The Uprising of a Great People Part 8

CONCLUSION.

I have not sought to recount events, but to attempt a study, which I believe to be useful to us, and which may, also, not be useless to the United States. We owe them the support of our sympathy. It is more important than people imagine to let them hear words of encouragement from us at this decisive moment. Let us not hasten to declare that the Union is destroyed, that, henceforth and forever, there will be two Confederacies existing on the same footing, that the United States of slavery will have their great _role_ to perform here below, like the United States of liberty. This would be, in any case, immense exaggeration. Let us not forget that the Union has often before seemed lost, that the Confederation has often before seemed ready to perish.

Are the men who are terrified at the present perils, ignorant of those which surrounded the cradle of the United States: mutinous troops, contending ambitions, threats of separation, anarchy, ruin? This America, then so weak, is the same that has since become so strong, in spite of its own faults. At the moment when it rebelled against England, it had neither arts and manufactures, nor commerce, nor marine; and its two or three millions of inhabitants were far from agreeing among themselves. Yet such is the vigor of its genius, such is its carelessness of every kind of danger, such is the impetuosity with which it affronts and surmounts obstacles, such is the power of its national motto; "Go ahead!" that through internal struggles, crises, and momentary exhaustion, it has attained the stature of a great people.

Count the steamboats on its rivers, estimate the tonnage of its vessels, compute the amount of its internal trade, measure the length of its ca.n.a.ls and railroads, and you will still have but a faint idea of what it is capable of undertaking and accomplishing.

We must remember these things, and not imitate those enemies of America who sometimes feign to put on mourning for her, sometimes jest at her distress, and find in the present situation of the _disunited States_ (for thus they style them) an agreeable subject for pleasantry, forgetting that this disunion has a serious cause, which is certainly of importance enough to make itself understood; forgetting, too, that generous struggles for humanity and the country are worthy to obtain our fullest respect. And let us beware how we say that this crisis does not concern us--that we can do nothing in it. The selfish isolation of nations is henceforth impossible. The question to be decided here involves our own affairs, not only because a portion of our fortune is pledged to the United States, but, above all, because our principles and our liberties are concerned. The victories of justice, wherever they may be won, are the victories of the human race.

We can aid this one in some measure. America, which affects sometimes to declare itself indifferent to our opinions, gathers them up, however, with jealous care. I have seen respectable Americans blush at encountering that instinctive blame which, among us, is addressed to the progress of slavery; they suffered at seeing their country thus fallen from the esteem which it formerly enjoyed. Proud nations like America always avenge themselves by n.o.ble impulses for the reprobation which they are conscious of having deserved. The moral intervention of Europe is not, therefore, superfluous; it is the less so, in that the South insults us by counting on us. The ringleaders of Charleston and New Orleans affect to say that England is ready to open her arms to them, and that France promises a sympathizing reception to her envoys! These envoys themselves have been selected with care, honorable, having friends among us,--capable, in a word, of presenting the cause of slavery in an almost seductive light. It is important, therefore, that we should not keep silence.

Let governments be reserved; let them avoid every thing that would resemble direct action in the internal affairs of the United States, let them have recourse to the commonplaces of speech employed by diplomacy to escape pledging their policy--this is well. But to imagine that these commonplaces promise alliance or protection, is to be credulous indeed!

A rebellion under cover of the flag of slavery, be sure, will find it difficult to make partisans among us French, whatever may be our indolent indifference in other respects in this matter, an indifference so great that at the present time the American question _does not exist_ to the most of us. Moreover, we shall shake off this inertia; and, as to the English, they will not suffer their brightest t.i.tle to glory in modern times to be tarnished by any latent complicity with the Gulf States. The brutal doctrines of interest, so often professed publicly in Parliament by Mr. Bright, may indeed find organs; and Great Britain will be counselled to remember cotton and forget justice. The measure already taken by her at Washington, and which appears to have been supported by France, a measure designed to declare that the blockade of the Southern ports must be effectual to be recognized, is perhaps a concession wrested from her by this detestable school of selfishness.

Happily, there is another school face to face with this; the Christian sentiment, the sentiment of abolition, will arise and enforce obedience.

Never was a more important work in store for it. To unveil every suspicious act of the British Government, to keep public opinion aroused, to maintain, in fine, that n.o.ble moral agitation which makes the success of good causes and the safety of free nations, such is the mission proffered in England to the defenders of humanity and the Gospel. If they could forget it, the populace of Mobile or Savannah pursuing English consuls, would remind them to what principle the name of Great Britain is inevitably pledged, for the sake of its honor.

France and England, I am confident, will act in unison, here as elsewhere; their alliance which comprises within itself the germs of all true progress, will be found as useful and as fruitful in the New World as it has proved in the Old.

This is of such importance that I beg leave to dwell on it; evidently our influence has not yet been exercised as it should have been, and if Mr. Lincoln now bends somewhat before counsels devoid of energy and dignity, it proceeds in part from our reserve, our silence, our apparent neutrality--who knows? even from the discouraging language that has been sometimes held in our name. The publication of the unlucky Morrill Tariff, (signed, we may say in pa.s.sing, by Mr. Buchanan, and the revocation of which, I am convinced, will be signed some day by Mr.

Lincoln,) has given the signal for political demonstrations, all of which are very far from being to the credit of Europe. Our _Moniteur_ has published articles to be regretted, but it is above all among the English that the cotton party has had full scope.

Let England beware! it were better for her to lose Malta, Corfu, and Gibraltar, than the glorious position which her struggle against slavery and the slave trade has secured her in the esteem of nations. Even in our age of armed frigates and rifled cannon, the chief of all powers, thank G.o.d! is moral power. Woe to the nation that disregards it, and consents to immolate its principles to its interests! From the beginning of the present conflict, the enemies of England, and they are numerous, have predicted that the cause of cotton will weigh heavier in her scales than the cause of justice and liberty. They are preparing to judge her by her conduct in the American crisis. Once more, let her beware!

And under what pretexts do we chaffer with the government of Mr. Lincoln for those energetic, persevering sympathies on which it has a right to count? Let us examine.

We hear, in the first place, of the vigor of the South and the weakness of the North. It is not the first time that a bad cause has shown itself more ardent, more daring, less preoccupied by consequences, than a good one. Good causes have scruples, and every scruple is an obstacle.

I am a.s.suredly as sorry as any one to see Mr. Lincoln struck with a sort of paralysis. To my mind, the dangers of inactivity are considerable; I believe that it discourages friends and encourages adversaries; I believe that it sanctions more or less the baleful and erroneous principle of secession, a principle more contagious than any other; I believe, in fine, that, by postponing civil war, it probably risks increasing its gravity. Nevertheless, shall we not take into account the exceptional difficulties with which Mr. Lincoln is surrounded?

The preceding Administration took care to leave no resource in his hands: he found the forts either surrendered or indefensible, the a.r.s.enals invaded, the army scattered, the navy despatched to distant parts of the seas. Is it strange that he should have yielded in some degree to the entreaties of so many able men, all urging in the same direction? If to-morrow he should yield entirely, if he should recognize the Southern Confederacy, would it be great cause for astonishment?

Let us not forget, moreover, that the border States are at hand, forming a rampart, as it were, to protect the extreme South. Several of these States, I am convinced, incline sincerely towards the North, and will remain united with it; but are there not others, Virginia, for instance, which perhaps only refrain from seceding for the better protection of those that have done so, and whose present role consists in preventing all repression, while its future role will be to trammel all progress by the continued threat of joining the Southern Confederacy?

These are serious obstacles; yet I have not pointed out the most serious of all--the intense and sincere repugnance which many Northern people, though declared adversaries of slavery, experience towards measures that are calculated to provoke slave insurrections, and endanger the safety of the planters. I must acknowledge that the patience of the strong seems here rather more laudable than the so much vaunted audacity of the weak, who count on this patience, and know that they can be arrogant without much risk.

The second pretext that is audaciously brought forward to solicit our good will towards the South, is that it has just ameliorated the Federal inst.i.tutions. Let us ask in what consists this pretended amelioration?

The South has not feared to write in set terms, in its fundamental law, what none before it ever dared write, _the const.i.tutional guarantee of slavery_. Slavery, in accordance with the Const.i.tution of the South, can neither be suppressed nor a.s.sailed. Slavery will be the holy ark to be regarded with respect from afar off, the corner-stone which all are forbidden to touch. By the side of this, the South ostentatiously proclaims freedom of speech, of the press, of discussion in every form!

Men shall be free to speak, but on condition of not touching, nearly or remotely, on any subject connected with slavery, (and every thing is connected with it in the South.) They shall be free to print, but on condition of giving no writing whatever to the public from which may be inferred the unity of mankind, the sanct.i.ty of family ties, the great principles, in fact, which the "patriarchal system" throws overboard.

They shall be free to discuss, but on condition of not disturbing this inst.i.tution, impatient by nature, and still more so in future, now that it feels itself hemmed in and threatened on all sides. It will be by itself alone the whole Const.i.tution of the South; this one article will devour the rest; in default of legislatures and courts, the Southern populace know how to give force to the guarantee of slavery, and to restrain freedom of speech, of the press, and of discussion.

It is true that adroit patrons of the South Carolinian rebellion have a third argument at their service which is no less specious. "All is over," they exclaim, "there is n.o.body now to sustain, there are no sympathies now to testify; in four days, peace will be made, the new Confederation will be recognized by Lincoln in person, a commercial treaty will even ally it to the United States: the affair is ended."

The affair is scarcely begun, we answer; one must be blind not to see it. What is ended, is only the first skirmish. As to the war, it will be as long, believe me, as the life of the two principles which are struggling in America. Let Mr. Lincoln a.s.sure himself, and let the European adversaries of slavery remember as well, that it will be necessary to combat and to persevere. Never was a more obstinate and more colossal strife commenced on earth. Many of the border States will not be long in raising pretensions to which they will join threats of new secessions; they will again bring up the question of the Territories, and will propose compromises. Who knows? they will aspire perhaps to establish, in the interests of the extreme South, the extradition of slaves escaped from the rival Confederacy. Who knows again? they will perhaps attempt to restore their domestic slave trade with Charleston and New Orleans.

This is not all. The time will come when the extreme South, incapable of enduring the life that it has just created for itself, will demand to return to the bosom of the Union. It will then insist on dictating its conditions; it will propose the election of a general convention charged with reconstructing the Const.i.tution of the United States; it will appeal to the selfishness of some, and to the ambition or even the patriotism of others, presenting to their sight the re-establishment of the common greatness which separation had compromised. What a motive to veil principles for a moment! what a temptation to return to the fatal path so lately forsaken!

I know very well that it will be henceforth impossible to return to it completely; nevertheless, the vigilance of Mr. Lincoln will not cease to be necessary, and what will be no less necessary, is the moral support which we are bound to lend him in the hour of success and in the hour of discouragement, in good and in bad reputation. Where do we find a more glorious cause than this? despite the impure alloy which is mingled with it, of course, as with all glorious causes, is it not fitted to stir up generous hearts? Already, thanks to the defeat of the democratic party, the United States that we once knew, those of the last ten years, those that the South governed with its wand, those whose inst.i.tutions were corrupted and debased by slavery, those who numbered in the North as in the South so many fortunes based openly on the slave traffic, those who had seen among their Presidents a slave merchant, carrying on his speculations in public view--these United States have just ended their career, they have entered the domain of history, their disappearance has been verified by the retreat of the extreme South.

The American people are now striving to rise. Enterprise as difficult as glorious! Whatever may be the issue of the first conflict, it will be only the first conflict. There will be many others; the uprising of a great people is not the work of a day. Sometimes at peace, sometimes perhaps at war with the States that take in hand the cause of slavery, the American Confederation will witness the development, one after another, of the consequences necessarily produced by that decisive event, the election of Mr. Lincoln. Having broken with the past, it will be forced to enter further and further into the path of the future. We have already seen that, whichever hypothesis is realized of those which we are permitted to foresee, the cause of slavery is destined to experience defeat after defeat. It has ceased to grow, it is about to decrease, to decrease by separation, to decrease by union, to decrease by peace, to decrease by war. As surely as there will be obstacles without number to surmount in order to accomplish this work, so surely will this work be accomplished. Certainly, it deserves to be loved and sustained, without discouragement and hesitation. Europe will comprehend it.

On seeing her att.i.tude, the angry champions of slavery will doubtless perceive that they are mistaken, and that it is time to make new calculations. As for the brave men of the North, they will he glad to learn what is thought of them on this side of the Atlantic. This may aid, and greatly, in the more or less distant re-establishment of the Union. If the Gulf States knew what insurmountable disgust will be aroused here by their Confederacy, founded to secure the duration and prosperity of slavery; if the border States knew what sympathies they will gain by siding with liberty, and what maledictions they will incur by declaring themselves for slavery; if the Northern States knew what support is secured to them by that power, the chief of all others, public opinion, we are justified in believing that the present crisis would come to a prompt and peaceful solution.

It is a fixed fact that the nineteenth century will see the end of slavery in all its forms; and woe to him who opposes the march of such a progress! Who is not deeply impressed by the thought that, on the 4th of March, at the very hour when Mr. Lincoln, in taking possession of the Presidency at Washington, signified to the attentive world the will of a great republic, determined to arrest the conquests of slavery, the generous head of a great empire signified to his ministers his immutable resolve to prepare for the emanc.i.p.ation of the serfs. In such coincidences, who does not recognize the finger of G.o.d. I am, therefore, tranquil: Russian opposition has failed, American opposition will fail.

There will be American opposition; there will be, there is such already, in the very surroundings and cabinet of the President. We have just seen how it seeks to enervate his resolutions, to pledge him irrevocably to that wavering policy, more to be dreaded for him than the projects of a.s.sa.s.sination about which, right or wrong, so much noise has been made.

Nevertheless, this evil has its bounds marked out in advance; he whom G.o.d guards is well guarded. If you wish to know what the Presidency of Mr. Lincoln will be in the end, see in what manner and under what auspices it was inaugurated; listen to the words that fell from the lips of the new President as he quitted his native town: "The task that devolves upon me is greater, perhaps, than that which has devolved on any other man since the days of Washington. I hope that you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive that a.s.sistance from on high, without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain." "Yes, yes; we will pray for you!" Such was the response of the inhabitants of Springfield, who, weeping, and with uncovered heads, witnessed the departure of their fellow-citizen. What a _debut_ for a government! Have there been many inaugurations here below of such thrilling solemnity? Do uniforms and plumes, the roar of cannon, triumphal arches, and vague appeals to Providence, equal these simple words: "Pray for me!" "We will pray for you"! Ah! courage, Lincoln! the friends of freedom and of America are with you. Courage! you hold in your hands the destinies of a great principle and a great people. Courage! You have to resist your friends and to face your foes; it is the fate of all who seek to do good on earth. Courage! You will have need of it to-morrow, in a year, to the end; you will have need of it in peace and in war; you will have need of it to avert the compromise in peace or war of that n.o.ble progress which it is your charge to accomplish, more than in conquests of slavery.

Courage! your role, as you have said, may be inferior to no other, not even to that of Washington: to raise up the United States will not be less glorious than to have founded them.

It is doubtless from a distance that we express these sympathies, but there are things which are judged better from a distance than near at hand. Europe is well situated to estimate the present crisis. The opinion of France, especially, should have some weight with the United States: independently of our old alliances, we are, of all nations, perhaps, the most interested in the success of the Confederation. They are friendly voices which, here and elsewhere, in our reviews and our journals, bear to it the cordial expression of our wishes. In wishing the final triumph of the North, we wish the salvation of the North and South, their common greatness and their lasting prosperity.

But the South disquiets us; we cannot disguise it. It is in bad hands. A sort of terror reigns there; important but moderate men are forced to bow the head, or to feel that it will be necessary to do so ere long.

The planters must see already that, in seeking to put away what they call the yoke of the North, they are preparing for themselves other masters. Business is suspended, money for cultivation is lacking, credit is everywhere refused, the ensuing harvest is mortgaged, the loans which it is sought to issue find no takers outside the extreme South. The resources of revolution remain, and they will be used unsparingly.

What a position! Under the Const.i.tution voted scarcely a month ago, we already hear the deep rumbling of the quarrels of cla.s.ses, of the planters and the poor whites, of the aristocracy and the numerical majority, of the prudent adversaries of the slave trade and its headstrong partisans, of the statesmen who are tolerated for appearances and those who count on replacing them, of the present and the future.

People will some day see clearly, even in Charleston. The separation which was to establish the prosperity of the South by permitting it at last to live to its liking, to obey its genius, and to serve its interests, has. .h.i.therto resulted in little, save the singing of the _Ma.r.s.eillaise, (the Ma.r.s.eillaise of Slavery!)_ and the striking down of the Federal colors before the flag of the pelican and the rattlesnake. A great many blue ribbons and Colt's revolvers are sold; and busts of Calhoun, the first theorist of secession, axe carried about ostentatiously. Next, to present a good mien to the eyes of Europe, a Const.i.tution is voted in haste, a government is formed, an army is decreed; but the revolutionary basis is remaining, and we perceive but too quickly how great disorder prevails in minds and things.

At the present hour, the democracy of the South is about to degenerate into demagogism and dictatorship. But the North presents quite a different spectacle. Mark what is pa.s.sing there; pierce beneath appearances, beneath inevitable mistakes, beneath the no less inevitable wavering of a _debut_ so well prepared for by the preceding Administration, and you will find the firm resolution of a people uprising. Who speaks of the end of the United States? This end seemed approaching but lately, in the hour of prosperity; then, honor was compromised, esteem for the country was lowered, inst.i.tutions were becoming corrupted apace; the moment seemed approaching when the Confederation, tainted by slavery, could not but perish with it. Now, every thing has changed aspect; the friends of America should take confidence, for its greatness is inseparable, thank G.o.d! from the cause of justice.

_Justice cannot do wrong_; I like to recall this maxim when I consider the present state of America. In escaping a sudden and shameful death, it will not, a.s.suredly, escape struggles and difficulties; in returning to life, it will encounter battle and danger longer than it imagines; life is composed of this. To live is a laborious vocation, and nations who wish to keep their place here below, who wish to act and not to sleep, must know that they will have their share of suffering. Perhaps it enters into the plans of G.o.d that the United States should endure for a time some diminution of their greatness; let them be sure, notwithstanding, that their flag will be neither less respected nor less glorious, if it shall thus lose a few of its stars. Those which it loses will reappear on it some day, and how many others, meanwhile, will come to increase the Federal Constellation! With what acclamations will Europe salute the future progress of the United States, as soon as their progress shall have ceased to be that of slavery!

At present, the point in question is to liquidate a bad debt. The moment of liquidation is always painful; but when it is over, credit revives.

So will it be in America. She has often boasted of the energetic sang-froid of her merchants; when ruined, they neither lament, nor are discouraged; there is a fortune to make again. In the same manner, putting things at the worst, supposing the present crisis to be comparable to ruin; there is a nation to make again, it will be re-made.

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Seward lately, in concluding his great speech in Congress, "if this Union were shattered to-day by the spirit of faction, it would reconstruct itself to-morrow with the former majestic proportions."

A WORD OF PEACE

ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES.

BY COUNT AGeNOR DE GASPARIN.

A WORD OF PEACE.

Between the meetings of Liverpool and the ovations of New York, is there not room for a word of peace? A word of peace, I know well, must be a word of impartiality. The speaker must resign himself to be treated as an American in England, and as an Englishman in America; but what does this matter if truth make its way, and if an obstacle the more be raised in the way of this horrible war, this war contrary to nature, which would begin by ensuring the triumph of the champions of negro slavery, and would end by exposing the cause of free inst.i.tutions to more than one perilous hazard?

There is one fundamental rule to follow in questions arising out of the right of search: to distrust first impressions. These, are always very vivid. An insult to the honor of the flag is always in question.

Patriotic sensibilities, which I comprehend and which I respect, are always brought into play. It is impossible that these officers, these stranger sailors, who have given commands and exacted obedience, who have stopped the ship on its way, who have set foot on the sacred deck where floats the banner of the country, who have interrogated, who have searched, who have had recourse, perhaps, to graver measures--it is impossible that they should not have called forth many sentiments of anger and indignation. Even when practised with the most rigid formalities, even when confined within the limits of the strictest legality, the right of search cannot fail to produce a feeling of annoyance. The recent search of the _Jules et Marie_, the yards of which were carried away and the barricadings driven in, seems to me the faithful type of all visits of search on the high seas--every one of them brings damages in its train.

Notwithstanding, the right of search is disputed by no one, and will be exercised in time of war, until the moment when the American proposition, reproduced again the other day by General Scott, shall be welcomed by our Old World.