THE PRESENT CRISIS.
We now possess the principal elements of our solution; we can approach
the problem just propounded by the present crisis, and, confining
ourselves no longer to the appreciation of the past, can glance at the
future. Not, indeed, that I make any pretensions to prophecy; political
predictions, suspected 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
affirmed, 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.
I have named secession: what are we to think of the principle on which
it rests? For this question another may be substituted: what is a
Confederation? 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. Never 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 anarchical doctrines that our
age has seen hatched, (and they are numerous,) this seems to me worthy
of occupying the place of honor. This right of separation is simply the
_liberum veto_ resuscitated for the benefit of federal institutions. As
in the horseback diets of Poland, a single opposing vote could put 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 such a system. As there is never a law
or a measure that is not displeasing to some one, it would be necessary
to live in the presence of the continually repeated threat: "If the law
passes, if the measure is adopted, if the election 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 Confederacy." 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 Themistocles would find
here a legitimate application: "You are angry, therefore, you are
wrong."
What the result of this would be, we can imagine. No question would be
longer judged by its own merits; the despotism of bad men would be
established; expedients would take the place of principles; fear would
put justice to flight; national resolutions would be nothing more than
compromises 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. If they had once more bowed the head, all would have been lost;
the dignity, the mental liberty of America, would have suffered complete
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 separation 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 apply 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 separation better than 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; their 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 _fire-eaters_, not a person is found who has the
slightest doubt as to the impossibility of modifying, by the violent
decision of a few, the common Constitution which contains 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. Lincoln
merely expressed the general opinion when he said the other day: "The
Union is a regular marriage, not a sort of free relation which can be
maintained 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 deputies is in
proportion to the population. "Our Constitution," wrote Madison, "is
neither a centralized State nor a Federal Government, but a blending of
the two." The experience which they had had from 1776 to 1789 had taught
the different States the necessity of giving a more concentrated
character to their federation. Let us not forget that they are bound by
oath to remain 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 Confederation 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 authority of which is not contested, and which form, in some sort,
the interpreting commentary of the Constitution. In 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 seceding 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 eventual separation, whereupon the
Southern party likened all separation without consent to treason, and
this doctrine was sustained by the _Richmond Inquirer_, the organ of
Jefferson. When, afterwards, South Carolina, accustomed to the fact,
dared proclaim that act of nullification which was the prelude to a
complete renunciation of federal obligations, it was plainly signified
to her that a revolt would be suppressed by force of arms, and she
yielded on the spot. 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
proceedings. They 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 important to make
the most; so that Mr. Lincoln, on coming into office, might find himself
checked, or at least harassed, by the power of a deed accomplished.
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.
Lincoln, is really the most extraordinary document ever written by the
head of a great State; he doubtless 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 he time for action.
The Carolinians thought that they might be excused 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? The weakness of Mr. Buchanan justified 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 defend the post that had
been confided him, this unexpected 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 their commissioners, exculpates him from the crime of
having sent the reinforcements, and makes excuses in pitiful terms for
the conduct of Major Anderson, whom they ought to hear before
condemning. In fact, Anderson acted on his own responsibility, and
incurred the blame of the Minister of War, who advised in full council
the surrender of the forts.
The American Government is as timid as the seceded States are resolute.
Our generation, which has witnessed sad spectacles, has never yet,
perhaps, contemplated any more humiliating. Ministers, 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 investigation, and whose electoral manoeuvres,
duplicated 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 killing
with its veto the bill adopted by the Legislature of Nebraska to
prohibit 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 has 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 North.
Being unable to prevent every thing, he does at least what he can:
forced to send some reinforcements, 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, preliminary measures of
precaution would not have been systematically neglected; lastly, at the
first symptom 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 Federal property. Nothing is so pacific as resolution:
face to face with a strong Government, we look twice before launching
into adventures; but, with Mr. Buchanan, it was almost impossible for
the cotton States to refrain from precipitating themselves headlong into
them. The 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
unconstitutional plans would meet a prompt chastisement; to let the
neighboring States know that their sovereignty was by no means menaced,
and that they would continue to regulate their internal institutions as
they pleased; to say to all that the discussion 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 Mr. Lincoln should be elected; a special
commission was nominated, and held permanent session. In Texas, Senator
Wigfall did not fear to say, in supporting Mr. Breckenridge: "If any
other candidate is elected, look for stormy weather. There may be a
Confederation, indeed, but it will not number more than thirty-three
States." Mr. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, and Mr. Benjamin, of
Louisiana, held no less explicit language, announcing that at the first
electoral defeat of the South, it would set about forming a separate
Confederation, 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 Northern 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
arresting fugitive slaves, the power of transporting slavery over the
whole Confederation, the duty of extending indefinitely the domain of
slavery. Who paid Walker? Who continually recruited bands of adventurers
to launch on Cuba or Central America? Who prepared the well-known lists
of slave States with which the South counted on enriching itself: four
States some day to be carved out of Texas, (the South had caused this to
be authorized in advance,) three States to be created in the Island of
Cuba, an indefinite number of States to be detached one after another
from Central America and Mexico? Who clamorously demanded the
reëstablishment of the African slave trade, alone capable of peopling
this vast extent, and of lowering the excessive price of the negroes
supplied by the producing 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 disappointment,
and of the furious ardor with which it must have seized upon its last
resource, namely, secession, 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 recounting them. I content
myself with 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 enchanted with itself, and which ends by accomplishing the most
horrible deeds with a sort of conscientious rejoicing. The enthusiasm
which is displayed in proclaiming secession, or in firing on the
American flag, is displayed in freeing the captain of a slaver, a noble
martyr to the popular cause. There 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
Anderson 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 Southern Confederacy.
Nothing could be more imposing, in fact, if they had the least chance of
success. The fifteen Southern States, already immense, joined to Mexico,
Cuba, and Central America--what a power this would be! And, doubtless,
this power would not stop at the Isthmus of Panama: it would be no more
difficult to reëstablish slavery in Bolivia, on the Equator, and in
Peru, than in Mexico. Thus the "patriarchal institution" 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
expeditions would be organized on a scale hitherto unknown, and whole
squadrons of slave ships (those "floating hells") would transport their
cargoes under the Southern colors, proudly unfurled; patriotic
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 now seeks to attain by its separation. The hearts of men beat
high at the thought, and many are ready to give their lives heroically
in order to secure its realization. Alas! we are thus made; passion
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 affairs, 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 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 nomination of Jefferson Davis
as President of the Confederate States, that we are to look for the
final repudiation of those projects of which this politic man is in some
sort the living representative.
And when they are renewed, we shall see an invincible obstacle rise up
in the way of the realization of a plan so monstrous. As soon as the
African slave trade is established, the domestic slave trade will cease,
the revenues of the producing States will be suppressed, the price of
negroes will fall everywhere, and the fortunes of all the planters will
fall in like proportion. Can it be possible that they will accept the
chances of civil war, of insurrections, and of massacres, in order to
ensure to themselves the risk of ruin in case of success? Can it be
possible, 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 imagine nothing of the sort; yet I
think that I should wrong the nineteenth century if I supposed it
capable 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 advance at Charleston, and
not delude themselves as to the kind of welcome for which the Palmetto
State and its accomplices have to hope. Not only will no one recognize
their pretended independence at this time, for to recognize it would be
to tread under foot the evident rights of the United States, but they
will excite one of those moral repulsions which the least scrupulous
policy is forced to take into account. It is one thing to hold slaves;
it is another to be founded expressly to serve the cause of slavery 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 represent the
African slave trade, and the fillibustering system. In any case, the
Southern Confederacy will be so far identified with slavery, with its
progress, with the measures designed to propagate and perpetuate it here
below, that a chain and whip seem the only devices to be embroidered on
its flag.
Will this flag 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 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 inflicted 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. They fancy that they will
be treated with consideration, 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 declared 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 principle 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 offer it a
channel of exportation, 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 North 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 severity of public opinion.
I repeat that it will amount to nothing. Moreover, 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 increase of taxes, the North
counts a considerable number of agricultural States, the interests of
which are very 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 will 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 February,
have maintained the tariff of 1857. They have gone further: their
Congress has just established a new and relatively heavy tax, which must
burden the exportation of cotton. This is not commercial 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
developing according to their wishes. To be indignant 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 population!) who live by the manufacture of
cotton? Is not the wealth of Great Britain founded on cotton, 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 examining the great cotton business, and the
perils created by the present crisis. I do not know that among these
manufacturers, knowing that their interests 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 address a word of sympathy to the Southern States, and to promise
them the slightest support. It was because there was something
transcending manufacturing supplies, and even the bread of families: the
need, I am glad to state, of protesting against certain crimes. Instead
of extending a hand to the secessionists of Charleston, the English
manufacturers resolutely laid the foundation of a vast society, destined
to develop on the spot the production 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 South is a mortal blow dealt to the cotton
production, which will henceforth have the aid neither of credit nor
entrepôts, and which is advancing towards 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 regained 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
verdict 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
formally under his protection. Who 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.
If the South has taken its wishes for realities in Europe, it has
committed the same error in America. Its secession has some chance (and
what a chance!) only on condition of drawing in all the glare States
without exception; now it seems by no means probable that such a
unanimity, supposing it to be gained by surprise, could ever be
maintained successfully. The 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 dollars to two cents!
This is so clearly felt in the extreme South, that the provisional
constitution, adopted at Montgomery, is drawn up with an express view to
reassuring the producing States on this point. They are afraid of the
African 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 Confederacy. It belongs to them to ask now whether this
Montgomery constitution, adopted for a year, really guarantees any thing
to them, and whether it is possible that an attempt will not be made to
revive the African slave trade, provided the Southern 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 sustaining 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 North, they
themselves have removed the sole obstacle 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. 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 manufactures which are
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 Convention assembled at
Charleston. These seven were South Carolina, Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana; in other words, all those
States which were the first to vote for secession. 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 attaches to interests and
tendencies, which has manifested 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 among them, Tennessee, Kentucky, Delaware, Virginia, and
Maryland, at that time took an intermediate 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
hundred in Maryland, a thousand in Kentucky, and as many in Virginia.
The figures are nothing; the symptom is significant. The slave States of
this intermediate region contain in their bosom, therefore, men who do
not fear to attack the "patriarchal institution." Have we not just seen
a Republican committee acting at Baltimore, in the midst of Maryland?
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 these facts, so important and so recent, I
comprehend how it is that a Kentuckian holds the South at bay behind the
menaced walls of Fort Sumter, and how the cabinet of Mr. Lincoln has
ministers 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 future which is preparing for America. They
persist in presenting to us 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 manifestations which have taken place in
Virginia and South Carolina, we have already a right to cite
demonstrations of a different kind. Has not Missouri just decided
prudently, that, in the matter of separation, the decisions of her
legislature shall not be valid until ratified by the whole people? This
little resembles the eagerness with which States elsewhere rush into
secession. It is therefore probable that the United States will keep or
soon bring back into their bosom a considerable number of the border
States. By their side, the gulf States will attempt 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 weakening of the United States would be the result.
Suppose even that another secession, based on different motives, which
nothing foretells at present, should take place beyond the Rocky
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, California, 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 necessarily connected either with the Gulf of Mexico,
(save the indispensable outlet at New Orleans,) or the regions beyond
the great desert and the Rocky 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 through disruption. Who knows whether
instantaneous secession would not perform the mission of resolving
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 settled, 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 Confederacy 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 every where 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 recourse 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 principle of American unity is
much more solid than 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 relationship 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 hostile majority in the Senate is blotted out, the
uncertainty 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 rôle of the victorious
party will be easy; its preponderance 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 decrees. This is a vast change.
General Cass, in truth, comprehended the interests of slavery better
than Mr. Buchanan, when he demanded that the Government should arrest
with vigor from the beginning the faintest wish of separation.