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 President, 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? The 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 profound 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 Confederation 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 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 circumscribed,
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,
perhaps: 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. The 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
during some years past, towards a colossal development of servitude, it
will proceed in the direction of its gradual attenuation.
I reason on the hypothesis of a final maintenance 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 abolitionists 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 possible,
is even inevitable; but the men who exercise any political influence
over the North have not for a moment adopted such theories. This is so
true, that the other day, at Boston, the people themselves (the people
who nominated Mr. Lincoln) dispersed 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 parties? 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 astonish us. I am far from believing
that all the acts of abolitionism are worthy of approbation; I say only
that it would be puerile to repudiate a great party for the sole reason
that it has the bearing 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 Thebais 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 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 completes 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 Kansas 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. This 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 exasperate it.
This argument is so unfortunate as to be employed 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 _exasperated_. Later, when we held up to the
indignation of the whole world the Protestant intolerance of Sweden, we
were assured that these public denunciations would put back the question
instead of accelerating it. We persevered, and we did rightly. Sweden
is advancing, though at too slow a pace, towards religious liberty. It
would be difficult to cite any social iniquities that have reformed 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
abolitionism. In Virginia, in Kentucky, in Missouri, in Delaware, etc.,
the liberty party has been continually 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! Then, abolition was easy, the slaves were few
in number, and no really formidable 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. The future has bent under
the weight of a task which has continued to increase with years, thanks
to letting it alone.
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 resolution 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 election of Mr. Fremont, efforts which would have
succeeded perhaps, if Mr. Fremont had not been a Catholic. Remember
those three months of balloting, 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 illegal 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 capital of the State of New York on the day of execution, one
might have foreseen the irresistible impulse 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 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 contemplate on earth. It was the more glorious, the more efforts and
sacrifices it demanded. The Lincoln party had opposed to it, the
Puseyistic and financial aristocracy of New York; the manoeuvres of
President Buchanan were united against it with those of the Southern
States. Many of the Northern 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 interests, which usually make themselves heard so distinctly.
The unity, the greatness of the country, the gigantic future towards
which it was advancing, were so many obstacles arising in the way. Then
came the reckoning of profits and losses, the inevitable crisis, the
Southern orders already withdrawn, the 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 produces 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 unsettling of many
fortunes. But neither were they ignorant that above the fleeting
interests of individuals and of the nation, arose those permanent
interests which must 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 wandering 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 combination 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 fine explanation; 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 how much
obstinacy the Tories, representing the traditions of English politics,
combated the proposed plans; they know in what terms the certain ruin of
the planters, the manufactures, and the seaports, was described; they
know by how many petitions the churches, the religious societies, the
women, and even the children, succeeded in wresting 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 dictated 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 selfish impulses, which always become complicated
in such manifestations, the ruling motive in this was a protest of
conscience, and of the spirit of liberty.
The accounts that have come to us from America 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 principles, 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 approach 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. Something
else is implied in it than tactics, something else than combinations of
votes or sectional rivalries. To vote as they did, they had to overcome
almost as many obstacles in the North as in the South; for, in
consequence of the vote, the North had to suffer 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 nations; 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, attacked, 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 present, it carries within itself guarantees
for the future.
The sad, profoundly sad, spectacle, is that of nations 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. 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 properly, has been
found to disturb it, and the public sale of slaves has 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 the
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? Why has the importation of negroes tripled in
Cuba? 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, prudently 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! after 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 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!