LETTER MM. DE GASPARIN, MARTIN, COCHIN, AND LABOULAYE, 0pl ^ttWiriitiatt ^mti^ OF NEW YORK. TRJlJr SKATED BIT MJlRY' L.. BOOTH. NetD ^ork: C. S. WESTCOTT & CO., UNION PRINTING HOUSE, No. 79 John Street. 1866. b • INTRODUCTION. The authors of the following letter addressed it to the Loyal Pub- lication Society, which had closed its labors before the letter arrived ; but some members of the late Society, convinced that this missive deserves to be known and weighed by the American people in the present grave situation of our national affairs, have resolved to give publicity to it. Gasparin, Laboulaye, Martin, and Cochin, have proved themselves warm, judicious, and thoroughly-informed friends of our country and her great contest during the whole Civil War. The Loyal Publication Society has published a number of their pro- ductions as its documents ; and when such historians, statesmen, patriots, and lovers of fi*eedom, communicate from afar their opin- ion on our public affairs, having in view no interest of their own, and having received no suggestion from this country — no call what- ever to give us their thoughts — then, indeed, we may receive what they give as the impartial voice of history rather than a forward meddling with a cause with which they have no concern. Our cause is the cause of every lover of his kind, of real progress, and of un- biased justice and untainted truth. They know our arduous strug- gle in its details, without being individually affected by them. They are interested in our successes and failures, as Christians are deeply interested in the spread of religion or its rebuffs over the whole globe. We thank them, and feel sure that many of our fellow-citizens will do the same. '05 ^^>:i LETTER MM. DE GASPARIN, MARTIN, COCHIN, and LABOULAYE, LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF NEW YORK. TRANSIjATED by MARY L. BOOTH. To the Members of the Loyal Publication Society of New York : Gentlemen : You know us already ; phrases of introduction are use- less between us. Our end is the same— the defence, so long as it shall be in peril, of the holy cause contested in America. The peril which seemed averted has just sprung up anew. It is necessary, therefore, that you should know once more that your European friends are on your side. However weak their support may be, you will not disdain it. It costs us nothing to do justice to Mr. Johnson. He has fought and suffered under your flag. Several of his acts have been stamped with lofty and earnest intellect. Following in Mr. Lincoln's footsteps, he has understood the necessity of putting an end as speedily as possible to the period of exceptional powers; he has set the example of the head of a government hastening to abdicate all dictatorship and to restore the national liberties in full. We are in a good position to applaud — we who have unceasingly predicted that you would crown your struggle by thus pardoning the vanquished, disbanding your armies, re-establishing the regular working of your institutions, and showing the world for the first time a constitution emerging intact from civil war. n. Unhappily, Mr. Johnson has undertaken to separate what is indissolubly joined together ; he has believed himself able to establish union at the expense of emancipation ; he has adopted a programme which may be Bummed up as follows : « Let us undertake but one thing at a time ; first of all, the re-establishment of the Union and of legal order ; by-and-by, we can think about completing emancipation, placing results side by side with principles, protecting the former slaves, making men of them, and even elevating them to the rank of citizens. For the present, they must be given up unconditionally to the absolute power of their old masters ; for wo cannot interfere with the latter without fettering the independence of the Southern States, restricting their constitutional jurisdiction, offend- ing their susceptibilities, and delaying or endangering their return." With a logic, the cold and inflexible rigor of which appals us, Mr. Johnson has proceeded toward the single end which he has proposed to himself Like a man who throws aside one of the data of the problem to be solved, he has boldly drawn up his political formulas. Congress passes the Freedmen's Bureau Bill ; Mr, Johnson does not stop to consider whether the poor blacks, placed face to face with the Southern government and the Southern courts, will have any chance whatever of obtaining justice ; it suffices for him that the bill belongs to that side of the question which he is determined not to know, and he vetoes it without proposing any more moderate one in its place. The important point is to suppress all federal protection. Perish the negroes, if they are an obstacle to the re-establishment of the Union ! Another bill is adopted by Congress. This time, the point in question is only to secure civil rights to the freedmen — the right to buy, sell, and hold property, to marry, to be under the jurisdiction of the common law, to be subject to common penalties. No matter, this also belongs to the side of the question which Mr. Johnson persists in ignoring; this is in opposition to his theory ; this would irritate the South; this would give rise to the eventual interference of the central power ; and the veto re- commences its work. This veto has been overruled, as we know, by a two-third majority of both Houses of Congress, which nothing has succeeded in shaking. But the fact that it has been possible for affairs to come to such a pass, suffices to measure the enormity of the error into which Mr. Johnson has fallen. See how far the South, patronized by Mr. Johnson, now pushes it preten- sions ! See to what a point it proposes to maintain slavei-y ! Those who doubted that emancipation, deprived of its practical results, was a lying delusion, know henceforth ou what to rely. The last veto has thrown light on what was before obscure ; none can longer hesitate. The neces- sity of putting an end to the negro question has assumed the character of a self-evident axiom. m. This necessity Mr. Johnson denies, or rather systematically forgets. He talks plausibly of the duty of being just to the South, but he forgets the duty of being just to the men who have shed their blood to suppress the rebellion of the South. He talks plausibly of the equality of states, but he forgets the equality of men. He talks plausibly of public liberties, but he forgets personal liberties. He talks plausibly of peace, but he forgets that justice is the condition of peace. He talks plausibly of the Union, but he forgets that the Union cannot be re-established so long as the least vestige remains of the slavery question. We who have long and ardently desired the restoration of the South have never for an instant supposed that such a restoration could be effected without the precautions, indispensable in such cases, designed to prevent the war from breaking out anew. So long as the slavery question shall continue, the war will not have been ended. Now, the question will continue if emancipation is sepa- rated from its results, if the former slave does not become a man and a citizen, if he is not protected during the transition period, and if the federal government shrinks from the measures of humanity and justice which the past clearly enforces on the future. IV. To proclaim emancipation and to deny equality is to take back wi'.li one hand what you give with the other. In the slave there is first of all a man. By act of violence, or slavery, he is deprived, as long as this vio- lence lasts, of the rights conferred on him by his quality of manhood, his birth in the country where he resides, and the terms of the general con- stitution, but on the day that the violence ceases, the right of manhood revives. Free the slave and the man remains. Among you, in particular, this is evident. Your constitution asserts in explicit terms the equality of all who are born on your soil. A single exception is provided for, namely, slavery. You have just generously effaced it. From this time forth, there are, there can be, none but equals on the soil of America. Doubtless, you might have resolved upon a restricted emancipation; of the former slave, you might have made a serf; you might have subjected him, for a fixed time, to the apprenticeship system. You did not wish to do this ; you did not stop halfway in yon-.- generous undertaking : you did not proclaim a partial liberty ! You abolished slavery uncondition- ally. In proclaiming emancipation, therefore, you proclaimed equality. Restrictions and reservations cannot afterward be made. See, there- fore, what objections are met by all those attempts at reaction which pre- tend to lessen emancipation by separating it from its results. When Mr. Johnson lays his hand on civil equality, the human conscience is startled. As regards political equality, a secret instinct warns us all that slavery will subsist so long as the inferiority of the negro race is maintained. At the bottom, it is the slavery question that continues under discussion. Deprived, xmder the pretext of race, and on account of their color, of the rights which belong to other Americans, shorn of the guarantees that protected them, deprived of the power of elevating themselves, abandoned to the justice of their old masters, and compelled to wait for the latter to be pleased some day to take the lead in final emancipation, the negroes will soon ask whether the bill of 1866 really deserves the name of the Emancipation Bill. It is often pretended that Mr. Lincoln would have acted like his suc- cessor. Those who hold this language forget one thing, namely, that Mr. Lincoln always walked in harmony with Congress. The harmony between the President and Congress guaranteed another harmony, that of the two causes blended in one, union and emancipation. Certainly, Mr. Lincoln aspired to the re-establishment of the Union, and at the time of his death was paving the way for the return of the South, accompanied with a general amnesty. But in a heart like his, there was room for the rights of the negroes by the side of the pardon of the whites. What Mr. Lincoln would have done may be easily divined. It is only necessary to read in the history of that truly great man the successive acts which, by virtue of an uninterrupted progress, rose to the level of perfect justice. Try to imagine Mr. Lincoln abjuring all his principles, abandon- ing a race of which he had constituted himself the protector, and by which he felt himself beloved, thrusting far from him the party which had elected and supported him, and substituting his will for that of Congress ! Try, yQu will not succeed ! To understand what Mr. Lincoln would have done it is only necessary to see what Congress, which unceasingly thought and acted in harmony with him, continues to demand. Mr. Lincoln never would have dreamed of proclaiming an emancipation shorn of its results. In abolishing slavery, he would have abolished the servile system. He would have imposed on the rebel states the condition of accepting entire emancipation ; that is to say, emancipation with equality. While taking prudential considerations fully into account, and perhaps avoiding suddenly intrusting the negroes with universal suffrage, he would have opened to them the doors of the common law. And the return of the South would not have been delayed thereby an hour. On the contrary, it would have been hastened ; for Congress would not have thought of excluding the rebel states ! Who believes that the South, on the morrow of its defeat, touched by a magnanimous pardon, and happy to seize the hand that was extended to it, would have made more difficulty in passing two amendments than one, and in accept- ing the full liberty instead of the partial liberty of the negroes ? All would have been adopted ; the guarantees for the transition period would not have encountered the slightest objection ; the eleven States would have resumed their place in Congress ; and the triumph of the Union would have been complete, together with the triumph of emancipation. In unison with Congress, Mr. Lincoln would have accomplished all this without difficulty, with that impulse of the heart which has the gift of Working miracles, those broad sympathies which throw down all barriers, and that generous impudence which succeeds where wisdom fails. VI. The abolition of slavery, the transitional protection of the freedmen, the equality of races, the gradual institution of negro suffrage, a universal amnesty, the return of the eleven States to Congress, the re-establish- ment of the regular working of affairs, the suppression of dictatorship, the disbanding of a great part of the army, the speedy redemption of the public debt, and the encouragement of Southern colonization, all these things were inseparably connected, if not in the mind of Mr. Lincoln, at least in the noble necessities of his policy and that of Congress. The simple secret of this policy consisted in not separating the two words which had composed the programme of the four years' conflict, Union and Emancipation. So long as Mr. Lincoln lived, the two causes and the two words formed a single unit, as the President and Congress formed a single party — the national party. Since that time, we have seen this unity destroyed. Union has made war on emancipation ; the President has entered into conflict with Con- gress. As long as this division lasts, success is impossible. The condi- tion of success is for the President to walk in harmony with Congress. This was the condition of success during the war. Mr. Lincoln did not mistake it for an instant. At times, perhaps, moderating some impatient spirits, he always remained in the current of generous public opinion. This was also the condition of success after the wai-. To re-establish peace and order, it was necessary not to depart from this great current. On the day that he did so, Mr. Johnson endangered the success of the reconstruction which should have been the glory of his name. May he again take his place in and at the head of the movement of freedom! there still is time. May harmony be established anew between the public powers : may emancipation resume its place by the side of union in Mr. Johnson's policy ! But it must be done speedily, or it will be too late. vn. It is said that the Democratic party which destroyed America the first time, is preparing a second time to destroy it. It sets to work in pre- cisely the same manner as of old. To make the South its lever against the North, to excite the passions of the slaveholders, to stir up hatred against the Puritans, the Yankees, to wage a deadly war on abolitionism, to strengthen st^te rights, and to protect the domestic institutions of the South — this is what it has done, and what it is making preparations again to do. Dissension between the North and South is necessary to it. If the slavery question were ended, the party would have no reason for ex- isting ; it clings, therefore, with feverish ardor to whatever vestiges re- main of the Southern system, and will not suffer them to be wrested from it — vestiges which will suffice, perhaps, to bring back, sooner than is imagined, all the horrors of civil war. Leave this great agent of discord to do its work, and, from the quarrel between tlie President and Congress, ingrafted upon the quarrel between the North and South, it will bring forth disaster, to say nothing of dis- grace. Has it not already whispered in Mr. Johnson's ear the advice to resign, in order to draw from a re-election, in which the South would take part, the strength necessary to break down the resistance of the patriots, and to force the doors of Congress ? If ever affairs reach this pass — if the flame of passion is re-kindled, and the gauntlet is thus thrown down to the North, the sword will leap from its scabbard in every direction. Already, the air is full of violence. The palmy days of the South seem to have returned. The campaign against the negroes and their pro- tectors is openly commenced. We fancy ourselves dreaming at the sight ; we ask whether this is really 1866, whether it was really Richmond and not Washington that fell last year ; whether the President of the United States is really named Andrew Johnson ? What ! preparations are already being made to resist Congress and to brave its laws ! We are told of massacres of the negroes, and are informed that they are doomed to perish because their friends have had the imprudence to endow them with civil rights ! A ad it is scarcely a year since Lincoln was laid in the tomb ! vni. To be just to Mr. Johnson, it is important to take his motives into con- sideration. The state rights, of which he seems to have constituted himself the defender, have an importance which cannot be set at naught. To sacri- fice them would be to sap the foundation of the Constitution of the United States. But without accomplishing such a sacrifice, it is allowable to demand solid guarantees of future peace, before restoring to the rebel states the full exercise of their independence. This, moreover, is what Mr. Johnson himself has done. lie. who is terrified at the idea of exercising any coercion over the South, did this, and very effectively, when he imposed on the South the condition of adopting the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. Was it believed that the cotton states would adopt this with enthusiasm ? Was it believed that their independence was then respected ? Not at all. It was simply said to them, " We do not wish the war to break out anew ; therefore, the cause of the war must be destroyed." What was said to them with justice can be repeated to them with not less justice. So long as any vestiges of the cause of the war remains, the guarantees of peace are not complete. Above subtle questions con- cerning state rights rises a grave question, namely, the right of the whole country to exist and to take precautions to avert the recurrence of a bloody struggle. What do we read, moreover, in the amendment abolishing slavery ? " Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.'' Thus Congress is charged to stop at no obstacle in prevent- ing any one from violating the constitution by annulling the liberty which has just been promised the former slaves. The objection is raised that this leads to centralization ! But the action of the central power has always been necessary when the general laws of the United States have met with factious resistance. When the South refused to acknowledge Mr. Lincoln, it became necessary to practise cen- tralization at the point of the bayonet, and to reduce the rebels of Vir- ginia and Texas to submission. If to-morrow the Civil Eights bill should not be executed by the South, it would be necessary to practise centraliza- tion and overcome resistance. In the same manner, when the freedom of the negroes is proclaimed, it is impossible to avoid practising centraliza- tion in order to effect a colossal transformation throughout the whole country. It would be puerile to imagine that such revolutions could be wrought without the interference of Congress and the national govern- ment. A federal service exists, moreover, in the United States ; there is a gene- ral legislation which is binding on all the states, and there are federal courts which insure its execution. There is a national army, stronger or weaker according to the state of the country, but which must always be sufficient to assist the courts and the law by arms. There are mails, there are cus- tom-houses. Well, there will be one more branch of the central public service — that of the freedmen ; there will be the interference of the law, the courts, and the army, for the protection of the freedmen during the trying period of their accession to the jurisdiction of the common law. You will seek in vain to avoid this necessity. Try, if you will, to have neither judicial nor military action when a civil rights bill has just been passed ! Let it not be believed that the triumph of the presidential veto has prevented this interference. It is in vain to propose not to interfere ; there is an excess of violence and injustice, there is an outcry of defence- less victims, which will not permit the most indifferent to fold his hands. Mr. Johnson himself, it is known, is practising centralization, and far be- yond what he imagines. We say further, the only means of moderating federal interference, and promptly putting an end to it, as we all desire, is to discourage resist- ance ; to prove to the South that slavery has had its day, and that it must resign itself to what is inevitable ; to beware of holding in reserve a second negro question, destined to convulse the country like the first; to finish what has been begun, and not to stop halfway on the road to equality. Then the old masters will resign themselves to necessity, and the freedmen will elevate their condition. Under the influence of clearly- defined positions, everything becomes tranquillized. In the South, which 2 10 will be purified by liberty and regenerated by European colonization, the garrisons will daily become fewer, and the action of the central power less necessary. The partisans of Mr. Johnson accuse Congress of lacking patience, and urge it to wait for the progress which years will insure. By degrees, they say, the negro race will obtain, one after another, the rights which it needs ; the South itself, under the pressure of public opinion and the example of the North, will confer them upon it in the end ; and the time will come when the amendment suppressing all distinction on ac- count of color, will naturally obtain the normal majority of three fourths of the states. Why not trust to the slow but sure action of time, ideas, and the regular powers ? Why ? Because the surest action of time will be to bring about the destruction of a wretched race abandoned to oppression. Because the claims of justice and humanity are always urgent. Because it would be farcical to say to four millions of men who have been promised freedom : " Time will give it to you. In fifty or a hundred years, if your grand- children have not perished to the last one, the progress of ideas will ac- complish for you what we cannot accomplish ourselves without ofi"ending the rebel states." Because there is a golden moment when certain trans- formations can be efi'ected, while, this moment passed, they long become im- possible. Because experience has shown, in America itself, that the party which now preaches patience preached it in the same manner five years ago, declaring that slavery would disappear under the action of time and the natural progress of ideas, by the spontaneous decision of the South. Now, slavery, at that time, far from disappearing, was extending its politi- cal conquests and trailing in the mire the whole policy of the United States. Congress might hurl back to the party that surrounds and seeks to rule Mr. Johnson this strange charge of impatience. " Be patient," it might say, " do not aspire to suppress all action of the central power on the very morrow of a civil war, provoked by the exaggeration of the theory of state rights. By the application of principles, the equitable establishment of the rights that belong to every human being, and the free development of the results of emancipation by the ending of the negro question, you will soon be able to withdraw your garrisons, your freedmen's bureaus, and all the measures necessitated by every transition period." Indeed, with respect to impatience, nothing equals the plan advocated by the dangerous friends of Mr. Johnson — to finish nothing, to prevent nothing, to suppress all protection, to sanction no right, to stifle the action of the central power, and to stop their ears so as not to hear the despair- ing cries that are about to rise from the South. It is easy to draw up proclamations, to declare that peace is re-estab- lished, and that the rebel states have regained their independence. But a proclamation is not a solution. This solution demands more time and patience than the hasty restorers of Southern independence seem to have in store. 11 Their language has not changed any more than their policy. The slavery party has learned nothing, and forgotten nothing. These four years of war have wrought no modification in it. For the word emanci- pation substitute civil rights, civic rights, federal protection ; you will find the phrases ready made five years ago. " Let the South alone. The South loves the negroes, and will paternally restore their freedom ; the only thing that stops it is your irritating interference. Do not interpose your unskilful hand between the whites and the blacks ; do not speak, do not act, propose no bill, write no newspaper article, make no appeal either to the central administration, or to the courts of justice, and you will see that the South, left to herself, will solve the problem of slavery." America cannot be twice duped by such language. There are changes which cannot be accomplished by ordinary means or regular channels. To permit a negro to vote is an enormity, an overthrow of all received ideas, an offence to public morality ; the prejudices of race are wounded thereby as they would be by a crime, as they will be to-morrow by the civil rights of the negroes — " a negro must not be whipped ! A negro can prosecute a white man in a court of law !'' it will be said — as they were yesterday by the emancipation of the negroes, when the cry was raised, "What! these negroes free to quit their masters, to work where they like, or even not to work at all ! All these men to be treated as men, and to have a wife and children of their own !" These are enormities which men accept when they are conquered, to which they become accustomed, even speedily, when the questions have assumed the character of accomplished facts, but in which they never themselves take the lead. The point in question is nothing less, in fine, than to introduce a trans- formation of the utmost importance into the organization of the United States. Yet it is wished to do this without increasing for the moment the military and judicial administrative supervision of the central power ! And the sages who wish this'style themselves practical men, the enemies of abstract principles ! The fact is that, under penalty of relapsinfr into second childhood, it is necessary to resolve to employ means in propur n to the work to be ac- complished. To overthrow an institution as important as slavery, and to pluck up the roots that it has left in American soil, is a task of sufficient magnitude to require the action of the central power. This power alone has conquered the rebellion ; this power alone can destroy the cause of the rebellion. The more prompt" and resolute its action, the sooner it will become un- necessary. The means of speedily arriving at the day we all desire, when this action can cease, and local independence resume its full sway, is to annihilate to-day the last vestiges of slavery, and to snatch from the revi- ving slavery party theilast shreds of the bloody banner around which they are already seeking to rally. 12 IX. Why have the sincere and enlightened counsellors which Mr. Johnson has still around him not warned him of the perils in the path to which he is urged. This road is paved with fatal illusions. — " Sacrifice emanci- pation to Union," it is said to the President, " and you will directly secure to America the concord, tranquillity and prosperity of which she is so much in need. After so rude a crisis, it is right that she should re- pose, should she leave some interests to sufi'er, however worthy of respect, and some rights, however precious." Far from escaping agitation by such a course, the nation plunges into it head foremost. It is in the name of the Union that this pretended Union policy must be opposed. It is in the name of peace that this pre- tended peace policy must be combated. Union and emancipation are henceforth inseparable, as we cannot often enough repeat ; they are dependent upon each other. Whoever attacks one attacks the other. Is there a surer means, we ask, of endangering the Union than to leave the slavery quarrel unfinished ? It is proposed to prevent a reconciliation between the North and the South, in order to profit by their dissension. Placed face to face with a definitive state of afi'airs, knowing that neither emancipation nor any of its results was longer open for discussion, and seeing none but men and equals on American soil, the North and South would soon abandon the struggle. By degrees, perhaps very soon, other questions and interests would produce new combinations, and substitute disputes of a difi"erent kind for those which always have been and always will be dangerous to the Union. But leave any germ whatsoever of the quarrel remaining, and the conflict will break out anew on the old ground, and with the old bitterness. As for the South, everything -will be subordi- nate to the one thought of undoing what has been done, abolishing abolition, reconstructing slavery under a borrowed name, and taking re- venge at the expense of the negroes while waiting for the opportunity to take it on the friends of the negroes and the whole North. Mr. Johnson is afraid that the protection of the freedmen will compel him to keep too many federal soldiers in the South ! He will be forced to send a much greater number thera when atrocities shall be committed, when rebellion shall break out, and when it shall be necessary perhaps to put down a new Southern insurrection. In the face of facts, and from the first step, the Platonic re-establishment of the Union appears in its true light— a pure chimera, such as might be conceived by a cabinet dreamer, but could never be adopted by a statesman. Even now the conquered of yesterday talk boldly of resisting the bills which displease them, of treading under foot the judicial decisions which fetter their movements, of holding their former slaves in a state of sub- 13 jection, whether they will or no, of excluding them from the common law, of punishing moral interference by violence, and of repulsing material in- terference. A few months more of this policy and Mr. Johnson will have the double honor of having destroyed the Union and re-established slavery. It is not enough to cry peace, peace ! It is necessary also to do the work of peace. What do you think will become of the peace of the country when the South is authorized to believe that it has the President on its side, when Congress and its acts are considered unconstitutional by the President, and when the veto power seems to have no other object than that of defending the policy of the South ? It is the President in person who declares to the South, that the South is in the right, that it has been wronged, that it has returned in the pleni- tude of its rights, that the pretension to the right of protecting the negroes is illegal, that the thought of transforming them into citizens is deplorable, that the secession of the North is equivalent to that of the South, and that Mr. Sumner is walking in the footsteps of JefiFerson Davis. Is it far from this to conflict, the taking up of arms, and civil war ? Oh, the imprudence of pretended sages, the revolutionary radicalism of pretended conservatives, the everlasting story of fanatics of repose, who go about demanding peace through the violation of principles, not know- ing that the only peacemakers here on earth are justice and truth ! If America desifes repose (and nothing is more natural than that she should do so), let her address herself to truth and justice. Sincere eman- cipation, security for the freedmen, the proclamation of the equality of races — this is what will tranquillize the country. Put an end to the negro question, re-establish harmony between the President and Congress, issue an amnesty, open the doors of Congress to the representatives of the South, and the agitation which is now hourly increasing will speedily cease. You will no longer fear negro insurrections or negro massacres, the cotton states, so long closed to colonization by slavery, will no longer be closed to it by insecurity and violence. Planting will revive, pros- perity will flourish anew ; the two great, inseparable causes, Union and emancipation, will have triumphed together. X. The condition of peace, of a return to the regular working of affairs, of the suppression of dictatorships, and of resistance to centralizing tenden- cies, is, therefore, precisely the opposite of what is advocated by the old party which is re-organizing around Mr. Johnson. The reconciliation of what it is striving to divide — union and emancipation, the President and Congress — this is the simple secret of true peace. "We desire neither the triumph of the President nor that of Congress. We desire the triumph of justice, through the necessary and easy har- mony of the great public powers. In this deplorable conflict — of which we hope soon to see the end — all the errors have not been on one side. If 14 those of Mr. Johnson have, for some time past, greatly exceeded those of his adversaries, he nevertheless gives the elements for a reconciliation, since each one has something to yield, vk'ithout compromising the right. The maintenance of the freedmen's bureau for two or three years, with- out increasing its powers or the number of its agents ; the suppression of all distinction in suffrage, founded on color, leaving to each state, how- ever, the liberty to fix conditions common to all, conditions which may retard the entrance of the negroes into political life; the curtailment of all supplementary representation granted to the South on account of its slaves; the re-opening to the South of the doors of Congress, and the proclamation of a general amnesty — such are the essential features of a programme which all might accept, a programme which no one would have had the merit of inventing, since it arises from the necessities of the situation, and is self-evident to every reflecting mind. This programme once adopted and firmly executed, Mr. Johnson will have the satisfaction of giving full scope to his generous ideas, by re- ducing the army, lessening the expenses, and suppressing the exceptional powers. In proportion as emancipation becomes a reality, and the ne- groes definitively take their place among the citizens, the precautions of the transitional regime will become useless, and the momentary interven- tion of the central government will cease. The independence of the sepa- rate states will be wholly restored as soon as the security of the United States shall have been sheltered from the perils to which it is exposed by the negro question. ^i '^^m^^f^^" XI. ^ The power of principles, indeed, is marvellous. Men may deride them ; they may say to their champions, "Cling to abstract justice; as for us, we know how to discern practical questions, and to take facts into account." It will be found in the end that this abstract justice is the most practical thing on earth. Principles are the most real, the most tangible, the most pertinacious of facts. America has just gloriously experienced this; her principles have been her strength ; her principles have been her buckler against foes within and without ; her principles have been her victory. And the day that Mr. Johnson deviated from his principles, he came into collision with facts. In ceasing to be the man of principles, he became the man of pure abstractions, of chimeras ; he imagined that it sufficed to proclaim peace to establish it, and to declare the Union restored to sup- press all discord. In the troubled waters through which America is now passing, in the confused seething of the South on the brink of a transformation without which it must perish, one light alone can guide the government of the United States, the light of principle. Let it follow this without turning to the right or the left, let it have faith in principle, and its success is certain. Let us distrust sophisms which make a distinction between expediency 15 and justice. Justice alone is expedient. An eloquent outburst within the walls of the Senate called this to mind a few days ago, '•' Ah, sir, can any- thing be expedient which is not just ?" The orator who thus gave the watchword of the position is among those who had sustained a prolonged battler against slavery, and who well knew the value of expedients and what is gained by being adroit at the expense of the right. Patiently, firmly, sure that the good cause could not perish, he and his fellows have waited, they have conquered, and they will not give way at the last mo- ment. These men, whatever may be their incidental errors, are the glory and consolation of our time. The attachment inspired in us by America has increased as we have seen Congress ranging itself on their side. It might have been believed that, the war ended, the United States would have hastened to forget the right, and to rush headlong into the short-sighted calculations of false prudence. Nothing of the kind has occurred ; the banner of emancipation still floats, thank God ! and we greet it with acclamations on this side of the Atlantic. We are far from yon, and certain details may escape us ; but be sure that our eye grasps the view as a whole. With respect to the great questions, the great outlines of your policy, we entreat you to have some confidence in your European friends. They have been faithful to yon through your dark days : they now watch with a jealous eye over that holy and noble victory in which they have participated through their prayers, and which should neither be endangered nor sullied. As to what would sully and endanger it, we are unanimous in our opinion. The men among us who have worn the colors of the South for the last four years will give you other counsels. As for us, we do not hesitate to say to you, " Support Congress ; bring back the President. He must feel himself ill at ease in a camp which is not his own.'' If, to his misfortune and yours, Mr. Johnson persists in separating union from emancipation, in reorganizing the slavery party, and in re- lying on the South in opposition to the North, if he succeeds in crushing by this retrogressive body the majority of both houses of Congress, then those who now encourage him in Europe will triumphantly raise the mock- ing cry, " You see that we were right, and that slavery was not the cause of the war, for the Americans have avoided really destroying it after peace. Those great principles were nothing but great pretexts. The American nation has been, is, and will be the nation of the dollar. The philanthropic farce is played out ; you will see now with what an air it will witness the tragedy of the extermination of the negroes when its national interests are no longer at stake." The present partisans of Mr. Johnson hope soon to have the opportunity of thus insulting the cause that triumphed under Mr. Lincoln. You will not permit it, gentlemen; you, the steadfast supporters of this cause; you who have employed such devotion and moderation in its service; you, who are strangers to party spirit, who bear hatred to no one, and who desire no other triumph than that of the right. J 16 „ „ 013 785 634 7 Your sentiments are ours. Our common motto is that beautitui icAt ui the Bible, "Justice exalts a nation." What a commentary on this text has been written among you during the last five years ! In the time of Mr. Lincoln, you were exalted in proportion as you were just. So long as the counsels of the old school of compromise prevailed, you experienced defeat after defeat; as soon as you obeyed the com- mands of justice, you began to be successful. Then you became invinci- ble ; then Europe understood that she could not interfere ; then she secretly repented of having transformed insurgents into belligerents, and of having aggravated, at her pleasure, your civil war and the sufferings of her own manufacturers ; then you contradicted, one after another, the prophecies of calamity, defeat, bankruptcy, the secession of the West, the dissensions of tbe North, insurrections, anarchy, the omnipotence of the army, and the destruction of liberty ; then you re-elected your Lincoln, and thus signified to the South that you were determined to go through with what you had undertaken. On the day that you proclaimed the emancipation of the slaves, you, in reality, took Richmond, re-established the Union, and insured the future prosperity of America. — Justice exalts a nation. For some time past, the fatal counsels of the Democratic party have tended to resume their sway. This party is attempting to prove to you that it is better to be at peace than to be just; that it is better to re-es- tablish the Union than to be just; that it is better to restore local liber- ties than to be just. Meanwhile, peace recedes, union gives place to dis- cord, and local liberties remain suspended. You will have liberty, union, and peace, only through justice. — Justice exalts a nation. A. De Gasparin, Henri Martin, AuGusTiN Cochin, # Edouard Laboulaye. \ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 013 785 634 7 » y dH8^