PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS.
General Cass was nearer right than he himself imagined. In arresting
from the beginning the development of the plans of the South, by a
vigorous attitude, and by the blockade, then easy, of Charleston, the
Government would not only have rendered it the trifling service of
maintaining its means of opposition in Congress, but also the
inappreciable boon of averting the dangers of war. What has happened, on
the contrary? Precisely what must have happened, the human heart being
such as it is. When on one side is found all the ardor, all the
activity, all the resolution, and, into the bargain, all the apparent
success, while on the other is found languor, hesitation, inaction, and
disgraceful delays, it happens almost infallibly that the undecided are
hurried away by the fanatics.
Let the United States take care! the chances of the future incur the
risk, at this moment, of becoming more grave. To-day, the border States
are on the point of declaring themselves; to-day, in consequence, it is
important to offer to their natural irresolution the support of a policy
as firm as moderate. Given over without defence to the ardent
solicitations of the extreme South, they are only too likely to yield,
particularly if the Federal Government give them reason to believe that
the separation will encounter no serious obstacle.
We must remember that ignorant communities are here in question, who are
ruled by their prejudices, and who have never tolerated the slightest
show of discussion upon questions connected with the subject of slavery.
Such communities are capable of committing the most egregious follies;
panics, sudden resolutions, mistaken unanimities, are common among them.
Formerly, kings were pitied who lived surrounded by flatterers, it was
said (we have provided against that) that the truth never reached them;
the, planters are the only men I see to-day that can be likened to these
monarchs of olden time; neither books, nor journals, nor preachers, are
permitted to point out to them their duties or their interests in the
matter of slavery.
The slightest symptom of inertia or of feebleness in the Federal
Government at this time, will, therefore, expose the border States to
great perils, and, through them, the whole Confederation. As easy as it
would have been, with a little energy, to prevent the evil, to confine
secession within its natural limits, and to weaken the chances of civil
war, so difficult has it become, at present, to attain the same end.
Painful duties, perhaps, will be imposed on Mr. Lincoln. I wonder, in
truth, at the politicians who advise him to a "masterly inactivity,"
that is, who urge him to continue Mr. Buchanan! Doubtless he does right
to leave to the insurgents all the odium of acting on the offensive, but
his moderation should detract nothing from his firmness, and it is even
of importance that the means of action which he is about to prepare,
should manifest so clearly the overwhelming superiority of the North,
that the resistance of the South will be thereby discouraged.
Adversaries of slavery are not wanting, who are almost indignant at the
adoption of such measures by the new President. Did they fancy then that
a formidable question could be resolved without risking the repression
of the assaults of force by force? Away with childishness! In electing
Mr. Lincoln, it was known that the cotton States were ready to protest
with arms in their hands; he was not elected to receive orders from the
cotton States, or to sign the dissolution of the United States on the
first requisition. Who wills the end, wills the means. No one,
certainly, desires, more than myself, the peaceful repression of the
rebellion. May the success of the blockade render the employment of the
army useless! May the resolute attitude of the Confederation arrest the
majority of the intermediate States on the dangerous declivity upon
which they are standing! Once let them be drawn into the circle of
influence of the extreme South, and little chance will remain of
confining the civil war within the limits beyond which it is so
important that it should not spread.
Then will appear the _irrepressible conflict_ of Mr. Seward. Whether
desired or not, if the two Confederations are placed side by side, the
one representing all the slavery, the other representing all the
liberty, the conflict will take place. It will take place perhaps now,
perhaps a little later; however this may be, no one will have the power
to hinder it. Suppose the South, thus completed, relinquish (and nothing
is less certain) the opening by itself of a war in which it must perish,
and its great plans of attack, against Washington, for instance, be
abandoned; suppose the United States, on their side, avoid a direct
attack, which might give the signal for insurrections; suppose they
limit themselves to purely maritime repression of the revolt; that,
after striking off the Southern harbors from the list of seaports, and
declaring that custom-house duties cannot be legally paid there, they
maintain this blockade, which Europe ought to applaud; would they have
averted all chances of conflict? No; alas! However temporary such a
situation might be, complaints, recriminations, and, ere long, violent
reprisals, would be seen everywhere arising. Rivalries of principles,
rivalries of interests, bitter memories of past injuries, such are the
rocks on which peaceful policy would be in continual danger of
shipwreck.
We must not cherish illusions; the chances, of civil war have been
increasing for a few weeks past with fearful rapidity. If Mr. Lincoln
has confined himself scrupulously to conservative and defensive
measures, there has been, on the contrary, in the actions of the South,
a violent precipitation which has surpassed all expectancy. It is the
haste of skilful men, who attempt by a bold stroke to carry off the
advantages of a deed accomplished; it is at the same time, and chiefly,
perhaps, the haste of men who have nothing to lose, the ringleaders of
the present hour. At the end of resources, the insurgent South has
already increased its taxes inordinately; it has killed public and
private credit; it has created a disturbed revolutionary condition,
intolerable in the end, which no longer permits deliberation, or even
reflection. Will the South pause on such a road? It is difficult to hope
it. As to the North, its plan of action is very simple, and easily
maintained: suppose even that through impossibility it should give over
forcing the rebels back to their duty, who can ever imagine that it
would suffer itself to be deprived of the mouths of the Mississippi, or
that it would abandon to the rival Confederacy the capital itself of the
Union, inclosed within the slave States? Let us see things as they are:
the maintenance and development of slavery in the South will render the
abolitionist proceedings of its neighbor intolerable in its eyes; if it
has not been able to endure a contradiction accompanied with infinite
circumspection, and tempered by many prudent disclaimers, how will it
support this daily torture, a unanimous and well-founded censure, a
perpetual denunciation of the infamies which accompany and constitute
the "patriarchal institution"? The North, on its side, will be unable
to forget that, by the act of the South, without reason or pretext, the
glorious unity of the nation has been broken; that the star-spangled
banner has been rent in twain; that the commercial prosperity of America
has been shaken at the same time with its greatness. Let one of those
incidents then occur, that are constantly arising, a Southern slave ship
stopped on the high seas by the North, a negotiation of the South
threatening to introduce Europe into the affairs of the New World, and
directly hostilities will break out.
What they will be in the end, I scarcely dare imagine. If the planters
are forced, at present, to mount guard day and night, to prevent the
insurrectionary movements that are constantly ready to break out on
their estates; if many families are already sending their women and
children into safer countries; what will it be when the arrival of the
forces of the North shall announce to the slaves that the hour of
deliverance has sounded? It will be in vain to deny it; their arrival
will always signify this in the sight of the South. There are certain
facts, the popular interpretation of which ends by being the true
interpretation. I have no doubt that the generals of the United States,
before attacking the Southern Confederacy, will recommend to the
negroes to remain at peace, and will disavow and condemn acts of
violence; but what is a manifesto against the reality of things and the
necessity of situations? There is a word that I see written in large
letters everywhere in the projects of the South--yes, the word
_catastrophe_ is to be read there in every line. The first successes of
the South are a catastrophe; the greatness of the South will be a
catastrophe; and, if the South ever realize in part the iniquitous hopes
towards which it is rushing, the catastrophe will acquire unheard-of
proportions; it will be a St. Domingo carried to the tenth power.
One cannot, with impunity, give full scope to his imagination, and, in
the year of our Lord 1861, set to work to contrive the plan of a
Confederacy designed to protect and to propagate slavery. These things
will be avenged sooner or later. Ah! if the South knew how important it
is that it should not succeed, if it comprehended that the North has
been hitherto its great, its only guarantee! This is literally true; a
slave country, above all, to-day, needs to be backed up by a free
country to ensure the subsistence of an institution contrary to nature;
otherwise the first accident, the first war, gives it over to perils
that make us shudder. Thanks to their metropolises, our colonies were
able first to keep, and afterwards to enfranchise their slaves, without
succumbing to the task. But let a Southern Confederacy come, in which
the immigration of the whites will be naught, while the increase of the
blacks will be pursued in all ways, and, in case of success, the moment
will soon arrive when many States will see themselves placed, as is the
case already with South Carolina, in presence of a number of slaves
exceeding that of free men. Such a social monstrosity never existed
under the sun; even in Greece, even in Rome, even among the Mussulmans,
the total number of free men remained superior; the colonies alone,
through the effect of the slave trade, presented an inverse phenomenon,
and the colonies were consolidated with their metropolises in the same
manner that the States of the South are consolidated with those of the
North.
In this will be found, I repeat, a most important guarantee. The South
in rejecting it, and imagining itself able alone to maintain a situation
which will become graver day by day, deludes itself most strangely. At
the hour of peril, when servile insurrection perhaps shall ravage its
territory, it will be astonished to find itself left alone in the
presence of its enemy.
And this enemy is not one that can be conquered once for all. Even
after the victory, even in times of peace, the threat of servile
insurrection will ever remain suspended over the head of the Southern
Confederacy; it will be necessary always to watch, always to be on the
guard, always to repress, and, to tell the truth, always to tremble. The
planters, whether they know it or not, are not preparing to sleep on a
bed of roses. To labor to accomplish an iniquitous work amidst the
maledictions of the universe, to increase their estates and their slaves
under penalty of death, and to feel instinctively that they will die for
having increased them, to tremble because of European hostility, to
tremble because of American hostility, to tremble because of hostility
from without and within--what a life! That one might accept it in the
service of a noble cause, I can comprehend; but the cause of the South!
In truth, this would be taking great pains for small wages.
The South inspires me with profound compassion. We have told it, much
too often, that its Confederacy was easy to found. To found, yes; to
make lasting, no. Here, it is not the first step that costs--it is the
second, it is the third. The Southern Confederacy is not viable. Let us
suppose that, to its misfortune, it has succeeded in all that it has
just undertaken: Charleston is free, the border States are drawn in,
there is a new federal compact and a new President, the Northern States
have of necessity abandoned the suppression of the insurrection by
force, Europe has surmounted its repugnance and received the envoys of
the great Slave republic. All questions seem resolved; but no, not a
single one has attained its solution.
The policy of the South must have its application. Its first article,
whether it declares it or not, exacts conquests, the absorption of
Mexico, for example. The fillibusters of Walker are still ready to set
out, and the first moment past, when the question is to appear discreet,
it is scarcely probable that they will meet with much restraint, now
that the prudence of the North is no longer at hand to counterbalance
the passions of Slavery.
Admit that this enterprise bring no difficult complications. For these
new territories, the question will be to procure negroes. The second
article of the Southern policy will find then _nolens volens,_ its
inevitable application: the African slave trade will be re-established.
The richest planter of Georgia, Mr. Goulden, has taken care to set forth
its necessity; mark the language which he held lately: "You have hardly
negroes enough for the existing States; obtain the opening of the slave
trade, then you can undertake to increase the number of slave States."
Will the official re-opening of the slave trade be some day effected
without bringing on a storm which will destroy the new Confederacy? I
cannot say. In any case, I know one thing: that the value of the slaves,
and consequently that of Southern property, will experience a decline
greatly exceeding that by which it is now threatened, as it is said, by
the abolition tendencies of the North. Already, through the mere fact of
secession, the price of negroes has diminished one-half; and more than
one intelligent planter foresees the time when this price shall have
diminished three-fourths, perhaps nine-tenths. Southern fortunes are
falling off, therefore, with extreme rapidity, and this arises not only
from the anticipated effects of the slave trade, but also from the
certainty of being unable henceforth to put a stop to the escape of the
slaves. These escapes, taken all in all, remained insignificant, so long
as the Union was maintained; there are not more than fifty thousand free
negroes in Canada. But henceforth the Southern Confederacy will have a
Canada everywhere on its frontiers. How retain that slavery that will
escape simultaneously on the North, and the South? The Southern republic
will be as it were the common enemy, and no one assuredly will aid it to
keep its slaves.
It must not be believed, moreover, that it will succeed long in
preserving itself from intestine divisions--divisions among the whites.
If, at the first moment, when every thing is easy, unanimity is far from
appearing as complete as had been foretold, it will, later, be much
worse. We shall then perceive how prophetic, if I may dare say so, were
the often-quoted words of Washington's farewell address: "It is
necessary that you should accustom yourselves to regard the Union as the
palladium of your happiness and your security; that you should watch
over it with a jealous eye; that you should impose silence on any who
shall ever dare counsel you to renounce it; that you should give vent to
all your indignation on the first effort that shall be attempted to
detach from the whole any part of the Confederation."
A very different voice, that of Jefferson, spoke the same language. A
Southern man, addressing himself to the South, which talked already of
seceding he described in thrilling words the inevitable consequences of
such an act: "If, to rid ourselves of the present supremacy of
Massachusetts and Connecticut, we were to break up the Union, would the
trouble stop there?... We should soon see a Pennsylvanian party and a
Virginian party forming, in what remained of the Confederation, and the
same party spirit would agitate public opinion. By what new weapons
would these parties be armed, if they had power to threaten each other
continually with joining their Northern neighbors, in case things did
not go on in such or such a manner! If we were to reduce our Union to
North Carolina and Virginia, the conflict would break out again directly
between the representatives of these two States; we should end by being
reduced to simple unities."
Is not this the anticipated history of what is about to happen in the
Southern Confederacy, supposing it to succeed in uniting with a part of
the border States? The opening programme will last as long as programmes
usually do. When the true plan of the South, veiled for a moment, shall
reappear, (and it must indeed reappear, unless it perishes before it has
begun to exist;) when the question shall be to increase and be peopled,
to make conquests and to reëstablish the African slave trade; when the
serious purpose, in a word, shall have replaced the purpose of
circumstance, what will take place between the border States and the
cotton States? The profound distinction which exists between them will
then manifest itself, even if it does not break forth before. A new
South and a new North will be formed, as hostile perhaps as the old, and
less forgiving towards each other of their mutual faults, inasmuch as
they will be embittered by misfortune. Nothing divides people like a bad
cause that turns out badly. They think themselves united, they call
themselves united, until the moment when they discover that they have
neither the same end nor the same mind. I do not see why the victory of
Mr. Lincoln will have transformed the South, and suppressed the
divergencies which separated it into two groups: that of the Gulf States
voting for Mr. Breckenridge, that of the border States voting for Mr.
Douglas or Mr. Bell, and even casting ballots for Mr. Lincoln.
Not only will the Gulf States, the only true secessionists, never act in
concert with the border States, but they will not be long in seeing
parties spring up in their own bosom, which will be little disposed to
come to terms. A sort of feudal question, as is well known, is near
obtaining a position in the South; the _poor whites_ there are two or
three times as numerous as the planters. The struggle of classes may,
therefore, break out as soon as the effected secession shall have
banished to the second rank the struggle against the adversaries of
slavery.
The impoverishment of the South will not aid in calming its intestine
quarrels. European immigration, already so meagre in the slave States,
(Charleston is the only large American city whose population has
decreased, according to the last census,) European immigration, I say,
will evidently diminish still more when the South shall have taken an
independent and hostile position opposite the Northern States. Who will
go then to expose himself lightly to the fearful chances which the first
war with any country, American or European, may bring in its train? And
credit will go the same way as immigration: to lend money to planters,
whose entire property is continually menaced with destruction, is one of
those hazardous operations from which commerce is accustomed to recoil.
Deprived of the capital furnished it by New York, obtaining only with
great difficulty a few onerous and precarious advances in Europe, the
South will see itself smitten at once in all its means of production;
and, after the harvest of 1860, which secures our supplies for a year,
after that of 1861, which it will succeed, probably, in gathering, but
which it will be more difficult to sell, it is not easy to divine how it
will set to work to continue its crops. While the South produces less
cotton, and we lose the habit of buying of it, the cotton culture will
become acclimated elsewhere; the future will thus be destroyed like the
present; final ruin will approach with hasty strides.
They tell us of a loan that the new Confederacy designs to contract!
Unless it be transformed into a forced loan, I have little faith in its
chance. They add that it will be only necessary to establish on exported
cotton a duty of a few cents per pound, and the coffers of the South
will be filled. But, in the first place, to export cotton, they must
produce it--they must have money; it is almost impossible that the State
should be rich when all its citizens are in distress; then the
exportation itself will be exposed to some difficulties if the United
States organize a blockade. And I say nothing of the bad effect that
will be produced by this tax _à la Turque_--this tax on exportation in
the very midst of plans of commercial freedom. Neither do I speak of the
effect which this extra charge, which is termed trifling, but which is,
in fact, considerable, will have on the sale of American cotton,
already so defective, when compared with the average price of other
cottons.
Poor country, which blind passion, and, above all, indomitable pride,
precipitates into the path of crime and misery! Poor, excommunicated
nation, whose touch will be dreaded, whose flag will be suspected, whose
continually increasing humiliations will not even be compensated by a
few meagre profits! The heart is oppressed at the thought of the clear,
certain, inevitable future, which awaits so many men, less guilty than
erring. Between them and the rest of the world there will be nothing
longer in common; they will establish on their frontier a police over
books and journals, essaying to prevent the fatal introduction of an
idea of liberty: the rest of the world will have for them neither
political sympathies, nor moral sympathies, nor religious sympathies.
Will they at least have the consolation of having killed the United
States? Will a glorious confederation have perished by their retreat?
No, a thousand times no. Even though they should succeed in drawing the
border States into the Southern Confederacy, the United States, thank
God! will keep their rank among nations. Where will the United States
be after secession? Where they were before; for a long time the
gravitation of their power has been tending towards the Northwest. The
true America is there, that of ancient traditions, and that of present
reality. If any serious fears might have been conceived as to its
duration, they disappeared on the day of the election of Mr. Lincoln. On
that day, we all learned that the United States would subsist, and that
their malady was not mortal.
Great news was this! Did you ever ask yourself how much would be missing
here on earth if such a people should disappear? It lives and it will
live. Look at the calm and confident air of the North, and compare it
with the noisy violence of the South. The North is so sure of itself
that it does not deign either to become angered, or to hasten; it even
carries this last to extremes. It has the air of knowing that, in spite
of the apparent successes which may mark the first efforts of the South,
the final success must be elsewhere. Let the South take care! to have
against it both right and might is twice as much as is needed to be
beaten. The North supported Mr. Buchanan because it was awaiting Mr.
Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln came, the North still has patience, but will end
by falling into line, and the serious struggle will begin, in case of
need.
The final issue of this struggle can scarcely be doubtful. On one side,
I see a confederacy divided, impoverished, bending under the weight of a
crushing social problem, seeing constantly on its horizon the menace of
insurrections and of massacres, unable either to negotiate, or to draw
the sword, or to resolve any of the difficulties from without, without
thinking of the still more formidable difficulties from within; on the
other side, I see the United States, masters of themselves, unanimous,
knowing what they want, and placing at the service of a noble cause, a
power which is continually increasing.
The match will not be equal. I cannot help believing, therefore, that
the triumph of the North will be even much more complete than we imagine
to-day. I do not know what is to happen, but this I know: the North is
more populous, richer, more united; European immigration goes only to
the North, European capital goes only to the North. Of what elements is
the population of the South composed? The first six States that
proclaimed their separation number exactly as many slaves as freemen.
What a position! Is it probable indeed that this confederation contrary
to nature, in which each white will be charged with guarding a black,
can afford a long career? The South, divided, weakened, bearing in its
side the continually bleeding wound of slavery, reduced to choose in the
end between the direful plans which must destroy after having dishonored
it, and the Union which consolidates its interests while thwarting its
passions--is it possible that the South will not return to the Union?
Something tells me that if the Union be dissolved, it will be formed
again. A lasting separation is more difficult than is imagined. Face to
face with Europe, face to face with the United States, the great
republic of the South would find it too difficult to live. To live at
peace is impossible; to live without peace is not to be thought of. The
great Southern republic must perish surely by its failure, and still
more surely by its success, for this monstrous success will draw down
its destruction. There is in America a necessity, as it were, of union.
Unity is at the foundation, diversity is only on the surface; unity is
bound up with the national life itself, with race, origin, belief,
common destiny, a like degree of civilization, in a word, with profound
and permanent causes; diversity proceeds from the accidents of
institutions.
Looking only at the province of interests, is it easy to imagine an
irremediable rupture between New York and Charleston, between the valley
of the Mississippi and New Orleans? What would the valley of the
Mississippi be without New Orleans, and New Orleans, isolated from the
vast country of which it is the natural market? Can you fancy New York
renouncing half her commerce, ceasing to be the broker of cotton, the
necessary medium between the South and Europe? Can you fancy the South
deprived of the intervention and credit which New York assures her? The
dependence of the North and the South is reciprocal; if the South
produces the cotton, it is the North which furnishes the advances, then
purchases on its own account or on commission, and expedites the traffic
with Europe. In the United States, every part has need of the whole;
agricultural States, manufacturing States, commercial States, they form
together one of the most homogeneous countries of which I know. I should
be surprised if such a country were destined to become forever
dismembered, and that, too, at an epoch less favorable to the
dismemberment of great nations than to the absorption of small ones.
Shall I say all that I think? When Anglo-Saxons are in question, we
Latins are apt to deceive ourselves terribly; one would not risk much,
perhaps, in supposing that events would take place precisely in the
reverse of our hypothesis. We have loudly predicted in Europe the end of
the United States, the birth and progress of a rival Confederacy, an
irremediable separation: is not this a reason for supposing that there
will be ultimately neither a prolonged separation, nor a rival
Confederacy worthy of consideration? Free countries, especially those of
the English race, have a habit of which we know little: their words are
exceedingly violent, and their actions exceedingly circumspect. They
make a great noise: one would say that every thing was going to
destruction; but it is prudent to look at them more closely, for these
countries of discussion are also countries of compromise, the victors
are accustomed to terminate political crises by yielding something of
their victory; in appearance, it is true, rather than in reality. Fully
decided at heart, they consent willingly to appear less positive in
form.
Here, I know that the extreme violence of the South renders a compromise
very difficult, at least a present compromise. As it is accustomed to
rule, and will be content with no less, as it knows that the North,
decidedly emancipated, will not replace its head beneath the yoke, it
seems resolved to incur all risks rather than renounce its fixed idea.
For two months, the probabilities of compromise have been becoming
constantly weaker. But if we have scarcely a right to count on them now,
so far as the Gulf States are concerned, we must remember that the
border States are at hand, that they are hesitating between the North
and the South, and that certain concessions may be made to them, to
prevent their separation.
Such is the true character of the discussions relating to compromise.
Confined to these limits, they nevertheless possess a vast interest, for
the party which the border States are about to choose, and that to which
they will perhaps attach themselves afterwards, will have a great
influence over the general course of the crisis. The point in question
is no longer, doubtless, to retain Virginia, whose well-known passions
impel her to the side of Charleston, but to induce the other States to
take an attitude in conformity with their interests and their duties. It
will not, therefore, be useless to give an account of the disposition
that prevails among many Americans with respect to compromise.
What was produced by that Peace Conference, convoked with so much noise
by Virginia, the ancient political State, the country of Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe? Nothing worth the trouble of mentioning.
A considerable number of States refused to be present at this
conference, which, had it been general, would have become transformed
into a convention, and have annulled Congress, in point of fact, then in
session in the same city? Its plan, accepted with great difficulty by a
factitious majority, never appeared to have much chance of adoption. The
point in question, above all, was to decide that, below a fixed
latitude, the majority of the inhabitants of a Territory could not
prohibit the introduction of slavery, (disguised, it is true, under the
euphuistic expression, "involuntary servitude;") this measure was to be
declared irrevocable, unless by the unanimous consent of the States.
Despite the support of Mr. Buchanan, and that of the higher branches of
trade in New York, seconded, as usual, by some fashionable circles of
Boston, the almost unanimous public opinion of the North forbade all
belief in the success of such an amendment to the Constitution, which,
in accordance with the Constitution itself, could be adopted only on
condition of uniting two-thirds of the votes of Congress to the
affirmative votes of three-fourths of the States composing the
Confederation.
Another project was put forward: all the members of Congress were to
tender their resignation, and the new elections were to manifest the
definitive will of the country on the question of slavery. That is, from
the intense excitement of the country, were to be demanded some final
elements of reaction, some means of disavowing the election of Mr.
Lincoln. In either case, it would have been thus proved by an
exceptional act that an election which is not ratified by the South may
rightfully demand extraordinary measures. Now, there is nothing but what
is customary, simple, and right, in the conduct of the North; it knows
it, and will not, I think, permit such an advantage to be gained over
it. To allow talking, to allow propositions, and to go its own way, this
is the programme to which it is bound to remain faithful. What makes its
honor makes also its strength: this is the privilege of good causes.
The North has not to seek bases for a compromise. They are all laid
down, and I dare affirm, whatever may happen, that to these bases,
constantly the same, it will not fail to return, provided, at least,
that the era of compromises shall not be closed, and that the South
shall not have succeeded in imposing on the North a decidedly abolition
policy. To speak truly, it has but one declaration to make: to proclaim
anew the constitutional law, by virtue of which each State sovereignly
decides its own affairs, and consequently excludes all interference of
Congress in the matter of slavery. Perhaps, alas! it will join, if need
be, to this declaration, which it has never refused, the promise to
respect to the utmost of its power, the principle of the restitution of
fugitive slaves, which, unhappily, is also based upon the Constitution.
But, on this point, promises are worth what they will fetch, for
doubtless no one will imagine that it is easier to constrain the free
States to accomplish an odious deed which is revolting to their
conscience since they have verified their strength by electing Mr.
Lincoln. Lastly, upon the ruling question, that of the Territories, the
theory of the North evinces justice and clearness; between the ultra
abolitionists, who wish Congress to interfere to close by force all the
Territories to slavery, and the South, which wishes Congress to
interfere to open by force all the Territories to slavery, it adopts
this middle position: all the inhabitants of the Territories shall open
or close them to slavery, according to their will. It is the right of
the majority, recognized there as elsewhere.
I am not ignorant that Mr. Seward has gone much farther in the path of
concession, and it is not absolutely impossible that these counsels of
weakness may prevail. We must be prepared for any thing in this respect.
Nevertheless, the President has by no means continued the imprudent
words of his future prime minister. The language of Mr. Lincoln was
remarkably clear in his inaugural speech, to go no further back,
indicating on the spot the true, the great concession which, till new
orders, may be made to the South: "Those who elected me placed in the
platform presented for my acceptance, as a law for them and for me, the
clear and explicit resolution which I am about to read to you: 'The
maintenance intact of the right of the States, and especially of the
right which each State possesses to regulate and exclusively control its
institutions according to its own views, is essential to that balance of
power, on which depend the perfection and duration of our political
structure; and we denounce the invasion in contempt of the law by an
armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, upon whatever pretext
it may be, as the greatest of crimes.'" Mr. Lincoln adds further:
"Congress has adopted an amendment to the Constitution, which, however,
I have not seen, the purpose of which is to provide that the Federal
Government shall never interfere in the domestic institutions of the
States, including those which relate to persons held in service. In
order to avoid all misunderstanding concerning what I have said, I
depart from my intention of not speaking of any amendment in particular,
to say that, considering this clause henceforth as a constitutional law,
I have no objection that it be rendered explicit and irrevocable."
Concerning fugitive slaves, the inaugural discourse cites the text of
the federal Constitution, which decides the question for the present;
but he does not ignore the fact that this constitutional decision is as
well executed as it can be, "the moral sense of the people lending only
an imperfect support to the law."
As to the Territories, Mr. Lincoln declares clearly that the minority
must submit to the majority, under penalty of falling into complete
anarchy. Neither does he hesitate on the subject of the decisions of the
Supreme Court; these decrees, in his eyes, are merely special decisions
rendered in particular cases, and detracting nothing from the right
which the Confederation possesses to regulate its institutions and its
policy.
All this is very firm, without being provoking. The limit of
concessions is marked out, and a conciliatory spirit is maintained. It
is above all in disclosing his line of conduct towards the rebellious
States, that Mr. Lincoln happily resolves the problem of abandoning none
of the rights of the Confederation, while manifesting the most pacific
disposition, and leaving to others the odium of aggression. His doctrine
on this point may be summed up in this wise: in the first place, the
separation is unconstitutional, it should be, it will be combated,
nothing on earth can bring the President to accede to the destruction of
the Union; in the second place, he will not be the aggressor, he will
endeavor to shun a war which exposes the South to fearful perils; in the
third place, he will fulfill the duty of preserving federal property and
collecting federal taxes in the South. In other terms, he will employ
the means which should have been employed on the first day, and which
would have then been more efficacious. He will attempt the establishment
of a maritime blockade, in order to reduce the rebellion of the whites
without provoking the insurrection of the negroes. Already, the vessels
of war have been recalled from distant stations. Alas! I have little
hope that the precautions dictated to Mr. Lincoln by prudence and
humanity will bear their fruits. The South raises an army and is about
to attack Fort Sumter, knowing that it will thus expose itself to a
formidable retribution. Mr. Lincoln, in fact, has not left it in
ignorance of this: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-citizens, in
yours and not mine, is found the terrible question of civil war. The
Government will not attack you; you will have no conflict, if you are
not the aggressors. You have not, on your part, an oath registered in
heaven to destroy the Government; whilst I, on my side, am about to take
the most solemn oath to maintain, to protect and defend it."
Such is the respective position. Men will agitate, are agitating
already, about the new President, to take away from his thoughts and
designs this resolute character which makes their force. They attempt to
demonstrate to him, not only that Fort Sumter, so easy to revictual
under Mr. Buchanan, has now become inaccessible to aid, and that no
other course remains than to authorize its surrender; but that Fort
Pickens itself should be surrendered to the South, in order to reserve
every chance of reconciliation and in no degree to assume the
responsibility of civil war! I hope that Mr. Lincoln will know how to
resist these enfeebling influences. After having demonstrated to him
that it is necessary to deliver up the forts, they will demonstrate to
him that it is necessary to renounce the blockade, which is not tenable
without the forts; then, who knows? they will demonstrate to him finally
that it is necessary to sign some disgraceful compromise, and submit
almost to the law of the rebels.
Once more, it is prudent to foresee every thing, and it is for this that
I mention such things. I count, moreover, on their not being realized.
In electing Mr. Lincoln, the United States decided thus: Slavery will
make no more conquests. What they have decided, they will ultimately
maintain, even though they should have the air of abandoning it. They
have respected and they will respect the sovereignty of the States; upon
this point they will give all the guarantees that may be desired, and
Congress, we have seen, has already voted an amendment to the
Constitution, designed to offer this basis of compromise. But they will
go no further than this; the North must feel that, of all ways of
terminating the present crisis, the most fatal would be the disavowal of
principles and the desertion of the flag.
The compromises that promise any thing more than respect for the
sovereignty of the States in the matter of slavery, promise more than
they could perform; every one feels this, in the South as in the North.
The policy of the South forms a whole of which nothing subsists if any
thing be retrenched, and above all if the complicity of the Government
ceases to be assured to it. On the day that the South accepts any
compromise whatever, it will have renounced, not the maintenance
doubtless, but the propagation of slavery; it will have renounced its
rule. Compromises, (there will be such, perhaps, let us swear to
nothing; before or after the war, with the entire South, or with a part
of it,) compromises will be signed henceforth without any delusion. The
South knows, marvellously well, that these compromises will bear little
resemblance to those signed in former times. Those marked, by their
constantly increasing pretension, the upward march of the South; these
will mark the phases of its decline. How many changes which can never be
retraced! No more conquests to promote slavery, no more reopening of the
African slave trade, no more impunity secured to those numerous
slave-ships which daily, to the knowledge and in the sight of all, for
years past, have quitted the ports of the Confederation; no more chance
of equalling, by the creation and population of new States, the rapid
development of the North; henceforth the question is ended, the South
must be resigned to it: the majority of the free States will become such
that it can be contested neither in the House of Representatives, nor in
the Senate, nor in the presidential election; the supremacy resides at
the North, the programme of the South is rent in a thousand pieces.
Against this, all the compromises in the world can do nothing. If Mr.
Lincoln is the first President opposed to slavery, Mr. Buchanan is the
last President favorable to slavery; the American policy is henceforth
fixed. Reflect, in fact, on what these four years of government will
produce. The result is so enormous, that, unhappily, one might be
tempted to say at Washington: "We will do all that is wished, provided
we preserve the handling of affairs."
The power of a President is doubtless inconsiderable, but his advent is
that of a party. This party is about to renew all administrations, great
and small; the same majority which has elected him will modify before
long the tendencies of the courts; in fine, the general affairs of the
Union will be managed in a new spirit. It was advancing in one
direction, it is about to move in the opposite. Mr. Lincoln is not one
to shut his eyes on filibustering attempts to strive to take Cuba for
the slavery party, to permit States to be carved out of Mexico, and
others to be made ready by subdividing Texas. The process which is about
to be accomplished reminds me of the measures taken to combat a vast
conflagration: the first thing done is to circumscribe its locality.
At the end of the four years of Mr. Lincoln's administration, the flames
which threatened to devour the Union will be completely hemmed in.
Considering the United States as a whole, and independently of the
incidents of separation, we are justified in believing that the
respective number of free and of slave States will leave no chance for
the ulterior extension of a great scourge. Do we delude ourselves by
thinking that the progress already begun in the border States will have
been accelerated in its course, and that many of them will have freely
passed over to the side of liberty? Is it certain, moreover, that the
hesitation of some of the churches will have ceased, and that the
influence of the Gospel, so decisive in America, will have finally
placed itself entire at the service of the good cause?
Let there be a compromise or not, let the great secession of the South
be prevented or not, let civil war break forth or not, let it give or
not give to the South the fleeting eclat of first successes, one fact
remains settled henceforth: the United States were tottering on their
base, they have regained their equilibrium; the deadly perils which they
lately incurred from the plans of conquest of the South and the
indefinite extension of slavery, are at length conjured down; they have
no longer to ask whether, some day, the South having grown beyond
measure, secession must not be effected by the North, leaving in the
hands of the slaveholders the glorious name and the starry banner of the
Union.
I think that I have gone over the whole series of hypotheses which offer
any probability. I have been careful to adopt none of them, for I make
no pretension, thank God, to read the future. It would be puerile to
prognosticate what will happen, and not less puerile, perhaps, to
describe it from what has happened. In the face of the accidents in
different directions which are attracting public attention and filling
the columns of newspapers, I have attempted to make a distinction
between what may happen and what must endure. The lasting consequences
of the present crisis are what I proposed to investigate faithfully. The
reader knows what are my conclusions. It may be that it will end in the
adoption of some blamable compromise; but whatever may be inscribed in
it, the election of Mr. Lincoln has just written in the margin a note
that will annul the text. The time for certain concessions is past, and
the South has no more doubts of it than the North. It may be that the
slave States will succeed in founding their deplorable Confederacy, but
it is impossible that they should succeed in making it live; they will
perceive that it is easier to adopt a compact or to elect a President,
than to create, in truth, in the face of the nineteenth century, the
nationality of slavery.
I have, therefore, the right to affirm that, whatever may be the
appearances and incidents of the moment, one fact has been accomplished
and will subsist: the United States were perishing, and are saved. Yes,
whatever may be the hypothesis on which we pause, three new and decisive
facts appear to our eyes: we know that the North henceforth has the
mastery; we know that the perils which threaten the Union came from the
South and not from the North; we know that the days of the "patriarchal
institution" are numbered. Beneath these three facts, it is not
difficult to perceive the uprising of a great people.
The victory of the North, the consciousness which it has of its
strength and of its fixed resolution, whatever may be the appearances to
the contrary, to circumscribe an evil which was ready to overflow on
every side, is the first fact; there is no need to return to it.
As to the second, Carolina and Georgia have charged themselves with
bringing it to light. They have proved by their acts that abolitionism
had been calumniated in accusing it of menacing the unity of the United
States. The secessionist passions have shown themselves in the other
camp; there, upon the mere news of a regular election, have been
sacrificed unhesitatingly the greatness, and, it would seem, the very
existence of the country. The proclamations from Charleston, and the
shots fired on the Federal flag, have apprised us of what intelligent
observers suspected already: that the States for which slavery had
become a passion and almost a mission, must some day experience the need
of procuring to such a cause the security of isolation.
And in acting in this wise, these States, strange to say, have
themselves stated the problem of abolition. No one thought of it, it may
be said; every one respected the constitutional limits of their
sovereignty. They would not have it thus; they carried the question
into the territory of Federal right and Federal relations; they
exclaimed: "Secure the extension of slavery, and perish the United
States!" If the United States had perished, there would not have been
maledictions deep enough for those who had committed such a crime. The
United States will not perish; but they will long remember with
gratitude what they owe to the secessionists of 1860. When the hour of
emancipation shall have struck, and it will strike some day, the
secessionists of 1860 will not probably speak of their rights to
indemnity; they have just given a quittance of it in cannon balls.
The third fact remains: Is it true that, in all the hypotheses, the
cause of the negroes has just realized such progress that the ultimate
issue of the contention can no longer be doubtful? This is most obvious.
Let there be separation or not, slavery has just entered upon the road
which leads to abolition, more or less rapid, but infallible. If there
be no separation, this immense progress will he effected with more
wisdom and slowness; violent means will be averted, the benevolent
influence of the Gospel will pave the way for progressive and peaceful
transformation by preaching, to the slaves as to the masters, more of
their duties than of their rights. If there be separation, emancipation
will be accomplished much more quickly and more calamitously. Servile
war will break out; ultra abolitionism, to which hitherto the prudence
of the North has refused all real credit, will be no longer restrained
by the prudence of a people desirous of shunning bloody catastrophes;
sustained by the increasing animosity which will inflame the two
Confederacies against each other, it will find means of introducing into
the South appeals to revolt, and will multiply expeditions like that of
John Brown.
But let us leave these generalities, and examine nearer by, from the
stand-point of emancipation, the four or five hypotheses which we have
signalled out most plainly, and between which seem to lie the chances of
the future.
I shall examine first of all the one whose realization is evidently
pursued by the able men of the extreme South. The question is, after
having speedily gained over the North, thanks to Mr. Buchanan, to arrive
as quickly as possible at something which shall have the appearance and
authority of a fact accomplished. Audacity, and again audacity; upon
this point, the politic and the violent meet in unison to-day. It has
seceded, it has invaded the Federal property, it has trumped up a
government, it has given itself a President, it is about to have an
army, it is already attempting to represent itself officially at the
courts of the great powers.
By the side of audacity, prudence has played its part. It has taken good
care not to unfurl its flag, it has made itself small, modest, moderate,
as much so, at least, as the passions of the mob would permit; it asked
nothing, in truth, but to live honestly in a corner of the globe. Who
speaks, then, of conquests? Who would wish to re-establish the African
slave trade on a large scale? Far from being retrogrades, the men of the
South are champions of progress; witness their programme of commercial
freedom! Are there no honest men to be found in the North, to restrain
Mr. Lincoln, and to prevent him from oppressing them? Are there no
governments in Europe that can interpose, and recommend the maintenance
of peace? Is not this peace, which prevents the insurrections of
negroes, and the destruction of cotton, for the interest of all? Why
should there not be two Confederacies, living side by side, as good
friends?
It is evident that the able party tend to this, and that the violent
have allowed them to give, for the common interest, this subdued tone to
the insurrectionary movement. The able party know too well what a
prolonged war would be to desire it. They prepare for it in the hope, if
not to avoid it entirely, at least to prevent its duration, and to
obtain at once, in behalf of Southern secession, that species of
security which is conferred in our times by the deed accomplished.
Perhaps the United States, yielding to a sentiment which certainly has
something honourable in it, will allow the Confederacy of the Gulf
States to subsist, rather than crush it, which would be but too easy, by
bringing upon it a war which would be accompanied by slave
insurrections. Let us not be in haste to blame such a course; let us
remember that the whole world is prompting in this direction, that all
the counsels given to Mr. Lincoln, in the Old World as in the New, begin
invariably with the words: "Strive to avoid civil war;" let us remember
also that, to solve the American problem, much more time will be needed
than we imagine in Europe; let us endeavor to put ourselves in the place
of those who see things as they are, and who find themselves in a
struggle with the difficulties.
Patience will doubtless have here its great inconveniencies; the
Confederacy of the cotton States, if combated without vigor, will seem
the living proof of the right of separation; it will be an asylum all
prepared, in which the discontented border States can take refuge at
need. Nevertheless the question is to tolerate this Confederacy, but by
no means to recognize the legitimacy of the act which gave it birth; the
question is to make use of a generous forbearance, to which new threats
of secession will necessarily put an end. Then, is it nothing to
manifest a spirit of peace fitted to touch the most prejudiced, to bind
the majority of the border States to the destinies of the Union, to give
evidence of the distinction which exists between them and the extreme
South, to force them, in fine, to declare themselves? If they surmount
the present temptation, (and they will never encounter a stronger one,)
if they consent to sacrifice their immediate interests, and to renounce
the traffic in slaves, which is in danger of ceasing from day to day in
case they do not join the "Confederate States;" is such a resolution
nothing? does it contain no guarantees for the future? We do not set
foot in the right path with impunity; honorable resolves always carry us
further, thank God! than we counted on going. Suppose even that the
border States which refuse to unite with the South design to impose on
the North certain vexatious conditions, they will be none the less
turned from their former alliances, they will have none the less begun
to move in a new direction. We should do wrong if we did not recognize
how honorable is the conduct of several among them; in watching over
their legislatures, in enacting that the vote of secession shall be
submitted to the ratification of the whole people, certain frontier
States seem to have already shown themselves resolved to foil the
intrigues at Charleston.
The cause of emancipation takes, therefore, a very important step in
advance, in the hypothesis of a Southern Confederacy reduced, or nearly
so, to the Gulf States alone. Limited secession is perhaps of all
combinations, the one most favorable to the suppression of slavery.
Picture to yourself, in fact, what this Southern Confederacy will he. It
will be an impossible, short-lived republic, the separation of which
will one day cease, and which, meanwhile, will be incapable of realizing
any of its favorite projects. From the first hour, the extreme South
found itself brought to face a dilemma: either to draw in all the slave
States, and then to await the moment favorable to the execution of its
grandiloquent plans, to hasten towards its destiny, its ideal, to
conquer territories, to people them with negroes, and to perish through
the accomplishment of an impious work; or, to remain alone and undertake
nothing, and still perish, but this time through impotence to exist.
What is to be done when there is only the miserable Confederacy of some
thousand whites, the owners and keepers of some hundred thousand blacks?
Make conquests? They dare not. Open the slave trade? It would draw down
destruction upon them.
Now, mark that, in the bosom of a Confederacy morally isolated from the
entire world, receiving aid neither from immigrants nor capital,
deprived, in a large part at least, of the fresh supply of negroes which
it formerly drew from the North, unable even to incur the risk of
imitating Spain, which buys _free_ negroes from the slave-hunters of the
African continent, not in a condition to stop the escapes which will
take place on all her frontiers, the question of slavery will proceed
necessarily towards its solution. The extreme South, strange to say,
will find itself placed providentially as an obstacle between the United
States and the countries of which it lately meditated the acquisition.
The United States will have the advantage of being unable even to think
of Cuba, or Central America, or Mexico; they will be delivered for a
time from these baleful temptations, and from the States in which they
met the warmest support. And, during this time, the extreme South will
be forced, in some sort, to look at the problem of slavery under an
aspect before unknown to it.
Later will come the shock, the postponed but inevitable conflict.
Blockaded at the South, blockaded at the North, blockaded on the African
side, undermined and torn by its intestine divisions, the extreme South
will have to face, at one time or another, the irresistible power of the
United States. Does any one imagine by chance that the latter will
forever relinquish New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico? The more they
become elevated and strengthened, the more they will be led, say rather,
forced, to absorb again the portions of their former domain which have
attempted to exist without them.
From this time, the discussion relative to slavery will assume in the
United States a simple and decided bearing. The extreme South, in
quitting them, will have given them every facility; it will have endowed
them with political homogeneousness and liberal majorities. By the mere
effect of the departure of the senators and representatives of the
extreme South, the party opposed to slavery will have acquired, at the
outset, the numerical majority which it lacked in Congress; it will be
in a position to ensure the passage of its bills, to form its
administration, to constitute by degrees courts in every respect
favorable to its principles. Next, the border States who shall not have
followed the fortunes of the extreme South will find themselves bound to
those of the North, associated with its interests, open to its ideas;
and it is a fixed fact that several will not be long in completing the
work of liberty already begun among them, and thus becoming, with their
rich and extensive Territories, of the number of those fortunate States
in which the suppression of slavery gives the signal for the fruitful
invasion of immigrants, for agricultural progress, for wealth, and for
credit. In this manner the "patriarchal institution" will disappear
peaceably from the intermediate region, while it will be threatened by
more terrible shocks in the tropical region.
This is a chance which is common to limited and to total secession, but
which is still more unavoidable in the last. Face to face with the
miserable Confederacy of the extreme South, the United States can afford
to be patient; face to face with the Confederacy comprising all the
slave States, (or, which means the same, face to face with two distinct
Confederacies, comprising, the one the cotton States, the other the
border States, yet united against the North through an old instinct of
complicity,) the attitude of the United States, as every one foresees,
will inevitably be more hostile. Total secession itself can be born only
from a sentiment of declared hostility; it amounts to a declaration of
war. Suppose that Mr. Lincoln rejects the advice of those of his cabinet
who would incline to accept the fact of separation; suppose that, while
treating the South with gentleness, and striving to spare it the horrors
of an armed strife, he persists in protecting the rights of the
Confederation, and securing to it, by a maritime blockade, the
collection of taxes; suppose that the blockade is organized from South
Carolina to the Rio Grande, supported by Forts Pickens, Jefferson, and
Taylor, which will have been revictualled at all costs after the forced
evacuation of Fort Sumter; suppose that, in this manner, watch is kept
over the ports of Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans, may it
not happen that the insurrectional government at Montgomery will decide
to effect a march on Washington? Is it not probable that North Carolina,
Virginia, and Maryland will allow themselves to be crossed without
saying a word? More than this, are we not justified in believing that
these States, and with them a considerable number of the central ones,
rallied around their ancient banner by the very approach of peril, will
make common cause with the slave Confederacy? In such a case, how avert
the chances of a direful conflict? Will the United States carry patience
with respect to the aggressors, the fear of giving a signal of ruin,
deference to the counsels lavished on them perhaps, so far as to refuse
to return a violent attack, and to consent to the ravishment of their
capital? It is hard to believe. If the South make the attack, the war
will break out, and the border States will be exposed to the first blow.
But admit that they succeed in preventing an immediate explosion, the
mere fact of a total secession, and of the formation of two
Confederacies, almost equal, (in appearance at least,) will permit no
one to count on the prolonged preservation of peace. What repulsion,
what grievances will be found in all relations, in all questions! And
from a grievance to war, from war to negro insurrections, what will be
the distance, I ask? The South will be then an immense powder magazine,
to which the first spark will set fire. And the South will not lose its
habits of arrogance, it will be quarrelsome as always. Has it not
already announced in its journals that, on the first encouragement
given to its fugitive slaves, it will draw the sword? Now, such
encouragement certainly will not be wanting. The South does not know at
the present time how much the North, of which it complains, contributes
to prevent the escapes which it fears. The Federal Government is at hand
to oppose them, in some measure at least. When the preventive obstacle
shall have disappeared, the South will see with what rapidity its
slavery will glide away on every point of its frontier; it will see its
_happy_ negroes ready to brave a thousand perils rather than remain
under its law. Alas! it will see many other proofs of their devotion to
servitude. I do not like to bring bloody images, at which I shudder, too
often before the eyes of the reader; it must be said, notwithstanding,
while it is yet time, that the general Confederacy of the South,
intoxicated with its projects, resolved to increase its possessions,
forced to demand from the African slave trade the means of repeopling
its States, depopulated by escape, and to install slavery into new
territories, will draw upon it, not only the wrath of the United States,
but the indignation of the entire world. And what misery, what ruin will
ensue from the first conflict!
I like better to fix my thoughts on the third hypothesis--that of a
return to the now broken Union. Taught by experience, recognizing how
little weight it has in the world since its separation from the United
States, poor, weak, divided, comprehending the impossibility of
realizing its true plans without exposing itself to calamities, losing
its resources, one after another, even to the cultivation of cotton,
which also demands credit and security, incapable of preventing the
flight of its slaves, and not daring to brave that great power of public
opinion which will interdict it the African trade, the Southern
Confederacy, exhausted and dismayed, will perhaps one day prefer
returning to the bosom of the Union, to plunging into the extremity of
misfortune. In this case, again, the question of affranchisement will
have made vast strides. The United States will have taken a decided
position in the absence of the South, which its return cannot destroy;
convictions will be fixed, the final impulse will have been given, and
to this impulse, the South, come to repentance, will know that nothing
is left it but to submit.
Finally comes a last hypothesis, which I mention because it is necessary
to foresee every possibility. Under the combined influence of the border
States and the States of the North, equally desirous of maintaining the
Union, the attempts of the extreme South will have failed, its secession
will have lasted only a few months, and a compromise will have served to
cover its retreat. But what compromise could compensate for a fact so
important as the election of Mr. Lincoln? It has a deep significance
which no compromise will remove; it signifies that the conquests of
slavery are ended. This proven, the future is easy to foresee:
increasing majorities in the North, increasing disproportion of the two
parts of the Confederation. At the end of the four years of a Lincoln
administration, the slave States will have lost all hope of struggling,
with their eight thousand whites charged with keeping four millions of
blacks, against the twenty millions of citizens that inhabit the free
States. Let us add that, the future once fixed and the question of
preponderance once resolved, many passions will moderate by degrees. The
number of free States will increase, not only by the settling of new
territories, but also by the affranchisement of the thinly scattered
slaves, becoming continually more thinly scattered, of Maryland, of
Delaware, or of Missouri. We can even now describe this affranchisement,
so well is the _American method_ known. It consists, as every one knows,
in emancipating the children that are to be born. This is the method
which has been uniformly applied in the Northern States, and which will
be doubtless applied some day in the border States, provided, however,
civil war does not come to accomplish a very different emancipation
--emancipation by the rising of the slaves. There will be nothing
of this, I hope; pacific progress will have its way. We shall
then see these intermediate States, one after the other, regaining life
in the same time as liberty: they will become transformed as if touched
by the wand of a fairy.
Such are the future prospects which offer themselves to us. If we
remember, besides, the movement which is beginning to be wrought in the
religious societies and the churches--a movement which cannot fail to be
soon complete, we shall know on what to rely concerning the fate which
awaits a social iniquity against which are at once conspiring the
follies of its friends; and the indignation of its foes.