WHERE THE UNITED STATES WERE 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. Here are the facts:
Formerly, there was but one opinion among Americans on the subject of
slavery. The Southerners 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
inscribed the wish in his will that so baleful an institution might be
promptly suppressed. To pen up slavery, to prevent its extension, to
reduce it to the _rôle_ of a local and temporary fact, which it was
determined to restrain still more--such was the sentiment which
prevailed in the South, as in the North. 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 foundation 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 entrance into a new territory is almost iniquitous. Such are the
theories proclaimed by the governors, by the legislators of the cotton
States; they propose them openly, without scruple and without
circumlocution, 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 times by
the love of liberty. See entire populations, 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 indefinite extension,
its inter-State and African trade.
And the conquests of slavery do not figure only in platforms; they are
pursued and accomplished effectively on the soil of America. In the face
of the nineteenth century, free Texas has been transformed into a slave
State. To create other slave countries is the aim proposed; and slave
countries multiply, and the South does not tolerate the slightest
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 he 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 increased from day to day,
and it was not difficult to see to what abysses it was leading the
entire American 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_,
stipulating that slavery could not be introduced into conquered
provinces. Such was the starting point. It was sought then, in 1847, to
prevent the territorial extension of slavery. This seems to me
reasonable enough; and I am not astonished that the Lincoln platform
tends simply to return to this primitive policy. The measure passes the
House of Representatives, but is defeated in the Senate.
Notwithstanding, the American people hold firm to the principle that
slavery shall henceforth no longer be extended; it elects, in 1848, the
upright Administration of Gen. Taylor. The cause of justice seems about
to triumph, when the death of the whig President, succeeded by the
feeble Mr. Fillmore, comes to restore good fortune to the Southerners,
the _proviso_ is forgotten, and the nation, weary of resistance, ends by
adopting a series of deplorable compromises.
Beginning from this moment, the progress of the evil is rapid. Among the
compromises, the oldest and most respected, dating back to 1820, was
that which bore the name of the _Missouri Compromise_. On admitting
Missouri as a Slave State, it had been stipulated that slavery should be
no longer introduced north of the 36th degree of latitude. Of this
limit, so long accepted, the South now complains; it is no longer
willing that the development of its "peculiar institution" shall be
obstructed in any thing. 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.
The Wilmot proviso could not subsist in the presence of these absolute
pretensions. The liberty of slavery (pardon me this mournful and
involuntary conjunction) finds an application on the spot. At this
juncture, Texas, a province detached from 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 sovereignty which they have
invoked turns against them; in the Territory of Kansas, the majority
votes the exclusion of slavery. At once the Southerners 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 prevented from settling in a Territory with the slaves, their
property? When this Territory shall be by and by transformed into a
State, there will doubtless be a right to determine the question; but to
abolish slavery is quite a different thing from excluding 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 constantly been, the
most humble servant of the slavery party. They came together into
collision with _squatter sovereignty:_ they found for the first time in
their path 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
principles: 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 Territories. 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!
Let no one cry out against this: those who demanded and those who framed
the Dred Scott decision 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 abolition of slavery, or to forbid the introduction of
slaves, or to refuse their extradition. And, effectively, 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 America; 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 believed 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 North; 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 prohibition, the mails
ceased to carry books, journals, letters, which excited their suspicion.
They had seized upon the policy of the Union, and they ruled it
according to their liking. No one has forgotten those enterprises,
favored underhand, then disavowed after failure, those filibustering
expeditions in Central America and in the islands of Cuba. They were the
policy of the South, executed by Mr. Buchanan 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 the administration of Mr.
Buchanan. The 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. The United States were yoked
to the car of slavery: to make slave States, to conquer Territories for
slavery, to prevent the terrible misfortune of an abolition of slavery,
such was the programme. In negotiations, in elections, nothing else was
perceived than this. If the liberty of the seas and the independence of
the flag were proudly claimed, it was by the order of the South, and
there resulted 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 deeper, 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 those who 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 pitiless influence 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 going 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 language of the Southern States. They
were known to be capable of keeping their word; therefore, there ceased
to be but one argument in America: secession. "Revoke the compromise, or
else secession; modify the legislation of the free States, or else
secession; risk adventures, and undertake conquests with us for slavery,
or else secession; lastly and above all, never suffer yourselves to
elect a president 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 patriotism in this weakness; many citizens,
inimical to slavery, 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 "institution" of the South; no more rights of the
majority before the "institution;" no more sovereignty of the States
before the "institution." The 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 Anderson, 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 nation, and even to have put it on the same footing with the
crime of piracy. The South had openly demanded the re-establishment of a
commerce which alone could furnish it at some day with the number of
negroes proportioned to its vast designs. What had Mr. Buchanan done? He
doubtless had not consented officially 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 considerable.
The port of New York alone, which participates but too much in the
misdeeds and tendencies of the South, fitted out eighty-five slavers
between the months of February, 1859, and July, 1860. These slavers
proudly bore the United States' flag over the seas, and defied the
English cruisers. As for the American cruisers, Mr. Buchanan had taken
care to remove them all from Cuba, where every one knows that the living
cargoes are landed. The slave trade is therefore in the height of
prosperity, whatever the last presidential message may say of it, and as
to the application 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 measure in particular, but a collection of measures,
all directed towards the same end, and tending mutually to complete each
other: conquests, the domestic and the foreign slave trade, the
overthrow of the few barriers opposed to the extension of slavery, the
debasement of institutions, the definitive enthroning of an adventurous
policy, a policy without principles and without scruples; to this the
country was advancing with rapid strides. Do they who raise their hands
and eyes to heaven, because the election of Mr. Lincoln 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 would 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 millions, and until vast
territories, absorbed by American 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 accomplished under different auspices and in different
conditions. Such 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 conquests: 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
unfortunate 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 certainly paved the way, with its own hands, for one of
those bloody disasters before which the imagination recoils: it would
have shut itself out from all chance of salvation.
It is not possible, in truth, to put an end to certain crimes, and
wholly avoid their chastisement; there will always be some suffering in
delivering the American Confederation from slavery, and it depends
to-day again upon the South to aggravate, 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.