UPON WHOM RESTS THE GUILT OF THE WAR? SEPARATION: WAI! WITHOUT END. ■'0 n ( ' By ML Edouard Eafootelaye, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE. ^w-Uork: WM. 0. BRYANT & 00., PRINTERS, 41 NASSAU STREET, CORNER OP LIBERTY, 1 8 6 3.
NATIONAL UNITYIT MUST NOT BE SURRENDERED. [From the N. Y. “Evening Post" Feb. 7, 1863.] New York, February 7th, 1863. To Parke Godwin, Esq.: I send you herewith a translation from the French of a remarkable paper, originally published in the Revue Rationale of Paris. It has seemed to me that, in this critical hour of our national history, no better service could be rendered the country than to give it, in our own language, the widest circulation amongst the people. To this end may I not ask you to give it a place in the columns of the Evening Post ? The author is M. Edouard Laboulaye, member of the Institute and Professor of Legislation Comparee in tile College of France—a man holding the highest position in the first institution of the world, the University of France—and whose whole life has been devoted to the study of the subject of which he writes. It may not be generally known that the lectures of the professors in all the colleges and schools of the .University of France are open and free to all who may chose to attend them, so that the seances of such men as Laboulaye, Michelet, Quinet, and other eminent scholars and scientists are crowded by the most thoughtful of the men and women of all the nations of the world, who make Paris their resort for the winter.
I have before me a letter from a French liberalist, of high character and attainments, now a resident of the United States, who has himself had the advantage of a personal intercourse with M. Laboulaye, in which he says : “For the last two years scarcely has he, in his chaire de legislation cornparee, given one. of his eloquent lectures without introducing; the United States —their greatness, their constitution, their trials, and their destinies. It is by thus particularizing his teachings that he has aroused for America a universal interest, for no week passes that the learned professor has not around his desk representatives from all the nations of Europe. Even ladies of all ranks and countries—English,. Russians, Germans and Spaniards— I ■ . seated there, side by side with the students of the. Quartier Latin, listen to and applaud his eloquent and earnest advocacy of American nationality and free institutions.” M. Laboulaye himself relates the incident by which his thoughts and sympathies were first turned towards the people and the institutions of the United States. Everybody who has been in Paris will remember the long rows of wooden trays, filled with the strangest jumble of old books, that stretch along the river edge of the Quai Voltaire, and the other contiguous quais on that side of the Seine. One may find there books in all the languages of the world, and sometimes stray copies- cf very rare works. Well, one day, now several years ago, M. Laboulaye amused himself with rummaging amongst the old books exposed for sale on the Quai Voltaire. His eye caught the title of a book in English ; he took it up, opened it, read a few moments, demanded its price, paid it, some few sous, and with-his eyes still fixed qpon its open pages, resumed his walk towards the Champs Elysee. Arrived there, he seated himself upon one of the numerous chairs always ready to be hired, and continued to read on until the last page of his new acquisition was finished ; and then, instead of returning home,
5 he went in a state of great excitement to AI. Armand Bertin, at that time editor-in-chief of the Journal des Debats, and on meeting him exclaimed : “ Congratulate me, I have to-day put my hand on a great man.” And such was the enthusiasm with which he spoke of his new discovery, that M. Bertin begged him to make his “great man ” at once known to France. AL Laboulaye, without delay, set to work, and in a few days there appeared, in successive numbers of the Journal des Debats, three masterly articles. The first was “ on the works of Dr. Wm. Ellebt Channing,” for it was a stray volume of his sermons that M. Laboulaye had purchased on the Quai Voltaire, and he was the “great man ” upon whom he “ put his hand ” that day. The second article was entitled, “The Progress of Religious Ideas in New England,” and the last, “The- Present Condition and Probable Future of the Great Republic.” The stray seed of the New England Puritan Reformer took deep root, and from that day to this AT. Laboulaye has been an earnest student of American ideas and institutions, and on all occasions, and before all men, the unswerving friend and courageous advocate of the people and government of the Union. A previous article of AI. Laboulaye, originally published in the Journal des Debats, entitled “ A View of the Causes and Aims of the Rebellion,” had a wide circulation in this country through the columns of the Evening Post and other public journals, and exerted no 'little influence upon the formation of a just public opinion, here as well as abroad, as to the true character of the slave-masters’ conspiracy to overthrow democratic institutions on this continent. These latest pregnant words of the distinguished publicist reach us at the very moment of their greatest need. At a moment when the public patience seems well nigh exhausted ; when here at the north, even the most loyal seem to lose heart and to doubt, and the disloyal, under the guise of conservatism
6 and in the name of democracy, taking courage, strive so much the more, to bewilder and divide public opinion and confound the'judgments of the people upon questions vital to national salvation. At this critical moment there comes from the other side of the Atlantic, from the home of Lafayette and" Rocham- beau, an answer so direct, so pointed and so conclusive, to the most nefarious of the sophistries of the northern parasites of the slave-power, that it cannot fail to aid in confounding their shameless attempt to shift the guilt of the -war from the shoulders of their southern masters and to lay it upon those of the people of New England. This most enlightened and impartial student of American affairs, looking at the whole great conflict, from its inception to the present hour, with a single eye to discover the truth, declares that “ the South alone is guilty.” But this is by no means the chief point of M. Laboulaye’s argument. To yield the dissolution of the national unity— “ the rending asunder of the country,” that, in liis view, is “ the one irreparable degradation.” “ An abdication,” he says, u so shameful, for a people accustomed to liberty, is not even to . be thought of, so long as there remains a single man or a single dollar to risk in the struggle to keep the inheritance of the fathers.” And this is the momentous point which, I think, you, and all men like you, who have the • ability to speak and a great audience who wait daily upon your words, should press home upon the minds and hearts of the people and their rulers. For any people to permit themselves to'meditate the possibility of a surrender of their nationality, indicates a condition of demoralization, which foretells the approach of utter national decay, the coming on of the final shame. But for a people so planted, so nutured by the Divine Providences, so illustrated by the heroic characters and deeds of their great founders, as
7 the people of the United States—for such a people, in the very bloom of their prime, to yield up their national unity at the arrogant demand of a few thousand slave-masters, would be such an ineffaceable stain upon free institutions, upon democratic citizenship, upon Christian civilization, upon human nature itself, as is not to be paralleled in the history of the world. The ignominious delinquency and partition of Poland would be a national glory compared with it. And yet to day, even here in the North, not to speak of. the abettors of the great treason—the genuine spawn of the Tories of 1776—there are men calling themselves loyal, who begin to-quail and to hint at a possible time for surrender—at a possible time to defile the graves and desecrate the memories of Washington, of Adams, of Jefferson, of Hamilton and their great compeers. I know that the Supreme Ruler of the Ages, has always “the stones” out of which he can “raise up children unto Abraham”—new and faithful nations. Are we to have no other significance in the history of the race, but to illustrate these portentous words of the Divine Master of these Christian centuries ? How many years of almost hopeless toil and bloody sweat did the fathers devote to the acquisition of the great inheritance, to maintain which we have given but less than two, of bewildered and oftentimes aimless preparation ? From the meeting of that first Congress of the American people, in this city of New York, in 1765, in which “ the brave and noble-hearted” Gadsden, of South Carolina, gave utterance to the first grand formula of American nationality—“ Away with your royal charters, and let us stand on the broad, common ground of those natural rights that we all feel and know as men ; no more New Englanders, no more New Yorkers on this continent; but all of us Americans”—from that hour onward until 1789, when the people of the United States^ in their own common name, estab-
8 listed and set in motion a national constitution, the great struggle went on. The men of the first revolution, almost without means, surrounded by all manner of perils, and backed by comparatively but a handful of loyal people, waged a struggle of twenty-four years for the right of independent national existence ; a right which, in their judgment, involved all other human rights and interests—social, civil, and political—peace, prosperity, and glory. And in this struggle, let it not be forgotten, was included a bloody war of seven years—Valley Forge and all. Less than three millions of people, without ships, without arms or munitions, without money or credit, but only with an earnest will and stout hearts, against the first naval and military power of the world, fighting for a great idea, for that pearl without price, Liberty, to be set in the golden band of national unity. National Unity : that is the muniment of title to the inher-r itance transmitted by the fathers, and which the American people to-day stand pledged before the world, to keep intact in all its integrity, both of exterior estate and of interior idea, at the cost of the last dollar of their wealth and the last drop of their blood. Such, at least, is the judgment of all the enlightened and true friends of freedom and humanity, confirmed by the universal sense of the people, of all the civilized nations of the world. We must not, we cannot falter, without incurring their contempt, and the curses of our own posterity to the remotest generations, Your friend, JAMES McKAYE.
DISUNION: DEGRADATION WITHOUT REMEDY. . FROM THE “ EEVUE NATIONALS.” The civil war which for two years past has divided and devastated the United States has produced its .evil consequences, in Europe also. The scarcity of cotton occasions great suffering. The workmen of Bouen and Mulhouse suffer no less than the spinners and weavers of Lancashire. Whole populations are reduced to beggary, and have no resource, or hope of sustenance during the winter, but private charity or aid from the government. In such a cruel crisis—in the midst of such unmerited sufferings—it is natural that the public opinion of , Europe should be unsettled, and that they who prolong the fratricidal war should be charged with culpable ambition. Peace in America, peace at any price, is the urgent need ; is the cry f thousands of men among us who are pinched with hunger, the innocent victims of the. passions and resentments that em- brue in blood the United States. These complaints are but too well founded. The world today is a compact of mutual interests and obligations. For modern nations, therefore, who live by industry, peace is a necessary condition of existence. But unfortunately, if it is easy to indicate the remedy, to apply it is almost impossible. Until nowj it is only by means of war that we could hope to reach the end of the war. To throw ourselves with arms in our hands between the combatants, for the purpose of imposing a truce upon them, would be an enterprise in which Europe would exhaust all her resources, and to what end? As Mr. Cobden has justly said, “It would be far cheaper to feed the laboring classes, who ar.e now starving in consequence of the American crisis, on game and champagne wine-”
10 To offer to-day a peaceful intervention would be to expose ourselves to a refusal, Jf it did not even exasperate one of the parties and provoke it to measures of violence. It would lessen, too, the chances of our mediation being accepted at a more favorable moment. We are. thus forced to remain spectators of a deplorable war, which causes us innumerable evils. We caw only pray that exhaustion or suffering may at last appease the maddened combatants, and oblige them to accept reunion or separation. A sad position undoubtedly, but one which neutral powers have at all times been obliged to accept, and from which we cannot escape but at the risk of unknown perils. But if we have not the right to interfere, we have at least that of complaining, and of seeking to discover who is really guilty of this war, which so disturbs our well-being. -.The opinion of Europe is something. It may hasten events and bring about peace better than bayonets. Unfortunately, for two years, public opinion in Europe has been led astray and has taken a false direction. In arraying itself on the wrong side, it but prolongs the resistance, instead of arresting it. The South has found numerous and skilful advocates in France and England. They have presented her cause as that - of justice and liberty. They have proclaimed the right of separation, and have not quailed even before the necessity of apologizing for slavery. To-day these arguments begin to loose their force. Thanks to a few writers who do not chaffer with the great interests of humanity—thanks, above all, to M. de Gasparin, light has begun to break forth. We know now what to think of the origin and character of the rebellion. To every .impartial observer it is now evident that the wrong lies wholly with the South. It is not Necessary to be a Montesquieu to comprehend that a portion of a people, whose rights are in no way endangered, but who are led by pride and ambition to attempt the destruction of national unity and to rend assunder the country, have no claim to the sympathy of the French people. As to canonizing slavery, that is a work we must leave to southern preachers. Not all the ingenuity of the world will ever be able to retrieve that lost cause. Even if the confederates had a thousand reasons for complaining and revolting, there must always remain an ineffaceable stain on their rebelL
11 lion. No Christian, no liberal thinker, can ever interest himself in men who, in the middle of the nineteenth century, openly and audaciously proclaim their wish to perpetuate and extend slavery. The planters themselves, may indeed listen to theories which have intoxicated and ruined them ; but no such sophistries can ever cross the ocean. The advocates of the South have rendered her a fatal service. They have made her believe that Europe, enlightened or misled, would take sides with her and would finally throw into the scales something more than sterile wishes. This delusion has encouraged and still encourges the resistance of the South. It prolongs the war and our sufferings. If, from the first, as the North bad a right to expect, the friends of liberty had boldly declared themselves against the policy of slavery—if the partisans of maritime peace—if the defenders of the rights of neutrals, had spoken in favor of the Union—had discouraged a separation which could only benefit England, .it is probable that the South would have entered with less temerity upon a road without an outlet. If, in spite of the courage and devotion of her soldiers, if, after all the skill of her generals, the South fails in an enterprise, which, in my opinion, cannot be too often denounced, let her fay the fault at the door of those who had so pool’ an esteem for Europe, as to imagine that they could suborn its public opinion to serve a political scheme, against which patriotism protests, and which the gospel and humanity alike condemn. “Granted,” say they, “that the South is wdiolly. in the wrong; but, after all, she is determined to separate. She can no longer live with the North. The war itself, whatever may be its origin, is a new cause of disunion. By what right can twenty millions of men oblige ten millions * of their compatriots to continue a detested alliance, to respect a contract which they are resolved to break at any cost ? Is it possible to imagine that two or three years of strife and misery ■will make the conquered and the conquerors live peaceably together? Can a country, two or three times as large as France, be subju * And of these ten millions there are four millions of slaves, whose wishes are not consulted.
12 gated? Would there not be always ill blood between the parties? Separation is perhaps a .misfortune, but to-day the misfortune is irreparable. Let it be admitted that the North has the law, the letter and the spirit of the constitution on her side, there remains always an undebateable poin't: the South wills to be master at the South. You have not the right to crush a people that fights so bravely. Resign yourselves.” If we were less enervated by the luxuries of modern life and by the idleness of a long peace, if our hearts still retained some remnant of that patriotism which, in 1792, sent our forefathers to the shores of the Rhine, the answer would be an easy one. To-day I fear we can no longer comprehend it. If to-morrow the south of France should revolt and demand separation, if Alsace and Lorraine wished to isolate themselves, what woul^ be, I do not say our right, but our duty ? Would we stop to count votes, to know if a third or a half of the French people had a right to destroy the national unity, to annihilate France, to rend in fragments the glorious heritage bought with the blood of our fathers ? No, we would take up our muskets and march. Woe to him who does not feel that his country is sacred, and that it is glorious to defend it, even at the cost of all possible sufferings and dangers. “America is not France; it is a confederation, it is not a nation.” Who says that? The South, to justify her crime. The North says the contrary, and for two years, at the price of sacrifices without number, affirms that the people of the United States are one people, and that their country shall not be cut in twTo. This is noble. This is grand, and what astonishes me is, that France can remain unmoved in view of such patriotism. Love of country—is not that the distinguishing virtue of the French people? What, then, is the South, and wffience does she derive this right of separation, so loudly proclaimed? Is it a conquered people that seeks to recover its independence, like Lombardy? Is it a distinct race that wishes no longer to continue an oppressive alliance ? No, they are communities of planters established by American hands, oh the territories of the Union, who revolt without any other reason than their own ambition. Let us take a map of the United States. If we except Virginia, the
a 13 two Carolinas, and Georgia, which were originally English colonies, all the rest of the South is settled upon lands Bought and paid for by the Union. That is to say, the North has borne the greatest part of the expense. Louisiana was sold to the United States in 1801, by the first consul, for fifteen millions of dollars. Florida was purchased of Spain in 1820, for about five millions. The Mexican war, with its cost of a billion of money and its cruel losses, 5vas necessary to secure Texas. In short, of all the rich territories that border the Mississippi and the Missouri from their source to their mouth, there is not one inch but has been paid for by the Union, and therefore belongs to it. It is the Union that has driven out or indemnified the Indians. It is the Union that has built all the forts, the docks, the lighthouses, and harbors. It is the Union that made all these desert places of value, and rendered colonization possible. Northern as well as Southern men .cleared and planted these lands, and transformed into flourishing States these sterile solitudes. Can old Europe, where unity is everywhere the result of conquest, show us a title to property so sacred as this ? A country more entirely the common work of a whole people ? And now, shall a minority be permitted to appropriate a territory which belongs to all, and to choose for themselves the best part of it ? Can a minority be permitted to destroy the Union and to imperil its first benefactors, without whom, indeed, it could not exist? 'to say that this revolt is not impious, is to say that caprice constitutes right. It is not, however, a political reason only, which opposes the separation. Its geography, the situation of the different portions, obliges the United States to form one nation. Strabo, contemplating the vast country we now call France, said, with the foresight of genius, that beholding the nature of the territory and the courses of the streams, it was evident that the forests of Gaul, then thinly inhabited, would become the home of a great people.* Nature had prepared our territory to become the theatre of a great civilization. This is no less true of America. She is, in truth, only a double valley with an imperceptible head-level and two great water courses, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. No high mountains which separate and isolate peoples; no natural barriers like the Alps and Pyren es.
The West cannot live without the Mississippi—to possess the mouth of the river is for the farmers of the West a question of life and death. The United States have felt this from the first. When the Ohio and Mississippi were still only streams lost in the great forests of the Southwest—when the first planters were but a handful of men scattered over the wilderness, the American^ knew already that New Orleans was the key of the whole country. They would not leave it in possession of Spain or France. Napoleon understood this. He held in his hands the future greatness of the United States. It did not displease him to cede to America this vast territory, with the intention, he said, of giving to England a maritime rival which sooner or later would humble the pride of our enemy. Ele might have dispossessed himself merely of the left bank of the river, and thus have satisfied the United States, who at that time asked no more; but he did more (and here I think he was very wrong), he renounced, with a stroke of the pen, a country as vast as half of Europe, and gave up our last right to the beautiful river, we had ourselves discovered. Very soon sixty years will have elapsed since this cession. The states now called Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Oregon, the territories of Nebraska, Dacotah, Jefferson, and Washington, which will soon become states, have been established on th^ immense domain abandoned by Napoleon. Without counting the slaveholding population, which seeks to destroy the Union, there are ten millions of freemen between Pittsburg and Fort Union, who claim the course and mouth of the Mississippi a? having bpen ceded to them by France. It is from us that they hold their title and their possession. They have the right of sixty years’ occupancy—a right consecrated by labor and cultivation—a right derived from a solemn contract, and better still, from nature and from God. And for defending this right, we reproach them. They are usurpers and tyrants, because they will not put themselves at the mercy of an ambitious minority. What should we say if to morrow, Normandy, in rebellion, should claim as her own Rouen and Havre? 'And yet, what is the course of the Seine compared to that of the Mississippi, wlWbh extends two thousand two hundred and fifty miles, and
15 receives as tributaries all the waters of th e West? To possess New Orleans is to command a valley which comprises two- thirds of the United States. “ We will neutralize the river,” they say. We all know what such promises* are worth. We have seen what Russia did with the mouth of the Danube. The Crimean war was necessary that Germany might regain the free use of her great river. If to-morrow a new war should break out between Austria and Russia, we may be sure that the possession of the Danube would be the stake of the contest. It cannot be otherwise in America from the day when the Mississippi, for hundreds of leagues, shall flow between two slave- holdipg shores. Already the effect of the war has been to stop the exportation of wheat and corn', the -riches of the West. In 1861 it became necessary to burn the useless crops, to the great injury of Europe, who is the gainer by these exports. The South understands so thoroughly the strength of her position, that her ambition is to separate the valley of the Mississippi from the Eastern States, to unite herself with the West, and to condemn thus the Yankees of New England to a ruinous isolation. The Confederates use the Mississippi as a bait by which they hope to reconstruct, profitably to themselves— that is to say, in the interests of slavery—the Union which they have broken up through fear of liberty. We see, then, what to think of the pretended tyranny of the North ; what truth there is in the assertion that she wishes to oppress and subjugate the South. On the contrary, the North only defends herself. In maintaining the Union, it is her right, it is her existence that she would save. Thus far I have spoken in the name of the material interests only—legitimate interests, and which, founded on solemn titles, constitutes a sacred right; but if we examine the moral and political interests—interests of a superior order—-we shall see still more clearly that the North cannot yield without self- destruction. The United States are a Republic, the. freest and at the same time the mildest and happiest government that the world has ever seen. In what consists this prosperity of the Americans? They are alone upon an immense territory; they' have never been obliged to concentrate power and weaken liberty, for the purpose of resisting the ambition and jealousy of
16 their neighbors. In the United States there was no standing army, no great war navy. The immense sums spent by us to avoid or maintain war were used by the Americans to establish schools—in giving-to every citizen, rich or poor, that education, that instruction which constitutes the moral grandeur and the true riches of a people. Their foreign policy was contained in a single maxim. Never to intermeddle in the political quarrels of Europe on the sole condition that Europe would never interfere in their affairs, and would respect the liberty of the seas. Thanks to those wise principles, bequeathed to them by .Washington, in his immortal Farewell .Address, the United States have enjoyed for eighty years a peace undisturbed but once, in 1812, -when they were obliged to withstand England and maintain the rights of neutrals. For the last seventy years, we have spent billions to maintain our liberty or our preponderance in Europe. The United States have employed these billions in ameliorations of all kinds. That is the secret of their prodigious success; their isolation has made their 'prosperity. Suppose, now, that this, separation should be accomplished, and that the new confederacy should comprise all the slave-states ; the North loses at once her power and her institutions. The Republic is stabbed to the heart. There would be in America two rival nations, always on the eve of conflict. Peace would by no means extinguish enmities. It wrould not obliterate the memories of past greatness, nor of the Union destroyed. The South victorious would be doubtless no less a friend of slavery, no less in love with dominion, than in former times. The enemies of slavery, now masters of their own policy, would not surely be made more moderate by separation. . What would the Southern Confederacy be to the North ? A foreign power established in America, with a frontier of fifteen hundred miles —a frontier open on all sides, and consequently, always threatening or threatened. This power, hostile by reason of its vicinity, and still more so on account of its institutions, would possess some of the most important portions of the New World. She would own half of the sea-coasts of the Union—she would Command the Gulf of Mexico, an inland sea one third the size of the Mediterranean. She would be mistress of the mouth of
17 the Mississippi, and could at her will ruin the people of the West. The remnant of the old Union must, then, always maintain an attitude of defense towards their rivals. Customhouse and frontier difficulties, rivalries, jealousies—all the scourges of old Europe, would at once overwhelm America. It would be necsssary to establish custom-houses over an extent of five hundred leagues—to construct and arm forts along this immense frontier, support a large standing army and navy. In other words—-they must renounce the old constitution—weaken municipal independence and concentrate power. Adieu then to the old and glorious liberty ! Adieu to those institutions which made America the common country of all those who lacked a breathing place in Europe. The work of Washington would be utterly destroyed, and the.new condition of things would be full of difficulty and of peril. I understand how such a future might rejoice the people who can never pardon America her prosperity and her grandeur. History is full of these deplorable jealouses. But I understand, even still better how a people accustomed to liberty should risk their last man and their last dollar to keep the inheritance of their fathers, and I respect it. What I do not comprehend is, that there should be found in Europe, people, calling themselves liberal, who reproach the North for her courageous resistance, and counsel a shameful abdication. The war is a terrible evil; but from- the war a durable peace may spring. The South may be worn out by an exhausting struggle. The old Union may be again restored— the future may be saved. Bub. what can be the issue of separation, if not wae without end and miseries without number ? The dismemberment of the Union—the rendering asunder of the country, would be a degradation without remedy. A fate so^hameful is to be accepted, only, when one is utterly crushed out and trodden under foot. So far I have argued on the hypothesis that the South would remain an independent power. But unless the West should join the Confederates, re-establishing a Union which should exclude New England, this independence is a. chimera. It might last a few years, but in ten or twenty years, when the West shall have doubled or tripled its free population, what will the Confederacy be—weakened, per force, by servile cultiva
18 tion—compared to a people of thirty millions of men Shutting her in on two sides? In self-defence the South would be forced to lean on Europe. Her existence would depend on hei’ being protected by a maritime power. • England alone is in a condition to guaranty her sovereignty. This would be a new danger for free America and for Europe. There is no navy in the South, and with slavery there never will be any. England at once would seize the monopoly of cotton, and* would furnish the South ■with capital and ships. In two words, the triumph of the South is the re-establishment of England on the continent, whence she was driven by the policy of Louis Sixteenth and Napoleon. It weakens neutrals, it entangles France again, in all those vexed questions of liberty of The seas, which have cost us already two centuries of struggle and suffering. The American Union, while defending its own rights, had assured the freedom of the seas. The Union destroyed, English supremacy would revive again. It is peace banished from the world ; it is a return to a policy which has so far only favored our rivals. This is what Napoleon felt to be true—this is what we forget to-day. It •would seem as if history were merely a collection of pleasant stories to amuse children. No one is willing to understand the lessons of the past. If the experience of our fathers was not lost upon our ignorance, we should see that in defending her own independence, and in maintaining the national unity, the North defends our cause as well as her own. All our prayers would be for the triumph of our old and faithful friends. To weaken the United States will be to weaken ourselves. At the first quarrel with England we shall regret, but too late, that we abandoned a policy which for forty years has been the guaranty of our own safety. In writing these pages, I do not expect to convert those w^p have in their hearts an innate sympathy for slavery. I write for those honest souls, who allow themselves to be enticed by the great words of national independence, paraded before their eyes purposely to deceive and delude them. The South has never been threatened. To day she might come back into the Union, even with her slaves. It is only demanded of her not to destroy the national unity, and not to subvert liberty. We cannot repeat it too often : the North is not the aggressor. It only defends, as every true citizen should, the national com
19 pact, the integrity of the country. It is sad that it has found so little support in Europe, and especially in France. 'They relied on us—in us they placed their trust—and we have abandoned them as if the sacred words of Country and of Liberty no longer awoke a response in our hearts. What has become of the days when the whole of France ’applauded the young Lafayette, as he buckled on, his sword in the cause of America? Who has imitated him, who has recalled that glorious memory ? Have we grown so old as to have forgotten all that ? What will be the issue of the war ? It is impossible to foresee. The South may succeed. The North may be divided and exhausted by intestine strife. The Union is, perhaps, even now, but a great memory. But whatever may be the future, or whatever fortune may attend it, the duty of every man who does not allow himself to be carried away by the success of the present hour, is to sustain and encourage the North to the'last -—to condemn those whose ambition threatens to destroy the most perfect and the most patriotic work of humanity—to remain faithful to the end of the war, and, even after defeat, to those, who will have fought to the last moment for Right and Liberty. EDOUARD LABOULAYE.
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