con- science can yet sometimes weigh down questions of jDrofit. Tlie abolition of slavery will be, I have always thought, the principal conquest of the nine- teenth century. This will be its recommendation in the eyes of posterity, and the chief compensation for many of its weaknesses. As for us old soldiers of emancipation, who have not ceased to combat for it for twenty years and more, at the tribunal and elsewhere, we shall be excused without doubt for seeing in the triumph of our American friends something else than a subject of lamentation. CHAPTEE I. AMERICAN SLAVEET. If they had not triumphed, do you know who would have gained the victory ? Slavery is only a word — a vile word, doubtless, but to which we in time become habituated. To what do we not be- come habituated ? We have stores of indulgence and indifference for the social iniquities which have found their way into the current of cotemporary civilization, and which can invoke prescription. So we have come to speak of American slavery with perfect sang froid. We are not, therefore, to stop at the word, but to go straight to the thing ; and the thing is this : Every day, in all the Southern States, families are sold at retail : the father to one, the mother to another, the son to a third, the young daughter to a fourth ; and the father, the mother, the children, are scattered to the four winds of heaven ; these 14: AMEEICAX SLAVEKY. liearts are broken, these poor beings are given a prej to infamy and sorrow, tbese marriages are ruptured, and adulterous unions are formed twenty leagues, a liundred leagues away, in tlie bosom and with the assent of a Christian comnmnity. Every day, too, the domestic slave-trade cames on its work ; merchants in human flesh ascend the Mis- sissippi, to seek in the j^^'oducing States wherewith to fill up the vacuum caused unceasingly by slav- ery in the consuming States ; their ascent made, they scoui* the farms of Virginia or of Kentucky, buying here a boy, there a girl ; and other hearts are torn, other families are dispersed^ other name- less crimes are accomplished coolly, simply, legally : it is the necessary revenue of the one, it is the in- dispensable supply of the others. Must not the South live, and how dares any one travesty a fact so simple ? by what right was penned that eloquent calumny called " Uncle Tom's Cabin " ? A calumny ! I ask how any one would set to work to calumniate the customs which I have just described. Say, then, that the laws of the South ai-e a calumny, that the official acts of the South are a calumny ; for I affirm that the simple reading of these acts and these laws, a glance at the advertise- ments of a Southern journal, saddens the heart AMERICAN SLAVERY. 15 more, and wounds tlie conscience deeper, than the most poignant pages of Mrs. Harriet Beech er Stowe. I admit -willingly that there are many masters who are very kind and very good. I admit that there are some slaves who are relatively hapj)y. I cast aside imhesitatingly the stories of exceptional cruel- ty ; it is enough for me to see that these happy slaves expose themselves to a thousand deaths to escape a situation declared " preferable to that of our workmen." It is enough for me to hear the heart-rending cries of those women and young girls who, adjudged to the highest and last bidder, be- come, by the law and in a Christian country, the property, yes, the property (excuse the word, it is the true one) of the debauchees, their purchasers. And remark here that the virtues of the master are a weak guarantee : he may die, he may become bankrupt, and nothing then can hinder his slaves from being sold into the hands of the buyer who scours the country and makes his choice. "W"e should calumniate the South if we amused ^rselves by makiug a collection of atrocious deeds, in the same manner that we should calumniate France by seeking in the Police Gazette for the de- scription of her social state. There is, notwith- standing, this difference between the iniquities of 16 AMERICAN SLAVERY. slavery and our own: the first are almost always unpunished, while the second are repressed by the courts. An institution which permits evil, creates it in a great measure : in saying that men are things, it necessarily engenders more crimes, more acts of violence, more cowardly deeds, than the imagination of romancers will ever invent. When a class has neither the right to complain, nor to defend itself, nor to testify in law ; when it cannot make its voice heard in any manner, we may be excused for not taking in earnest the idyls chanted on its felicity. We must be ignorant at once of the heart of man and of history to preserve the slightest doubt on this point. I add that those who, like me, have had in their hands the docu- ments of our colonial slavery, have become terribly suspicious, and are likely to look with a skeptical eye on these Arcadian descriptions, the worth of which they can appreciate. Once more, I do not contest the humanity of many masters, but I remember that there were hu- mane masters too in Martinique, Guadeloupe, und Bourbon ; yet this did not prevent the discovery, on a rigid scrutiny, sometimes of excesses, as fearful as inevitable, of the discretionary power ; at others, of a systematic depravation, and this to such a AMERICAN SLAVEKY. l7 point that in one of our colonies tlie custom of regular unions had become absolutely unknown to the slaves. I cannot help believing that man is the same everywhere. Never, in any time or in any lati- tude, has it been given him to possess his fellow, without fearful misfortunes having resulted to both. Have we not heard celebrated the delightful mild- ness of Spanish slavery in Cuba ? Travellers enter- tained by the Creoles usually return enchanted with it. Yet, notwithstanding, it is found that on quitting the cities and penetrating into the planta- tions, the most barbarous system of labor is discov- ered that exists in the entire world. Cuba devours her black population so rapidly that she is unceas- ingly obliged to purchase negroes from abroad ; and these, being once on the island, have not before them an average life exceeding ten years ! In the United States, the planters of the extreme South are also obliged to renew their supply of negroes ; but, as they have recourse to the domestic instead of the African trade, and as the domestic trade fur- nishes slaves at an excessively high price, it follows that motives of interest oppose the adoption of the destructive system of Cuba. Other higher motives also oppose it, I am certain ; and I am far from 18 AAIEKICAJJ SLAVEKY. comparing the system of Louisiana or the CaroKnas to that which prevails in the Spanish island. We exaggerate nothing, however ; and whatever may be the j)oints of difference, we may„ hold it as cer- tain that those of resemblance are still more nu- merous : the tree is the same, it cannot but bear the same fruits. It must be affirmed, besides, that slavery is pe- culiarly odious on that soil where the equality of mankind has been inscribed with so much eclat at the head of a celebrated constitution. Liberty im- poses obligations ; there is at the bottom of the human conscience something which will always cause slavery to be more scandalous at Washington than at Havana. What happens in the United States will be denounced more violently, more loudly, than what haj)pens in Brazil ; and this is right. This said, I pause : I have not the slightest wish to introduce here a perfectly superfluous discussion on the principle and the consequences of slavery. I know all with which Americans reproach us Europeans. It was we. Frenchmen, Englishmen, Spaniards, Hollanders, who imj)osed on them this institution which we take delight in combating — this inheritance which we anathematize ! Before at- AMERICAN SLAVEKT. 19 tacking slavery, we would do well to turn our at- tention to our own crimes — to the oppression of the weak in our manufactories, for instance ! But these retaliatory arguments have the fault of proving nothing at all. We will leave them ; we have said enough on the nature of American slavery ; let us proceed to the special study of our work. 20 WHEllE THE UNITED STATES WERE DRIFTING CHAPTEK II. WHEEE THE UNITED STATES WEKE DRIFTING BEFORE THE ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN. I HAVE spoken of the great perils which the United States encountered before the election of Mr. Lincoln. The time has come to enter into some details in justification of this proposition, which must have appeared strange at first sight, but the terms of which I have weighed well : if the slavery party had again achieved a victory, the United States would have gone to ruin. These are the facts : Fonnerly, there was but one opinion among Americans on the subject of slavery. The South- erners may have considered it as a necessary evil ; in any case, they considered it as an evil. Carolina herself nobly resisted its introduction upon her soil ; other colonies did the same. "Washington in- scribed the wish in his will that so baleful an insti- BEFOKE THE ELECTION OF MK. LINCOLN. 21 tution miglit be promptly suppressed. To pen up slavery, to prevent its extension, to reduce it to the role of a local and temporary fact, which it was de- termined to restrain still more — such was the senti- ment which prevailed in the South, as in the l^orth. And, in fact, slavery was ere long abolished in the majority of the States composing the Union. To- day, slavery has become a beneficent, evangelical institution, the corner-stone of republics, the foun- dation of all liberties ; it has become a source of blessings for the blacks as for the whites. "We not only are not to think of reducing the number of slave States, but it becomes important to increase them unceasingly : to interdict to slavery the en- trance into a new territory is almost iniquitous. Such are the theories proclaimed by the governors, by the legislators of the cotton States ; they pro- pose them openly, without scruple and without cir- cumlocution, under the name of political — what do I say ? of moral and Christian axioms. For these theories they take fire, they become excited ; they feel that enthusiasm which was inspired in other tunes by the love of liberty. See entire popula- tions, who, under the eye of God, and invoking his support, devote themselves, body, soul, and goods, to the holy cause of slavery, its conquests, its 22 WHEKE THE UNITED STATES WERE DKIFTING indefinite extension, its inter-State and African trade. And the conquests of slavery do not figure only in platforms ; they are pursued and accomplished eflfectively on the soil of America. In the face of the nineteenth century, free Texas has been trans- formed into a slave State. To create other slave countries is the aim proposed ; and slave countries multiply, and the South does not tolerate the slight- est obstacle to conquests of this kind, and it goes forward, and nothing stops it — I am wrong, the election of Mr. Lincoln has stopped it, and this is why its fury breaks out to-day. One would be furious for less cause ! Every thing had gone so well till then ! The South spoke as a master, and the !North humbly bowed its head before its imperious commands. Its exactions in- creased from day to day, and it was not diflacult to see to what abysses it was leading the entire Amer- ican Union. Shall we give our readers an idea of this crescendo of pretensions ? "We will content ourselves with going back to the last Mexican war and to the Wilmot proviso. This was, as is known, a measure, or proviso^ stipu- lating that slavery could not be introduced into conquered provinces. Such was the starting point. BEFOKE THE ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN. 23 It was sought then to prevent the territorial exten- sion of sLaveiy. This seems to me reasonable enough ; and I am not astonished that the Lincoln platform tends simply to return to this primitive policy. Some time after this, the Missouri ques- tion presents itself: Shall the number of slave States be increased ? Is this leprosy to be permit- ted to extend ? Will the Northern countries be invaded in their turn ? The struggle is earnest and long. Finally the South carries the cause ; the in- troduction of slavery into the new State is accorded it, but on condition that this introduction shall be henceforth prohibited beyond the 36th degree of latitude. This is called the Missouri Compromise. Ere long the South complains of this limit set to the development of its " peculiar institution." Other combats, another victory. A bill proposed by Mr. Douglas annuls the Missouri Compromise, and, based on the principle of local sovereignties, withdraws from Congress the right to interfere in the question of slavery. Tlie "Wilmot proviso could not subsist in the presence of these absolute pretensions. The liberty of slavery (pardon me this mournful and involun- tary conjunction) finds an application on the spot. At this juncture, Texas, a province detached from 24: WHEEE THE UNITED STATES WERE DRIFTma Mexico, is admitted in the quality of a slave State. "What happens then ? The partisans of slavery, hampered by nothing any longer, either by limits at the North, or limits at the South, or provisos, or compromises, encounter, to their great horror, an obstacle of quite a different nature. The local sov- ereignty which they have invoked turns against them ; in the Territory of Kansas, the majority votes the exclusion of slavery. At once the South- erners change theory ; against local sovereignty they invoke the central power ; they demand, they exact that the decisions of the majority in Kansas shall be trodden under foot ; they put forward the natural right of slavery. "Why shall they be pre- vented from settling in a Territory with the slaves, their property ? When this Territory shall be by and by transformed into a State, there will doubt- less be a right to determine the question ; but to abolish slavery is quite a different thing from ex- cluding it. If the South did not win the cause this time, it was not the fault of the government of the United States, but of the inhabitants of Kansas. As for Mr. Buchanan, he showed himself what he has con- stantly been, the most humble servant of the slavery BEFOKE THE ELECTION OF MK. LLNCOLN. 25 party. They came together into collision with squatter sovereignty : tliey found for the first time in their patli that solid resistance of the West which was manifested in the last election, and which, I firmly hope, is about to save America. But in the mean time, they had taken a new step forward — a formidable step, and one which introduced them into the very bosom of the free States : they had obtained a decision from the Supreme Court — the Dred Scott decree. In the preamble of this too celebrated decision, the highest judicial power of the Confederation did not fear to proclaim two prin- ciples : first, that there is no difference between a slave and any other kind of property ; secondly, that all American citizens may settle everywhere with their property. What a menace for the free-soilers ! How easy to see to what lengths the South would shortly go ! Since slavery constituted property like any other, it was necessary to prohibit the majority from proscribing it in States as well as in Terri- tories. Who knew whether we should not some day see slaves and even slave-markets (the right of property carries with it that of sale) in the streets even of Philadelphia or Boston 1 Let no one cry out against this : those who de- 2 26 WHERE THE UNITED STATES WERE DRIFTING manded and those who framed the Dred Scott de- cision knew probably what they wished to do. With the right of property understood in this wise, no State has the power either to vote the real abo- lition of slavery, or to forbid the introduction of slaves, or to refuse their extradition. And, effect- ively, horrible laws, ordering fugitive slaves to be given up, were accorded to the violent demands of the South. Liberty by contact with the soil, that great maxim of our Europe, was interdicted Ameri- ca ; the very States that most detested slavery were condemned to assist, indignant and shuddering, in the federal invasion of a sheriff entering their homes to lay hands on a poor negro, who had be- lieved in their hospitality, and who was about to be delivered up to the whip of the planter. It was asking much of the patience of the !N"orth ; yet, notwithstanding, this patience was not yet at an end. The Administration was given up a prey to the will of the Southerners. On their prohibi- tion, the mails ceased to carry books, journals, let- ters, which excited their suspicion. They had seized upon the policy of the Union, and they ruled it ac- cording to their liking. No one has forgotten those enterprises, favored underhand, then disavowed after failure, those filibustering expeditions in Central BEFOKB THE ELECTION OF ME. LINCOLN. 27 America and in the island of Cuba. Tliej were the policy of the South, executed by Mr. Bu- chanan with his accustomed docility. The point in question was to make conquests, and conquests for slavery. By any means, and at any price, the South was to procure new States. Cuba would furnish some, several would be carved out of Mexico and Central America ; for otherwise the slavery majorities would be compromised in Congress, and slavery would be forced to renounce forever the election of the Presidents of free America. To avoid such a misfortune, there is nothing that they would not have been ready to undertake. Thus, step after step, and exaction after exaction, overthrowing, one after the other, all barriers, the Wilmot proviso, the Missouri Compromise, the right of majorities in the Territories, the very sovereignty of the States annulled by the Dred Scott decision, the South had succeeded in drawing the United States into those violent and dishonest political practices which filled tho administration of Mr. Bu- chanan. Tlie barriers of public probity, and the right of men, yielded in turn ; the administration dared write officially that Cuba was necessary to the United States, and that the affranchisement of slaves in Cuba would be a legitimate cause of war. 28 WHEKE THE UNITED STATES WEKE DKIFILNQ Tlie United States were yoked to the car of slavery : to make slave States, to conquer Territories for slav- ery, to prevent the terrible misfortune of an aboli- tion of slavery, such was the programme. In nego- tiations, in elections, nothing else was perceived than this. If the liberty of the seas and the inde- pendence of the flag were proudly claimed, it was by the order of the South, and there lesulted thence, whether desired or not, a progressive resurrection of the African slave-trade ; if candidates in favor of the maintenance of the Union were recommended, it was to assure the conquests of slavery within and without, the invasion of neighboring countries, the extradition of fugitive slaves, the subjugation of majorities rebellious to the South, the suppression of laws disagreeable to the South, the overthrow of the last obstacles which fettered the progress of the South And it was thus far, to this degree of disorder and abasement, that a noble people had been dragged downwards in the course of years, sinking constantly decider, abandoning, one by one, its guarantees, losing its titles to the esteem of other nations, approaching the abyss, seeing the hour draw nigh in which to rise would be impossible, bringing down maledictions upon itself, forcing BEFOKE THE ELECTION OF MR. LrNCOLN. 29 those wlio love it to reflect on the words of one of its most illustrious leaders : "I tremble for my country, when I remember that God is just ! " All this under the tyrannical and j^itiless influ- ence of a minority constantly transformed into a majority ! Picture to yourself a man on a vessel standing by the gun-room with a lighted match in his hand ; he is alone, but the rest obey him, for at the first disobedience he will blow up himself with all the crew. This is precisely what has been go- ing on in America since she went adrift. The working of the ship was commanded by the man who held the match. " At the first disobedience, we will quit you." Such has always been the lan- guage of the Southern States. They were known to be capable of keeping their word ; therefore, there ceased to be but one argument in America : seces- sion. " Kevoke the compromise, or else secession ; modify the legislation of the free States, or else se- cession ; risk adventures, and undertake conquests with us for slavery, or else secession ; lastly and above all, never sufier yourselves to elect a presi- dent who is not our candidate, or else secession." Thus spoke the South, and the North submitted. Let us not be unduly surprised at it, there was pa- triotism in this weakness ; many citizens, inimical 30 WHEEE THE UNITED STATES WEKE DKIFTING to elaveiy, forbore to combat its progress, in order to avoid what appeared to them a greater evil. Declivities like these are descended quickly, and the deplorable presidency of Mr. Buchanan stands to testify to this. The policy of the United States had become doubtful ; their good renown was dwindling away even with their warmest friends ; their cause was becoming blended more and more with that of servitude ; their liberties were compromised, and the Federal institutions were bending before the " insti- tution " of the South ; no more rights of the majority before the " institution ; " no more sovereignty of the States before the " institution." Tlie ultra policy of Mr. Buchanan had coveted Cuba, essayed violence in Kansas, given up the government of America in fine to a cabinet of such a stamp, that a majority was nearly found in it, ready to disavow Major An- derson, and to order the evacuation of forts of the Confederation, menaced by Carolinian forces. During this time, an incredible fact had come to light. It was one of the glories of America to have abolished the African slave trade before any other na- tion, and even to have put it on the same footing with the crime of piracy. The South had openly de- manded the re-establishment of a commerce which alone could furinsh it at some day with the number BEFOKE THE ELECTION OF MR. LENCOLN. 31 of negroes proportioned to its vast designs. What had Mr. Buchanan done ? He doubtless had not consented ofRcially to an enormity, which Congress, on its part, would not have tolerated ; but repression had become so lax under his administration, that the number of slave ships fitted out in the ports of the United States had at length become very con- siderable. The port of New York alone, which participates but too much in the misdeeds and ten- dencies of the South, fitted out eighty -five slavers between the months of February, 1859, and July, 1860. These slavers jn'oudly bore the United States' flag over the seas, and defied the English cruisers. As for the American cruisers, Mr. Bu- chanan had taken care to remove them all from Cuba, where every one knows that the living car- groes are landed. The slave trade is therefore in the height of prosperity, whatever the last presi- dential message may say of it, and as to the appli- cation of the laws concerning piracy, I do not see that they have had many victims. We can now measure the perils which menaced the United States. It was not such or such a meas- ure in particular, but ^ collection of measures, all directed towards the same end, and tending mutu- ally to complete each other ; conquests, the domestic 32 WHERE THE UNITED STATES WERE DRIFTINO and the foreign slave trade, the overthrow of the few barriers opposed to the extension of slavery, the de- basement of institutions, the definitive enthroning of an adventnrons policy, a policy without principles and without scruples; to this the country was advanc- ing with rapid strides. Do they who raise their hands and eyes to heaven, because the election of Mr. Lin- coln has caused the breaking forth of an inevitable crisis, fancy then that the crisis would have been less serious if it had broken forth four years later, when the evil Avould have been without remedy ? Already, the five hundred thousand slaves of the last century have given place to four millions ; was it advisable to wait until there were twenty mil- lions, and until vast territories, absorbed by Amer- ican power, had been peopled by blacks torn from Africa ? Was it advisable to await the time when the South should have become decidedly the most important part of the Confederation, and when the North, forced to secede, should have left to others the name, the prestige, the flag of the United States ? Do they fancy that, by chance, with the supremacy of the South, with its conquests, with the monstrous development of its slavery, secession would have been avoided ? 'No ! it would have appeared some day as a necessary fact ; only it would have been BEFORE THE ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN. 33 accomplished under different auspices and in differ- ent conditions. Sucli a secession would have been death, a shameful death. And slavery itself, who imagines, then, that it can be immortal ? It is in vain to extend it ; it will perish amidst its conquests and through its con- quests : one can predict this without being a prophet. But, between the suppression of slavery such as we hope will some time take place, and that which we should have been forced to fear, in case the South had carried it still further, is the distance which separates a hard crisis from a terrible catastrophe. The South knows not what nameless misfortunes it has perhaps just escaped. If it had been so unfor- tunate as to conquer, if it had been so unfortunate as to carry out its plans, to create slave States, to recruit with negroes from Africa, it would have cer- tainly paved the way, with its own hands, for one of those bloody disasters before which the imagina- tion recoils : it would have shut itself out from all chance of salvation. It is not possible, in truth, to put an end to cer- tain crimes, and wholly avoid their chastisement ; there will always be some suffering in deliver- ing the American Confederation from slavery, and it depends to-day again upon the South to aggra- 2* 34 WHEKE THE UNITED STATES WEKE DKIFTINO. vate, in a fearful measure, the pain of the transition. However, what would not have been possible with the election of Mr. Douglas or Mr. Breckenridge, has become possible now with the election of Mr. Lincoln ; we are at liberty to hope henceforth for the rising of a great people. CHAPTEK III. WHAT THE ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. I THINK that I have justified the fundamental idea of this work, and the title which I have given it. If the slavery policy had achieved a new triumph ; if the North had not elected its Presi- dent, the first that has belonged to it in full since the existence of the Confederation ; if supremacy had not ranged itself in fine on the side with force and justice, this unstable balance would have had its hour of downfall : and what a downfall ! Of so much true liberty, of so much progress, of so many noble examples, what would have been left standing ? Tlie secession of the South is not the secession of the North ; affranchisement with four millions of slaves is not affranchisement with twenty millions; the crisis of 1861 is not that of 1865 or of 1869. The United States, I repeat, with a pro- 36 WHAT THE ELECTION OF MK. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. found and studied conviction, — the United States have just been saved. There are those who ask gravely whether the electors of Mr. Lincoln have a plan all ready to effect the abolition of slavery. "We answer that this is not in question. Among the influential and earnest men of the victorious party, not one could be cited who would think of proposing any plan whatever of emancipation. One thing alone is proposed : to check the conquests of slavery. That it shall not be extended, that it shall be confined within its present limits, is all that is sought to- day. The policy of the founders of the Con- federation has become that of their successors in turn ; and to this policy, what can be objected ? Is not the sovereignty of the States respected ? do they not remain free to regulate what concerns them ? do they not preserve the right of postponing, so long as they deem proper, the solution of a dreaded problem ? could not this solution be thought over and prepared by those who best know its elements ? The matter is, indeed, more complicated and difficult than is generally imagined. Should we be imprudent enough to meddle with it, we might rightfully be blamed. Here, summary proceedings WHAT THE ELECTION OF MB. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. 37 are evidently not admissible. Time and the spirit of Christianity must do their work by degrees ; they will do it, be sure, provided the evil be cir- cumscribed, provided the seat of the conflagration be hemmed in and prevented henceforth from spreading further. Now, such is the great result acquired by the election of Mr. Lincoln ; it is nothing more than this, but it is all this : it is prudence in the present, and it is also the certainty of success in the future. Emancipation is by no means decreed ; it will not be for a long time, perliaps : yet the principle of emancipation is established, irrevocably established in the sight of all. Irrevocability has prodigious power over our minds : without being conscious of it, we make way for it ; we arrange in view of it our conduct, our plans, and even our doctrines. Once fully convinced that its propagandism is checked, that the future of which it dreamed has no longer any chances of success, the South itself will become accustomed to consider its destiny under a wholly new aspect. Tlic border States, in which emancipation is easy, will range themselves one after another on the side of liberty. Thus the extent of the evil will become reduced of itself, and instead of advancing, as durhig some years past, 38 WHAT THE ELECTION OF MK. LINCOLN SIGNiriES. towards a colossal development of servitude, it will proceed in the direction of its gradual attenuation. I reason on the hypothesis of a iinal mainten- ance of the Union, whatever may be the incidents of temporary secession. I am not ignorant that there are other hypotheses, which may possibly be realized, and which I shall examine in the course of this treatise ; but whatever may happen, I have a full right to call to mind the true scope of the vote which has just been taken. It does not involve the slightest idea of present emancipation ; it contents itself with checking the progress of slavery ; and to check its progress is, doubtless, to diminish the perils of its future abolition. It was important to present this observation, for nothing perverts our judgment of the American crisis more than the inexact definitions which are given of abolitionism. We willingly picture abo- litionists to ourselves as madmen, seeking to attain their end on the spot, regardless of all else, through blood and ruin ! That there may be such is possi- ble, is even inevitable ; but the men who exercise any political influence over the Kortli have not for a moment adopted such theories. Tliis is so true, that the other day, at Boston, the people themselves (the people who nominated Mr, Lincoln) dispersed WHAT THE ELECTION OF MK. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. 39 a meeting intended to discuss plans of immediate emancipation. What if abolitionism, moreover, be a party ? what if it make use of the means employed by par- ties ? what if it have its journals, its publicists, its orators ? what if it seek allies ? what if it be based on interests which may be given it by the majority ? what if it appeal to the passions of the North, as the slavery party appeals to those of the South ? I do not see, in truth, why this should as- tonish us. I am far from believing that all the acts of abolitionism are worthy of approbation ; I say only that it would be^nierile to repudiate a great party for the sole reason that it has the bear- ing of a party. The duty of citizens in a free country is to choose between parties, and to unite with that whose cause is just and holy. Let them protest against wrong measures, let them refuse to participate in them — nothing can be better ; but to withdraw into a sort of political Tliebais because the noblest parties have stains on their banner, is, in truth, to turn their back on the civil obligations of real life. The abolition party is a noble one. Several of its champions have given their lives to propagate their faith. But lately, indeed, the Texan journals 40 WHAT THE ELECTION OF ME. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. took pains to tell us that a number of them had just been hung in that State ; and, without even speaking of these noble victims, whose death com- pletes the dishonor of the Southern cause, are there any bolder deeds in the history of mankind than those of the citizens of New England who, to wrest Kan- sas from slavery, went thither to build their cabins, thus braving a fearful struggle, not only with the slaveholders, but with the President, his illegal measures, and the troops charged with maintaining them ? We must fight to conquer. Tliis seems little understood by those who reproach abolitionism with having been a party militant ; to hear them, the true way of bringing about the abolition of slavery was to let it alone : to attack was to exas- perate it. This argument is so unfortunate as to be em- ployed in all bad causes. I remember that when measures were taken against the slave trade, we were told that the sufferings of the slaves would be thus increased, and that the slavers would be exas- perated. Later, when we held up to the indigna- tion of the whole world the Protestant intolerance of Sweden, we were assured that these public de- nunciations would put back the question instead WHAT THE ELECTION OF ME. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. 41 of accelerating it. We persevered, and we did rightly. Sweden is advancing, though at too slow a pace, towards religions liberty. It would be difficult to cite any social iniquities that have re- formed of themselves ; and, since the existence of the world, the method which consists in attacking evil has been the one sanctioned by success. In America itself, the progress made by the border States does not seem to confirm what is told us of the reaction caused by the aggressions of abolition- ism. In Virginia, in Kentucky, in Missouri, in Delaware, etc., the liberty party has been continu- ally gaining ground ; and the votes received in the slave States by Mr. Lincoln prove it a very great mistake to suppose letting alone to be the condition of progress. Would to God that slavery had not been let alone when the republic of the United States was founded ! Tlicn, abolition was easy, the slaves were few in number, and no really formida- ble antagonism was in play. Unhappily, false prudence made itself heard : it was resolved to keep silence, and not to deprive the South of the honor of a voluntary emancipation — in fine, to reserve the question for the future. Tlie future has bent under the weight of a task which has continued to increase with years, thanks to letting it alone. 4:2 WHAT THE ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. A little more letting alone, and the weight would have crushed America ; it was time to act. The Abolition party, or rather the party opposed to the extension of slavery, has acted with a reso- lution which should excite our sympathies. The future of the United States was at stake ; it knew it, and it struggled in consequence. Remember the efforts essayed four years ago for the elec- tion of Mr. Fremont, efforts which would have succeeded perhaps, if Mr. Fremont had not been a Catholic. Kemember those three months of ballot- ing, by which the North succeeded in carrying the election of speaker of the House of Representatives. Remember the conduct of the North, in the sad affair of John Brown, its refusal to approve an ille- gal act, its admiration of the heroic farmer who died after having witnessed the death of his sons. On seeing the public mourning of the Free States, on hearing the minute gun discharged in the capi- tal of the State of New York on the day of execu- tion, one might have foreseen the irresistible im- pulse which has just ended in the triumph of Mr. Lincoln. The indignation against slavery, the love of country and of its compromised honor, the just susceptibilities of the North, the liberal instincts so WHAT THE ELECTION OF MK. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. 43 long repressed, the desire of elevating the debased and corrupt institutions of the land, the need of escaping insane projects, the powerful impulse of the Christian faith, all these sentiments contributed, without doubt, to swell the resistance against which the supremacy of the South has just been broken. This, then, is a legal victory, one of the most glorious spectacles that the friends of liberty can contem- plate on earth. It was the more glorious, the more efforts and sacrifices it demanded. Tlie Lincoln party had opposed to it, the Puseyistic and finan- cial aristocracy of New York ; the manoeuvres of President Buchanan were united against it wdth those of the Southern States. Many of the North- ern journals accused it of treading under foot the interests of the seaports, and of compromising the sacred cause of the Union. To succeed in electing Mr. Lincoln, we must not forget that it was necessary to put the question of principle above the questions of immediate inter- ests, which usually make themselves heard so dis- tinctly. Tlie unity, the greatness of the country, the gigantic future towards which it was advan- cing, were so many obstacles arising in the way. Then came the reckoning of profits and losses, the inevitable crisis, the Southern orders already with- 44 WHAT THE ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. drawn, tlie certain loss of money ; it seems to me that men who have braved such chances, have nobly accomplished their duty. America, it is said, is the country of the dollar ; the Americans think only of making money, all other considerations are subordinate to this. If the reproach is sometimes well-founded, we must admit, at least, that it is not always so. Those who wish to persuade us that the Abolitionists in this again have simply sought their own interests, by seeking to break down the competition of servile labor, forget two or three things : first, that the slaves produce tobacco or cotton, while the North pro- duces wheat, so that there is not a race in the world that competes less with it : next, that the cotton of the South is very useful to the North, useful to its manufactures, useful to its trade, both transit and commission. The people of the North are not reputed to lack foresight ; they were not ignorant that in electing Mr. Lincoln, they had, for the time at least, every thing to lose and nothing to gain ; they were not ignorant that Mr. Lincoln occasioned the immediate threat of secession ; that the threat of secession was a commercial crisis, was the political weakening of the country, and the un- eettling of many fortunes. But neither were they WHAT THE ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. 45 ignorant that above the fleeting interests of indi- viduals and of the nation, arose those permanent interests which mnst rest only on justice ; they decided, cost what it might, to wrest themselves from the detestable, and ere long fatal allurements of the slavery policy. Let us beware how we calumniate, without intending it, the few generous impulses which break out here and there among mankind. I know that there is a would-be prudent skepticism which attacks all moral greatness that it may depreciate it, all enthusiasm that it may translate it into calculation. To admire nothing is most deplorable, and, I hasten to add, most absurd. Without wan- dering from the subject of slavery, I can cite the great Emancipation Act, wrested from Parliament by Christian public opinion in England. Have not means been found to prove, or at least to insinuate, that this act, the most glorious of our century, was at the bottom nothing but a Machiavellian combi- nation of interests ? Doubtless, those who have taken the trouble to look over the debates of the times know what we are to think of this line expla- nation ; they know what resistance was opposed by interests to the emancipation, both in the colonies and in the heart of the metropolis ; they know with 46 WHAT THE ELECTION OF MK. LINCOLN SIGNiriES. how much obstinacy the Tories, representing the traditions of English polities, combated tlie pro- posed plans ; they know in what terms the certain ruin of the planters, the manufactures, and the sea- ports, was described ; they know by how many petitions the churches, the religious societies, the women, and even the children, succeeded in wrest- ing from Parliament a measure refused by so many statesmen. But the mass of the people do not go back to the beginning ; they take for granted the summary judgment that English emancipation was a master-piece of perfidy. We hear very nearly the same thing said of that glorious movement which has just taken place in America. We would gladly detect all motives in it except one that is generous and Christian. As if a vulgar calculation of interest would not have dic- tated a contrary course ! And it is precisely this that makes the greatness of the resolution adopted by the North. It knew all the consequences ; they had been announced by the South, recapitulated by prudent men, stated in detail by the newspapers of great commercial cities; it chose to be just. Despite the inevitable mingling of base and self- ish impulses, which always become complicated in such manifestations, the rulinor motive in this WHAT THE ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. 47 was a protest of conscience, and of the spirit of liberty. Tlie accounts that have come to us from Amer- ica demonstrate the lofty character of the joy which was manifested after the election. Men shook hands with each other in the streets ; they congratulated each other on having at last escaped from the yoke of an ignoble policy ; they felt as though relieved from a weight ; they breathed more freely ; the true, the noble destinies of the United States reappeared on the horizon, they saluted a future that should be better than the present, a future worthy of their sires, those early pilgrims who, carrying nothing with them but their Bibles, had laid the foundation of a free country with poor but valiant hands. I should like to quote here the sermon in which the Rev. Mr. Beecher poured out his Christian joy at that time. He spoke of the strength of the weak ; he showed that jtrinciples, however despised they may be, end by revenging themselves on interests ; he recalled the fact that the Gospel is a power in America. To rise up, to attack its enemy manfully, to arraign the causes of the national decline, to ap- proach boldly the solution of the most formidable problem which could be propounded here on earth, such is not the act of a nation of calculators. Some- 48 WHAT THE ELECTION OF MK. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. thing else is implied in it than tactics, some- tliing else than combinations of votes or sectional rivalries. To vote as they did, they had to over- come almost as many obstacles in the North as in the South ; for, in consequence of the vote, the North had to sufier like the South, and they knew it. If you wish to be just to the United States, compare them with other countries in which slavery exists. In the United States there is a struggle ; the question is a living one ; men do not turn aside from it with lax indifference. I love the noise of free na- tions ; I find in the very violence of their debates a proof of the earnestness of convictions. Men must become excited about great social problems ; if abuses exist, they must, at least, be pointed out, at- tacked, and stigmatized ; the prescription of silence must never be accorded them ; devoted voices must exclaim against them, unceasingly, in the name of justice and of humanity. Such a spectacle does good to the soul ; it solaces the sorrows of the pres- ent, it carries within itself guarantees for the future. Tlie sad, profoundly sad, spectacle, is that of na- tions where crimes make no noise. Look at Brazil. Like the United States, it has slavery, but it is an honorable, discreet slavery, of which nothing is said. WHAT THE ELECTION OF MK. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. 49 Whatever may happen there, no one inquires about it ; there are no discussions, either through the press or in the courts. No party would dare insert such a question into its platform. One thing, very prop- erly, has been found to disturb it, and the public sale of slaves lias just been forbidden. Look, above all, at Spain and its island of Cuba. There, too, is perfect silence. Nothing, in truth, opposes the belief that Cuba is the abode of felicity, and that the atrocities of slavery are the monopoly of the United States. But inquisitive people, who like to search to the bottom of things, discover that if the masters are very gentle at Havana, the overseers are scarcely so on their account on the plantations ; I have already given the proof of it. Out of ten slavers that are seized on tlie high seas, nine are always destined to Cuba. Spain has forbidden the slave trade ; she has even been compensated for it by the English ; but this does not prevent her from suffering it to be carried on before her eyes with almost absolute impunity. Her high-sounding phrases change nothing ; the smallest fact is of more value. At Cuba, the landing of slaves is continual, and the places of disembarkation are known. Now, the American flag protects no one at the time of disembarking. Why is no opposition made to this ? 3 60 WHAT THE ELECTION OF ME. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. Why has the importation of negroes tripled in Cu- ba ? Why does no slaver, American or any other, steer towards Brazil, since Brazil has desired to put an end to the slave trade ? The answer to these questions will be given us on the day when Spain shall desire, in turn, to suppress it. In the mean time she prefers to keep silence, unless when a word from London strikes out a concert of protestations more patriotic than convincing ; save in this case, the government is silent, public opinion is silent, no colonial sheet is found ready to hazard an objection, nor even a metropolitan journal that is willing to disturb so touching an equanimity. The court of Madrid, in which many questions are agitated, pru- dently stands aloof in the matter of slavery and the slave trade ; among the numerous parties disputing for power, not one dares venture on a ground where it would meet nothing but unpopularity. Ah ! af- ter this death-like silence, how the soul is refreshed by the fiery contests of the United States, the great word-combats carried on in every village of the Union, the appeals addressed to the conscience, the battle in broad daylight ! How refreshing to see by the side of these nations, who sleep so tranquilly, while regarding the inroads of slavery, a people WHAT THE ELECTION OF MB. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES. 51 whom it disquiets, whom it irritates, who refuse to take part in it, and who, rather than conform to the evil, agitate, become divided, and rend themselves perchance with their own hands ! 52 WHAT WE AHE TO THINK CHAPTER lY. WHAT WE AKE TO THINK OF THE UNITED STATES. "We are not just towards the United States. Their civilization, so different from ours, wounds us in various ways, and we turn from them in the ill-hu- mor excited by their real defects, without taking note enough of their eminent qualities. Tliis coun- try, which possesses neither church, nor State, nor army, nor governmental protection ; this country, born yesterday, and born under a Puritanic influ- ence ; this country, without past history, without monuments, separated from the Middle Ages by the double interval of centuries and beliefs ; this rude country of farmers and pioneers, has nothing fitted to please us. It has the exuberant life and the ec- centricities of youth ; that is, it affords to our ma- ture experience inexhaustible subjects of blame and raillery. We are are so little inclined to admire it, that OF THE UNITED STATES. 53 we seek in its territorial configuration for the es- sential explanation of its success. Is it so difiicult to maintain good order and liberty at home when one has immense deserts to people, when land offers it- self without stint to the labor of man ? — I do not see, for my part, that land is lacking at Buenos Ayres, at Montevideo, in Mexico, or in any of the pronunciamento republics that cover South America. It seems to me that the Turks have room before them, and that the Middle Ages were not suffering precisely from an excess of population when they presented everywhere the spectacle of anarchy and oppression. Be sure that the United States, which have something to learn of us, have also something to teach us. Tlieirs is a great community, which it does not become us to pass by in disdain. The more it differs from our own Europe, the more ne- cessary is impartial attention to comprehend and ap- preciate it. Especially is it impossible for us to form an enlightened opinion of the present crisis, unless we begin by taking into consideration the surroundings in which it has broken out. The na- ture of the struggle and its probable issue, the difii- culties of the present, and the chances of the future, will be clear to us only on condition of our making 64: WHAT WE ARE TO THINK a study of the United States. A few details will, therefore, be permitted me. Among the Yankees, the faults are on the sur- face. I am not one to justify Lynch law, whatever may be the necessities which exist in the Far West. Riots in the United States are cited which have performed their work of fire and devastation, and which no one has dared treat rigorously afterwards, for fear of incurring disgrace from the sovereign people ; but I remember, I fancy, that similar things have been seen in Paris itself. We will not, there- fore, lay too great stress on them. One thing that is not seen in Paris, is, unhap- pily, remarked in America : the general tendency among women to substitute masculine qualities which scarcely befit them, for the feminine qualities which constitute their grace, their strength, and their dignity ; thence results a certain something un- pleasant and rude which does no credit to the iN^ew World. I by no means admire coarseness, and I do not admit that it is the necessary companion of energy ; the tone of the journals and of the debates in Congress is often calculated to excite a just re- probation. There is in the United States a level- ling spirit, a jealousy of acquired superiority, and, above all, of inherited distinctions, which pro- OF THE UNITED STATES. 65 ceeds from the worst sentiments of the heart. What is graver still, the tender and gentle side of the hu- man soul, such as shines forth in the Gospel, ap- pears too rarely among this people, where the Gos- pel, notwithstanding, is in honor, but where the labor of a gigantic growth has developed the active instead of the loving virtues ; the Americans are cold even when good, charitable and devout. They may love money, and often concentrate their thoughts on the means of making it ; I will not contest this, although I doubt, on seeing what passes among ourselves, whether we have the right to cast the stone at them ; especially as American liberality, as I shall presently show, is of a nature to put our parsimony to shame. As to the bankrupt acts, of which American creditors have many times complained, nothing can justify them; yet here again the role of pedagogue scarcely becomes us. If more than one American railroad company have taken advantage of a crisis to declare without much dishonor, a suspension of payment, it is not proved that these suspensions of payment must be converted into bankruptcy. If more than one town or more than one county make the half yearly payments of their debts with reluctance, the courts always do fair justice on this ill will ; there 66 WHAT WE AKE TO THINK are some countries, Russia, for instance, where the courts do not do as much. If, in fine, at one time, a number of States failed to keep their engagements, and a single one dared proclaim the infamous doc- trine of repudiation, all have since paid, the last- named included. Once more, are we sure of being in a position to reprove such misdeeds ; we, whose governments, anterior to '89, made use, without much scruple, of the fall of stocks and bankruptcies ; we, whose debt, on emerging from the Revolution, took the significant name of tiers consolide f Let us not forget that the population of the United States has increased tenfold since the close of the last century ; they have received immigrants annually, by hundreds of thousands, who have not always been the elite of the Old "World. Must not this perpetual invasion of strangers promptly trans- formed into citizens, have necessarily introduced into the decision of public affairs some elements of immorality ? I admire the honorable and religious spirit of the Americans which has been able to as- similate and rule to such a degree these great masses of Irish and Germans. Few countries would have endured a like ordeal as well. Remark that, in spite of all, public order is maintained without paid troops, (Continental Eu- OF THE UNITED STATES. 57 rope will find it hard to credit this.) Tranquillity reigns in the largest cities of the United States ; resjject for the law is in every heart ; great ballot- ings take place, millions of excited men await the result with trembling ; yet, notv/ithstanding, not an act of violence is committed. American riots — for some there are — are certainly less numerous than ours ; and they have the merit of not being transformed into revolutions. The greater part of the emigrants remain, of course, in the large cities ; here they come almost to make the laws, and here, too, noble causes en- counter the most opponents. Mr. Lincoln, to cite an example, received only a minority of suffrages in the city of New York, whilst the unanimity of the country suffrages secured him the vote of the State. Contempt of the colored class, that crime of the North, breaks out most of all in the large cities, and particularly among agglomerations of emigrants ; none are harsher to free negroes, it must be admitted, than newly-landed Europeans who have come to seek a fortune in America. As to crimes, they are numerous only in cities ; still the criminal records of the United States ap- pear somewhat full when compared with ours. I know how great a part of this must be assigned to 3* 58 WHAT "WE ARE TO THINK the insufficiency of repression ; in America, crimi- nals doubtless escape punishment much oftener than among us. ISTotwithstanding, there is real se- curity ; and a child might travel over the entire West without being exposed to the slightest danger. M. de Tocqueville has said that morals are infi- nitely more rigid in .!N^orth America than elsewhere. Tin's is not, it seems to me, a trifling advantage. "Whatever may be the depravity of the seaports, where the whole world holds rendezvous, it remains certain that it does not penetrate into the interior of the country. Open the journals and novels of the United States ; you will not find a cor- rupt page in them. You might leave them all on the drawing-room table, without fearing to call a blush to the brow of a woman, or to sully the im- agination of a child. In the heart of the manufacturing States, model villages are found, in which every thing is com- bined to protect the artisans of both sexes from the perils that await them in other countries. Who has not heard of the town of Lowell, where farm- ers' daughters go to earn their dowry, where the labor of the factories brings no dissipation in its train, where the workwomen read, write, teach Sunday-schools, w^here their morality detracts nothr OF THE UNITED STATES. 59 ing from their liberty and progress ? "WTien I have added that the United States have not a single foundling asylum, it seems to me that I have indi- cated what we are to think at once of their good morals and good sense. And let not the Americans be represented as a people at once honest and narrow-minded. If they are still far from our level — and this must neces- sarily be true, in an artistic and literary point of view — we are not, however, at liberty to despise a country which counts such names as Hawthorne, Longfellow, Emerson, Cooper, Marry att, Poe, Wash- ington Irving, Channing, Prescott, Motley, and Bancroft. Note that among these names, men of imagination hold a prominent place, which proves, we may say in passing, that the country where we oftenest hear the exclamation, " Of what use is it ? " agrees in finding poetry of some use. And I speak here neither of orators, like Mr. Seward or Mr. Douglas, nor of scholars, like Lieutenant Maury, nor of those who, like Fulton or Morse, have ap- plied science to art : judgment has been passed on all these points. But the true superiority of Americans is in the universality of common instruction. The Puritans, who came hither with their Bibles, were of neces* 60 WHAT WE AKE TO THINK fiity zealous founders of scliools ; the Bible and the school go together. See, therefore, what the schools are in the United States ! The State of Massachu- setts alone, which does not number a million of souls, devotes five millions yearly to its public in- struction. If other States are far from equalling it in academies and higher institutions, all are on a level with it as regards primary schools ; a man or woman, therefore, is rarely found outside the class of immigrants, who does not possess a solid knowledge of tlie elementary sciences, the extent of which would excite our surprise. By the side of the primary school, and to comj^lete its instrac- tion in the religious point of view, the Americans have everywhere opened Sunday-schools, kept gra* tuitously by volunteer teachers, among whom have figured many men of the highest standing, several of whom have been Presidents of the Confedera- tion. Tliese Svinday-schools, not less than twenty thousand in number, and superintended by one hundred and fifty thousand teachers, count more than a million of pupils, of which ten thousand at least are adults. Calculate the power of such an instrument ! People read enormously in America. There is a library in the meanest cabin of roughly-hewn OF THE UNITED STATES. 61 logs, constructed by the pioneers of the West. These poor log-houses almost always contain a Bible, often journals, instructive books, sometimes even poetry. We in Europe, who fancy ourselves fine amateurs of good verses, would scarcely imag- ine that copies of Longfellow are scattered among American husbandmen. The political journals have many subscribers ; those of the religious papers are no less numerous. I know of a monthly journal designed for children, (the ChilcVs Paper,) of which three hundred thousand copies are printed. This is the intellectual aliment of the country. In the towns, lectures are added to books, journals, and reviews : in all imaginable subjects, this commu- nity, which the Government does not charge itself with instructing, (at least, beyond the primary edu- cation,) educates and develops itself with indefat- igable ardor. Ideas are agitated in the smallest market-town ; life is everywhere. Accustomed to act for themselves, knowing that they cannot count on the administrative patronage of the State, the Americans excel in bringing indi- vidual energies into action. There are few func- tionaries, few soldiers, and few taxes among them. They know nothing, like us, of that malady of public functions, the violence of which increases in 62 WHAT WE AHE TO THINK proportion as we advance. They know nothing of those enormous imposts under which Europe is bending by degrees — those taxes which almost sup- press property by overburdening its transmission ; they have not come to the point of finding it very natural to devote one or two millions every year to the expenses of the State, and no theory has been formed to prove to them that of all the expenses of the citizens, this is applied to the best purpose. They have not entered with the Old World into that rivalry of armaments in which each nation, though it become exhausted in the effort, is bound to keep on a level with its neighbors, and in which no one will be stronger in the end when the whole world shall be subjugated. Their ten thousand regulars suffice, and they have their militia for extraordinary occasions. Lastly, their Federal debt is insignifi- cant ; and, if the private debts of a few States reach a high figure, they are nowhere of a nature to impose on the tax-payers a large surplu^s of charges. All of the great liberties exist in the United States : liberty of the press, liberty of speech, right of assemblage, right of association. Except in the slave States, where the national institutions have been subjected to deplorable mutilations in fact, OF THE UNITED STATES. 63 every citizen can express his opinion and maintain it openly, without meeting any other obstacle than the contrary opinion, which is expressed with equal freedom. But there is one ground above all where we should acknowledge the superiority of America : I mean, religious liberty. We are still in the beginning of doubts upon the point as to where the interfer- ence of the State should cease ; in what measure it should govern the belief of the citizens, and its manifestation. These questions, alas, are still pro- pounded among us. And there are countries at our doors, where men shudder » at the mere idea that the law may some day cease to decide for each in what manner he is bound to worship God, that the courts may cease to punish those whose con- science turns aside from the path of the nation. Protestant Sweden but lately condemned dissenters to fine and imprisonment ; Catholic Spain daily inflicts the severest . penalties on those who suffer themselves to profess or to propagate beliefs which are not those of the country — those who sell the Scriptures, and those who read them. The United States have not only proclaimed and loyally carried out the glorious principle of religious liberty, but have adopted as a corollary 64 WHAT WE AKE TO THINK another principle, much more contested among lis, but which I believe destined also to make the toui of the world : the principle of separation of Church and State. That believers should support their own worship, that religious and political questions should never be blended, that the two provinces should remain distinct, is a simple idea which seems most strange to us to-day. It will make its way like all other true ideas, which begin as paradoxes and end by becoming axioms. Meanwhile, the American Confederation enjoys an advantage which more than one European government, I suspect, would at some moiiients i^urchase at a high price : it has not to trouble itself about religious interests, either in its action without or its administration within. If there are conflicts everywhere in the spiritual order, it leaves them to struggle and be- come resolved in the spiritual order, without need- ing to trouble itself in the matter. Hence arises for the State a freedom of bearing, a simplicity of conduct, which we, who have to steer adroitly througli so many dangers, can hardly comprehend. Tlie American government is sure of never offend- ing any church — it knows none ; it does not inter- fere either to combat or to aid them ; it has re- OF THE UNITED STATES. 65 nounced, once for all, intervention in the domain of conscience. The result, doubtless, is, that this domain is not so well ordered as in Europe ; the administrative ecclesiastical state has by no means submitted to such regulation. Is that to say that this inconve- nience (if it be one) is not largely compensated for by its advantages ? Is it nothing to su]3press inherit- ance in religious matters, and to force each soul to question itself as to what it believes ? In the United States, adhesion to a church is an individual, sponta- neous act, resulting from a voluntary determinatiqji. This is so true that four-fifths of the inhabitants of the country do not bear the title of church members. Although attending worship, although manifesting an interest and zeal in the subject to which we are little accustomed, although assiduous church-goers, and liberal givers, they have not yet felt within themselves a conviction strong and clear enough to make a public profession of faith. Think what we may of such a system, we must avow, at least, that it implies a profound respect for sacred things ; nothing can less resemble that indolent and formal assent which we give, in conformity with custom, and without binding ourselves, in earnest, to the re- ligion that prevails among us. 66 WHAT WE AKE TO THINK Hence arises something valiant in American con- victions. Hence arises also, it may be said, that dispersion of sects, the picture of which is so often drawn for us. I am far from loving the spirit of sectarianism, and I am careful not to present the American churches as the beau ideal in religious matters. Tlie sectarian spirit, the fundamental trait of which is to confound unity with uniformity, to transform divergencies into separations, to refuse to admit into the bosom of the church the element of diversity and of liberty ; to exact the signing of a theological formula, and the formal adhesion as a whole to a collection of dogmas and practices, with- out tolerating the slightest shade of difference — the sectarian spirit, with its narrowness, with its tradi- tions of men, with its exaggeration of little things, with its separate denominations, is certainly not worthy of admiration. I reject it in America as elsewhere, but I think it well to state that the re- ligious disruption produced by it has been much exaggerated. We must greatly abbreviate the for- midable list of churches furnished us by travel- lers. Putting aside those which have no value, either as to influence or numbers, we reduce the numbers of denominations existing in the United States, outside the Roman Catholic church, to five, OF THE UNITED STATES. 67 (and these are too many ;) namelj : Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, and Presbyte- rian. The remainder is composed of small eccentric congregations wliicli spring up and die, and of which no one takes heed, except a few tourists, who are always willing to note down extraordinary facts. "We will add that the sectarian spirit is now attacked in America, and that the essential unity which binds the members of the five denominations together, in spite of some external differences, is manifesting itself forcibly. ISTot only does the evan- gelical alliance prove to the most sceptical that this unity is real, but a fact peculiar to the United States, the great awakening produced by the crisis of 1857, has given evidence of the perfect harmony of convictions. In the innumerable meetings caused to spring up by this awakening from one end of the country to the other, it has been impos- sible to distinguish Baptists, Presbyterians, or Con- gregationalists from each other. All have been there, and no one has betrayed by the least shade of dogmatism those self-styled profound divisions about which so much noise is made. I invite those still in doubt to look at the manner in which public worship is established in the "West : as soon as a few men have formed a settlement, a missionary comes 68 WHAT WE AKE TO THINK to visit them ; no one inquires about his denoni' ination, for the Bible that he brings is the Bible of all, and the salvation, through Christ, which he proclaims, is the faith of all. It suffices, besides*, to see this entire people, so restless, so laborious, leav- ing its business on Sunday to occupy itself with the thoughts of another life; it suffices to observe the unanimous uprising of the public conscience at the rumor of an attack directed against the Gospel, to perceive that unity subsists beneath lamentable di- visions, and that individual conviction creates the most active of all cohesive powers in the heart of human communities ; I know of no cement that equals it. If individual convictions are a strong bond, they are also an inexhaustible source of life. It is easy to assure ourselves of this by a brief survey of the proofs of Christian liberality which are displayed in the United States. Here, there is no legal charity, no aid to be expected from the government, either for the support of churches, or for that of the sick and poor ; the voluntary system must suffice for all. And, in fact, it does suffice for all. "What is the first thing in question ? To collect thirty millions annually for the payment of the clergy. Tlie tliirty millions are furnished : poor OF THE UNITED STATES. 69 and ricli, all give eagerly, and without compulsion. Tlie next thing in question is to provide for the con- struction of new churches ; now, it is necessary to finish not less than three of these daily, for the clearing of the forests advances with rapid strides, and a thousand churches, at least, are built every year. The majority of these churches are doubtless composed of beams laid one upon another, then painted white, or left of the natural color, and sur- mounted by a bell ; they are simple and inexpen- sive, and, in the infant villages, the streets of which are still blocked up by trees left standing, the place, serving at once for a church and a school, where the people gather round an itinerant preacher, is not decorated with much sumptuousness ; yet these new edifices demand annually from twelve to fifteen millions, Next come the religious societies. In the West, preachers are needed, hardy laborers, who live in privations, traversing vast solitudes on horseback, and journeying continually, without repose, until their strength is exhausted. Eight hundred mission- aries or agents are required for the American Board of Missions, for the Presbyterians, the Baptists, and all the other churches, Now, they cannot send them to the four quarters of the globe without pro- 70 WHAT WE AEE TO THINK viding for their wants. Tlie Bible Society, whicli prints three hundred thousand Bibles annually, the Religious Tract Society, which publishes every year five millions of tracts, and which, in New York alone, employs a thousand visitors or distributors ; the various works, in a word, expend from nine to ten millions. Such, then, is the budget of voluntary charity in the United States. It amounts to fifty or sixty millions, without counting the very considerable donations destined to public instruction ; without counting (and this is immense) the relief of the sick and the poor. You will scarcely find a village in the whole United States that has not its benevolent society, and private benevolence, which is the best, also carries on its work, independently of societies. I know of no country where acts of profuse liberality are more frequent ; one man founds a hospital, an- other an observatory. Asylums are opened for all human unfortunates, for lunatics, the blind, the deaf, orphans, abandoned children. "Was I not right in saying that this is a great people ? Whatever may be its vices, we are not at liberty to speak of it with disdain. If the Ameri- cans know how to make a fortune, they know, also, how to make a noble use of their fortune ; accused OF THE UNITED STATES. 71 with reason, as they are, of being too often preoc- cupied with questions of profit, we have seen them retrenching much of their hixury since the commer- cial crisis, yet economizing very little in their char- ities. The budget of the churches and religious so- cieties remained intact at the very time that embar- rassment was everywhere prevailing. I cannot help believing that there are peculiar blessings attached to so many voluntary sacrifices which carry back the mind to the early ages of Christianity. We may be sure that the religion that costs something, brings something also in return. 72 THE CHUKCHE8 AJSTD SLAVERY. CHAPTER V. THE CIIUECHES AND SLAVEET. This leads me to examine a side of the American question upon wliicli attention is naturally fixed at the present time ; how is it that the iniquities of slavery are maintained among this charitable and liberal people ? how is it that such iniquities have subsisted under the influence of so powerful a Christian sentiment ? Can it be true that Christians have deserted the cause of justice ? Has the Gos- pel had the place which belongs to it, in the great struggle that is going on between the North and the South ? yes ; or no. This is perhaps the point of all others most important to clear up ; first, because it is the one on which the most errors have accumu- lated ; next, because it is the one most closely con- nected with the final solution ; for this solution will not be happy, if the Gospel has no hand in it. To judge rightly, let us approach and endeavor THE CHUKCHES AND 8LAVEKY. 73 to comprehend the true position of those whose con- duct we seek to appreciate. See the South, for example, where the ahnost universal opinion is fa- vorable to slavery, where governors write dithjram- bics on its benefits, where manj Christians have succeeded in discovering that it is sanctioned by the Gospel, where men of sincerity are now placing their impious crusades in behalf of its extension un- der the protection of God, where numerous preach- ers expound in their own way the celebrated text " Cursed be Canaan ! " Do not these sentiments of the South, detestable as they are, find, to a certain point, their explanation and excuse in the circum- stances in which the South is placed ? The power of surroundings is incalculable. K we ourselves, who condemn slavery, and are right in so doing, had been reared in Charleston ; if we had led a planter's life from our earliest in- fancy ; if we had nourished our minds with their ideas ; if we considered our monetary interests men- aced by Abolitionism ; if the image of more fearful perils, of violent destructions and massacres, ap- peared to haunt our thoughts ; if the political an- tagonism between the North and the South came to add its venom to the passions already excited within us, is it certain that we ourselves should not 4 74 THE CHUKCHE8 AND SLAVEKT. be figuring at the present time among the despera- does who are firing upon the ships of the Union, and attempting the foundation of a Southern Con- federacy ? It is well to ask this of ourselves, in order to learn to respect, to love, and consequently to aid those whose conduct we blame the most strongly. For my part, whenever I am tempted to set myself up as a judge or an accuser of the South, I ask my- self what I should dq if I belonged to the South, and this brings me back to the true position, I remember, too, what I saw, with my own eyes, at the time when the discussion on slavery was carried on in France ; the colonial passions, the blindest and most violent of all, broke out in Martinique and the isle of Bourbon, as they had broken out be- fore in Jamaica, where the circulars of Mr. Canning, the proposition, for example, to suppress the flagel- lation of women, had excited a veritable explosion. There were some very honorable men among those who were indignant at this measure ; and, among us, likewise, the j)lanters who determined to com- bat all modification of the negro system, were good men. Severity is almost always a defect of mem- ory ; we blame others without pity, only when we begin by forgetting our own history. We French- . THE CHURCHES AND SLAVEKT. Y5 men, who had so much difficulty in emancipating our own slaves, and who would not, perhaps, have succeeded in it, had it not been for the bold deci- sion of M. Schoelcher ; we, who have sought to take back, in part, through our colonial regulations, the liberty accorded the blacks ; we, who suffered re- cruitals by purchase to be made on the African coast ; who formerly organized the expedition charged with re-establishing slavery and the slave trade at St. Domingo ; who suppressed the slave trade at the Congress of Vienna only in stipulat- ing its continuance for some years ; who carried into our discussions on the right of search, a very meagre interest for the victims of the slavers ; we, whose consciences are burdened with these mis- deeds, are bound to use indulgence towards the States of the South. This remark was necessary : it is from the South that the Biblical theories in favor of slavery proceed ; it is on account of the South that these theories have been adopted by certain Christians of the North, desirous, above every thing, of avoiding both the dismemberment of the United States, and that of the churches and religious societies. Take away the South, and no one in America, any more than in Europe, will dream of discovering in the 76 THE CHUKCHES AND SLAVERY. Gospel the divine approbation of the atrocities of slavery. I comprehend better than most, the sentiment of indignation that is caused by these deplorable teachings, in which slavery is sometimes excused, sometimes exalted ; I comprehend, that, under the impulse of a sentiment so justifiable, one may be led on to anathematize preachers and churches in a mass, that he may even come to the point of repre- senting to himself the Christian faith as the true ob- stacle to the progress of liberty. This is a great perversion of the truth, but we can easily under- stand how it has succeeded in gaining the assent of generous and sincere minds. I myself have read a sermon which was listened to with sympathy in a certain Presbyterian church in ISTew York, in which slavery, declares right until the return of Jesus Christ, ceases to be so, I know not why, during the millennium ? I know the nature of that tlieology, too truly styled cottony^ wliieh is displayed in the clerical columns of a weekly religious paper. Not- withstanding, I hasten to say that these revolting excesses seldom appear except in seaports, and es- pecially in New York. Tlie interests of this great city are bound up to such a degree with those of the cotton States, that we may literally consider THE CHURCHES AND 6LAVEKY. 77 iN'ew York as a prolongation of the South. "We need not be surprised, therefore, to find some con- gregations there which are ruled by the prejudices of the South. Besides, even in New York, other churches protest with holy zeal, and other journals, among which I will cite the Independent, the organ of the Congregationalists, combat slavery unceas- ingly in the name of the Gospel. Then people persist in seeing only Kew York, in taking notice only of what passes in Kew York ; but they forget that !New York is an exception in the North, as much by its commercial position as by its opinions and votes. Let us go ever so short a distance from the city into the surrounding coun- try, and we will encounter a different spirit — a spirit thoroughly impregnated with Christian faith, and little disposed to covenant with slavery. There we begin to see that race of Puritan farmers, but lately represented by John Brown. Has not the attempt been made to transform him also into a free thinker, a philosophic enemy of the Bible, and, from this very cause, an enemy to slavery ? We need nothing more than his last letter to his wife, to show from what source he had drawn that cour- age, so misdirected but so indomitable, which he displayed at Harper's Ferry ; the Christian, the 78 THE CHUKCHES AND 6LA"\'^EKY. Biblical and ortliodox Christian, comes to explain the liberal and the hero. That Christians in general condemned the en- terprise of John Brown, while sympathizing with him, I hasten to acknowledge ; and I am far from blaming them. That many have committed the real wrong of recoiling before the consequences of an open and decided conduct, I am forced to admit. Yes, without even mentioning the South, where, as every one knows, the reign of terror prevails, there are numerous Protestant and Catholic churches in the remainder of the Confederation, which have refused to declare themselves, as they should have done, in opposition to the crime of slavery. Let us not hasten, however, to cry out against false- hood and hypocrisy ; most honorable and sincere men have believed that they would do more harm than good by bringing on a rupture with the South. Let us not forget that political rupture is compli- cated here with religious rupture. Now, all the churches extend over both North and South; all the charitable societies number committees and subscribers in both North and South. The point in question then, (let us weigh the immensity of the sacrifice,) the point in question is to rend in twain all the churches, to break in pieces all the Bocie- THE CHTKCHES AND SLAVERY. 79 ties, to expose to perilous risks all the great works that do honor to the United States. Doubtless, to have gone their way, to have done their duty, and not to have troubled themselves about the consequences, was the great rule of ac- tion. I grant it ; yet, notwithstanding, I refuse to stigmatize, as many have done, those men who have committed the fault of hesitating ; I feel that to rank them among the champions of slavery is to pervert facts, and to fall into a blamable exaggera- tion. Again, to-day, after the election of Mr. Lin- coln, cannot citizens be cited in the North who are devoted to the cause of the negroes, but who refuse to participate in abolitionist demonstrations, because they fear (and the sentiments does them honor) to encourage the impending insurrections ? This said, I wish to prove by some too well- known facts, what has been this forbearance, or even this pretended hesitation of orthodox Chris- tianity. On regarding the churches, I see two, ,and the most considerable, which have openly de- clared themselves : the Congregationalists and the Methodists. About six months since, the General Conference of Methodists resolutely plunged into the current without suffering itself to be trammelled by the protests which came to it from the South. 80 THE CHUKCHES AKD SLAVEKY. I read in a report presented to one of the great di- visions of this church : " "Wc believe that to sell or to hold in bondage human beings under the name of chattels, is in contradiction to the divine laws and to humanity ; and that it conflicts with the golden rule and with the rule of our discipline." Last year, a numerous assemblage of delegates of the Congregational churches adopted the following resolution : " Slaveholding is immoral, and slave- holders should not be admitted as members of Christian churches. "We ought to protest against it without ceasing, in the name of the Gospel, until it shall have entirely disappeared." And this reso- lution has not remained a dead letter : a Congrega- tional church of Ohio has expelled from its bosom one of its deacons, who had contributed in the ca- pacity of magistrate to the extradition of a fugitive slave. Other churches, without taking so decided a position, have at least manifested by their internal convulsions the profound interest excited among them by the question of slavery. In this manner a secession has just rent the Presbyterian church in twain, because the declared adversaries of slavery were unwilling to remain responsible for a forbear- ance which appeared to them criminal. These THE CHURCHES AND SLAVEKT. 81 things are signs of life, and these signs are begin- ning: to show themselves even in the midst of eccle- siastical bodies which have acted, until now, in the most unchristian manner. A warm discussion has been thus called forth, and this signifies a great deal, among the members of the Episcopal church in New York. The majority stifled the debate ; will it be able to do this always ? If from the churches we proceed to the religious societies, we find the same symptoms among them ; here, they declare themselves openly against sla- very, in spite of the menaces of the South ; there, they succeed in staving off the question, yet at the price of excited debates, which continually spring up again, of a great scandal, and of protests which are heard by Christians through the whole world. The course of conduct adopted by the great Ameri- can Board of Missions is the more significant, inas- miich as its committee is composed of members be- longing to various evangelical denomhiations ; it stands, therefore, as their permanent representative, yet this has not prevented its adoption of vigorous resolutions : it has broken off its relations with the missionaries employed among the Choctaws, for the sole reason that they refused to take the attitude befitting Christians in the face of the Indian slave- holders. 82 THE CHUKCHES AND SLAVERY. Another great body, the Tract Society, unfor- tunately, has not followed this example ; the general assemblies held at New York, and ruled by the spirit of that city, have given a majority to the party opposed to the discussion of the subject ; but, be it said to the honor of American Christians, the very large minority resisted to the end ; the latter was sustained by outside opinion, and many friends of the Gospel joined with it in deploring the pusil- lanimity which yielded to the menaces of the South. A crisis thence arose, which has not yet reached its height, and the first fruits of which have been the foundation of a rival society in Boston, to which adherents are gathering from all sides. These are grave events, for they manifest the inmost revolutions of the human soul. Would you know what will take place in political societies? Begin by informing yourself about what is taking place in the consciences of the public. Now it is evident that the public conscience is in motion in the United States. The vast obstacles by which this movement was trammelled have been sur- mounted on every side. I wish no other proof of this than the deplorable fact of which I have just made mention : the conduct of the Tract Society, the internal crisis which it has experienced, the THE CHURCHES AND SLAVERY. 83 reprobation which it encounters in Europe as in America. Are not these palpable proofs of the too little known truth that the great moral force which is struggling with American slavery is the Gospel ? And how could it be otherwise ? K we had not positive facts before our eyes, if we did not know that one entire sect of Christians, the Quakers, have devoted themselves, body and goods, to the service of poor fugitive slaves, if we did not recog- nize the deep Puritan imprint in the movement which has colonized Kansas, and in that which has borne Mr. Lincoln to the presidency, should we not be forced to ask ourselves whether it is possible that the Gospel remains a stranger to a struggle un- dertaken for liberty ? There exist, thank God, between liberty and the Gospel, close, eternal, and indestructible relations. I know of one species of freedom which contains the germ of all the rest — freedom of soul ; now what was it, if not the Gos- pel, that introduced this freedom into the world ? Eemember ancient Paganism : neither liberty of conscience, nor liberty of individuals, nor liberty of families — such was its definition. Tlie State laid its hand upon all the inmost part of existence, the creeds of the fathers, and the education of the chil- 84 THE CHURCHES AiTD SLAVEET. dren ; moral slavery also existed everywhere, and if slavery, properly called, had been anywhere want- ing, it would have given cause for astonishment. The Gospel came, and with it these new phenomena : individual belief, true independence makes its ad- vent here on earth, a liberty worthy of the name appears finally among men. From this time we see men lifting up their heads, despotism finding its limits, the humblest, tlie weakest opposing to it in- surmountable barriers. They act without reflection, who attempt to place in opposition these two things : the Gospel and liberty. And remark that in the United States, in particular, the Gospel and liberty are accus- tomed to go together ; they first landed together at New Plymouth with the passengers of the May- flower. Why had these poor pilgrims torn them- selves from all the habits of home and country, to seek in the dead of winter an asylum on an un- known soil ? Because they loved the Gospel, and because they desired liberty ; the chief of liberties — that of the conscience. From the 21st of De- cember, 1620, there existed on the shores of the New "World the beginning of a free people — free through the powerful influence of the Gospel. All •who have studied the United States with sincerity. THE CHURCHES AND SLAVERY. 85 will ratify the opinion of M. de Tocqueville : "America is the place, of all others, where the Christian religion has preserved the most power over souls." This power is such, that we find it at the base of all lasting reforms. In this country, in which the idea of authority has little force, there is one authority, that of the Bible, before which the majority bow, and which is of the more importance inasmuch as it alone commands respect and obe- dience. If you doubt the decisive part which the Gospel fills in American debates, look at the pains taken by parties to render public homage to it, the Demo- crats as the Republicans, Mr Buchanan as Mr. Lin- coln. Then look more closely at the Republican party, do you not find in it again the visible traces of Puritanism ? It is the ancient States, it is old America, it is also the Young America of the farm- ers, of the pioneers of the Western solitudes, the America of the clearers of the forests, the America of the Bible and the schools. This America long since abolished slavery, and prevented its introduc- tion into the territories that acknowledged its in- fluence. In the meanest of its cabins, you will find the Scriptures, hymn books, reports of religious so- cieties ; in the majority of its families, domestic 86 THE CHUECHES AND SLAVERY. worship is celebrated ; in its prayer-meetings, it is not rare to see physicians, lawyers, magistrates, marine officers, taking part publicly ; its statesmen do not think themselves dishonored by keeping a Sunday-school ; the Gospel, in a word, is a power to which no other can compare, and outside of which it would be puerile to expect to succeed in accom- plishing any thing of importance. Here the action of the Gospel can be plainly detected ; an important religious event preceded and paved the way for the political event w'hich we have witnessed: before the election of Mr. Lincoln, an awakening took place. The. American awaken- ing, which must not be confounded with those re- vivalSj the description and sometimes the caricature of which have been transmitted us by travellers, the awakening, which had neither ecstasies nor convul- sive sobs, and the distinctive feature of which was a tone of simplicity and conviction, produced one of those profound agitations of the conscience, which give rise to generous resolutions. Tlie finan- cial crisis had just overthrown the fortunes of the people ; they turned towards God and began to pray. On a route of three thousand miles, wher- ever one might stop, he found a meeting, a simple, spontaneous meeting, at which the pastors did not THE CHURCHES AND 6LAVEBY. 87 take the initiative, where they were present instead of presiding. Ere long, public attention became fixed on this movement, the greatness of which conid not be contested ; the most hostile journals ended by rendering it homage. And it lasted, it still subsists, it has produced something else than meetings and prayers, it has induced extensive moral reforms, it has closed places of debauchery and taverns by hundreds. The military and com- mercial marine of the United States has been es- pecially subjected to its influence ; captains, oflicers, and sailors in great numbers, have shown by their lives that their habits of piety are more than a vain form ; American vessels are perhaps the only ones at the present day in which groups of sailors assemble to converse on the mterests of their soul, and to make the praises of God resound over the ocean. In strengthening the religious element, in excit- ing the Pui'itan fibre of America, the awakening cer- tainly contributed a great share to the success of the party opposed to slavery. South Carolina acknowl- edged this herself lately, when she inserted the fol- lowing phrase in her declaration of independence : " The public opinion of the North has given to a great political error the sanction of a still more erroneous 88 THE CHUKCHE8 AlfD SLAVERY. religious sentiment." Is this religious sentiment, assailed by the slaveholders, that of free thinkers, or of Christians ? The South is not mistaken ; it knows that the truly difficult acts of emancipation are accomplished on earth only by the power of the Gospel ; it saw the great abolition impulse rise in England, and spread over the United States ; journals, committees, correspondence, all indicated that the English had become the American move- ment, and was continued under the same banner. Under this banner, and this alone, it has conquered. A colossal work in fact is here in question, be- fore which all purely human forces fall to the ground. If such prodigious Christian efforts were needed to give the victory to Wilberforce, what will be required in the heart of a country where slavery is not exiled to distant colonies, and where it has ac- quired formidable proportions with years. Tliere are easy abolitions, which are wrought in some sort of themselves, and which seem the natural corollary of a political revolution ; as, for instance, that which occurred forty years ago in the Spanish republics. Bolivar, Quiroga, and the other leaders, needed the support of all classes of the population in their struggle against Spain ; they adopted the expedient of suppressing slavery. In taking this resolution, THE CHUKCHE8 AKD SLAVERY. 89 they accomplished a most honorable deed, but they made little change in the condition of the country, for large planting was rare, and both the blacks and the whites were few in numbers, less numerous, indeed, than the Indians and the half breeds. If political reasons then sufficed, it is evident that they are far from sufficing to-day : we must seek elsewhere for the explanation of the movement which, a long time wavering and suppressed, has just manifested its irresistible power in the United States. We have recognized in it the hand of the Gospel ; and this is no indifferent matter, for if the Gospel had no part in it, such a movement would end in destruction. The responsibility of Christians will be great in America ; they can do much for the favorable solu- tion of a problem which menaces the future of their country, and overshadows that of humanity. The mode of pacification here is, to declare themselves ; the pretensions of the South, its fatal progress, the extreme peril to which but lately it exposed the Confederation, are due nmch more than is imagined to the hesitation of the religious societies and the churches. If it had long since been brought face to face with a determined evangelical doctrine, the 90 THE CHUKCHES AND SLAVERY. South, which knows also, though in a less degree, the influence of the Gospel, would have avoided fall- ing into the excesses to which it is now abandoned. The faults of the past are irreparable, but it is possible to ward off their return. Let all Northern churches, let all societies, let all eminent Christians take henceforth with firmness the position which they ought to have taken from the first ; let them present to their Southern brethren a solid rallying point, and the efiects of this faithful conduct will not be slow in making themselves felt. Tliere is, in the slave States, especially in those occupying an intermediate position, more disturbance of thought, and more conflicts of feeling, than we generally suppose. Let the banner of the Christian faith be openly displayed, and many good men will rally round it : this is certain. And let no one put forward the shameful pre-^ text : there are sceptics, rationalists, free thinkers in the ranks of Abolitionism ! Why not ? Ques- tions of this sort, thanks to the Gospel, have entered in the domain of common morality , shall I desert these questions in order to avoid contact with men who reject the essential doctrines of Christianity ? I confess that the orthodoxy which should draw such conclusions would appear suspicious to me. THE CHUKCHES AND SLAVERY. 91 Voltaire pleading for the Galas will not make me turn my back on religious liberty ; Channing writ- ing pages against slavery, revealing a heart more Christian than his doctrine ; Parker, blending his noble efforts in favor of the negroes with his assaults against the Bible, will not alienate me from a cause which was mine before it was theirs. I say, besides, that the objections of these men against Christianity force me to ask whether our conduct as Christians be not one of the principal causes of their scepticism. Is it quite certain that Voltaire himself would have been the adversary that we know him, if he had not seen that thought was stifled, that liberty was crushed, that conscience was violated in the name of the Gosj^el ? Would not this same Gospel have presented itself under a different aspect to Parker, Channing, and the other Unitarians of Boston, if they had seen it at its post, the post of honor, at the head of all generous ideas and true liberties ? Yes ; there are Abolitionists who reject the Bible because they have heard cer- tain orthodox Christians maintain that the Bible is in favor of slavery. Whoever preaches this, is of a school of impiety. 92 THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. CHAPTER YI. THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. How did they set to work to preacli this ? I will answer this question by two others : How did Bos- suet set to work to write his Politique tiree' de VEcriture^ to proclaim in the name of the Bible ob- ligatory monarchy, divine right, the absolute author- ity of kings, the duty of destroying false religion by force, the duty of officially sustaining the truth, the duty of having a budget of modes of worship, the duty of uniting Church and State, without speaking of his Biblical apology for war, for the use of Louis Xrr. ? How did certain doctors among the Round- heads, in their turn, set to work to proclaim the di- vine right of republics, and to ordain the massacre of the new Amalekites ? The method is very sim- ple : it consists only in confounding the law with the Gospel. This confusion once wrought, the po- litical and civil institutions of the Old Testament THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. 93 lose their temporary and local character, and we go to the New Testament in search of what is not there : namely, political and civil institutions. Though the Gospel is not the law, it is a truth which has been making its way since the seventeenth century, and which seems to be no longer contested to-day, except in the camp of the champions of sla- very. The Gospel, which addresses itself to all na- tions and all ages, does not pretend to force them into the strait vestments of the ancient Jewish na- tion ; no more does it pretend to " sew a piece of new cloth on an old garment, else the new cloth taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse." I speak here with a view to those who, in the law as in the Gospel, in the New Testament as in the Old, venerate the infallible word of God. A revelation, to be divine, does not cease to be pro- gressive, and nothing exacts that all truths should be promulgated in a single day. If God deemed proper to give to his people, so long as they needed it, a legislation adapted to their social condition, this legislation, divinely given at that time, may be also divinely abrogated afterward. And this is what has taken place. Those who quote to us texts from the Old Testament concerning slavery, aj)pear to have forgotten the saying of Jesus Christ in refer- 94 THE GOSPEL AND SLAVEET. ence to another institution, divorce : "It was on account of the hardness of your hearts." Yes, on account of the hardness of their hearts, God estab- lished among the Israelites, incapable, at that time, of rising higher, pro visionary regulations, perfect as regards his condescension, but most imperfect, as he declares himself, as regards the absolute truth. He who makes no account of this great fact will find in the books of Moses, and in the Prophets, pretexts either for practising to-day what was toler- ated only for a time, or for attacking the Scrip- tures, indignant at what they contain. It was Jesus Christ himself, therefore, who drew the line of demarcation between the law and the Gospel — who announced the end of local and tem- porary institutions. Has he revealed other institu- tions, this time definitive? To form such an idea of the Gospel, we must never have opened it. The Gospel is not a Koran. In the Koran, we doubt- less find both civil and criminal laws, and the prin- ciples of government ; the Apostles did not once tread on this ground. Fancy what their work would have been, had they substituted a social for a spiritual revolution — had they touched, above all, the question of slavery, which formed part of the fundamental law of the ancient world. And here THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. 95 I wish my thought to be clearly comprehended : I do not pretend that the Apostles were conscious of the unlawfulness of slavery, and that they avoided pointing it out through policy, for fear of compro- mising their work. No, indeed, this happened un- consciously. According to all appearances, they held the opinions of their times, and God revealed nothing to them on the subject, wishing that the abolition of slavery, like all the social results of the Gospel, should be produced by moral agency, which works from within outward, which changes the heart before changing the actions. At the time of the Apostles, there were many other abuses than slavery ; they never wrote a word in their condemnation. They make allusions to war, yet say nothing of the nameless horrors which then attended it ; they speak of the sword placed in the king's hands to punish crime, yet say nothing of those atrocious tortures, in the first rank of which must be cited crucifixion ; they make use of figures borrowed from the public games, yet say nothing either of the combats of the gladiators, or of the abominations which sullied other spectacles ; they unceasingly call to mind the reciprocal rela- tions of husbands and wives, of parents and chil- dren, yet say nothing of the despotic authority which 96 THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. the Koman law conferred upon the father, or of the debasement to which it condemned the wife. The evangelical method is this : it lias not occupied it- self with communities, yet has wrought the pro- foundest of the social revolutions ; it has not de- manded any reform, yet has accomplished all of them ; the atrocities of war and of torture, the glad- iatorial combats and immodest spectacles, the des- potism of fathers and the debasement of women, all have disappeared before a profound, internal ac- tion, which attacks the very roots of the evil. ISTot only does the Gospel forbear to touch on social and religious problems, but, even on ques- tions of morals, it refuses to furnish detailed solu- tions. Its system of morality is very short ; and in this lies its greatness, through this it becomes mo- rality instead of casuistry. Cases of conscience, special directions, a moral code, promulgated article by article — you will find in it nothing of this sort. "What you Avill find there, and there alone, is a growing morality, which passes my expression. Two or three sayings were Avritten eighteen centu- ries ago, and these sayings contain in the germ a series of commandments, of transformation, of pro- gression, which we have not nearly exhausted. I spoke a moment since of the progress of revela- THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. 9T tions ; I must speak now of the progress which is being wrought in virtue of a revelation constantly the same, but constantly becoming better under- stood, which multiplies our duties in proportion as it enlightens our conscience. With the one saying : " What ye would that men should do unto you, do ye also to them," the Gospel has opened before us infinite vistas of moral development. Before this one saying, the cruelties and infa- mous customs of ancient society, not mentioned by the Apostles, have successively succumbed ; before this one saying, the modern family has been formed ; before this one saying, American slavery will disappear as European slavery has disappeared already. With this saying, we are all advancing, we are learning, and we shall continue to learn. Yes, the time will come, I am convinced, when we shall see new duties rise up before lis, when we cannot with a clear conscience maintain customs, what, I know not, which we maintain conscien- tiously to-day. This carries us somewhat further, it must be granted, than a list of fixed duties ?i6 varietur / it opposes slavery in a different manner than a sen- tence pronounced once for all. The Gospel took the surest means of overthrowing it when, letting 98' THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. alone the reform of institutions, it contented itself with pursuing that of sentiments ; when it thus prepared the time when the slaveholder himself would be forced to ask what is contained in the in- exhaustible saying : " What ye would that men should do unto you, do ye also unto them." Even in the heart of the Southern States, despite the triple covering of habits, prejudices, and interests, this saying is making its way, and is disturbing the consciences of the people nmch more than is gen- erally believed. And the work that it has begun it will finish ; it will force the planters to translate the word slavery, to consider one by one the abom- inable practices which constitute it. Is it to do to others as we would that they should do to us, to sell a family at retail ? To maintain laws which give over every slave, whether wife or maiden, to her owner, whatever he may be, and which take away from this maiden, from this wife, the right of re- membering her modesty and her duties — what do Christians call this ? To produce marketable ne- groes, to dissolve marriages, to ordain adulteries, to inflict ignoble punishment, to interdict instruc- tion — is this doing to others what we would that they should do to us ? The Christian sense of right is relentless, thank THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. 99 God ; it does not suffer itself to be deceived by ap- pearances ; where we dispute about words, it forces us to go to facts. Now, look at the facts Avhich are really in question in America, when the great subject of slavery is discussed there theoretically. Against the great evangelical system of morality, the Judaical interpretations of such or such a text have little chance. The epistle of Paul, sending back to Philemon his fugitive slave Onesimus, is quoted to us. Assuredly, the Apostle pronounces in it no anathema against slavery, nor does he exact enfranchisement ; these ideas were unknown to him ; but he says : "I beseech thee for my son whom I have begotten in my bonds, whom I have sent again : thou therefore .receive him, that is my own bowels. "Without thy mind would I do noth- ing ; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly. For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him forever ; not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved. Having confidence in thy obedience I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt do also more than I say." Does any one fancy Philemon treating Onesi- mus, after this epistle, as fugitive slaves are treated in America, putting up his wife and children di- 100 THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. rectlj after for sale, or delivering liim over to the first slave mercliant that was willihg to take charge of him, and carry him a hundred leagues away ? It is so certain that Philemon did more than had been told him, that the Epistle to the Colossians shows us the " faitlifiil and well-beloved brother Onesimus" honorably mentioned among those con- cerned about the spiritual interests of the church. Do what one will, there is an implied abolition of slavery (implied but positive) at the bottom of that close fraternity created by the faith in the Sa- viour. Between Irethren^ the relation of master and slave, of merchant and merchandise, cannot long subsist. To sell on an auction-block or deliver over to a slave-driver an immortal soul, for which Christ has died, is an enormity before which the Christian sense of right will always recoil in the end. " In this," it is written, " there is neither Greek nor Jew, nor circumcision nor uncircum- cision, nor barbarian nor Scythian, nor bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all." Let slaveholders put to themselves the question what they would say to-day if the epistle to Philemon were ad- dressed to them ; and it is addressed to them ; the Onesimuses of the South — and such there are — are thus thrown upon the conscience of their masters, their brothers. THE GOSPEL AliTD 6LAVEKY. 101 I have said enoiigli on the subject to dispense with examining very numerous passages in which slavery is supposed by the writers of the !New Tes- tament. The duties of masters and of slaves are laid down by them without doubt, and the existence of the institution is not contested for a moment ; only, it is brought face to face with that which will slay it : the doctrine of salvation through Christ, of pardon, of humility, of love, is, in itself, and with- out the necessity of expressing it, the absolute nega- tion of slavery. It has fully proved so, and the early ages of Christianity leave no doubt as to the interpretation given by Christians to the teachings of the Apos- tles. Despite the rapid corruptions introduced into the churches, we see one brilliant fact shining forth in them : emancipations becoming more frequent, slaves, as well as free men, succeeding to ecclesias- tical offices, spiritual equality producing the fruit which it cannot help producing, namely, legal equal- ity. Observe, too, how the edicts of the emperors multiplied as soon as the influence of Christian- ity was exerted in the Roman world. And all these edicts had but one aim : to sweeten servitude, to in- crease affranchisement by law, to facilitate volun- tary emancipation. 102 THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. "What the Gospel did then against European slavery, it is doing now against American slavery. Its end is the same ; its weapons are the same ; they have not rusted during eighteen centuries. Those planters of the English islands were not mistaken, who, instinctively divining where lay their great enemy, had recourse to every measure to expel mis- sionaries from among them. ITeither were those Texan executioners mistaken, who lately put to death the missionary Bewley, a touching martyr to the cause of the slaves. I ask, in the face of the gallows of Bewley, what we are to think of that prodigious paradox according to which the Gospel is the patron of slavery. To those who mistake its meaning on this point, the Gospel replies by its acts ; it replies also by the unanimous testimony of its servants. What is more striking, in fact, than to see that, apart from the country in which the action of interests and habits disturbs the judgment of Christians, there is but one way of comprehend- ing and interpreting the Scripture on this point ? Consult England, France, Germany ; Christians everywhere will tell you that the Gospel abolished slavery, although it does not say a single word which would proclaim this abolition. Why, if the doubt were possible, would not diversity of opinions THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. 103 be also possible among disinterested judges? To speak only of France, see the synods of our free cburches, wliicli continually stigmatize both Swedish intolerance and American slavery ; see an address signed three years ago by the pastors and the elders of five hundred and seventy-one French churches, which has gone to carry to the United States the undoubted testimony of a conviction which in truth is that of all. It seems to mc that our demonstration is com- plete. "What would it be if I should add that American slavery, which its friends so strangely claim to place under the protection of the Apostles, has nothing in common with that of which the Apostles had cognizance. The thing, however, is certain. Slavery, in the United States, is founded on color, it is negro slavery. Now, this is a fact wholly new in the history of mankind, a monstrous fact, which profoundly modifies the nature of sla- very. Before Las Casas, that virtuous creator of the slave trade, the name of which comprises to him alone a whole commentary on the maxim " Do evil that good may come," before Las Casas, no one had thought of connecting slavery with race. !Now, the slavery connected with race is that of all others most difficult to uproot, for it bears an indelible 104 THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. sign of inequality, a sign which the law did not create, and which it cannot destroy. Such was not the slavery that offered itself to the eyes of the Prophets and Apostles ; a normal servitude, of right, based upon a native and inde- structible inferiority was not then in question, but an accidental servitude among equals, to which the chances of war had given birth, and which emanci- pation suppressed entire. Quite different is the slavery which depends on race, and which, it may be said, supposes a malediction ; do what one will, this latter will subsist, it will, in a manner, survive itself ; it will find, besides, in the idea of a provi- dential dispensation, the natural excuse for its ex- cesses. This slavery the Bible condemns in the most explicit manner. If its champions dare sup- pose two species, the book of Genesis shows them all mankind springing from one man, and the Gos- pel recounts to them the redemption wrought in be- half of all the descendants of Adam ; if they argue from the curse pronounced against Canaan, the Old Testament presents to them the detailed enumera- tion of the Canaanites, a vast family, in which the whites figure as well as the blacks. In short, there is a deadly struggle between the Gospel and slavery under all its forms, and particu- THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. 105 larly under the odious form which the African slave trade has given it in modern times. The Gospel has been, is, and will be, at the head of every ear- nest movement directed against slavery. It is im- portant that it should be so ; it is the only means of avoiding the acts of violence, the revolts, the ex- treme calamities from which the whites and the blacks would equally suffer. The Gospel is admi- rable, inasmuch as by the side of the duties of mas- ters, it proclaims those of slaves ; as in the time of the Apostles, it does not hesitate to recommend to them gentleness, submission, scrupulous fidelity, love for those who maltreat them, the practice of difficult virtues ; it makes them free within, in or- der to render them capable of becoming free without. To judge of this method, we have only to com- pare the miserable population of St. Domingo with the beautiful free villages which cover the English islands. How true the saying : " The wrath of man never accomplishes the justice of God." Wher- ever the wrath of man has had full sway, even to chastise abominable abuses, it has remained a curse. I tremble when I think of the revolts which may break out at any moment in the Southern States. Bloodshed, let us not forget, would sully our ban- 5* 106 THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY. ner ; to the right of the slaves, such a crisis "would be forever opposed, and who knows whether a ter- rible return might not burst upon them? Tlie mind becomes troubled at the mere image of the horrors that would ensue from civil war. May the Christians of America comjorehend, at length, in a more perfect manner, the greatness of the part that God reserves for them, and the extent of the responsibilities that are weighing uj)on them. To take a stand frankly against slavery ; to remove their last pretexts from sincere men who seek to rec- oncile it Avith the Gospel ; to organize in the North the action of a vast moral power ; to address to the South words breathing forth truth and charity ; to ap- peal without wearying to the hearts of masters and slaves ; to prepare for trying moments that guaran- tee which nothing can replace, the common faith of the blacks and the whites ; to keep courage even when all seems lost ; to practise the Christian voca- tion, which consists in pursuing and realizing the impossible ; to show once more to the world the power that resides in justice — this is to accomplish a noble task. THE PRESENT CKISIS. 107 CHAPTEK VII. THE PRESENT CRISIS. We now possess the principal elements of our solution ; we can approach the problem just pro- pounded by the present crisis, and, confining our- selves no longer to the appreciation of the past, can glance at the future. Not, indeed, that I make any pretensions to proj)hecy ; political predictions, sus- pected with reason in all times, should be still more so at our epoch, which is that of the unforeseen. But I have a right to prove that the work which is being pursued in America is, as I have aifirmed, a work of elevation, not of destruction. The dangers which the nation is advancing to meet are nothing, .compared with those towards which it was lately progressing ; the election of Mr. Lincoln, and the secession of the cotton States have introduced a new position which at last affords a glimpse of real chances of salvation. 108 THE PKESENT CKISIS. I have named secession : what are we to think of the principle on which it rests ? For this ques- tion another may be substituted : what is a Con- federation ? If we reduce it, which is inadmissible, to a simple league of States, it still remains none the less binding on each of them, so long as the end of the league remains intact. Kever yet existed on earth, a federal compact conceived in this wise : " The States which form a part of this league will remain in it only till it pleases them to leave it." Such, notwithstanding, is the formula on which the Southern theorists make a stand. Among the anar- chical doctrines that our age has seen hatched, (and they are numerous,) this seems to me M^orthy of oc- cupying the place of honor. This right of separa- tion is simply the liheriwi veto resuscitated for the benefit of federal institutions. As in the horseback diets of Poland, a single opposing vote could jiut a stop to every thing, so that it only remained to vote by sabre-strokes, so Confederations, recognizing the right of separation, would have no other resort than brute force, for no great nation can allow itself to be killed without defending itself. Picture to yourselves, I intreat you, the progress that political demoralization would make under Buch a system. As there is never a law or a measure THE PRESENT CKISIS. 109 that is not displeasing to some one, it would be necessary to live in the presence of the continually repeated threat : " K the law passes, if the measure is adopted, if the electioi^takes place, if you do not do all I want, if you do not yield to all my caprices, I leave you, I constitute myself an independent State, I provoke the formation of a rival Confede- racy." The worst causes are the readiest to threaten in this style ; having nothing reasonable to say in their own favor, they willingly proceed to violence, and the saying of Tliemistocles would find here a legitimate application : " You are angry, there- fore, you are wrong." What the result of this would be, we can im- agine. ]^o question would be longer judged by its own merits ; the despotism of bad men would be established ; expedients would take the place of prin- ciples ; fear would put j ustice to flight ; national resolutions would be nothing more than com- promises and bargains. This, we must admit, is something like what has been passing in the United States since the South proclaimed its ultra policy, and placed its pretensions under the protection of its threats. K they had once more bowed the head, all would have been lost ; the dignity, the mental liberty of America, would have suflfered complete 110 THE PRESENT CRISIS. shipwreck ; of all this noble system of government, there would have remained standing but a single maxim : Accord always and everywhere whatever is necessary to prevent the separation of the South. Unconstitutional in all places, the theory of sepa- ration is doubly so in the United States, where the federal system is more concentrated than elsewhere. It is without doubt a federal system ; the separate States preserve the right in it of regulating their special legislation, of governing themselves as they choose, and even of holding and practising principles which are profoundly repugnant to other parts of the Confederation ; the central power is, however, endowed with an extended sphere. It has its taxes, its officers, its army, its courts ; it possesses in the Territory of the different States federal property depending upon it alone ; in fine, its general •government and general legislation ap- ply to the effective handling of all the essential interests of the nation. I am not surprised that the American Confederation is so strongly cemented together, excluding the pretended right of separa- tion better tlian any other ; the States that united towards the close of the last century were already in the habit of acting in concert ; they were of the same blood, and had lived under the same rule ; THE PRESENT CRISIS. Ill tlieir history, their interests, their customs, their tongue, their religion, all contributed to bind them closely" to each other. Besides, the question is unanimously resolved in the United States. Apart from the jire-eaters, not a person is found who has the slightest doubt as to the imj)ossibility of modifying, by the violent deci- . sion of a few, the common Constitution which con- tains the enumeration of the States, and which can only be amended by a solemn act, voted in the special form prescribed by the compact. Mr. Lin- coln merely expressed the general opinion when he said the other day : " Tlie Union is a regular mar- riage, not a sort of free relation which can be main- tained only by passion." Secession is Revolution is a political axiom which has been current at all times in the United States. It is because they are something else than a juxtaposition of States, that they comprise, by the side of a Senate in which all the States are equal, a House of Representatives, in which the number of dej^uties is in proportion to the population. " Our Constitution," wrote Madi- son, " is neither a centralized State nor a Federal Government, but a blending of the two." The ex- perience which they liad had from 1Y76 to 1789 had taught the different States the necessity of giving a 112 THE PRESENT CRISIS. more concentrated character to their federation. Let lis not forget that thej are bound by oath to re- main faithful to perpetual union, and that there is not a federal officer in America who has not sworn to maintain this Union. I shall not dwell on the fact that the Confedera- tion purchased with its money two of the States that now pretend to secede from it ; that it gave seventy -five millions to France for Louisiana, and twenty-five millions to Spain for Florida ; no, I choose to appeal from this to precedents, the author- ity of which is not contested, and wliich foi-m, in some sort, the interpreting commentary of the Con- stitution. Li the last century, the State of New York, on giving in its adhesion to the Constitution, desired to reserve to itself this same power of seced- ing some day if it pleased ; but such a reservation was rejected. At the epoch of the war of 1812 and the embargo laws, a convention of the New England States assembled at Hartford, and talked of even- tual separation, whereupon the Southern party likened all separation without consent to treason, and this doctrine was sustained by the JRichmond Inquirer, the organ of Jefferson. When, after- wards. South Carolina, accustomed to the fact, dared proclaim that act of nullification which was THE PRESENT CKISIS 113 the prelude to a complete renunciation of federal obligations, it was plainly signified to her that a re- volt would be suppressed by force of arms, and she yielded on the sjjot. When, the other day, this same South Carolina lowered the colors of the United States, and unfurled the Palmetto flag, Mr. Buchanan himself proclaimed (how could he do otherwise ?) the flagrant illegality of such an act ; it is true, that, after having declared it illegal, he took care to disavow all intention of putting the law in force. And this same conduct of Mr. Buchanan is the precise explanation of the prodigious haste which the South Carolinians have used in their pro- ceedings. Tliey knew that the President in power could not, if he would, act with vigor against his own party. His inaction was assured ; there were two months of interregnum, of which it was impor- tant to make the most ; so that Mr. Lincoln, on coming into ofiice, might find himself checked, or at least harassed, by the power of a deed accom- plished. It seems as though Mr. Buchanan was anxious himself to give the signal of revolt. The message that was issued by him, after the election of Mr. Lin- coln, is really the most extraordinary document ever 114 THE PRESENT CRISIS. ■written bj the head of a great State ; he doubt- less declares in it that a regular election cannot of itself alone furnish sufficient cause for the violence of the South ; he takes care, however, to add that the South has reason to complain, that reparation and guarantees are due it, and that if these are refused, (that is, if the North refuses to replace its head under the yoke, and to decree at once the ruin and the shame of America,) it will then be time for action. The Carolinians thought that they might be ex- cused for being a little less prudent than the first magistrate of the United States, since, moreover, they saw their pretensions sanctioned by him. Why not attack the Confederation while it had a chief who was determined to make as little defence as possible ? Tlie weakness of Mr. Buchanan jus- tified the confidence of Carolina. He refrained to place in the Federal fortresses troops destined to protect them against an expected assault ; when a brave man. Major Anderson, took measures to de- fend the post that had been confided him, this un- expected resistance by which the programme was deranged, appeared as ill-timed to Mr. Buchanan as insolent to the people of Charleston ; and the despatch of the 30th of December, addressed to THE PRESENT CEISIS. 115 their commissioners, exculpates liim from the crime of having sent the reinforcements, and makes ex- cuses in pitiful terms for the conduct of Major An- derson, whom they ought to hear before condemn- ing. In fact, Anderson acted on his own responsi- bility, and incurred the blame of the Minister of War, who advised in full council the surrender of the forts. Tlie American Government is as timid as the seceded States are resolute. Our generation, which has witnessed sad spectacles, has never yet, per- haps, contemplated any more humiliating. Minis- ters, one of whom, hardly out of the Cabinet, has gone to preside over the secession convention at Montgomery, and another of whom has taken care to pave the way in advance for the revolt of the South, and to secure for it the resources of money, arms, and munitions, which it was about to need ; ministers who vote openly for the insurgents, whose financial intrigues have been proved by in- vestigation, and whose electoral manoeuvres, dupli- cated by embezzlement of public money, have ended in a sort of political treason, disavowed only by General Cass ; a Cabinet, in the last extremity, still essaying to continue its former course by kill- ing with its veto the bill adopted by the Legislature 116 THE PRESENT CRISIS. of I^ebraska to proliibit slavery in its Territory ; a Government falling apart by piecemeal, for fear of compromising itself by resisting some part of the South : do you know of any thing so shameful ? Mr. Buchanan will end as he began : for four years, he lias been struggling to obtain an extension of slavery ; for a month, he has been favoring the plans of separation, by opposing his force of inertia to the growing indignation of the !N^orth. Being unable to prevent every thing, he does at least what he can : forced to send some reinforce- ments, he speedily withdraws them in a manner seemingly designed to render easy the attack on Fort Sumter and to discourage Major Anderson. In the hands of a President who understood his duties, things would have gone on very differently. In the first place, the South would have known on what to rely, and would have been reminded of the message of General Jackson in 1833, exacting the immediate disbanding of its troops ; next, prelimi- nary measures of precaution would not have been systematically neglected ; lastly, at the first symp- tom of revolt, a sufficient number of ships of war .would have been sent to Charleston to insure the regular collection of taxes and respect for the Fed- eral property. Nothing is so pacific as resolution : THE PRESENT CRISIS. 117 face to face with a strong Government, we look twice before launcliing into adventures ; but, with Mr. Buchanan, it was almost imj)ossible for the cotton States to refrain from precipitating themselves headlong into them. Tlie repression that will come by and by will not repair the evil that has been done. Explanations will also follow too late ; it was for the President to reply on the spot, and categorically, to the manifestos issued by the South. To let the violent States know that their unconsti- tutional plans would meet a prompt chastisement ; to let the neighboring States know that their sov- ereignty was by no means menaced, and that they would continue to regulate their internal institu- tions as they pleased ; to say to all that the discus- sion of plans of abolition was not in question ; to say too to all that the majorities of free-soilers would be protected in the Territories, and that the conquests of slavery were ended : , what language would have been better fitted than this to isolate the Gulf States — perhaps to check them ? I say perhaps, because I know that passions had reached such a pitch of exasperation that a rupture seemed inevitable. In South Carolina, for example, the Governor had recommended both Houses in advance to take measures for seceding if 118 THE PRESENT CRISIS. Mr. Lincoln should be elected ; a special commis« sion was nominated, and lield permanent session. In Texas, Senator Wigfall did not fear to say, in supporting Mr. Breckenridge : '' If any other can- didate is elected, look for stormy weather. There may be a Confederation, indeed, but it will not number more than thirty-three States." Mr. Jef- ferson Davis, of Mississij)pi, and Mr. Benjamin, of Louisiana, held no less explicit language, announ- cing that at the first electoral defeat of the South, it would set about forming a separate Confedera- tion, long since demanded by its true interests. What the South called its " interests," what it ended by adopting as a political platform, outside of which there was no safety, was, as we have seen, the subjugation of majorities in the Territories, the restriction of sovereignty in the l^orthern States, the reform of the liberty bills, which refused the prisons of these States and the co-operation of their officers, to the Federal agents charged with arrest- ing fugitive slaves, the j)ower of transporting slav- ery over the whole Confederation, the duty of ex- tending indefinitely the domain of slavery. Who paid Walker? Who continually recruited bands of adventurers to launch on Cuba or Central Amer- ica ? Who prepared the well-known lists of slave THE PRESENT CRISIS. 119 States with which the South counted on enriching itself : four States some day to be carved out of Texas, (the South had caused tliis to be authorized in advance,) three States to be created in the Island of Cuba, an indefinite number of States to be de- tached one after another from Central America and Mexico ? Who clamorously demanded the reestab- lishment of the African slave trade, alone capable of peopling this vast extent, and of lowering the excessive price of the negroes supplied by the pro- ducing States ? The extreme South, which alone was concerned in this, saw gigantic vistas opening before it on which it fastened with ecstasy. Now, already, in spite of the more or less avowed support of Mr. Buchanan, its success was already checked, it felt itself provoked and thwarted. Henceforth, all its hopes were concentrated on the election of 1860 : we may judge, therefore, of its disappoint- ment, and of the furious ardor with which it must have seized upon its last resource, namely, seces- sion, which might prove in its hands either a means of terrifying the North, and of bringing it again under the yoke, or of entering alone into a new destiny, of having elbow-room, and of devoting itself entirely to the propagation of slavery ! The facts are known : I do not think of recount- 120 THE PRESENT CRISIS. ing them. I content myself ^tli remarking the enthusiasm which prevails in the majority of the cotton States. One could not commit suicide with a better grace. It is easy to recognize a country hermetically sealed to contradiction, which is en- chanted with itself, and which ends by accomplish- ing the most horrible deeds with a sort of conscien- tious rejoicing. The enthusiasm which is displayed in proclaiming secession, or in firing on the Ameri- can flag, is displayed in freeing the captain of a slaver, a noble martyr to the popular cause. Tliere is something terrifying in the enthusiasm of evil passions. When I consider the folly of the South, which so heedlessly touches the match to the first cannon pointed against its confederates ; when I see it without hesitation give the signal for a war in which it runs the risk of perishing ; when I read its laws, decreeing the penalty of death against any one who shall attack the Palmetto State, and its dispatches, in which the removal of Major Ander- son is exacted, in the tone which a master employs toward a disobedient servant, I ask myself whether the present crisis could really have been evaded, and whether any thing less than a rude lesson could have opened eyes so obstinately closed to the light. People have taken in earnest the plans of the THE PRESENT CRISIS. 121 Southern Confederacy. ^Nothing could be more imposing, in fact, if they had the least chance of success. The fifteen Southern States, already im- mense, joined to Mexico, Cuba, and Central Amer- ica — what a power this would be ! And, doubt- less, this power would not stop at the Isthmus of Panama : it would be no more difiicult to reestab- lish slavery in Bolivia, on the Equator, and in Peru, than in Mexico. Thus the " patriarchal in- stitution" would advance to rejoin Brazil, and the dismayed eye would not find a single free spot upon which to rest between Delaware Bay and the banks of the Uruguay. Furthermore, this colossal negro jail would be stocked by a no less colossal slave trade : barracoons would be refilled in Africa, slave expe- ditions would be organized on a scale hitherto un- known, and whole squadrons of slave ships (those " floating hells") would transport their cargoes under the Southern colors, proudly unfurled ; pa- triotic indignation would be aroused at the mere name of the right of search, and the whole world would be challenged to defend the liberty of the seas. Such is the project in its majestic unity. Such is the glorious ideal which the extreme South hoped to attain by its union with the North, and which it 6 122 THE PKESENT CKISI8. now seeks to attain by its separation. The hearts of men beat high at the thought, and many are ready to give tlieir lives heroically in order to se- cure its realization. Alas ! we are thus made ; pas- sion excuses every thing, transfigures every thing. Each one feels instinctively, moreover, that no part of the plan can be separated from the whole ; that it must be great to be respected ; that to people this vast extent with slaves, the African slave trade is indispensable ; of course, they took care not to avow all this at the first moment ; it was necessary, in the beginning, to delude others, and perhaps themselves ; it was necessary to obtain recognition. On this account, the prudent politicians who have just drawn up the programme of the South, have been careful to record in it the prohibition of the African slave trade, and the disavowal of plans of conquest. But this does not prevent the necessities of the position from becoming known by and by. True programmes, adapted to the position of afi'airs, are not changed from day to day. I defy the slave States, provided their Confederation succeeds in existing, to do otherwise than seek to extend towards the South ; hemmed in on all sides by liberty, incessantly provoked by the impossibility of preventing the flight of their negroes, they will THE PKE8ENT CRISIS. 123 fall on those of their neighbors who are the least capable of resistance, and whose territory is most to their convenience. This fact is obvious, as it is also obvious that they will have recourse to the African slave trade to people these new possessions. It is in vain to deny it, on account of Europe, or of the border States ; the necessities will subsist, and, sooner or later, they will be obeyed. If the border States persist in deluding themselves on this point, and fancy that they will always keep the monopoly of this infamous supply of negroes sold at enormous prices, this concerns them. In any case, the illusion will finally become dispelled. It is not in the nomi- nation of Jefferson Davis as President of the Con- federate States, that we are to look for the final re- pudiation of those projects of which this politic man is in some sort the living representative. And when they are renewed, we shall see an in- vincible obstacle rise up in the way of the realiza- tion of a plan so monstrous. As soon as the African slave trade is established, the domestic slave trade will cease, the revenues of the jjroducing States will be suppressed, the price of negroes will fall every- where, and the fortunes of all the planters will fall in like proportion. Can it bo possible that they will accept the chances of civil war, of insurrections, 124 THE PRESENT CRISIS. and of massacres, in order to ensure to themselves the risk of ruin in case of success ? Can it be possi- ble, above all, that Europe will lend a hand, as we seem to imagine, to the most audacious attack ever directed against Christian civilization ? I know that we must always make allowance for probable perfidy, and I am far from dreaming, as times go, that chivalric Europe will refuse to serve her own interests because these interests would cost her principles something. 'No, indeed, I imag- ine nothing of the sort ; yet I think that I should wrong the nineteenth century if I supposed it capa- ble of certain things. There are sentiments which cannot be provoked beyond measure with impunity. Remember the shudder that ran through the world when Texas, a free country, was transformed into slave territory as the result of the victory of the United States ; multiply the crime of Texas by ten, by twenty, and you will have a faint image of the impression of disgust that the Southern republic is about to call forth among us. It is important that they should know this in ad- vance at Charleston, and not delude themselves as to the kind of welcome for which the Palmetto State and its accomplices have to hope. !N'ot only will no one recognize their pretended independence at THE PRESENT CKISI8. 125 tMs time, for to recognize it would be to tread un- der foot the evident rights of the United States, but thej will excite one of those moral repulsions which the least scrupulous policy is forced to take into ac- count. It is one thing to hold slaves ; it is another to be founded expressly to serve the cause of sla- very on earth ; this is a new fact in the history of mankind. If a Southern Confederacy should ever take rank among nations, it will represent slavery, and nothing else. I am wrong ; it will also repre- sent the African slave trade, and the hllibustering system. In any case, the Southern Confederacy will be so far identified with slavery, with its progress, with the measures designed to propagate and per- petuate it here below, that a chain and whip seem the only devices to be embroidered on its flag. Will thisflag cover the human merchandise which it is designed to protect against the interference of cruisers ? Will there be a country, will there be a heart, forgetful enough of its dignity to tolerate this insolent challenge flung at our best sympathies ? I doubt it, and I counsel the Carolinians to doubt it also. The representative of England at Washington- is said to have already declared that in presence of the slave trade thus practised, his government will not hesitate to pursue slavers into the very ports of 126 THE PBESENT CJtISIS. the South. France will hold no less firm a tone ; whatever may be the dissent as to the right of search, the right of slave ships, be sure, will be admitted by none ; a sea-police will soon be found to put an end to them ; if need be, the punishment will be in- flicted on their crews that is in store for a much less crime, that of piracy ; these wretches will be hung with short shrift at the yard-arm, without form or figure of law. The Carolinians deceive themselves strangely. Tliey fancy that they will be treated with considera- tion, that they will even be protected, because they maintain the principle of free trade, and because they hold the great cotton market. Free trade, cotton, these are the two recommendations upon which they count to gain a welcome in Europe. Let us see what we are to think of this. ' I shall not be suspected in what I am about to say of free trade — ^I, who have always been its de- clared partisan ; I, who sustained it twenty years ago as candidate in the bosom of one of the electoral colleges of Paris, and who applauded unreservedly our recent commercial treaty with England ; but man does not live by bread alone, and if ever a school of commercial liberty should anywhere be found that should carry the adoration of its prin- THE PRESENT CRISIS. 127 ciple SO far as to sacrifice to it other and nobler liberties, a school disposed to set the question of cheapness above that of justice, and to extend a hand to whoever should ofier it a channel of expor- tation, maledictions enough would not be found for it. Let England take care ; those who have no love for her, take delight in foretelling that her sympathies will be weighed in the balance with her interests, and that the protection of the ISTorth risks offending her much more than the slavery of the South. I am convinced that it will amount to nothing, and that we shall once more- see how great is the influence of Christian sentiment among Englishmen. Should the reverse be true, we must veil our faces, and give over this vile bargaining, adorned with the name of free trade, to the full se- verity of public opinion. I repeat that it will amount to nothing. More- over, do not let us exaggerate either the protective instincts of the North or the free trade of the South. The new tariff just adopted at Washington (a grave error, assuredly, which I do not seek to palliate) may be amended in such a manner as to lose the character of prohibition with which certain States have sought to invest it. Let us not forget, that by the side of Pennsylvania, which urges the excessive 128 THE PKE8ENT CKI8I& increase of taxes, the North counts % considerable number of agricultural States, the interests of which are verj different. 'Now, these are the States which elected Mr. Lincoln, and which will henceforth have the most decisive weight on the destinies of the Union. We may be tranquil, the protective reaction which has just triumphed in part wuU not long be victorious. All liberties cling together : the liberty of commerce will have its day in the United States. But if all liberties cling together, all slaveries cling together also, and cannot be liberal at will, even in commercial matters. The Southern States plume themselves on being thus liberal, and it is sought to give them this reputation. However, the facts are little in harmony with their brilliant programme. Far from proclaiming free trade, the " Confederate" States, by a formal act adopted on the 18th of Feb- ruary, have maintained the tariff of 185 Y. They have gone further : their Congress has just estab- lished a new and relatively heavy tax, which must burden the exportation of cotton. Tliis is not com- mercial liberty as I understand it. Notwithstanding, the watchword has been given, the champions of slavery have skilfully organized their system of manoeuvre in Europe, and it is de- THE PRESENT CRISIS. 129 veloping according to their wishes. To be indig- nant at the new tariff, to speak only of the new tariff, to create by means of the new tariff a sort of popularity for the Southern republic — such is the end which they sought to attain. I doubt whether they have fully obtained it, although the South, I say it to our shame, has already succeeded in procuring friends and praisers among us. The factitious indignation will fall without doubt ; but cotton remains : at the bottom, the South counts much more upon cotton than free trade to bring the Old World into her interests. On rushing into a mad enterprise, all the perils of which, enraged as it was, it could not disguise, it said to itself that its cotton would protect it. Is it not the principal and almost the only producer of a raw material, without which the manufactures of the whole world would stand still ? Are there not millions of workmen in England (one-sixth of the whole popu- lation !) who live by the manufacture of cotton?' Is not the wealth of Great Britain founded on cot- ton, which alone furnishes four-fifths of its exported manufactures ? All this is true, and they are not ignorant of it at Manchester. Notwithstanding, what happened there the other day ? An immense meeting was convoked for the purpose of carefully 6* 130 THE PKESENT CRISIS. examining the great cotton business, and the perils created by the present crisis. I do not know that among these manufacturers, knowing that their in- terests were menaced, that among these workmen, knowing that their means of livelihood were at stake, that from the heart of this country, knowing that want, famine, and insurrections might come to her door, there arose a voice, a single one, to ad- dress a word of sympathy to the Southern States, and to promise them the slightest support. It was because there was something transcending manufac- turing supplies, and even the bread of families : the need, I am glad to state, of protesting against cer- tain crimes. Instead of extending a hand to the secessionists of Charleston, the English manufac- turers resolutely laid the foundation of a vast so- ciety, destined to develop on the spot the produc- tion of cotton by free labor in India, the Antilles, and Africa. Such was their answer ; and if you knew their most secret thoughts, you would have no difficulty in discovering that the ambition of the South, its turbulent policy, and its aggressions without pretext, are far from exciting the gratitude of English commerce, or of inspiring its confidence. Every one in England comprehends that, from the standpoint of interest, the separation of the THE PRESENT CKISIS. 131 South is a mortal blow dealt to the cotton produc- tion, which will henceforth have the aid neither of credit nor entrepots, and which is advancing tow- ards catastrophes which may involve a conflict of arms. From another and higher standpoint, the public opinion of England has not made us wait for its verdict : already its abolition societies have re- gained life and begun their movements ; already, under the pressure of the universal feeling, the Court of Queen's Bench has revised the affair of the negro Anderson, to deliver into the strong hands of the metropolis a question before which the judicial authority of Canada hesitated, and to pronounce at length a A^erdict of acquittal. The South has taken account in its calculations neither of man nor God. God especially seems to have been forgotten, though it placed itself for- mally under his protection. WJio does not shudder at the enunciation of these unheard-of plans : we. will do this, then we will do that ; we will hold England through cotton, we will entice France through influence — we will have many negroes, much produce, and much money ! And what will God think of it ? Everywhere else but in South Carolina, this question would appear formidable beyond expression. 132 THE PRESENT CRISIS. If the SoTitli has taken its wishes for realities in Europe, it has committed the same error in Amer- ica. Its secession has some chance (and what a chance !) only on condition of drawing in all the slave States without exception ; now it seems bj no means probable that such a unanimity, sup- posing it to be gained by surprise, could ever be maintained successfully, Tlie negro-raising States could not possibly regard the future in the same light as the consuming States. Their revenues are based on the value of the domestic slave trade, which bears no resemblance to that of the African slave trade. Ask Virginia or Maryland long to sustain a policy, the result of which would be to lower the price of her slaves in one day from a thousand dol- lars to two cents ! Tliis is so clearly felt in the extreme South, that the provisional constitution, adopted at Montgomery, is drawn up with an ex- press view to reassuring the producing States on this point. They are afraid of the Afiican slave trade ! It shall not be reopened. They are anxious to sell their negroes ! They shall be bought only of those States forming part of the Southern Con- federacy. It belongs to them to ask now whether this Montgomery constitution, adopted for a year, really guarantees any thing to them, and whether THE PRESENT CKISIS. 133 it is possible that an attempt will not be made to revive the African slave trade, provided the South- ern Confederacy succeeds in enduring. However this may be, they are held apart by so many causes, that they would only unite to-day to separate to- morrow. I know well that the passions of slavery rule in many of the border States, especially in Virginia, as violently as in the extreme South. I do not disguise from myself that the habit of sus- taining a deplorable cause in common has created between the border and the cotton States a bond of long standing and difficult to break. But I say this : the impulses of the first hour will have their morrow ; when the frontier States witness the commencement of those territorial invasions which must necessarily bring the African slave trade in their train ; when they know what reliance to place on the fine promises made to-day to attract them ; when they perceive that in separating from the ]!^orth, they themselves have removed the sole ob- stacle in the way of the flight of all their slaves ; when, in fine, they feel weighing upon them, and them first, the perils of an armed struggle and a negro insurrection, they will listen perhaps to those of their citizens who, even now, are urging them to turn to the side of justice — of justice and of safety. 134 THE PRESENT CRISIS. By the fewness of their slaves, by the nature of their climate, which resembles that of Marseilles and Montpellier, by the kind of cultivation to which their country is adapted, by the number of manu- factures which arc beginning to be established among them, it seems as if they must be led, or, at least, some day led back, to the policy of union. This is no discovery : the seceded States know it already ; they form a separate band, America has not forgotten the retreat of the seven, which, a few months ago, dismembered the Democratic Conven- tion assembled at Charleston. These seven were South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Ar- kansas, Texas, and Louisiana ; in other words, all those States which were the first to vote for seces- sion. The same list, with the addition of Georgia and North Carolina, appeared again on the day of the Presidential election : these nine States alone adopted Mr. Breckenridge as their candidate. Here, then, is a profound distinction, which at- taclies to interests and tendencies, which has mani- fested itself already, which will manifest itself more and more, and which will work, sooner or later, the salvation of the United States. The border States cannot unite with the cotton States definitively. They gave proofs of this in the last election. Five THE PRESENT CKISIS. 135 among them, Tennessee, Kentucky, Delaware, Vir- ginia, and Maryland, at that time took an interme- diate position by making an intermediate choice : Mr. Bell. Without going so far, Missouri protested at least against the nomination of Mr. Breckenridge by casting its vote for Mr. Douglas. Better than this, a declared adversary of slavery, Mr, Blair, was elected representative by this same slave State, Missouri, on the day before the balloting for the presidency ; and on the next day his friends voted openly for Mr. Lincoln, while no one dared annul their votes, as had been done four years before. Mr. Lincoln thus obtained fifteen thousand votes in Missouri, four thousand in Delaware, fifteen hun- dred in Maryland, a thousand in Kentucky, and as many in Virginia. The figures arc nothing ; tlic symptom is significant. The slave States of this in- termediate region contain in their bosom, therefore, men who do not fear to attack the " patriarchal in- stitution." Have we not just seen a Republican committee acting at Baltimore, in the midst of Ma- ryland ? Has not this same Maryland just rejected, by the popular vote, the infamous law which its legislature had adopted, and by virtue of which free negroes who should not quit the State would be reduced by right to slavery ? When I remember 136 THE PRESENT CRISIS. these facts, so important and so recent, I compre- hend how it is that a Kentuckian holds the South at bay bcliind the menaced walls of Fort Sum- ter, and how the cabinet of Mr. Lincoln has minis- ters in its midst, who belong to the border States. People take the peculiar situation of the border States too little into account in looking into the fu- ture which is preparing for America. They persist in presenting to ns two great confederacies, and, in some sort, two United States, called to divide the continent. If any thing like this could occur, it could not endure. Doubtless,, there are hours of vertigo from which we may look for every thing, even the impossible ; and, who knows ? perhaps the impossible most of all ; nevertheless, the border States cannot attach themselves forever to a cause which is not their own. By the side of the mani- festations which have taken place in Virginia and South Carolina, we have already a riglit to cite demonstrations of a d ifferent kind. Has not Missouri just dc(ddcd prudently, that, in the niatter of sepa- ration, tlie decisions of her legislature shall not be valid until ratified by the whole peoi)le ? Tliis little resembles the eagerness with which States else- where rush into secession. Tt is therefore probable that the United States will keep or soon bring back THE PRESENT CKISIS. 137 into their bosom a considerable number of the bor- der States. By their side, the gulf States will at- tempt to form a rival nation, aspiring to grow towards the South. Such is the true extent of the separation that is preparing. Suppose these projects to become, some day, realities, we may ask whether a real Aveakening of the United States would be the result. Suppose even that another secession, based on different mo- tives, which nothing foretells at present, should take place beyond the Kocky Mountains ; suppose that a Pacific republic should some day be founded, would the American Confederation have reason to be greatly troubled at witnessing the formation on her sides of the association of the gulf States, Cali- fornia, and Oregon ? Look at a map, and you will see that the valley of the Mississippi, and of the lakes, and the shores of the Atlantic, are not neces- sarily connected either with the Gulf of Mexico, (save the indispensable outlet at New Orleans,) or the regions beyond the great desert and the Rock}'^ Mountains, the land of the Mormons and the gold- diggers. Unity is not always the absolute good, and it may be that progress must come througli dis- ruption. Who knows whether instantaneous seces- Biou would not perform the mission of resolving 138 THE PRESENT CBISIS. certain problems otherwise insoluble ? Who knows whether slavery must not disappear in this wise in the very effort that it makes to strengthen itself through isolation ? Who knows whether it is not important to the prosperity and real power of the United States to escape from theories of territorial monopoly, those evil counsellors but too much heeded ? Who knows, in fine, whether the day will not come, when, the questions of slavery once set- tled, new federal ties will again bind to the centre the parts that stray from it to-day ? I put these questions ; I make no pretensions to resolve them. In any case, the imagination has had full scope for some time past. People have not been satisfied with the Southern Confederacy ; have they not invented both the pretended Pacific Con- federacy which I have just mentioned, and the central Confederacy, in which the border States will take shelter in common with two or three free States, as Pennsylvania and Indiana ? Have they not supposed, in the bargain, (for they seem to find it necessary to discover the dissolution of the Union everywhere at all costs,) that the agricultural population of the West, discontented with the tariff recently adopted, and putting in practice the new maxim, according to which they are to have re- THE PRESENT CRISIS. 139 course to separation, instead of pursuing reforms, will seek an asylum in Canada ? I need not discuss such fables. I am convinced, for my part, that the princij)le of American unity is much more solid tlian people affirm ; I see in the United States a single race, and almost a single family : they may divide, they will not cease to be related. The rela- tionship will take back its rights. For the time, however, secession seems to have a providential part to enact. It facilitates, in certain respects, the first steps of Mr. Lincoln ; thanks to it, the hos- tile majority in the Senate is blotted out, the uncer- tainty of the House of Representatives is decided, the Government becomes possible. In the face of the senators and representatives of the gulf States, I do not see how Mr. Lincoln could have succeeded in acting. Did not the Senate, last year, adopt the proposition of Mr. Jefferson Davis in opposition to the liberty of the Territories ? Congress would have trammelled, one after another, all the measures of the new administration. Now, on the contrary, the role of the victorious party will be easy ; its pre- ponderance is assured in both Houses ; the Supreme Court will cease, ere long, to represent the doctrines of the extreme South, and to issue Dred Scott de- crees. This is a vast change. General Cass, in 140 THE PRESENT CRISIS. truth, comprehended the interests of slavery better than Mr. Buchanan, when he demanded that the Government should arrest with vigor from the be- ginning the faintest wish of separation. FSOBASLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKISIS. 14.1 CHAPTEE YIII. PBOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. General Cass was nearer right than he himself imagined. In arresting from the beginning the de- velopment of the plans of the South, by a vigorous attitude, and by the blockade, then easy, of Charles- ton, the Government would not only have rendered it the trifling service of maintaining its means of opposition in Congress, but also the inappreciable boon of averting the dangers of war. What has happened, on the contrary ? Precisely what must have happened, the human heart being such as it is. When on one side is found all the ardor, all the ac- tivity, all the resolution, and, into the bargain, all the apparent success, while on the other is found languor, hesitation, inaction, and disgraceful delays, it happens almost infallibly that the undecided are hurried away by the fanatics. Let the United States take care ! the chances of 142 PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. the future incur the risk, at this moment, of becom- ing more grave. To-day, the border States are on the point of declaring themselves ; to-day, in conse- quence, it is important to offer to their natural ir- resolution the support of a policy as firm as moder- ate. Given over without defence to the ardent solicitations of the extreme South, they are only too likely to yield, particularly if the Federal Govern- ment give them reason to believe that the separation will encounter no serious obstacle. We must remember that ignorant communities are here in question, who are ruled by their preju- dices, and wlio have never tolerated the slightest show of discussion upon questions connected with the subject of slavery. Such communities are ca- pable of committing the most egregious follies ; panics, sudden resolutions, mistaken unanimities, are common among them. Formerly, kings were pitied who lived surrounded by flatterers, it was said (we have provided against that) that the truth never reached them ; the planters are the only men I see to-day that can be likened to these mon- archs of olden time ; neither books, nor journals, nor preachers, are permitted to point out to them their duties or their interests in the matter of slavery. PEOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 143 The slightest symptom of inertia or of feebleness in the Federal Government at this time, will, there- fore, expose the border States to great perils, and, through them, the whole Confederation. As easy as it would have been, with a little energy, to pre- vent the evil, to confine secession within its natural limits, and to weaken the chances of civil war, so difficult has it become, at present, to attain the same end. Painful duties, perhaps, will be imposed on Mr. Lincoln. I wonder, in truth, at the politicians who advise him to a " masterly inactivity," that is, who urge him to continue Mr. Buchanan ! Doubt- less he does right to leave to the insurgents all the odium of acting on the offensive, but his moderation should detract nothing from his firmness, and it is even of importance that the means of action which he is about to prepare, should manifest so clearly the overwhelming superiority of the North, that the resistance of the South will be thereby dis- couraged. Adversaries of slavery are not wanting, who are almost indignant at the adoption of such measures by the new President. Did they fancy then that a formidable question could be resolved without risk- ing the repression of the assaults of force by force ? Away with childishness ! In electing Mr. Lincoln, 144 PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. it was known tliat the cotton States were ready to protest with arms in tlieir hands ; he was not elect- ed to receive orders from the cotton States, or to sign the dissohition of the United States on the first requisition. Who wills the end, wills the means. No one, certainly, desires, more than myself, the peaceful repression of the rebellion. May the success of the blockade render the employment of the army useless ! May the resolute attitude of the Confeder- ation arrest the majority of the intermediate States on the dangerous declivity upon which they are standing ! Once let them be drawn into the circle of influence of the extreme South, and little chance will remain of confining the civil war within the limits beyond which it is so important that it should not spread. riien will appear the irrepressihle conflict of Mr. Seward. Whether desired or not, if the two Con- federations are placed side by side, the one repre- senting all the slavery, the other representing all the liberty, the conflict will take place. It will take place perhaps now, perhaps a little later; however this may be, no one will have the power to hinder it. Suppose the South, thus completed, relinquish (and nothing is less certain) the open- ing by itself of a war in which it must perish, PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 145 and its great plans of attack, against Washington, for instance, be abandoned ; suppose the United States, on their side, avoid a direct attack, which would give the signal for insurrections ; suppose thej limit themselves to purely maritime repression of the revolt ; that, after striking off the Southern harbors from the list of seaports, and declaring that custom-house duties cannot be legally paid there, they maintain this blockade, which Europe should applaud ; would they have averted all chances of conflict ? No ; alas ! However temporary such a situation might be, complaints, recriminations, and, ere long, violent reprisals, would be seen every- where arising. Rivalries of principles, rivalries of interests, bitter memories of past injuries, such are the rocks on which peaceful policy would be in continual danger of shipwreck. We must not cherish illusions ; the chances of civil war have been increasing for a few weeks past with fearful rapidity. If Mr. Lincoln has confined himself scrupulously to conservative and defensive measures, there has been, on the contrary, in the actions of the South, a violent precipitation which has surpassed all expectancy. It is the haste of skilful men, who attempt by a bold stroke to carry off the advantages of a deed accomplished ; it is at 146 PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. the same time, and chiefly, perhaps, the haste of men who have nothing to lose, the ringleaders of the present hour. At the end of resources, the in- surgent South has already increased its taxes inor- dinately ; it has killed public and private credit ; it has created a disturbed revolutionary condition, in- tolerable in the end, which no longer permits delib- eration, or even reflection. Will the South pause on such a road ? It is difficult to hope it. As to the Korth, its plan of action is very simple, and easily maintained : suppose even that through im- possibility it should give over forcing the rebels back to their duty, who can ever imagine that it would suffer itself to be deprived of the mouths of the Mississippi, or that it would abandon to the rival Confederacy the capital itself of the Union, inclosed within the slave States ? Let us see things as tliey are : the maintenance and development of slavery in the South will render the abolitionist proceedings of its neighbor intolerable in its eyes ; if it has not been able to endure a contradiction accompanied with infinite circumspection, and tempered by many prudent disclaimers, how will it support this daily torture, a unanimous^ and well-founded censure, a perpetual denunciation of the infamies which accom- pany and constitute the "patriarchal institution " 'i PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 147 The North, on its side, will be unable to forget that, by the act of the Soutl\, without reason or pretext, the glorious unity of the nation has been broken ; that the star-spangled banner has been rent in twain ; that the commercial prosperity of America has been shaken at the same time with its greatness. Let one of those incidents then occur, that are con- stantly arising, a Southern slave ship stopped on the high seas by the North, a negotiation of the South threatening to introduce Europe into the affairs of the New "World, and directly hostilities will break out. "What they will be, I scarcely dare imagine. If the planters are forced, at present, to mount guard day and night, to prevent the insurrectionary move- ments that are constantly ready to break out on their estates ; if many families are already sending their women and children into safer countries ; what will it be when the arrival of the forces of the North shall announce to the slaves tliat the hour of deliv- erance has sounded ? It will be in vain to deny it ; their arrival will always signify this in the sight of the South. There are certain facts, the popular interpretation of which ends by being the true in- terpretation. I have no doubt that the generals of the United States, before attacking the Southern 148 PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKISI8. Confederacy, ■will recommend to the negroes to re- main at peace, and will disavow and condemn acts of violence ; but what is a manifesto against the reality of things and the necessity of situations? There is a word that I see written in large letters everywhere in the projects of the South — yes, the word catastropJie is to be read there in every line. The first successes of the South are a catastrophe ; the greatness of the South will be a catastrophe ; and, if the South ever realize in part the iniquitous hopes towards which it is rushing, the catastrophe will acquire unheard-of proportions ; it will be a St. Domingo carried to the tenth powxr. One cannot, with impunity, give full scope to his imagination, and, in the year of our Lord 1861, set to work to contrive the plan of a Confederacy designed to protect and to propagate slavery. These things will be avenged sooner or later. Ah ! if the South knew how important it is that it should not succeed, if it comprehended that the North has been hitherto its great, its only guarantee ! This is literally true ; a slave country, above all, to-day, needs to be backed up by a free country to ensure the subsistence of an institution contrary to nature ; otherwise the first accident, the first war, gives it over to perils that make us shudder. Thanks to PBOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 149 their metropolises, our colonies were able first to keep, and afterwards to enfranchise their slaves, without siiccumMng to the task. But let a South- ern Confederacy come, in which the immigration of the whites will be naught, while the increase of the blacks will be pursued in all ways, and, in case of suc- cess, the moment will soon arrive when many States will see themselves placed, as is the case already with South Carolina, in presence of a number of slaves exceeding that of free men. Such a social monstrosity never existed under the sun ; even in Greece, even in Rome, even among the Mussul- mans, the total number of free men remained su- perior ; the colonies alone, through the effect of the slave trade, presented an inverse phenomenon, and the colonies were consolidated with their metropo- lises in the same manner that the States of the South are consolidated with those of the iNTorth. In this will be found, I repeat, a most important guarantee. The South in rejecting it, and imagining itself able alone to maintain a situation which will become graver day by day, deludes itself most strangely. At the hour of peril, when servile in- surrection perhaps shall ravage its territory, it will be astonished to find itself left alone in the presence of its enemy. 150 PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OE' THE CRISIS. And this enemy is not one that can be conquered once for all. Even after the victory, even in times of peace, the threat of servile insurrection will ever remain suspended over the head of the Southern Confederacy ; it will be necessary always to watch, always to be on the guard, always to repress, and, to tell the truth, always to tremble. Tlie planters, whether they know it or not, are not preparing to sleep on a bed of roses. To labor to accomplish an iniquitous work amidst the maledictions of the uni- verse, to increase their estates and their slaves un- der penalty of death, and to feel instinctively that they will die for having increased them, to tremble because of European hostility, to tremble because of American hostility, to tremble because of hostil- ity from without and within — what a life ! Tliat one might accept it in the service of a noble cause, I can comprehend ; but the cause of the South ! In truth, this would be taking great pains for small wages. The South inspires me with profound com- passion. We have told it, much too often, that its Confederacy was easy to found. To found, yes ; to make lasting, no. Here, it is not the first step that costs — it is tlie second, it is the third. The South- ern Confederacy is not viable. Let us suppose that, PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKISI8. 151 to its misfortune, it has succeeded in all that it has just undertaken : Charleston is free, the border States are drawn in, there is a new federal compact and a new President, the Northern States have of ne- cessity abandoned the suppression of the insurrec- tion by force, Europe has surmounted its repugnance and received the envoys of the great Slave republic. All questions seem resolved ; but no, not a single one has attained its solution. The policy of the South must have its applica- tion. Its first article, whether it declares it or not, exacts conquests, the absorption of Mexico, for ex- ample. The fillibusters of Walker are still ready to set out, and the first moment past, when the ques- tion is to appear discreet, it is scarcely probable that they will meet with much restraint, now that the prudence of the North is no longer at hand to counterbalance the passions of Slavery. Admit that this enterprise bring no difficult complications. For these new territories, the ques- tion will be to procure negroes. The second article of the Southern policy will find then nolens volens^ its inevitable application : the African slave trade will be re-established. The richest planter of Georgia, Mr. Goulden, has taken care to set forth its necessity ; mark the language which he held 152 PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. lately : " You have hardly negroes enough for the existing States ; obtain the opening of the slave trade, then you can undertake to increase the num- ber of slave States." "Will the official re-opening of the slave trade be some day effected without bringing on a storm which will destroy the new Confederacy ? I can- not say. In any case, I know one thing : that the value of the slaves, and consequently that of South- ern property, will experience a decline greatly ex- ceeding that by which it is now threatened, as it is said, by the abolition tendencies of the North. Al- ready, through the mere fact of secession, the price of negroes has diminished one-half; and more than one intelligent planter foresees the time when this price shall have diminished three-fourths, perhaps nine- tenths. Southern fortunes are falling off, therefore, with extreme rapidity, and this arises not only from the anticipated effects of the slave trade, but also from the certainty of being unable henceforth to put a stop to the escape of the slaves. These escapes, taken all in all, remained insignificant, so long as the Union was maintained ; there are not more than fifty thousand free negroes in Canada. But hence- forth the Southern Confederacy will have a Canada everywhere on its frontiers. How retain that slavery PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 153 that will escape simultaneously on the North and the South? The Southern republic will be as it were the common eneniy, and no one assuredly will aid it to keep its slaves. It must not be believed, moreover, that it will succeed long in preserving itself from intestine divisions — divisions among the whites. If, at the first moment, when every thing is easy, unanimity is far from appearing as complete as had been fore- told, it will, later, be much worse. We shall then perceive how prophetic, if I may dare say so, were the often-quoted words of Washington's farewell ad- dress : " It is necessary that you should accustom yourselves to regard the Union as the palladium of }'Our happiness and your security ; that you should watch over it with a jealous eye ; that you should impose silence on any who shall ever dare counsel you to renounce it ; that you should give vent to all your indignation on the first eftbrt that shall be attempted to detach from the whole any part of the Confederation." A very difierent voice, that of Jefi'erson, spoke the same language. A Southern man, addressing himsexf to the South, which talked already of se- cedine;, he described in thrilling words the inevi- table consequences of such an act : " If, to rid our- 7* 154 PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKISIS. selves of the present supremacy of Massachusetts and Connecticut, we were to break up the Union, would the trouble stop there ? . . . "We should soon see a Pennsylvanian party and a Yirginian party forming in what remained of the Confedera- tion, and the same party spirit would agitate public opinion. By what new weapons would these par- ties be armed, if they had power to threaten each other continually with joining their Northern neigh- bors, in case things did not go on in such or such a manner ! If we were to reduce our Union to North Carolina and Yirginia, the conflict would break out again directly between the representatives of these two States ; we should end by being reduced to simj)le unities." Is not this the anticipated history of what is about to happen in the Southern Confederacy, sup- posing it to succeed in uniting with a part of the border States? The opening programme will last as long as programmes usually do. When the true plan of the South, veiled for a moment, shall reappear, (and it must indeed reappear, un- less it perishes before it has begun to exist ;) when the question- shall be to increase and be peo- pled, to make conquests anl to reestablish the Af- rican slave trade ; when the serious purpose, in a PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 155 word, shall have replaced the purpose of eircum stance, what will take place between the border States and the cotton States ? The profound dis- tinction which exists between them will then man- ifest itself, even if it does not break forth before. A new South and a new North will be formed, as hostile perhaps as the old, and less forgiving tow- ards each other of their mutual faults, inasmuch as they will be embittered by misfortune. Nothing divides people like a bad cause that turns out badly. They think themselves united, they call themselves united, until the moment when they discover that they have neither the same end nor the same mind. I do not see why the victory of Mr. Lincoln will have transformed the South, and suppressed the divergencies which separated it into two groups : that of the Gulf States voting for Mr. Breckenridge, that of the border States voting for Mr. Douglas or Mr. Bell, and even casting ballots for Mr. Lincoln. Not only will the Gulf States, the only true se- cessionists, never act in concert with the border States, but they will not be long in seeing parties spring up in their own bosom, which will be little disposed to come to terms. A sort of feudal ques- tion, as is well known, is near obtaining a position 166 PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. in the South ; the 'poor whites there are two or three times as nnmerons as the planters. The struggle of classes may, therefore, break out as soon as the effected secession shall have banished to the second rank the struggle against the adver- saries of slavery. Tlie impoverishment of the South will not aid in calming its intestine quarrels. European immi- gration, already so meagre in the slave States, (Charleston is the only large American city whose population has decreased, according to the last cen- sus,) European immigration, I say, will evidently diminish still more when the South shall have taken an independent and hostile position opj)osite the Northern States. Who will go then to expose him- self lightly to the fearful chances which the first war with any country, American or European, may bring in its train ? And credit will go the same way as immigration : to lend money to planters, whose entire property is continually menaced with destruction, is one of those hazardous operations from which commerce is accustomed to recoil. Deprived of the capital furnished it by New York, obtaining only with great difficulty a few onerous and precarious advances in Europe, the South will see itself smitten at once in all its means of produc- PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 157 tion ; and, after the harvest of 1860, which secures our supplies of cotton for a year, it is difficult to divine how it will set about continuing its culti- vation. At the same time that it will produce less cotton, and that we shall lose the habit of buying of it, the cotton culture will become accli- mated elsewhere ; the future will thus be destroyed like the i)resent ; final ruin will approach with hasty strides. They tell us of a loan that the new Confeder- acy designs to contract ! Unless it be transformed into a forced loan, I have little faith in its chance. They add that it will be only necessary to estab- lish on exported cotton a duty of a few cents per pound, and the cofters of the South will be filled. But, in the first place, to export cotton, they must produce it — they must have money ; it is almost impossible that the State should be rich when all its citizens are in distress ; then the exportation itself will be exposed to some difficulties if the United States organize a blockade. And I say nothing of the bad effiect that will be produced by this tax d la Turque — this tax on exportation in the very midst of plans of commercial freedom. Neither do I speak of the eff'ect which this extra charge, which is termed trifling, but which is, in 158 PROBABLE JONSEQUENCES OF THE CKI6IS. fact, considerable, will have on the sale of American cotton, already so defective, when compared with the average price of other cottons. Poor country, which blind passion, and, above all, indomitable pride, precipitates into the path of crime and misery ! Poor, excommunicated nation, whose touch will be dreaded, whose flag will be suspected, whose continually increasing humilia- tions will not even be compensated by a few mea- gre proiits ! The heart is oppressed at the thought of the clear, certain, inevitable future, which awaits so many men, less guilty than erring. Between them and the rest of the world there will be noth- ing longer in common ; they will establish on their frontier a police over books and journals, essaying to prevent the fatal introduction of an idea of lib- erty : the rest of the world will have for them nei- ther political sympathies, nor moral sympathies, nor religious sympathies. Will they at least have the consolation of having killed the United States ? Will a glorious confed- eration have perished by their retreat? No, a thousand times no. Even though they should suc- ceed in drawing the border States into the Southern Confederacy, the United States, thank God ! will keep their rank among nations. Where will the PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 159 United States be after secession ? Where they were before ; for a long time the gravitation of their power has been tending towards the Northwest. The true America is there, that of ancient traditions, and that of present reality. If any serious fears might have been conceived as to its duration, they disappeared on the day of the election of Mr. Lin- coln. On that day, we all learned that the United States would subsist, and that their malady was not mortal. Great news was this ! Did you ever ask your- self how much would be missing here on earth if such a people should disa})i)ear? It lives and it will live. Look at the calm and confident air of the North, and compare it with the noisy violence of the South. The North is so sure of itself that it does' not deign either to become angered, or to has- ten ; it even carries this last to extremes. It has the air of knowing that, in spite of the apparent successes which may mark the first efforts of the South, the final success must be elsewhere. Let the South take caro ! to have against it both right and might is twice as much as is needed to be beaten. The North supported Mr. Buchanan be- cause it was awaiting Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln came, the North still has patience, but will end 160 PEOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. by falling into line, and tlie serious struggle will begin, in case of need. Tlie issue of this struggle can scarcely be doubt- ful. On one side, I see a confederacy divided, im- poverished, bending under the weight of a crushing social problem, seeing constantly on its horizon the menace of insurrections and of massacres, unable either to negotiate, or to draw the sword, or to re- solve any of the difficulties from without, without thinking of the still more formidable difficulties from within ; on the other side, I see the United States, masters of themselves, unanimous, knowing what they want, and placing at the service of a noble cause, a power which is continually increasing. The match will not be equal. I cannot help believing, therefore, that the triumph of the North will be even much more complete than we imagine to-day. I do not know what is to happen, but this I know: the I^ortli is more populoiis, richer, more united ; European immigration goes only to the North, European capital goes only to the North. Of what elements is the population of the South composed? The first six States that proclaimed their separation number exactly as many slaves as freemen. "What a position ! Is it probable indeed that this confederation contrary to nature, in which PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 161 each white will be charged with guarding a black, can affoi'd a long career? The South, divided, weakened, bearing in its side the continually bleed- ing wound of slavery, reduced to choose in the end between the direful plans which must destroy after having dishonored it, and the Union which consoli- dates its interests while thwarting its passions — is it possible that the South will not return to the Union ? Something tells me that if the Union be dis- solved, it will be formed again. A lasting separation is more difficult than is imagined. Face to face with Europe, face to face with the United States, the great republic of the South would find it too difficult to live. To live at peace is impossible ; to live without peace is not to be thought of. The great Southern republic must perish surely by its failure, and still more surely by its success, for this monstrous success will draw down its destruc- tion. Tliere is in America a necessity, as it were, of union. Unity is at the foundation, diversity is only on the surface ; unity is bound up with the national life itself, with race, origin, belief, common destiny, a like degree of civilization, in a word, with pro- found and permanent causes ; diversity proceeds from the accidents of institutions. 162 PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. Looking only at the province of interests, is it easy to imagine an irremediable rupture between New York and Charleston, between the valley of the Mississippi and IS^ew Orleans ? What would the valley of the .Mississippi be without New Orleans, and New Orleans, isolated from the vast country of which it is the natural market ? Can you fancy New York renouncing half her commerce, ceasing to be the broker of cotton, the necessary medium between the South and Europe? Can you fancy the South deprived of the intervention and credit which New York assures her ? Tlie dependence of the North and the South is reciprocal ; if the South produces the cotton, it is the North which furnishes the advances, then purchases on its own account or on commission, and expedites the traffic with Europe. In the United States, every part has need of the whole ; agricultural States, manufac- turing States, commercial States, they form together one of the most homogeneous countries of which I know. I should be surprised if such a country were destined to become forever dismembered, and that, too, at an epoch less favorable to the dismem- berment of great nations than to the absorption of small ones. Shall I say all that I think? When Anglo- PEOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CEISIS. 163 Saxons are in question, we Latins are apt to deceive ourselves terribly ; one would not risk much, per- haps, in supposing that events would take place precisely in the reverse of our hypothesis. We have loudly predicted in Europe the end of the United States, the birth and progress of a rival Confederacy, an irremediable separation : is not this a reason for supposing that there will be ul- timately neither a prolonged separation, nor a rival Confederacy worthy of consideration ? Free coun- tries, especially those of the English race, have a habit of which we know little : their words are exceedingly violent, and their actions exceedingly circumspect. They make a great noise : one would say that every thing was going to destruction ; but it is prudent to look at them more closely, for these countries of discussion are also countries of com- promise, the victors are accustomed to terminate political crises by yielding something of their vic- tory ; in appsarance, it is true, rather than in reality. Fully decided at heart, they consent willingly to appear less positive in form. Here, I know that the extreme violence of the South renders a compromise very difficult, at least a present compromise. As it is accustomed to rule, and will be content with no less, as it knows that 164 PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. the ISTorth, decidedly emancipated, will not replace its head beneath the yoke, it seems resolved to in- cur all risks rather than renounce its fixed idea. For two months, the probabilities of compromise have been becoming constantly weaker. But if we have scarcely a right to count on them now, so far as the Gulf States are concerned, we must remember that the border States are at hand, that they are hesitating between the North and the South, and that certain concessions may be made to them, to prevent their separation. Such is the true character of the discussions relating to compromise. Confined to these limits, they nevertheless possess a vast interest, for the party which the border States are about to choose, and that to which they will perhaps attach them- selves afterwards, will have a great influence over the general course of the crisis. The point in ques- tion is no longer, doubtless, to retain Virginia, whose well-known passions impel her to the side of Charleston, but to induce the other States to take an attitude in conformity with their interests and their duties. It will not, therefore, be useless to give an account of the disposition that prevails among many Americans with respect to com- promise. PKOBAJJLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKISIS. 165 Wliat was produced by that Peace Conference, convoked with so much noise by Virginia, the ancient political State, the country of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe ? Nothing worth the trouble of mentioning. A considerable number of States refused to be present at this conference, which, had it been general, would have become transformed into a convention, and have annulled Congress, in point of fact, then in session in the same city ? Its plan, accepted with great difficulty by a factitious majority, never appeared to have much chance of adoption. The point in question, above all, was to decide that, below a fixed latitude, the majority of the inhabitants of a Territory could not prohibit the introduction of slavery, (disguised, it is true, un- der the euphuistic expression, " involuntary servi- tude ; " ) this measure was to be declared irrevo- cable, unless by the unanimous consent of the States. Despite the support of Mr. Buchanan, and that of the higher branches of trade in New York, seconded, as usual, by some fashionable circles of Boston, the almost unanimous public opinion of the North forbade all belief in the success of such an amendment to the Constitution, which, in accord- ance with the Constitution itself, could be adopted only on condition of uniting two-thirds of the votes 166 PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OP THE CRISIS. of Congress to the affirmative votes of three-fourths of the States composing the Confederation. Another project was put forward : all the mem- bers of Congress were to tender their resignation, and the new elections were to manifest the defini- tive will of the country on the question of slavery. That is, from the intense excitement of the country, were to be demanded some final elements of reac- tion, some means of disavowing the election of Mr. Lincoln, In either case, it would have been thus proved by an exceptional act that an election which is not ratified by the South may rightfully demand extraordinary measures. ISTow, there is nothing but what is customary, simple, and right, i the conduct of the North ; it knows it, and will not, I think, permit such an advantage to be gained over it. To allow talking, to allow propositions, and to go its own way, this is the programme to which it is bound to remain faithful. What makes its honor makes also its strength : this is the privilege of good causes. The North has not sought bases for a comjiro- mise. They are all laid down, and I dare affirm, whatever may happen, that these bases, constantly the same, are those to which it will not fail to re- turn. To speak truly, it has but one declaration to PEOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKISIS. 167 make : to proclaim anew the constitutional law, by virtue of wliicli each State sovereignly decides its own affairs, and consequently excludes all interfer- ence of Congress in the matter of slavery. Perhaps it will join, if need be, to this declaration, which it has never refused, the promise to respect to the ut- most of its power, the principle of the restitution of fugitive slaves, which, unhappily, is also based upon the Constitution. But, on this point, promises are worth what they will fetch, for doubtless no one will imagine that it is easier to constrain the free States to accomplish an odious deed which is revolt- ing to their conscience since they have verified their strength by electing Mr. Lincoln. Lastly, upon the ruling question, that of the Territories, the theory of the Xorth evinces justice and clearness ; between the ultra abolitionists, who wish Congress to interfere to close by force all the Territories to slavery, and the South, which wishes Congress to interfere to open by force all the Territories to sla- very, it adopts this middle position : all the inhab- itants of the Territories shall open or close them to slavery, according to their will. It is the right of the majority, recognized there as elsewhere. I am not ignorant that Mr. Seward has gone much farther in the patli of concession, and it is 168 PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. not absolutely impossible that these counsels of weakness may prevail. We mnst be prepared for any thing in this respect. Nevertheless, the Presi- dent has by no means confirmed the imprudent words of his future prime minister. The language of Mr. Lincoln has been remarkably clear. In his inaugural speech, to go no further back, he indi- cates expressly the true, the great concession that will be made to the South : " Those who elected me placed in the platform presented for my accept- ance, as a law for them and for me, the clear and explicit resolution which I am about to read to you : ' The maintenance intact of the right of the States, and especially of the right wliich each State possesses to regulate and exclusively control its institutions according to its own views, is essential to that balance of power, on which depend the perfection and duration of our political structure ; and we denounce the invasion in contempt of the law by an armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, upon whatever pretext it may be, as the greatest of crimes.'" Mr. Lincoln adds further; " Congress has adopted an amendment to the Con- stitution, which, however, I have not seen, the purpose of which is to provide that the Federal Gov- ernment shall never interfere in the domestic insti- PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKISIS. 169 tiitions of the States, including those which relate to persons held in service. In order to avoid all misunderstanding concerning what I have said, I depart from my intention of not speaking of any amendment in particular, to say that, considering this clause henceforth as a constitutional law, I have no objection that it be rendered explicit and irrevocable." Concerning fugitive slaves, the inaugural dis- course cites the text of the federal Constitution, which decides the question for the present ; but he does not ignore the fact that this constitutional de- cision is as well executed as it can be, " the moral sense of the people lending only an imperfect sup- port to the law." As to the Territories, Mr. Lincoln declares clearly that the minority must submit to the ma- jority, under penalty of falling into complete anar- chy. Neither does he hesitate on the subject of the decisions of the Supreme Court ; these decrees, in his eyes, are merely special decisions rendered in particular cases, and detracting nothing from the right which the Confederation possesses to reg- ulate its institutions and its policy. All this is very firm, without being provoking. The limit of concessions is marked out, and a con- 8 170 PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. ciliatory spirit is maintained. It is above all in disclosing his line of conduct towards the rebellions States, that Mr, Lincoln happily resolves the prob- lem of abandoning none of the rights of the Con- federation, while manifesting the most pacific disposition, and leaving to others the odium of aggression. His doctrine on this point may be summed up in this wise : in tlie first place, the separation is unconstitutional, it should be, it will be combated, nothing on earth can bring the Pres- ident to accede to the destruction of the Union ; in the second place, he will not be the aggressor, he will endeavor to shun a war which exposes the South to fearful jDcrils ; in the third place, he will fulfill the duty of preserving federal property and collecting federal taxes in the South. In other terms, he will employ the means which should have been employed on the first day, and which would have then been more efficacious. lie will attempt the establishment of a maritime blocliade, in order to reduce the rebellion of the whites without pro- voking the insurrection of the negroes. Already, the vessels of war have been recalled from distant stations. Alas ! I have little hope that the pre- cautions dictated to Mr. Lincoln by prudence and humanity will bear their fruits. The South raises PBOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. l7l an army and is abont to attack Fort Snmter, knowing that it will thus expose itself to a for- midable retribution. Mr. Lincoln, in fact, has not left it in ignorance of this : " In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-citizens, in yours and not mine, is found the terrible question of civil war. The Government will not attack you ; you will have no conflict, if you are not the aggressors. You have not, on your part, an oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government ; whilst I, on my side, am about to take the most solemn oath to maintain, to protect and defend it." Such is the respective position. Men will agi- tate, are agitating already, about the new President, to take away from his thoughts and designs this resolute character which makes their force. They attempt to demonstrate to him, not only that Fort Sumter, so easy to revictual under Mr. Buchanan, has now become inaccessible to aid, and that no other course remains than to authorize its surrender ; but that Fort Pickens itself should be surrendered to the South, in order to reserve every chance of reconciliation and in no degree to assume the re- sponsibility of civil war ! I hope that Mr. Lincoln will know how to resist these enfeebling influences. After having demonstrated to him that it is neces- 172 PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. sary to deliver up tlie forts, they will demonstrate to him that it is necessary to renounce the block- ade, which is not tenable without the forts; then, who knows? they will demonstrate to him finally that it is necessary to sign some disgraceful com- promise, and submit almost to the law of the rebels. Once more, it is prudent to foresee every thing, and it is for this that I mention such things. I count, moreover, on their not being realized. In electing Mr. Lincoln, the United States decided thus : Slavery will make no more conquests. What they have decided, they will ultimately maintain, even though they should have the air of abandoning it. They have respected and they will respect the sovereignty of the States ; upon this point they will give all the guarantees that may be desired, and Congress, we have seen, has already voted an amendment to the Constitution, designed to offer this basis of compromise. But it is improbable that they will go beyond this ; the North must feel that, of all ways of terminating the present crisis, the most fatal would be the disavowal of principles and the desertion of the flag. The compromises that promise any thing more than respect for the sovereignty of the States in the PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 173 matter of slavery, promise more than they could perform ; every one feels this, in the South as in the North. The jjolicy of the South forms a whole of which nothing subsists if any thing be re- trenched, and above all if the complicity of the Government ceases to be assured to it. On the day that the South accepts any compromise whatever, it will have renounced, not the maintenance doubt- less, but the propagation of slavery ; it will have renounced its rule. Compromises, (there will be such, perhaps, let us swear to nothing ; before or after the war, with the entire South, or with a part of it,) compromises will be signed henceforth with- out any delusion. The South knows, marvellously well, that these compromises will bear little resem- blance to those signed in former times. Those marked, by their constantly increasing pretension, the upward march of the South ; these will mark the phases of its decline. How many changes which can never be retraced ! 'No more conquests to promote slavery, no more reopening of the Afri- can slave trade, no more impunity secured to those numerous slave-ships which daily, to the knowledge and in the sight of all, for years past, have quitted the ports of the Confederation ; no more chance of equalling, by the creation and popu- 174 PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CBISI8. lation of new States, the rapid development of the North ; henceforth the question is ended, the South must he resigned to it : the majority of the free States will hecome such that it can he contested neither in the House of EepresentativeSj nor in the Senate, nor in the presidential election; the su- premacy resides at the E^orth, the programme of the South is rent in a thousand pieces. Against this, all the compromises in the world can do nothing. ■ If Mr. Lincoln is the first Presi- dent opposed to slavery, Mr. Buchanan is the last President favorahle to slavery ; the American poli- cy is henceforth fixed. Reflect, in fact, on what these four years of government will produce. The result is so enormous, that, unhappily, one might be tempted to say at Washington : " "We will do all that is wished, provided we preserve the handling of affairs." Tlie power of a President is doubtless inconsid- erable, but his advent is that of a party. This party is about to renew all administrations, great and small ; the same majority which has elected him will modify before long the tendencies of the courts ; in fine, the general affairs of the Union will be managed in a new spirit. It was advancing in one direction, it is about to move in the opposite. PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKISI8. 175 Mr. Lincoln is not one to shut his eyes on filibus- tering attempts to strive to take Cuba for the sla- very party, to permit States to be carved out of Mexico, and others to be made ready by subdi- viding Texas. The process which is about to be accomplished reminds me of the measures taken to combat a vast conflagration : the first thing done is to circumscribe its locality. At the end of the four years of Mr. Lincoln's administration, the flames which threatened to de- vour the Union will be completely hemmed in. Considering the United States as a whole, and in- dependently of the incidents of separation, we are justified in believing that the respective number of free and of slave States will leave no chance for the ulterior extension of a great scourge. Do we delude ourselves by thinking that the prog- ress already begun in the border States will have been accelerated in its course, and that many of them will have freely passed over to the side of liberty? Is it certain, moreover, that the hesitation of some of the churches will have ceased, and that the influence of the Gospel, so decisive in America, will have finally placed itself entire at the service of the good cause ? Let there be a compromise or not, let the great 176 PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CEI8IS. secession of tlie South be prevented or not, one fact remains settled from this time : the United States were tottering on their base, thej have regained their equilibrium ; the deadly perils which they lately incurred from the plans of conquest of the South and the indefinite extension of slavery, are at length conjured down ; they have no longer to ask whether, some day, the South having grown be- yond measure, secession must not be effected by the I^orth, leaving in the hands of the slaveholders the glorious name and the starry banner of the Union. I think that I have gone over the whole series of hypotheses which offer any probability. I have been careful to adopt none of them, for I make no pretension, thank God, to read the future. It would be puerile to prognosticate what will hap- pen, and not less puerile, perhaps, to describe it from what has happened. In the face of the acci- dents in different directions which are attracting public attention and filling the columns of newspa- pers, I have attempted to make a distinction be- tween what may happen and what must endure. The lasting consequences of the present crisis are what I proposed to investigate faithfully. Tlie reader knows what are ray conclusions. It may be that it will end in the adoption of some blamable PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 177 compromise ; but whatever may be inscribed in it, the election of Mr. Lincoln has just written in the margin a note that will annul the text. The time for certain concessions is past, and the South has no more doubts of it than the North. It may- lie that the slave States will succeed in founding their deplorable Confederacy, but it is impossible that they should succeed in making it live ; they will perceive that it is easier to adopt a compact or to elect a President, than to create, in truth, in the face of the nineteenth century, the national- ity of slavery. I have, therefore, the right to affirm that, what- ever may be the appearances and incidents of the moment, one fact has been accomplished and will subsist : the United States were perishing, and are saved. Yes, whatever may be the hypothesis on which we pause, three new and decisive facts ap- pear to our eyes : we know that the North hence- forth has the mastery ; we know that the perils which threaten the Union came from the South and not from the North ; we know that the days of the " patriarchal institution" are numbered. Beneath these three facts, it is not difficult to perceive the uprising of a great people. The victory of the North, the consciousness §* 178 PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKISIS. wliich it has of its strength and of its fixed resohi- tion, whatever may be the appearances to the con- trary, to circumscribe an evil which was ready to overflow on every side, is the first fact ; there is no need to return to it. As to the- second, Carolina and Georgia have charged themselves with bringing it to light. They have proved by their acts that abolitionism had been calumniated in accusing it of menacing the unity of the United States. Tlie secessionist pas- sions have shown themselves in the other camp ; there, -upon the mere news of a regular election, have been sacrificed unhesitatingly the greatness, and, it would seem, the very existence of the country. The proclamations from Charleston, and the shots fired on the Federal flag, have apprised us of what intelligent observers suspected already : that the States for which slavery had become a passion and almost a mission, must some day experience the need of procuring to such a cause the security of isolation. And in acting in this wise, these States, strange to say, have themselves stated the problem of abo- lition. No one thought of it, it may be said ; every one respected the constitutional limits of their sovereignty. They would not have it thus ; they PEOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CEISI3. 179 carried the question into the territory of Federal right and Federal relations ; they exclaimed : " Se- cure the extension of slavery, and perish the United States ! " If the United States had per- ished, there would not have been maledictions deep enough for those who had committed such a crime. Tlie United States will not perish ; but they will long remember with gratitude what they owe to the secessionists of 1860. When the hour of eman- cipation shall have struck, and it will strike some day, the secessionists of 1860 will not probably speak of their rights to indemnity ; they have just given a quittance of it in cannon balls. The third fact remains : Is it true that, in all the hypotheses, the cause of the negroes has just real- ized such progress that the ultimate issue of the contention can no longer be doubtful ? This is most obvious. Let there be separation or not, sla- very has just entered upon the road which leads to abolition, more or less rapid, but infallible. If there be no separation, this immense progress will be effected with more wisdom and slowness ; vio- lent means will be averted, the benevolent influence of the Gospel will pave the way for progressive and peaceful transformation by preaching, to the slaves as to the masters, more of their duties than 180 PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. of tlieir rights. If there be separation, emancipa- tion will be accomplished much more quickly and more calamitously. Servile war will break out ; ultra abolitionism, to which hitherto the prudence of the North has refused all real credit, will be no longer restrained by the prudence of a people desi- rous of shunning bloody catastrophes ; sustained by the increasing animosity which will inflame the two Confederacies against each other, it will find means of introducing into the South appeals to revolt, and will multiply expeditions like that of John Brown. But let us leave these generalities, and examine nearer by, from the stand-point of emancipation, the four or five hypotheses which we have signalled out most plainly, and between which seem to lie the chances of the future. I shall examine first of all the one whose realiza- tion is evidently pursued by the able men of the ex- treme South. Tlie question is, after having speedily gained over the North, thanks to Mr. Buchanan, to arrive as quickly as possible at something which shall have the appearance and authority of a fact accomplished. Audacity, and again audacity ; upon this point, the politic and the violent meet in unison to-day. It has seceded, it has invaded the Federal PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 181 property, it has trumped np a government, it has given itself a President, it is about to have an army, it is already attempting to represent itself officially at the courts of the great powers. By the side of audacity, prudence has played its part. It has taken good care not to unfurl its flag, it has made itself small, modest, moderate, as much so, at least, as the passions of the mob would per- mit ; it asked nothing, in truth, but to live honestly in a corner of the globe. Who speaks, then, of conquests ? Who would wish to re-establish the African slave trade on a large scale ? Far from be- ing retrogrades, the men of the South are cham- pions of progress ; witness their programme of commercial freedom ! Are there no honest men to. be found in the North, to restrain Mr. Lincoln, and to prevent him from oppressing them ? Are there no governments in Europe that can interpose, and recommend the maintenance of peace ? Is not this peace, which prevents the insurrections of negroes, and the destruction of cotton, for the interest of all ? Why should there not be two Confederacies, living side by side, as good friends ? It is evident that the able party tend to this, and that the violent have allowed them to give, for the common interest, this subdued tone to the iusurrec- 182 PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. tionary movement. The able party know too well what war would be to desire it. Tliey prepare for it in the hope, if not to avoid it, at least to postpone it for the present, and to obtain in behalf of Southern secession, that species of security which is confer- red in our times by the deed accomplished. Per- haps the United States, yielding to a sentiment which certainly has something honorable in it, will allow the Confederacy of the Gulf States to subsist, rather than crush it, which would be but too easy, by bringing upon it a war which would be accompanied by slave insurrections. Let us not be in haste to blame such a course ; let us remember that the whole world is prompting in this direction, that all the counsels given to Mr. Lincoln, in the Old World as in the New, begin invariably with the words : " Strive to avoid civil war ; " let us remember also that, to solve the American problem, much more time will be needed than we imagine in Europe ; let us en- deavor to put ourselves in the place of those who see things as they are, and who find themselves in a struggle with the difficulties. Patience will doubtless have here its great in- convenioncies ; the Confederacy of the cotton States, if tolerated, will seem the living proof of the right of separation ; it will be an asylum all prepared, in PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 183 which the discontented border States can take refuge at need. ^Nevertheless the question is to tolerate this Confederacy, but by no means to recog- nize the legitimacy of the act which gave it birth ; the question is to make use of a generous forbear- ance, to which new threats of secession will neces- sarily put an end. Then, is it nothing to manifest a spirit of peace fitted to touch the most prejudiced, to bind the majority of the border States to the destinies of the Union, to give evidence of the dis- tinction wliich exists between them and the extreme South, to force them, in fine, to declare themselves ? If they surmount the present teraj^tation, (and they will never encounter a stronger one,) if they consent to sacrifice their immediate interests, and to re- nounce the trafiic in slaves, which is in danger of ceasing from day to day in case they do not join the " Confederate States ; " is such a resolution nothing ? does it contain no guarantees for the fu- ture ? We do not set foot in the right path with impunity ; honorable resolves always carry us fur- ther, thank God ! than we counted on going. Sup- pose even that the border States which refuse to unite with the South design to impose on the North certain vexatious conditions, they will be none the less turned from their former alliances, they will 184 PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. have none tlie less begun to move in a new direc- tion. We should do wrong if we did not recognize how honorable is the conduct of several among them; in watching over their legislatures, in enacting that the vote of secession shall be submitted to the rati- fication of the whole people, certain frontier States seem to have already shown themselves resolved to foil the intrigues at Charleston. The cause of emancipation takes, therefore, a very important step in advance, in the hypothesis of a Southern Confederacy reduced, or nearly so, to the Gulf States alone. Limited secession is j)erhaps of all combinations, the one most favorable to the suppression of slavery. Picture to yourself, in fact, what this Southern Confederacy will be. It will be an impossible, short-lived republic, the separation of which will one day cease, and which, meanwhile, will be incapable of realizing any of its favorite projects. From the first hour, the extreme South found itself brought to face a dilemma : either to draw in all the slave States, and then to await the moment favorable to the execution of its grandilo- quent plans, to hasten towards its destiny, its ideal, to conquer territories, to people them with negroes, and to perish through the accomplishment of an impious work ; or, to remain alone and undertake PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 185 nothing, and still perish, but this time through im- potence to exist. What is to be done when there is onlj the miserable Confederacy of some thousand whites, the owners and keepers of some hundred thousand blacks ? Make conquests ? Tliey dare not. Open the slave trade ? It would draw down destruction upon them. Now, mark that, in the bosom of a Confederacy morally isolated from the entire world, receiving aid neither from immigrants nor capital, deprived, in a large part at least, of the fresh supply of negroes which it formerly drew from the North, unable even to incur the risk of imitating Spain, which buys free negroes from the slave-hunters of the African continent, not in a condition to stop the escapes which will take place on all her frontiers, the question of slavery will j)roceed necessarily towards its solution. Tlie extreme South, strange to say, will find itself placed providentially as an obstacle between the United States and the coun- tries of which it lately meditated the acquisition. The United States will have the advanta2:e of being unable even to think of Cuba, or Central America, or Mexico ; they will be delivered for a time from these baleful temptations, and from the States in which they met the warmest support. And, during 186 PEOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. this time, the extreme South will be forced, in some sort, to look at the problem of slavery under an as- pect before unknown to it. Later will come the shock, the postponed but inevitable conflict. Blockaded at the South, blockaded at the North, blockaded on the African side, undermined and torn by its intestine divi- sions, the extreme South will have to face, at one time or another, the irresistible power of the United States, Does any one imagine by chance that the latter will forever relinquish Kew Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico ? The more they become elevated and strengthened, the more they will be led, say rather, forced, to absorb again the portions of their former domain which have attempted to exist with- out them. From this time, the discussion relative to slavery will assume in the United States a simple and de- cided bearing. The extreme South, in quitting them, will have given them every facility ; it will have endowed them with political homogeneousness and liberal majorities. By the mere effect of the departure of the senators and representatives of the extreme South, the party opposed to slavery will have acquired, at the outset, the numerical ma- jority which it lacked in Congress ; it will be in a PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 187 position to ensure the passage of its bills, to form its administration, to constitute by degrees courts in every respect favorable to its principles. Next, the border States who shall not have followed the fortunes of the extreme South will find themselves bound to those of the North, associated with its in- terests, open to its ideas ; and it is a fixed fact that several will not be long in completing the work of liberty already begun among them, and thus be- coming, with their rich and extensive Territories, of the number of those fortunate States in which the suppression of slavery gives the signal for the fruit- ful invasion of immigrants, for agricultural prog- ress, for wealth, and for credit. In this manner the " patriarchal institution " will disappear peace- ably from the intermediate region, while it will be threatened by more terrible shocks in the tropical region. This is a chance which is common to limited and to total secession, but which is still more una- voidable in the last. Face to face with the miser- able Confederacy of the extreme South, the United States can afford to b^ patient ; face to face with the Confederacy comprising all the slave States, (or, which means the same, face to face with two distinct Confederacies, comprising, the one the cotton States, 188 PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. the other the border States, yet united against the North through an old instinct of complicity,) the attitude of the United States, as every one foresees, will inevitably be more hostile. Total secession it- self can be born only from a sentiment of declared hostility ; it amounts to a declaration of war. Sup- pose that Mr. Lincoln rejects the advice of those of his cabinet who wish him to accept the fact of secession ; suppose that, while treating the South with gentle- ness, and striving to spare it the horrors of an armed strife, he persists in protecting the rights of the Confederation, and securing to it, by a maritime blockade, the collection of taxes ; suppose that the blockade is organized from South Carolina to the Kio Grande, supported by Forts Pickens, Jefferson, and Taylor, which will have been revictualled at all costs after the forced evacuation of Fort Sumter ; suppose that, in this manner, watch is kept over the ports of Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans, may it not happen that the insurrectional government at Montgomery will decide to effect a march on "Washington ? Is it not probable that North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland will allow themselves to be crossed without saying a word ? More than this, are we not justified in believing that these States, and with them a considerable PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. 189 number of the central ones, rallied around their an- cient banner by the very approach of peril, will make common cause with the slave Confederacy ? Ill such a case, how avert the chances of a direful conflict? Will the United States carry patience with respect to the aggressors, the fear of giving a signal of ruin, deference to the counsels lavished on them perhaps, so far as to refuse to return a violent attack, and to consent to the ravishment of their capital ? It is hard to believe. If the South make the attack, the war will break out, negro revolts will commence, and the border States will be exposed to the first blow. But admit that they succeed in preventing an immediate explosion, the mere fact of a total seces- sion, and of the formation of two Confederacies, almost equal, (in appearance at least,) will permit no one to count on the prolonged preservation of peace. What repulsion, what grievances will be found in all relations, in all questions ! And from a grievance to war, from war to negro insurrections, what will be the distance, I ask ? The South will be then an immense powder magazine, to which the first spark will set fire. And the South will not lose its habits of arrogance, it will be quarrelsome as always. Has it not already announced in its journals that, on 190 PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKISIS. the first encouragement given to its fugitive slaves, it will draw the sword ? Now, such encouragement certainly will not be wanting. The South does not know at the present time how much the North, of which it complains, contributes to prevent the es- capes which it fears. The Federal Government is at hand to oppose them, in some measure at least. When the preventive obstacle shall have disappear- ed, the South will see with what rapidity its slavery will glide away on every point of its frontier; it will see its haj>jpy negroes ready to brave a thou- sand perils rather than remain under its law. Alas I it will see many other j)roofs of their devotion to servitude. I do not like to bring bloody images, at which I shudder, too often before the eyes of the reader ; it must be said, notwithstanding, while it is yet time, that the general Confederacy of the South, intoxicated with its projects, resolved to increase its possessions, forced to demand from the African slave trade the means of repeopling its States, de- populated by escape, and to install slavery into new territories, will draw upon it, not only the wrath of the United States, but the indignation of the entire world. And what misery, what ruin will ensue from the first conflict ! I like better to fix my thoughts on the third PKOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKI8I8. 191 hypothesis — that of a return to the now broken Union. Taught by experience, seeing how little weight it has in the world since its separation from the United States, poor, weak, divided, compre- hending the impossibility of realizing its true plans without exposing itself to calamities, losing its re- sources, one after another, even to the cultivation of cotton, which also demands credit and security, incapable of preventing the flight of its slaves, and not daring to brave that great power of public opinion which will interdict it the African trade, the Southern Confederacy, exhausted and dismayed, will perhaps one day prefer returning to the bosom of the Union, to plunging into the extremity of mis- fortune. In this case, again, the question of affran- chisement will have made vast strides. The United States will have taken a decided position in the absence of the South, which its return cannot de- stroy ; convictions will be fixed, the final impulse will have been given, and to this impulse, the South, come to repentance, will know that nothing is left it but to submit. Finally comes a last hypothesis, which I mention because it is necessary to foresee every possibility. Under the combined influence of the border States and the States of the North, equally desirous of 192 PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKI8I8. maintaining the Union, tlie attempts of the extreme South will have failed, its secession will have lasted only a few months, and a compromise will have served to cover its retreat. But what compromise could compensate for a fact so important as the election of Mr. Lincoln? It has a deep significance which no compromise will remove ; it signifies that the conquests of slavery are ended. This proven, the future is easy to foresee: increasing majorities in the North, increasing disproportion of the two parts of the Confederation. At the end of the four years of a Lincoln administration, the slave States will have lost all hope of struggling, with their eight thousand whites charged with keeping four millions of blacks, against the twenty millions of citizens that inhabit the free States. Let us add that, the future once fixed and the question of preponderance once resolved, many passions will moderate by de- grees. The number of free States will increase, not only by the settling of new territories, but also by the affranchisement of the thinly scattered slaves, becoming continually more thinly scattered, of Mary- land, of Delaware, or of Missouri. We can even now describe this affranchisement, so well is the Ameri- can method known. It consists, as every one knows, in emancipating the children that are to be born. PEOBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CKISIS. 193 This is the method which has been uniformly ap- plied in the Northern States, and which will be doubtless applied some day in the border States, provided, however, civil war does not come to ac- complish a very different emancipation — emancipa- tion by the rising of the slaves. There will be nothing of this, I hope ; pacific progress will have its way. We shall then see these intermediate States, one after the other, regaining life in the same time as liberty : they will become transformed as if touched by the wand of a fairy. Such are the future prospects which ofier them- selves to us. If we remember, besides, the move- ment which is beginning to be wrought in the religious societies and the churches — a movement which cannot fail to be soon complete, we shall- know on what to rely concerning the fate wjiich awaits a social iniquit}'- against which are at once conspiring the follies of its friends, and the indigna- tion of its foes. CHAPTER IX. COEXISTENCE OF THE TWO KACES AFTEE EMANCIPATION. Something more difficult to foresee than the suppression, liencefortli certain, of slavery, is the consequence of this suppression. The problem of the coexistence of the two races rests at the present hour with a crushing weight on the thoughts of all ; it mingles j)oignaiit doubts with the hopes of some, it exasperates the resistance of others. Is it true that emancipation would be the signal of a struggle for extermination ? Is there not room upon Amer- ican soil for free blacks by the side of free whites ? I do not conceal from myself that there is here an accredited prejudice, an admitted opinion which, perhaps more than any thing else, trammels the progress of the United States. Let us attempt to estimate it. M. de Tocqueville, who has judged America M'ith 80 sure an eye, has been, notwithstanding. THE TWO KACES AFTEK EMAKCIPATION. 195 mistaken upon some points ; his warmest admirers must admit it. Writing at an epoch when the great results of English emancipation had not yet been produced, he was led to frame that formi- dable judgment of which so much advantage has been taken : " Hitherto, wherever the whites have been the more powerful, they have held the negroes in degradation and slavery ; wherever the negroes have been the more powerful, they have destroyed the whites. This is the only account which can ever be opened between the two races." Another account is opened, thank God, and no one will rejoice at it more sincerely than M. de Tocqueville — he who is so generous, and whose abolition sentiments are certainly no mystery to any of his colleagues of the Chamber. But his opinion remains in his book, and every one re- peats after him, that the blacks and the whites can- not live together on the same soil, unless the latter be subject to the former. I repeat, that at the time at which he wrote, he had reason, or at least known facts gave him reason, to say this ; the liberty of the blacks had then but one name — St. Domingo. To-day, the victories of Christian emancipation have come, to contrast with the catastrophes provoked by impenitent despotism. 196 COEXISTENCE OF THE TWO RACES The English Colonies bear a striking analogy to the Southern States of the Union. The blacks there are numerous, more numerous even in pro- portion to the whites than in the Carolinas or Florida. The climate is even more scorching, and the cultures demand still more imperiously the la- bor of the blacks. As to the prejudices of the mas- ters, I dare affirm that the planters of the Continent and those of the Antilles have not long had any thing with which to reproach each other. Not- withstanding, what has happened in the Antilles ? Kot only has liberty been proclaimed — this was the act of the metropolis — but the coexistence of races has subsisted. It is to this point that I claim at- tention. They, the whites and the blacks, alike free, invested with the same privileges, exercising the same rights, encountering each other in the ranks of the militia, in the magistracy, and even in the seats of the colonial assemblies, admirably ac- cept this life in common. And the whites there, observe, are Anglo-Saxons ; that is, they belong to that race which is declared incapable of enduring free blacks in its neighborhood. It is necessary to appeal sometimes from those axioms so boldly laid down, which serve us to make inflexible laws for that which must be subject in an AFTER EMANCIPATION. 197 infinite measnre to the mobility of circumstances and influences. The influence of the Gospel, especially, is a fact, the scope of which is never sufficiently measured. It has created in the Antilles a negro population which maintains its equality face to face with the whites, yet which does not entirely reject their patronage ; a dependent population which is also a free population, free in the most absolute sense of the word. The blacks of the Antilles la- bor on the plantations, and secure the success of large plantations ; but, at the same time, they them- selves become landholders, forming by degrees one of the happiest and most remarkable classes of peasants that ever existed. Their little fields, their -pretty villages, manifest real prosperity ; and there is something among them that is worth more than prosperity, there is moral progress, the development of intellect, and the elevation of souls. It will be demanded of us if, in the midst of so much progress, the production of sugar has not sufiered. I answer that, on the contrary, it has in- creased. It had been predicted that emancipation would be a death-blow to the British colonies. I suspect that many people are even yet persuaded of it ; now, in spite of the faults committed by the planters, who have neglected nothing to disgust 198 COEXISl'ENCE OF THE TWO KACE8 the negroes witli labor and to drive them from their old mills, they are found to return to them, contenting themselves with wages that scarcely rise above an average of a shilling a day. If we com- pare the two last censuses of liberty with the two last years of slavery, we shall discover that the total production of sugar has increased in the colo- nies in which emancipation was effected in 1834, And they have not only had to endure this crisis of emancipation, but also another crisis still more formidable, that of the sudden introduction of free trade in 1834. The colonial sugars, exposed to com- petition with the sugar jDroduced at Havana and elsewhere by slave labor, experienced a prodigious decline. There was cause to believe that the pro- duction was about to be destroyed ; it has risen again, notwithstanding, and the English Antilles, with their free negroes and their unprotected sugar, forced to face entire liberty in all its forms, import to-day into the metropolis nearly a million more hoffsheads than at the moment when the crisis of free trade broke forth. Liberty works miracles. We always distrust her, and she replies to our suspicions by benefits. The English Antilles, which, during the last thirty years, have had to surmount, besides the two crises AFTEB EMANCIPATION. 199 of emancipation and free trade, the earthquake of ISiO and six consecutive years of drought ; the English Antilles, which have had to liquidate their old debts, and to repair the ruin accruing from the failure of the bank of Jamaica, are now in an atti- tude which proves that they have no fears for the future and scarcely regret the past. Under slavery, the Antilles were hastening to their ruin ; with liberty, they have become one of the richest channels of exportation which England possesses ; under slavery, they could not have sup- ported the shock of free trade ; with liberty, they have gained this new battle : such are the net pro- ceeds of experience. If we still have doubts, let us compare Dutch Guiana, which holds slaves, to Eng- lish Guiana, which has emancipated them. The resources of these two countries are almost equal ; English Guiana is progressing, while the cultures of Surinam are forsaken ; three-fourths of its plan- tations are already abandoned, and the rest will follow. But the question of profits and losses is not the only one here, I think, and after having computed the proceeds of sugar, after having shown that in this respect English emancipation is in rule, it is allowable to mention also another kind of result. 200 COEXISTENCE OF THE TWO RACES Look at these pretty cottages, this neat and almost elegant furniture, these gardens, this general air of comfort and civilization ; question these blacks, whose physical appearance has become modified already under the influence of liberty, these blacks, who decreased rapidly in numbers during the epoch of slavery, and who have begun to increase, on the contrary, since their affranchisement ; they will tell us that they are happy. Some have be- come landowners, and labor on their own account, (this is not a crime, I imagine ;) others unite to strengthen large plantations, or perhaps to carry to the works of rich planters the canes gathered by them on their own grounds ; some are merchants, many hire themselves out as farmers. Whatever may be the faults of some individuals, the ensemble of free negi'oes has merited the testimony rendered in 1857 by the Governor of Tobago : " I deny that our blacks of the country are of indolent habits. So industrious a class of inhabitants does not exist in the world." An admirable spectacle, and one which the his- tory of mankind presents to ns too rarely, is that of a degraded population elevating itself more and more, and placing itself on a level with those who before despised it. Concubinage, so general in AFTER EMANCIPATION. 201 times of servitude as to give rise to the famous axiom, " Negroes abhor marriage," is now replaced by regular unions. In becoming free, the negroes have learned to respect themselves : the unanimous reports of the governors mark the progress of their habits of sobriety. Crimes' have greatly diminished among them. They are polite and well brought up, falling even into the excess of exaggerated cour- tesy. They respect the aged : if an old man passes through the streets, the children rise and cease their play. These children are assiduously sent to schools, the support of which depends, in a great part, upon the voluntary gifts of the negroes. Grateful to the Gospel which has set them free, the former slaves have become passionately attaclied to their pastors ; their first resources are consecrated to churches, to schools, and sometimes, also, to distant missions, to the evangelization of that Africa which they re- member to do it good. We should be at once sur- prised and humiliated, were we to compare the much-vaunted gifts of our charity with those of these poor people, these freed men of yesterday, whom we think that we may rightfully treat with disdain. Thanks to the Gospel, and it is to this that I 9* 202 COEXISTEI^CK OF THE TWO RACES return, the problem of the coexistence of races is resolved in the most pacific manner in the Antilles. Among freemen, however little these freemen may be Christianized, specific inequalities become speed- ily effaced, and the prejudice of skin is not found to be ultimately as insurmoimtable as we have been told. In these English colonies, which are true republics, governing themselves, and which also remind us, through this feature, of the Southern States, the blacks have come to be accepted as fel- low-citizens. Tliey practise the liberal professions ; they are electors and often elected, for they form of themselves alone one-fifth of the Colonial Assem- bly at Jamaica ; they are officers of the police and the militia, and their authority never fails to be recognized by all. I named Jamaica just now. Some may seek to bring it as an argument against me. The fact is, that this great island has seemed to form an exception to the general prosperity ; considerable fortunes have been sunk there, and the transformation has been slower and more pain- ful there than elsewhere. But, when they ami themselves with these circumstances, they forget two things : first, that the causes of the malady were anterior to emancipation ; next, that the cure has come from emancipation itself. Before eman- AFTER EMANCIPATION. 203 cipation, Jamaica was insolvent, her plantations were mortgaged bejond tlieir value, and its plant- ing was threatened in other ways far more than now. Do you know what has since happened ? Difficulties which appeared insoluble have been resolved ; to-day, the cape is doubled, and men navigate in peace. At the present time, Jamaica comprises two or three hundred villages, inhabited by free negroes ; the latter are willing to work ; for, according to the latest information, (February, 1861,) the price of daily labor decreases instead of rising. Among these free negroes, there are not less than ten thousand landholders, and three-eighths of the cultivated soil is in their hands. They have established sugar- mills everywhere, imperfect, rude, yet working in a passable manner ; and mills of this sort are numbered by thousands. Tlie middle class of color thus grows richer day by day ; the families that compose it all own a horse or a mule ; they have their bank books and their accounts with the savings banks. Lastly, which is of more value than all else, the free negroes of Jamaica have built more than two hundred chaj^els, and as many schools. At the very moment when I M^rite these lines, an enthusiastic religious movement is prevailing among them ; the rum-shops are aban- 204 COEXISTENCE OF THE TWO KACES doned, the most degraded classes enter in tlieir turn the path of reformation. I should have been glad to cite our own colonies instead of confining myself to the English islands. I have been prevented from this, not only by the memory of the conflagrations of 1859 at Martinique, and of the state of siege which it became necessary to proclaim there, but, above all, by the circum- stance that the liberty of our former slaves has been too often restrained by means of the vagabond regulations, that labor has continued to be imposed on them to a certain point ; that the parcelling out of property has been trammelled by fiscal meas- ures ; that, moreover, it is less the labor of our for- mer slaves than of the Coolies and others employed, which has secured the success of our experiment ; whence it follows that this success is far from being as conclusive as that which has been obtained else- where under the system of full liberty. Neverthe- less, our success, which is no less real, signifies something also. If we have not yet those little free villages, that class of small negro landholders of which I just spoke, we have, lilce the Englisli, free negroes in our militia and in our marine ; like them, we have had our elections, and all classes of the population have taken part in them ; like them. AFTER EMANCIPATION. 205. and perhaps in a greater degree, we have increased our sugar production since emancipation. It is true that the crisis of free trade has not yet passed among us, and that we cannot know how this would be supported by our colonial sugars. But it will not be long before we shall be informed on this point : by an act which we cannot but applaud, and which continues the work it has undertaken, the French government has just suppressed the protection con- tinued hitherto to our planters. If, ere long, as it is justifiable to hope, they are delivered from the charges of the colonial system, whose advantages they have lost, we shall see them struggle, and^ suc- cessfully, I am convinced, against the Spanish sugars produced by slave labor. It will be, perhaps, maintained, that the anti- pathy of race is stronger in the United States than elsewhere, and that the Americans, in this respect, are inferior to the Englisli. I am as conscious as any one else of those infamous proceedings tow- ards free negroes which are the crime of the North, a crime no less odious than that of the South. What conscience is not aroused at the thought of those prejudices of skin which do not j)ermit blacks to sit by the side of whites, in schools, churches, or public vehicles ? Only the other day, nothing less 206 COEXISTENCE OF THE TWO KACE8 than a denunciation in open parliament was needed to begin tlie destruction, by a public rebuke, of the classification which is being made on the English steamers themselves between Liverpool and New York. There are some new States which purely and simply exclude free negroes from their Terri- tory ; those which do not exclude them from the Territory, repulse them from the ballot-box. The injustice, in fine, is as gross, as crying, as it is pos- sible to imagine. Must we conclude from this that the co-exist- ence of races, possible elsewhere, is impossible in the United States ? I distrust those sweeping assertions which resolve problems at one stroke ; I refuse, above all, to admit so easily that iniquity must be maintained for the sole reason that it exists, and that it sufiices to say : " I am thus made ; what Avould you have ? I cannot change myself," to abstract one's self from the accomplishment of the most elementary duty. To endure negroes at one's side, to respect their independence, to abstain from wrongs towards them, to consent to the full exercise of their rights, is an elementary duty ; Christian duty, I need not say, demands something better. Does this mean that wc arc to set ourselves up as judges, and brand as wretches all those who thus AFTER EMANCIPATION. 207 mistake the laws of charity and justice? I fear much tliat, in their place, we would do precisely as they. Living in the South, we would have slaves, and would defend slavery to the last ; living in the North, we would tread under foot the free colored class. Is there then neither the true, nor the false, nor' justice, nor injustice ? God forbid ! The just and the true remain ; iniquity should be condemned without pity ; but we are bound to be more indul- gent towards men than towards things. We are bound to remember that the influence of surround- ings is enormous, and that, if crimes are always without excuse, there are many excusable criminals. When we examine men by the prejudice of skin, such as prevails in the United States, we are not long in discovering that it rests in great part on a misunderstanding : men mistake coexistence for amalgamation. I do not fear to affirm that the sec- ond would be as undesirable as the first would be de- sirable. Why dream of blending or of assimilating the two races ? Why pursue as an ideal frequent marriages between them, and the formation of a third race : that of mulattoes ? America does right to resist such ideas, and to inscribe her testimony against such a future, evidently very little in con- formity with the designs of God. 208' COEXISTENCE OF THE TWO KACES But coexistence by no means draws amalgama- tion in its train. On this point, also, experience has spoken. In tlie English colonies, the liberty of the blacks is entire, the legal equality of the two races is not contested, public manners have shaped themselves to that mutual consideration without which they could not live together ; yet neither amalgamation nor assimilation is in question, and the aristocracy of skin remains what it should be, a lasting distinction, accepted on both sides, between races which are not designed to mingle together. I do not know that many marriages are contracted between the whites and the negresses of Jamaica, and I believe that the class of mulattoes increases much more rapidly under slavery than with liberty. Look in this respect at what takes place even now in the United States : as quadroons sell better than blacks, mixtures of white or almost white slaves abound there, and the unhappy women who refuse to lend themselves to certain combinations are often whipped in punishment. With liberty, each race can at least remain by it- self; with it, there can be co-existence without amalga- mation ; both mingling an^I hostility can be prevent- ed. This is the more easy, inasmuch as the negroes, with the gentleness of their race, willingly accept AFTER EMANCIPATION. 209 the second place, and by no means demand what we insist on refusing them. Let their liberty be com- plete, let legal equality and friendly relations be maintained, and they will ask no more. But they will ask no less, and they are right. I do not understand, in truth, why so harmless a co- existence should be so long repulsed by the en- lightened people of the United States. There are negroes in Spanish America who have reached the highest grades of the army, and who show as much intelligence, decorum, and dignity in command as white men could do. I myself have seen at Paris, a clergyman of ebony blackness, who was really the most distinguished, unexceptionable man that it was possible to meet ; he was a remarkable scholar, and had received the title of doctor from several European universities. In fact, the negroes are our fellows and our equals much more than we imagine; they adapt themselves better than the Indians to our civiliza- tion. They seek to be instructed, and not only do the free blacks of the English islands hasten, as we have seen, to provide themselves with teachers, but even those of the United States, crushed as they are by contemptuous treatment, neglect no means of introducing their children into the schools, where 210 COEXISTENCE OF THE TWO RACES is found one-ninth of their total number. In Li- beria, they have shown themselves hitherto very capable of ruling. In Ilayti, since their deliverance from the ridiculous and odious yoke of Soulouque, they have advanced rapidly, it is affirmed, in the way of true progress ; legal marriages increase, popular instruction is becoming established, relig- ious liberty is respected. Lastly, in the negro colony of Buxton, in Canada, the fugitive slaves have become industrious landholders, and are respected by all. Let us not say that prejudice of skin is inde- structible ; the suppression of slavery may modify it profoundly. What degrades the free negro to- day, is the existence of the negro slave. To be respectable, we all need to be respected. The poor, free negro is ashamed of himself ; he dares not as- pire to any thing noble and great ; he preserves, be- sides, as the legacy of slavery, the idea that labor is dishonoring, that idleness is a sign of independence. This is enough to make him remain a stranger to honorable occupations, and confine himself to the practice of vile trades. When slavery shall have disappeared, the situation of the free blacks will be- come quite difi'erent : they w^ill be numerous ; they will have an appreciable share in the regulation of AFTER EMANCIPATION. 211 national affairs ; their vote will count, and, thence- forth, we may be tranquil, no one will be afraid to treat them with respect, and perhaps to pay court to them. The law of New York, as well as the Supreme Court of that State, has already admitted that color exercises no influence over the rights of citizens. The time draws near when the N^orth will no longer contest the intervention of free negroes at the ballot- box. This will be a great step in advance. Let us remark, moreover, that, after general emancipa- tion, the black population, while exercising its share of influence, will never be able, through the number of suffrages at its disposal, to alarm the jealous sus- ceptibility of the whites ; the latter, in fact, will be continually recruited by European immigration, and the day will come when the few negroes of the United States will be scarcely perceptible in the heart of a gigantic nation. The honor of the North is at stake ; it belongs to it to give an example at this time, and to show, by the reform of its own habits, that it has the right to combat the crime of the South. It must set to work seriously, resolutely, to resolve the problem of the coexistence of races, while the South re- solves, willing or unwilling, the problem of eman- 212 COEXISTENCE OF THE TWO KACE8 cipation. Liberty in the South, equality in the North ; the one is no less necessary than the other ; it may even be said that one great obstacle to the idea of emancipation is this other idea that blacks and whites cannot live together, but that one must some day exterminate the other. Why suffer the establishment of this lying axiom which checks all progress? Why not cast our eyes on the neighboring colonies where the prejudice of color reigned supremely before eman- cipation, and where it has since become rapidly effaced. The United States have a lofty end to at- tain ; let them beware how they take too low an aim ! They will not have more than they need, with the efforts of all, the charity of all, the sacri- fices of all, the earnest endeavors by which all can elevate themselves above vulgar prejudices, to ac- complish a task at once the most difficult and most glorious that has ever been proposed to a great people. The iN'orth, I repeat, is bound to give a noble ex- ample by obtaining a shining victory over itself. Let it say to itself that coexistence is not amalgama- tion ; the question is not to marry negroes, but to treat them with justice. The fear of amalgamation once vanished, many things will change in appearance. ATTEB EMANCIPATION. 213 Why, in fact, is the prejudice of race stronger in the free States than in the slave States ? Because the latter know that slavery is a sufficient line of demarcation, and because they have not to dread amalgamation. Now, this is and will be nowhere to be dreaded ; the instinct of both races will prevent such mingling, and the blacks are as anxious to re- main separate from the whites as the whites are to avoid alliance with the blacks. As I have said, nothing but slavery, and the perverse habits that it engenders, could have succeeded in some sort in breaking down this barrier. If the class of mul- lattoes thus formed rule in some republics of South America, it proceeds from the absence of a nu- merous and powerful white race, like that which is covering the United States with its continually in- creasing population. Decidedly, fears of amalgamation are puerile in such a country ; and decidedly also, any other solu- tion than the coexistence of races would be wrong. Doubtless, a natural concentration of the emancipa- ted negroes will be some day effected ; they will flock to those States where their relative number will ensure to them the most influence. Perhaps we may even obtain a glimpse of the time when, by the result of a providential compensation, the coun- 214 COEXISTENCE OF THE KACES tries which have been the witnesses of their suffer- ings, and which they have watered with their tears, these conntries where they. Letter than any others, can devote themselves to labor, will belong to them in great j)art. Are the Antilles and the regions a^ the Gulf of Mexico destined to become the refug-e and almost the empire of Africans torn from their own continent ? It is possible, but not certain. In any case, this geographical repartition of the races would be wrought peaceably ; the effort to effect it by violent measures would justly arouse the con- science of the human race. So long as we talk of transporting the blacks to Africa, to St. Domingo, or elsewhere, so long as the peaceable coexistence of the races be not accepted, the barbarous pro- ceedings which dishonor America will not cease, the Northern States will maltreat their free negroes, and the South will cling to slavery as to the only means of preventing a struggle for extermination. At the North as well as the South, men need to accustom themselves in fine to the idea of coexist- ence. Yes, there will be whites and free blacks in various parts of the Union ; yes, it is certain that in some parts, the black population will be possessed of influence ; it may even happen that, in one or two points of the extreme South, it will come to AFTER EMANCIPATION. 215 rule. If this hypothesis, improbable in my opinion, should ever be realized, it would not be a cause of shame, but of glory, to the Union. It is said that the great Indian tribes of the Southwest think of forming a State, which will demand admission into the Union, and which has a chance to obtain it. Why should there not be, at need, a negro State by the side of an Indian State ? This reparation would be fully due to the oppressed race, and America would be honored in treading her repugnance undet foot, and in showing to the whole world that her so much vaunted liberty is not a vain word. She would show, at the same time, that her Christian faith is not a vain formality. If the de- sire of avoiding amalgamation has legitimate grounds, the antipathy of race is simply abomina- ble. Words cannot be found severe enough to cen- sure the conduct of those Christians who, pursuing with their indignation the slavery of the South, re- fuse to fulfil the simplest duties of kindness, or even of common equity, towards the free negroes of the North. But I hope that the Gospel, accustomed to work miracles, will also work this. Let us be just ; we have already seen the pious ladies of Philadelphia lavishing their cares on black and white without 216 COEXISTENCE OF THE RACES distinction at the time of the cholera invasion. They washed and dressed with their own hands, in the hospital which they had founded, the children rendered orphans by the scourge, without taking account of the differences of color. Tliis is a sign of progress, and I could cite several others; I could name cities, Chicago, for instance, where the schools are opened by law to the blacks as well as the whites. There is a power in the United States which will overthrow the obstacle of the North as well as that of the South, which will abolish both slavery and prejudice of skin. This power has shown in the Antilles what it can do. There, pastors and missionaries, schools, works of charity pursued in common, have placed on a level the blacks and the whites, devoted to the same cause, and ransomed by the same Saviour. In the United States, likewise, the Christian faith will raise up the one, and will teach the others to hum- ble themselves ; it will destroy the vices of the negro, and will break the detestable pride of the Anglo-Saxon. The real influence of faith on both — this is the true solution, this is the true bond of the races. Through this, will be established relations of mutual love and respect. What a mission is re- served for the churches of the United States ! AFrEK EMANCIPATION. 217 Checked hitherto by enormous difficulties, which it would be unjust not to take into account, they have not acted the part in the recent struggle against slavery which reverted to them of right. They have done a great deal, whatever may bo said ; they are disj^osed to do still more, and their attitude has improved visibly within a year. But this can- not suffice ; there are two problems to resolve in- stead of one ; the question is now, to approach both face to face. True equality is founded, under the eye of God, through the community of hopes and of repentance, through close association in worship, in prayer, in action ; and this equality has nothing in common with the jealous spirit of levelling which suffers old grievances to subsist, and continually in- vents new ; it is peaceable, forgetful of evil, confid- ing, truly fraternal, I do not dream, of course, of the universal cunversion of the population of the United States, both black and white ; I know only that the Gospel, though it deeply penetrates com- paratively few hearts, extends its influence much further, and acts on those that it has not won. Let the Christians of America set to work, let them re- ject, for it is time, the scandals still presented here and there by their apologists for slavery, let them forbear to spare that which is culpable, to call good 10 218 COEXISTENCE OF THE EACE8 -evil, or evil good, and tlicy will render to their country a service which they alone can render it, and to which nothing on earth can be compared. The United States do not know how great will be the transformation of their internal condition, and the increase of their good renown abroad, when their churches, their schools, their public vehicles, their ballot-boxes, shall be widely accessible to per- sons of color, when equality and liberty shall have become realities on their soil ; they do not know how great will be their peace and their prosperity. Let the two inseparable problems of slavery and the coexistence of races be resolved among them under the ruling influence of the Gospel, and they will witness the birth of a future far better than the past. No more fears, no more rivalries, no more separations in perspective, their conquests will be- come accomplished of themselves ; and, no longer destined to swell the domain of servitude, they will win the applause of the entire world. And all this will not be purchased, as men seem to believe, by the sacrifice of the cotton culture. At the present time, this culture incurs but one serious risk : the momentary triumph of a party that dreams of a slavery propaganda ; it will be saved alone by the progress of liberty. On the day when AFTICR EMANCIPATION. 219 emancipation shall be achieved, if wrought by the action of moral agents and social necessities, instead of by that of civil wars and insurrections, the culti- vation of cotton in the Southern States will receive the impetus to a magnificent development. The emancipated negroes make large quantities of sugar in the Antilles ; why should they not make cotton on firm ground ? If affranchisement produced the destruction of planting in St. Domingo, we know now the reason. It is a j^roved fact that negroes who do not owe their liberty to insurrection, re- main disposed to devote themselves to labor in the fields. "With slavery, observe, disappear, one after the other, the obstacles in the way of agricultural pro- gress. The capital which no one dares risk to-day in the Southern States, will flow into them emu- lously as soon as slavery shall be abolished ; I say more : as soon as its progressive abolition shall be no longer doubtful in the sight of all. European im- migration, the current of which turns aside with so much circumspection, avoiding a territory accursed and given over to calamities, will flock towards those countries more beautiful, more fertile, and broader than those of the Far "West. Machinery will come, to more than fill up the void caused by 220 COEXISTENCE OF THE EACE8 the passing diminution of the number of laborers. The slaves can be intrusted with none but the sim- plest implements : every one knows that the plough, introduced originally into our French colonies, disappeared to make room for the hoe as soon as Colbert had authorized the slave trade. Ploughs have reappeared there since emancipation. Their agricultural and industrial progress date from the same epoch : to-day, our colonists understand the use of manures, and make improvements in manu- facture. A new era is dawning, in fine ; what will it be in the United States, among that people which seems destined to surpass all others in the application of mechanics to agriculture ? Still, I have made one concession too much in admitting the diminution of the number of laborers. Supposing that a few negroes quit the field, many whites will come to take their place. White labor is fully possible in the majority of the slave States, and immigrants from Europe will not hesitate to engage in it. Wherever slavery reigns, it is that, and not the climate, that must be arraigned if the whites fold their hands ; labor has become there a servile act — it is blighted, as it were, in its essence. A. competent writer said the other day : " If Alge- ria had been subjected to the sway of slavery, cul- AFTER EMANCIPATION. 221 tivation there would have been reputed impracti- cable for the French, and examples of mortality would not have been wanting." The whites have labored in the Antilles ; the whites can labor, not only in all the slave States of the intermediate re- gion, but in Louisiana. Cotton is already produced in Texas, thanks to its German settlers. The ques- tion is only, to go on in this way. Slavery once abolished, the small proprietors, who at present carry all the criminal extravagancies of the South further than any others, will be comj)elled to set their hands to work. This will be an advantage both to the country and themselves, "Who will not pray for the coming of the time when so con- siderable a part of the population will cease to pos- sess slaves which it is incapable of feeding, when it will be transformed into the middle class, and thus escape the real servitude which embitters it ? Moreover, let us not forget new cultures, that of the vine among others, which are fitted to be- come introduced into these new countries, or to de- velop there, and which lack nothing but liberty in order to flourish. The arts and manufactures also have their place ; independently of the tillers of the soil, properly called, the Southern States will have need of workmen in manufactories, and of 222 COEXISTENCE OF THE KACE8 managers of agricultural machines ; large planta- tions will often become divided, as has happened in the Antilles, and we shall witness the appearance of the small estate, that essential basis of social order. There will be employment for all, and the rich Southern cultures will be less neglected than before. Whoever has descended the Ohio has involun- tarily comj)ared its two banks : here, the State of Ohio, whose prosperity advances with rapid strides ; there, the State of Kentucky, no less favored by [Nature, yet which languishes as if abandoned. Why ? Because slavery blights all that it touches. Could not the whites of Kentucky and Yirginia labor as well as those of Ohio ? The comparative poverty of these slave States reminds me of the destitution of our colonies and those of England before emancipation : mortgaged estates, planta- tions burdened with expenses, the complete destruc- tion of credit — such was their position. We must read American statistics to form an idea of the truly unheard-of extent of this fact — impoverish- ment by slavery. With a larger extent and much richer lands, the slave States possess neither agri- cultural growth, nor industrial growth, nor advance of population, which can be compared far or near AFTER EMANCIPATION. 223 with that which is found in the free States. A book by Mr. Hinton Rowan Helper, The Impend- ing Crisis of the South, expresses these differences in figures so significant that it is impossible to con- test them. The Southern States, therefore, are certain to increase their cultures, and to found their lasting prosperity by entering the path that leads to eman- cipation. But if they take the contrary road, they will hasten to their destruction, and with strange rapidity. Already, their violent acts of secession, and the monstrous plans which are necessarily at- tached to them, have had the first eflfect, easily foreseen, of dealing a most dangerous blow to American cotton. In a few weeks, they have done themselves more harm than the ISTorth, supposing its hostility as great as it is little, could have done them in twenty years. Tlie meeting of Manchester has replied to the manifestoes of Charleston ; Eng- land has said to herself, that, from men so deter- mined to destroy themselves, she should count on nothing ; and, having taken her resolution, she will proceed with it speedily ; let the Southern States take care. English India can produce as much cotton as America ; before long, if the Carolinians persist, they will have obtained the glorious result 224 COEXISTENCE OF THE RACES of despoiling tlieir conntiy of its chief resource ; they will have killed the hen that laid the golden eggs. Tlie matter is serious ; I ask them to reflect on it. As England, under pain of falling into want and riots, cannot dispense with cotton for a single day, she will act energetically. Cotton grows marvellously in many countries ; in the An- tilles, where it has been produced already ; in Al- geria, where the plantations are about to be in- creased ; on the whole continent of Africa, in fine, where it enters perhaps into the plans of God thus to make a breach in indigenous slavery by the faults committed by slaveholders in America. CHAPTER X. THE PEE8ENT CEISI8 WILL KEGENEKATE THE INSTITtr- TIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. It remains for me to inquire what influence the present crisis may exert on the institutions of the United States. It is at the expense of these insti- tutions that the slave States, inferior in strength, in numbers, in progress of every kind, would reestab- lish their fatal and growing preponderance. Here again, therefore, my thesis subsists : the victories ot the South had compromised every thing, the resist- ance of the North is about to save every thing ; the election of Mr. Lincoln is a painful but salutary crisis, it is the first effort of a great people rising. The party of slavery had introduced into the heart of American democracy, a permanent cause of debasement and corruption. In this respect, also, it was leading the Confederation to its deatJi by the most direct and speedy way. I wish to show 10- 226 THE PRESENT CRISIS WILL KEGENEKATE how it developed tlie worst sides of the democratic system. I hope to be impartial towards this sys- tem ; although persuaded that the government of which England offers us the model is better suited to guaranty public liberties and to second true prog- ress in every thing, I am not of those who place the shadow before the substance, and who condemn democracy without appeal. Are we destined some day to pass into its hands ? Have we already begun to glide down the descent that leads to it ? It is possible. In any case, it would be unjust to hate America on account of it, as is too often done. America has had no choice ; in virtue of its origin and its history, it could be nothing else than a de- mocracy. If it has the faults of democracy, the unamiable rudeness, the violent proceedings, the levelling passions, I am scarcely surprised at it. I ask myself rather if it has known how to find a basis of support against the temjDtations of such a sys- tem, ii it has prevented the subjugation of individ- uals by the mass, the absorption of consciences by the State, the substitution of the sovereignty of the end for that of the people. Tliese are the shoals of democracy ; have they been shunned by the United States ? Have they been able to avoid transforming it either into tyranny or socialism ? We shall see THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. 227 that, if it has not succumbed to the temptation, this has not been the fault of the party of slavery. Thanks to it, the corruption of democratic institu- tions was rapidly advancing ; a single adversary, constantly the same, has combated the progress of this work of destruction. We shall encounter again, upon the ground of political institutions, the fundamental antagonism of the Gospel and slavery. I say first, that it is rarely that names are alto- gether fortuitous, and do not correspond to things. It has often given rise to astonishment that the party of slavery should have taken the name of the democratic party ; notwithstanding, nothing was more natural. How could slavery have been de- fended if not by exaggerating democracy ? It was necessary, in such a cause, to deny the notions of right, of truth, and of justice ; it was necessary that the greater number should become right, truth, and justice. Something more even was needed. The sover- eignty of the end must yield, if necessary, before the sovereignty of numbers. A cause like that of slavery is only defended in the heart of a demo- cratic nation, by teaching it contempt of scruples, and the stifling of the conscience. Every thing is allowable, every thing is good, provided that we 228 THE PRESENT CRISIS WILL KEGENEKATE succeed in our ends ! Tliis is the rule wliich it designs sliall prevail in political contests. A single question, seeing nothing but itself, determined to spare nothing, offering itself to parties, whoever they may be, who seek a change, creating factitious ma- jorities to effect the ends of base ambition, taking account neither of honor nor country, and attaining its end through every thing — ^this is enough to vi- tiate profoundly institutions and morals. The sov- ereignty of the idea, when it has laid hands on the sovereignty of the people, is in a position to go to great lengths, and to sink very low. Moral maxims and written laws are trodden under foot, a struggle without pity or remorse begins, a strug- gle of life and death. Social passions easily acquire a degree of perversity which political passions do not possess ; the former are without conscience and without compassion; they will be satislied, cost what it may ; triumph is in their eyes an absolute, an inexorable necessity. Rather than not conquer, they will rend the country. What the regular working of institutions be- comes under such a pressure, every one can divine. For some years past, in proportion as the preten- sions of the slavery party had increased, we had seen public morals become tainted in the United States. THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. 229 Indifference to means had made alarming progress, and had been felt even in the habits of commerce, and the relations of private life. The spirit of en- terprise had come to be exalted even m its most dishonorable acts ; respect for bankrupts seemed almost to be propagated. It is a fact, that men like Mr. Jefferson Davis, the present President of the revolted South, were not afraid to recommend the repudiation of debts. In the school of slavery, a disembarrassed and unscrupulous manner of acting had given its stamp to the general manner of the nation. Affairs were going on rapidly, the liberties of America wxre on the high road to ruin ; it was time that the reaction of liberal and honorable sen- timents should make itself felt. The elC'Ction of 1860 marked the stopping-place. I wonder that they could have stopped ; such a fact demands an explanation, for ordinarily the de- clivities of democratic decline are never remounted. The natural tendency there being to deny the/ight of the minority, (the most precious of all,) to sink the man entire in the ballot, to lay violent hands on the private portion of his life, and to force even his conscience into the social contract, it follows that governments arise in which the question of limita- tion becomes effaced by the question of origin. In 230 THE PRESENT CKISIS WILL KEGENEKATE the face of sucli a power, nothing is left standing ; no more rights, no more princij)les, no more of those solid and resisting blocks which serve to stem the popular current ; the province of the State becomes indefinite. And how much more irresistible and more per- verse is this tendency, when a profound cause of corruption, such as slavery, adds its action to the strength of such democracies ! It is no longer, in such cases, the sovereign majority alone before which the right may be forced to bow, it is a party determined to attain its ends, which penetrates with violence into that domain of conscience where human laws should not enter ; a party which sets about regulating sometimes the belief, sometimes the thought, sometimes the sj)eech. Such has been the influence exercised in the United States by the institution of slavery ; it has forbidden authors to write, clergymen to preach, and almost individuals to think any thing that displeased it ; it has invented the right of secession, in order to have at its disposal a formidable means of intimidation, and to place a threat behind each of its demands. To yield, to descend, to descend still further, to obey a contin- ued impulse of democratic debasement, such is the course to which it has impelled the whole Confede- ration. THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. 231 Notwithstanding, tlie United States have resist- ed. I shall tell why ; I shall show by virtue of what marvellous force Americans have escaped the absolute levelling which seemed destined to be pro- duced by a complicated democracy of slavery. But I wish first to finish depicting the natural effects of such a system. Suppose for a moment a nation (and such are not wanting) modelled after the antique. The Pa- gan principle reigns there supremely, the State ab- sorbs every thing, souls are banded together and governed ; a centralized power, a visible Providence, is substituted for individual action ; creeds have es- sentially the hereditary and national form ; each one believes what the rest believe, each one does what the rest do, each one holds the opinions which are found in the ancient traditions of the country ; truth is no longer a personal conviction, acquired at the price of earnest struggles, and worth much because it has cost much ; it descends to the rank of customs to which it is fitting to conform, it has its marked place among social obligations, and forms part of the duties of the citizen. Let democracy come to establish its empire in the heart of such a nation, and you will see with what rapidity every thing will disappear that bears the 232 THE PRESENT CRISIS WILL REGENERATE slightest resemblance to individual independence. The more effectual the levelling, the greater will seem the community ; and the smaller the individual, the more, too, in face of the privileges of the* whole, will the very idea of personal rights become effaced. The majority is held infallible, and the minority appears criminal if it takes the liberty of refusing to subject its thoughts (yes, its very thoughts) to that of the majority. In this innumerable host of like beings, no one is authorized to possess any thing in private ; of all aristocracies, that of the conscience appears then least endurable. Men believe in the majority, in the mass, in the nation. We have no idea of the intellectual despotism of a democracy which fails to encounter on its road the obstacle of personal con- victions ; it disposes of the human soul, it creates an unlimited confidence in the judgment of public opinion, it heads a school of popular courtiers, and teaches each one the art of setting his watch by the clock of the market-place. Intelligence, conscience, convictions — all bend, and what does not bend is broken. Tliis hap- pens, above all, we repeat without wearying, when a detestable cause like that of slavery perverts the working of democratic institutions. Then, the tyr- anny of the majorities has no bounds ; the major- THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. 233 ities themselves are formed by means of ignoble contracts and monstrous alliances. In the midst of lower passions let loose, through banded parties, imperative mandates, and factitious organizations, which no longer leave the smallest outlet for the flight of the least independent wish, the perversities of corrupt and misled democracy have full scope. In writing these pages, have I described Amer- ican democracy ? Yes and no. Yes, for such are really the temptations to which America has been exposed, such are really the vices with which it might have often been reproached ; no, for a prin- ciple of resistance has always revealed itself in the darkest moments, an irrepressible something has always remained. In vain the heavy roller has passed and repassed over the ground ; it has always encountered blocks of granite that would not be broken. This is the point which I had at heart to signal out in closing this study, knowing that it forms its most essential part, and that whoever has not given it his attention cannot comprehend the United States. Tlie extraordinary fact, much more extraordinary than is supposed, that, under the sys- tem of democracy ruled by slavery, men have been able to pause and retrace their steps, is only ex- plained by the peculiar form which religious belief 234 THE PRESENT CRISIS WILL REGENERATE has put on in the United States. We have not be- fore our eyes a Latin nation, a nation clad in the vestments of Greece or Rome, a nation having, according to the ancient mode, its religion and its usages universally but indolently admitted. This republic of the New World is by no means one of those slave republics of ancient times, in which the citizens took delight in conversing on public affairs, but in which no one had the bad taste to question his conscience with respect to the public creeds. The 2)agan life, with its obligatory worship, its com- mon education, its suppression of the family and the individual in behalf of the State, its existence transported to the Forum ; the pagan life, in which the citizen absorbs the individual, and in which the calm and serene uniformity of indifferent centuries ends, by giving to each one the national physiog- nomy, bears no resemblance to the moral and social life of the United States. Among them, not the smallest trace is found of that system which seeks to make nations, and which forgets to make men. Tliey were bom, as we may say, of a protestation of the human conscience. A noble origin, which explains many things ! It is, in fact, the revindication of religious indej)endence against religious uniformity, and the established THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. 235 church which created it two hundred years ago. Of course, I have not to examine here the intrinsic value of the Puritan doctrines. I content myself with affirming that they landed in America in the name of liberty, that they were destined to establish liberty there, that they were destined to build there the true rampart against democratic tyranny. From the first day, the State was deprived of the direction of the intellectual and moral man. Despite that inevitable mixture of inconsistencies and hesitation which marks our first efforts in all things, the Puritan colonies, destined one day to be- come the United States, set out on the road which led to liberty of belief, of thoughts, of speech, of the press, of assemblage, of instruction. The most consider- able, most important rights were abstracted at the outset from the domain of democratic deliberations ; insuperable bounds were set to the sovereignty of numbers ; the right of minorities, that of the indi- vidual, the right of remaining alone against all others, the right of being of one's own opinion, was reserved. Furthermore, they did not delay to break the bonds between the Church and the State entirely, in such a manner as to deprive the official superintendence of belief of its last pretext. Self- government was founded, that is, the most formal 236 THE PRESENT CRISIS WILL KEGENEKATE negation of subjugation by the democracy. While the latter tends to the maximum of government, the American Government tends to the minimum of government, that form par excellence of liberalism. And it does not tend thither, as in the Middle Ages, by anarchy, by the absence of national ties, and moreover by despoiling the individual of his rights of conscience and thought, confiscated then more entirely for the benefit of a sovereign church than they have been since for the benefit of the State; no, American individualism proceeds differently : if it restrains with salutary vigor the province of gov- ernments, it is to enlarge that of the human soul. This is a great conquest; the whole future of the modern world is contained in it. Destined as we are to submit, in a measure at least, to the action of democracy, the question whether we shall be slaves or free men is resolved in this : shall we, after the example of America, have our reserved tribunal, our closed domain in which the public power shall be permitted to see nothing ? Shall there be things among us (the most important of all) which shall not be put to the vote ? Shall our democracy have its boundaries, and beyond these boundaries shall a vast country be seen to extend — that of free belief, of free worship, of free thought, of the free home ? TUE liSISTlTUTIOJSS OF TUE UNITED STATES. 237 It is because American democracy has boimdar ries that its worst excesses have finally found chas- tisement. It is ]iot installed alone in the United States ; opposite it, another power which knows no fear, is occupied with resisting it. The entire history of America is explained by this double fact: the falling and the rising again, the servitudes and the liberties, the too long triumph of the slavery party, and the recent victory of Mr. Lincoln, the deadly peril so lately incurred, and the noble future that opens to-day. Individualism is not isolation, individual con- victions are not sectarian convictions ; they found on the contrary the most powerful of the unities, moral unity. The thing which most actively dis- solves societies while seeming to unite them, is the uniformity of national dogmas which, accepted as an inheritance, remain without action over the heart. "What are, in fact, the great bonds on earth, if not duty and affection ? Now, nothing but per- sonal convictions, earnestly acquired by the sweat of our brow, can destroy selfishness in us. Without this strong cement of convictions at once individual and common, you will build nothing that will en- dure. The United States have in their heart strong convictions, which are also common convictions; 238 THE PRESENT CRISIS WILL EEGENEEATE through external diversities, we have seen that fun- damental conformity is real, and all earnest appeal to Christian truths agitates this country, so divided in appearance, from one end to the other. N^ational life is here a reality. I do not think that Socialism, which excuses us from believing ourselves, which places our soul under responsible administration, and preserves us, it is said, from the baleful dis- ruptions engendered by individualism, succeeds as well in destroying selfishness and in diffusing ideas of devotion and duty. When democracy becomes socialistic, (and it never has been able to become so in the United States,) it grinds down and reduces souls to such a degree that nothing is left but a fine dust, a sort of intellectual and moral powder which, it is true, is an obstacle to nothing, but which creates nothing either. To build an edifice, stones are needed, sand will not sufiice. Christian individualism makes the stones, and the democratic party has just perceived it. In a country where independence of soul has acclimated independence in all its forms, men may indeed bow the head sometimes to democracy allied to slavery ; but this debasement has a limit, and the time is coming when they will raise their heads. Strong beliefs are a strong rampart, the slaves of truth are THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. 239 free men, and true independence begins in the heart. To have convictions in order to have char- acters, to have believers in order to have citizens, to have energetic minds in order to have powerful nations, to have resistance in order to have support — such is the programme of individualism. Show me a country where men are proud enough not to bow before the majority, where they do not think themselves lost when they depart from the beaten track, and jostle of received opinions ; and I will admit that there it will be possible to practise democracy without falling into servitude. There is but one country of individual belief, that could attempt the alliance, hitherto deemed impossible, of democracy and liberty. The theory in accordance with which the public liberties of England have the aristocracy for their essential basis, is admitted as an axiom ; without contemning this element of social organization, it is advisable to mine deeper than this to discover the true foun- dation of liberty. Individual belief — this is the foundation. The more we reflect, the more we discover that the essential thing is not the forms of government, or even the relations of the differ- ent classes, but the moral state of the community. A.re men there? Have souls become masters of 240 THE PRESENT CRISIS WILL EEGENEEATE themselves ? Are characters formed ? Has the force of resistance appeared ? Whoever shall have replied to these questions will have decided, know- ingly or unknowingly, whether liberty be possible. I do not know that any people should be ex- cluded from liberty ; only all are bound to pursue it by the path that leads to it, by earnestness of convictions, by internal affranchisement, which sig- nifies by the Gospel. We may seek in vain, we shall find no means comparable to this (I speak in the political point of view) when the question is to make citizens. To place one's self under the abso- lute authority of God and his word, is to acquire in the face of mere parties, majorities, geuera,l opinions, an independence that nothing can supply. The independence within is always translated without ; he who is independent of men, in the domain of beliefs and of thoughts, will be equally so in the domain of public affairs. Thus democracy itself will not degenerate into socialism. No one has been able to point out the slightest symptom of socialism in the United States. Notwithstanding, democracy is fully complete there, and the election of Mr. Lincoln, once drover, once fiatboatman, once rail-splitter, once clerk — of Mr. Lincoln, the &0I1 of his works, who has succeeded by his own THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 241 powers in becoming a well-informed man and an orator, this election proves certainly that American equality is not menaced by the success of the re- publican party. It menaces only the evil democra- cy, which, under the guidance of the slavery party, sought to force the nation into the path of socialism. But it will not succeed in this ; the question has just been decided. Between these two systems, which are to contend for contemporaneous commu- nities, between socialism and individualism, the choice of the United States is made. Before witnessing the aifranchisement of the slaves, we shall, therefore, witness the affranchise- ment of American politics. They have endured a shameful yoke, and received sad lessons. Since Jef- ferson, the born enemy of true liberalism, founded the Democratic party, the United States had con- tinued to descend the declivity of radicalism ; a work of relentless levelling was thenceforth pur- sued, and the domain of the conscience became gradually invaded. The democratic party found its fulcrum in the South. The slave States forced the enclosure of the private tribunal, and confiscated in behalf of the State the inviolable rights of the individual : neither thought, the press, nor the pulpit, were free among them ; the fmidamental 11 242 THE PKE8ENT CRISIS WILL KEGENERATE maxims of Puritan tradition were sacrificed by them one after the other. They -did more : thanks to them, men were beginning to learn in the free States how to set to work to pervert their own consciences, and to substitute for it respect for sovereign majorities. Every day, crying in- iquities were covered by the pretext : "If we were just, we should compromise the national unity, or we should risk losing the votes secured to our party." Yiolence, menace, brutality, and corruption, were boldly introduced into political struggles. Men became habituated to evil : the most odious crimes, the Southern laws reducing to legal slavery every free negro who should not quit the soil of the States, hardly raised a murmur of disapprobation ; the United States seemed on the point of losing that faculty which nothing can sur- vive — the faculty of indignation. Behold in what school the democratic party had placed the American people — that noble people which, despite the grave faults with which it may be reproached, represents in the main many of the lofty principles which are allied to the future of modem communities. The reign of the Democratic party would form the subject of an inglorious his- tory ; in it we should see figure the glorification THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. 243 of servitude, piracy applied to international right, and, in conclusion, those facts of corruption and waste which served to crown its last Presidency. Tlie most consistent champions of the doctrines and practices of the democratic party, are those men who have just declared that votes are valid only on condition of giving the majority to slavery, and that a regular election is a sufficient cause for sepa- ration. CON'CLUSION. I HAVE not sought to recount events, but to. at- tempt a study, wliicli I believe to be useful to us, and wliich may, also, not be useless to the United States. "We owe them the support of our sympa- thy. It is more important than people imagine to let them hear words of encouragement from us at this decisive moment. Let us not hasten to declare that the Union is destroyed, that, henceforth and forever, there will be two Confederacies existing on the same footing, that the United States of slavery will have their great role to perform here below, like the United States of liberty. This would be, in any case, immense exaggeration. Let us not forget that the Union has often before seemed lost, that the Confederation has often before seemed ready to perish. Are the men who are terrified at the present perils, ignorant of those which sur- rounded the cradle of the United States : mutinous troops, contending ambitions, threats of separation. CONCLUSION. 245 anarchy, ruin? This America, then so weak, is the same that has since become so strong, in spite of its own faults. At the moment when it rebelled against England, it had neither arts and manufac- tures, nor commerce, nor marine ; and its two or three millions of inhabitants were far from agreeing among themselves. Yet such is the vigor of its genius, such is its carelessness of every kind of dan- ger, such is the impetuosity with which it affronts and surmounts obstacles, such is the power of its national motto, " Go ahead ! " that through internal struggles, crises, and momentary exhaustion, it has attained the stature of a great people. Count the steamboats on its rivers, estimate the tonnage of its vessels, compute the amount of its internal trade, measure the length of its canals and railroads, and you will still have but a faint idea of what it is capable of undertaking and accomplishing. We must remember these things, and not imi- tate those enemies of America who sometimes feig-n to put on mourning for her, sometimes jest at her distress, and find in the present situation of the dis- tmited States (for thus they style them) an agree- able subject for pleasantry, forgetting that this dis- union has a serious cause, which is certainly of im- portance enough to make itself understood ; forget- 246 CONCLUSION. ting, too, that generous struggles for humanity and the country are worthy to obtain our fullest respect. And let us beware how we say that this crisis does not concern us — that we can do nothing in it. The selfish isolation of nations is henceforth impossible. The question to be decided here involves our own affairs, not only because a portion of our fortune is pledged to the United States, but, above all, be- cause our principles and our liberties are concerned. The victories of justice, wherever they may be won, are the victories of the human race. We can aid this one in some measure. Amer- ica, which affects sometimes to declare itself indif- ferent to our opinions, gathers them up, however, with jealous care. I have seen respectable Ameri- cans blush at encountering that instinctive blame which, among us, is addressed to the progress of slavery ; they suffered at seeing their country thus fallen from the esteem which it formerly enjoyed. Proud nations like America always avenge them- selves by noble impulses for the reprobation which they are conscious of having deserved. The moral intervention of Europe is not, therefore, superflu- ous ; it is the less so, in that the South Insults us by counting on us. The ringleaders of Charleston and Kew Orleans affect to say that England is ready to CONCLUSION. 247 open her arms to them, and that France promises a sympathizing reception to her envoys ! These envoys themselves have been selected with care, honorable, having friends among us, — capable, in a word, of presenting the cause of slavery in an al- most seductive light. It is important, therefore, that we should not keep silence. Let governments be reserved ; let them avoid every thing that would resemble direct action in the internal affairs of the United States, let them have recourse to the commonplaces of speech employed by diplomacy to escape pledging their policy — this is well. But to imagine that these commonplaces promise alliance or protection, is to be credulous indeed ! A rebellion under cover of the flag of slavery, be sure, will find it difficult to make parti- sans among us French, whatever may be our indo- lent indifference in other respects in this matter, an indifference so great that at the present time the American question does not exist to the most of us. Moreover, we shall shake off this inertia ; and, as to the English, they will not suffer their brightest title to glory in modern times to be tarnished by any latent complicity with the Gulf States. The brutal doctrines of interest, so often professed publicly in Parliament by Mr. Bright, may indeed find organs; 248 CONCLUSION. and Great Britain will be counselled to remember cotton and forget justice. The measure already taken by her at Washington, and which appears to have been supported by France, a measure designed to declare that the blockade of the Southern ports must be effectual to be recognized, is perhaps a concession wrested from her by this detestable school of selfishness. Happily, there is another school face to face with this ; the Christian senti- ment, the sentiment of abolition, will arise and enforce obedience. Never was a more important work in store for it. To unveil every suspicious act of the British Government, to keep public opinion aroused, to maintain, in fine, that noble moral agita- tion which makes the success of good causes and the safety of free nations, such is the mission proflfered in England to the defenders of humanity and the Gospel. If they could forget it, the popu- lace of Mobile or Savannah pursuing English con suls, would remind them to what principle th4 name of Great Britain is inevitably pledged, for thi sake of its honor. France and England, I am confi dent, will act in unison, here as elsewhere ; theii alliance which comprises within itself the germs of all true progress, will be found as useful and as fruit- ful in the Hew World as it has proved in the Old. CONCLUSION. 249 This is of such importance that I beg leave to dwell on -it ; evidently our influence has not yet been exercised as it should have been, and if Mr. Lincoln now bends somewhat before counsels de- void of energy and dignity, it proceeds in part from our reserve, our silence, our apparent neutrality— who knows ? even from the discouraging language that has been sometimes held in our name. The publication of the unlucky Morrill Tariff, (signed, we may say in passing, by Mr. Buchanan, and the revocation of which, I am convinced, will be signed some day by Mr. Lincoln,) has given the signal for political demonstrations, all of which are very far from being to the credit of Europe. Our Moniteur has published articles to be regretted, but it is above all among the English that the cotton party has had full scope. Let England beware ! it were better for her to lose Malta, Corfu, and Gibraltar, than the glorious position which her struggle against slavery and the slave trade has secured her in the esteem of nations. Even in onr age of armed frigates and rifled cannon, the chief of all powers, thank God ! is moral power! Woe to the nation that disregards it, and consents to immolate its principles to its interests ! From the beginning of the present conflict, the enemies of 11* 250 CONCLUSION. England, and they are numerous, have predicted that the cause of cotton will weigh heavier in her scales than the cause of justice and liberty. They are preparing to judge her by her conduct in the American crisis. Once more, let her beware ! And under what pretexts do we chaffer with the government of Mr. Lincoln for those energetic, persevering sympathies on which it has a right to count? Let us examine. We hear, in the first place, of the vigor of the South and the weakness of the llsTorth. It is not the first time that a bad cause has shown itself more ardent, more daring, less preoccupied by consequences, than a good one. Good causes have scruples, and every scruple is an obstacle. I am assuredly as sorry as any one to see Mr. Lincoln struck with a sort of paralysis. To my mind, the dangers of inactivity are considerable ; I believe that it discourages friends and encourages adversaries ; I believe that it sanctions more or less the baleful and erroneous principle of secession, a principle more contagious than any other ; I believe, in fine, that, by postponing civil war, it probably risks increasing its gravity. Nevertheless, shall we not take into account the exceptional difficulties with which Mr. Lincoln is surrounded? CONCLUSION. 251 The preceding Administration took care to leave no resource in liis hands : he found the forts either surrendered or indefensible, the arsenals invaded, the army scattered, the navy despatched to distant parts of the seas. Is it strange that he should have yielded in some degree to the entreaties of so many able men, all urging in the same direction ? If to-morrow he should yield entirely, if he should recognize the Southern Confederacy, would it be great cause for astonishment ? Let us not forget, moreover, that the border States are at hand, forming a rampart, as it were, to protect the extreme South. Several of these States, I am convinced, incline sincerely towards the Korth, and will remain united with it ; but are there not others, Virginia, for instance, which per- haps only refrain from seceding for the better pro- tection of those that have done so, and whose pres- ent role consists in preventing all repression, while its future role will be to trammel all progress by the continued threat of joining the Southern Con- federacy ? These are serious obstacles; yet I have not pointed out the most serious of all — the intense and sincere repugnance which many Northern people, though declared adversaries of slavery, experience towards 252 CONOLUBION. measures tliat arc calculated to provoke slave insur- rections, and endanger the safety of the planters. I must acknowledge that the patience of the strong seems here rather more laudable than the so much vaunted audacity of the vi^eak, who count on this patience, and know that they can be arrogant with- out nnich risk. The second pretext that is audaciously brought forwai'd to solicit our good will towards the South, is that it has just ameliorated the Federal institu- tions. Let us ask in what consists this pretended amelioration ? The South has not feared to write in set terms, in its fundamental law, what none before it ever dared write, the constitutional guarantee of slavery. Slavery, in accordance with the Con- stitution of the South, can neither be suppressed nor assailed. Slavery will be the holy ark to be regarded with respect from afar off, the corner-stone whicli all are forbidden to touch. By the side of this, the South ostcntationsly proclaims freedom of speech, of the press, of discussion in every form ! Men shall be free to speak, but on condition of not tou(!hing, nearly or remotely, on any subject con- nected with slavery, (and every thing is connected with it in the South.) They shall be free to print, but on condition of giving no writing whatever to CONCLUSION. 263 the public from which may be inferred the unity of mankind, the sanctity of family tics, the great prin- ciples, in fact, which the " patriarchal system " throws overboard. They shall be free to discusH, hut on condition of not di,stiii'l>ing this institution, impatient by nature, and still more so in future, now that it feels itself hemmed in and threatened on all sides. It will be by itself alone tlie wliole Consti- tution of the Sontl) ; this one article will d(;vour the rest ; in default of legislatures and courts, the Southern popuhu;c know how to give force to the guarantee of slavery, and to restrain freedom of si^eech, of the press, and of discussion. It is true that adroit patrons of the South Caro- linian rebellion have a third argument at their ser- vice which is no less specious. " All is over," they exclaim, " there is nobody now to sustain, there are no sympathies now to testify ; in four days, peace will be made, the new Confederation will be recog- nized by Lincoln in person, a coumiercial treaty will even ally it to the United States : the affair is ended." Tlie aifair is scarcely begun, we answer ; one must be blind not to see it. Wliat is ended, is only the first skirmish. As to the war, it will be as long, believe me, as the life of the two principles which 254 CONCLUSION. are struggling in America. Let Mr. Lincoln assure himself, and let the European adversaries of slavery remember as well, that it will be necessary to com- bat and to persevere. Never was a more obstinate and more colossal strife commenced on earth. Many of the border States will not be long in raising pre- tensions to which they will join threats of new se- cessions ; they will again bring up the question of the Territories, and will propose compromises. Who knows ? they will aspire perhaps to establish, in the interests of the extreme South, the extradition of slaves escaped from the rival Confederacy. Who knows again ? they will perhaps attempt to restore their domestic slave trade with Charleston and Kew Orleans. This is not all. Tlie time will come when the eX' treme South, incapable of enduring the life that it has just created for itself, will demand to return to the bosom of the Union. It will then insist on dictating its conditions ; it will propose the election of a general convention charged with reconstructing the Constitution of the United States ; it will ap^ peal to the selfishness of some, and to the ambition or even the patriotism of others, presenting to their sight the re-establishment of the common greatness which separation had compromised. CONCLUSION. 255 What a motive to veil principles for a moment ! what a temptation to return to the fatal path so lately forsaken ! I know very well that it will be henceforth im- possible to return to it completely ; nevertheless, the vigilance of Mr. Lincoln will not cease to be neces- sary, and what will be no less necessary, is the moral support which we are bound to lend him in the hour of success and in the hour of discoura: :^pB