LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
^^ ^^ ^^ 
 
 This is an authorized facsimile of the original book, and was 
 produced in 1968 by microfilm-xerography by University 
 Microfilms, A Xerox Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. 
 
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 *K. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 TO 
 
 KING COTTON 
 
 
 
 EUGENE PELLETAN 
 
 Author of several Works on America. 
 
 v TRANSLATED BY 
 
 LBA.NTDER STA.RR. 
 
 NIC. 
 
 '.FTJBT.I SHED 
 
 BY H, DE MAREIL, EDITOR OF THE MESSAGER FRANCO -AMERICAN 
 
 51, LIBERTY STREET, NEW IOKK. 
 1863 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ^JmVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 m -;; ; 
 
6 COTTON. 
 
 SIRS: 
 
 Tor nave committed a wrong act. It is not everything to be a 
 king, even with only a bale for a throne : one must also be faithful to the 
 Constitution. I talk to you without flattery, and as I have broached the 
 subject, I shall go to the end of the reel. But first let me throw a retrospec 
 tive glance at the past. 
 
 If in the IGth century, at the time when Thomas Morus wrote his Utopia 
 
 but this is going too far back. Suppose in the 17th century, while 
 Feiielon was elaborating his kingdom of Salente, a seer had spoken to 
 this effect : "I have found a telescope that plunges into time as the other 
 fathoms space I But my glass shows me something still- more marvellous 
 than the Utopia of Morus, or the Salente of the archbishop of Cambrai. 
 
 Beyond the setting sun, on the other side of the Atlantic, I see a tract of 
 continent twenty times as large as France, with two sides on two oceans, 
 the one looking toward Europe, the other toward Asia. One might deem it 
 the middle of the world, the central empire. At the first glance it 
 seems an uncouth territory, overgrown with jungles and sub 
 merged by swamps. Some sixty rivers, nameless as yet, iiow at random, 
 barring one's path in all directions. There are no inhabitants but the wolf 
 .md the bison, save here and there a m;in if we may thus call carnivorous 
 creatures, who after six thousand years of reflection have been unable to 
 acquire any other talent than that of lighting a fire at night by which to 
 cook their food. 
 
 And yet this chaotic soil, rude as the deluge left it, will be chosen by good 
 men, banished from England on account of a dubious point of biblical inter 
 pretation, as an asylum for themselves, their wives and children, so that 
 they may have a right to interpret the Bible in their own way. 
 
 How many will they number 1 A mere handful of men, barely a boat 
 load. They will sing a psalm upon landing in this new hemisphere and 
 then with a piouy glance at the snow-covered soil, they will take up the 
 pickax. 
 
 They will have but one ambition ; prayer and labor prayer in order to 
 gain the life to come and labor to gain time for prayer. After clearing the 
 seabord they will bravely attack the barriers of the untrodden forest ; they 
 will deliver the soil, buried and imprisoned beneath a night of verdure ; they 
 will show it openly to heaven and heaven will let its dews and har 
 vests descend upon it. 
 
 Forward, ever advancing, go ahead, will be the motto of this heroic race. 
 
This ragged land conceals the germ of kindly usefulness. . It awaits but a 
 word from man to pass into a state of civilization. There are immense lakes, 
 or rather seas, destined to create a coasting trade ; and the sixty rivers, al 
 though obstacles at the outset, will become later great highways, binding 
 together the various centres of population. And at last the great Missis 
 sippi, the "father of waters," will draw all these navigable streams in his 
 course of a thousand leagues and boar them along in triumph with their 
 fleets to tho Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 And they will advance ever and ever westward, (for civilization follows 
 the course of the sun,) and wherever they go they will find the same climate 
 us in England ; the same winter and tho samo summer. They may believe 
 it' they will, that they have brought the seasons of Europe with them, sewn 
 in the folds of their cloaks. They will bo able to curry to their new homo 
 tho productions of the old country; their wheat and hemp; their gardens and 
 orchard*. They will be able to carry with them the companions of t?ieir early 
 life, the ox, the horse, the dog, the sheep, &c. Men and flocks will' land in 
 families, and after a voyage of fifteen hundred leagues, they will seem to 
 have passed to the other shore of their own country. 
 
 II. 
 
 t 
 
 But a day will come when this colony, scarcely a century old, born of 
 labor and multiplied by labor, will wish to rise and rank us a nation, and 
 manage its own household. Then it will have to struggle desperately with 
 the mother-country, the lirst maritime power, and perhaps also the first 
 military power of Europe. But North America will have confidence in her 
 destiny. An inward voice will say to her : " Do what you fear to do ! Af 
 ter the strife with nature, conies the strife with England. This will only 
 be changing the battlefield, and America will win the day. She will force 
 England to sign the certificate of birth of the United States, and on the mor 
 row the Atlantic will bear for the first time a flag with but thirteen stars 
 us yet." 
 
 I do not know how or by what secret instinct more powerful than reflection 
 the American republic will find tho most perfect form of government to oc 
 cupy and rule halt a continent ; but it will be found, whether at the first 
 or tho second trial it matters little. Man, master of himself in everything 
 concerning the individual ; a common independence in all his acts regarding 
 his religious existence ; corporate sovereignty in everything of interest to 
 the people constituted as a state ; and lastly the 'j>!iiViWney as the supreme 
 umpire in all matters in which the states are jointly interested, this i the 
 American Constitution. In other words it is r ,cial life copied from uuture 
 and written down upon paper. 
 
 The sovereign people will delegate power to it, still always retaining 
 their sovereignty. Administration, juries, legislation, government and all 
 power will emanate from the people to be restored to the people at the ex 
 piration of their mandate. A 
 
 Public election will constitute in some degivc a distilling apparatus which 
 will be constantly at work, and through whicl. public opinion will evapor 
 ate in power. In addition to all this a presid-Mit will bo elected who will 
 rule over thirty millions of men for the low su n of one hundred and twenty 
 thousand francs per annum and who will live -TI a cottage. At the end of 
 his tormjie will disappear in the crowd and take to sowing wheat and 
 slover. 
 
3 
 
 ' An admirable organization is this, producing- at the same time a double 
 movement of expansion and concentration ; an expansion colonising from 
 without, a concentration binding the various colonies together in one united 
 country. And thus the American Constitution will surround liberty witli as 
 many breastworks as there may be states in the confederacy, so that of all 
 impossibilities the most impossible would be the hypothesis of a Yankee 
 Ctesar with his foot upon the corpse of the republic striving to mount to 
 sovereign power. 
 
 As American emigration clears away what will be called simply a terri 
 tory, the starry constitution will travel westward almost step by step in 
 company with the nomadic labor of the pioneer. When this new territory 
 shall have attained a legal amount of population, the constitution will take 
 hold of it at once and incorporate it in the family of states ; and one more 
 star will shine upon the banner of the republic. 
 
 The confederacy will thus grow constantly from these cuttings, embrac 
 ing all the newly-hatched colonies in the West in the simple bonds of a 
 unity that will protect all the integral parts of the Union without ever be 
 ing able to hold any one of them in bondage. Still who will believe it? 
 This model constitution will result in a degree from chance or if you prefer 
 it from a compromise. A hidden destiny will doubtless dictate it, as though 
 it had onu day to support a world. 
 
 III. 
 
 
 
 Liberty alone possesses creative power ; and thanks to' liberty the Ameri 
 can republic will expand in space man will outstrip time in speed When 
 the twelth or the fifteenth son of the samo father reaches the age of reason, 
 he will harness up a wagon and-load it with the eraigraut's Spartan outfit ; 
 then embrace his family and drive away. 
 
 .Whore will ho go ? To the great West. After picking out a suitable 
 tract of public land, he will attack the forest with his ax, sow his corn in 
 a clearing, and build his log cabin on the outskirts of the wood. When he 
 has raised <i roof above his head, he will think that two heads might rest 
 there as well as one ; after this reflection he will light his pipe, get into the 
 saddle, and return to the village of his childhood. 
 
 He will go there to seek a companion, and will marry the lirst comer. He 
 may draw blindly in the lottery, but lie will always find the spirit of order 
 and labor. Virtue is the only dowry of America's daughters. As to any 
 other dowry, it will not bo thought of. How are the children to live ? 
 They will emigrate in their turn. 
 
 As soon as the pioneer receiver the nuptial blessing, he will return to his 
 log cabin, taking his wife with him : but this time he will take furniture 
 and cattle along. Sometime later, a traveling missionary sent to spread 
 the Gospel in the wilderness, will check hi.s horse before a newly built farm 
 house, at the sight of a swarm of little ones playing on the threshold under 
 a portico of frag-rant vines. 
 
 Man draws near to man in the chemistry of society, as one atom attracts 
 another, in another order of composition. A new cabin will spring up in 
 the neighborhood of the one already built, for reasons both of sympathy and 
 safety. Soon manufacturing industry will compete with agriculture. The 
 blacksmith will light his forge fire by the side of the homestead, to hammer 
 out his ploughshares ; the wheelwright will follow the blacksmith, and then 
 the carpenter, and so on, until the tailor arrives. Agriculture disperses and 
 
4 
 
 manufactures concentrate. The village will owe its birth to the latter. Need 
 I designate the first, public edifice to be built with the savings of the commu 
 nity ? It will be a schoolhouse. 
 
 And why should it not ? Is not the Bible the worship of the Protestant 
 pioneer? Does not his piety come from reading ? Is it not the first evi 
 dence of a free citizen of a free country to be able to read at least his news 
 paper ? Religion will first lodge in the schoolhouse : but iu course of time 
 it will have a separate residence : a church with its steeple* J will arise und 
 the church bells will tell tho winds of the birth of ti now community. 
 
 Thould there exist any local circumstances favorablo to its developement 
 the community will grow almost magically. What wn.-5 but a village will 
 change into a. little town, then into un ordinary sized town, and tit last into 
 a great city, the metropolis of a hundred thousand souls. A hundred thous 
 and, what am 1 saying, four hundred thousand, and all this, within the life 
 of one man, and upon a soil where only yesterday the butlulo browsed at 
 liberty. 
 
 What will it become then, when steam gives American civilization a soul 
 equal to its aspirations? Everything to be done thenceforth, agricultural or 
 industrial must be done by machinery. The soil must be tilled, and the 
 harvest reaped by machinery. The entire surface of the ejirtli will become 
 one immense machine, ever panting with labor. Armed with steam p r wer, 
 North America will defy. impossibilities, and even attempt to imitate mira 
 cles. For example, a railroad one thousand leagues in length, will be laid 
 down, and the engine darting through the immensity of space, will call up 
 with a shrill whistle, the yet buriod phantom of future cities, und these cit 
 ies, will spring from the ground at the call of steam, to take their places in 
 the sunlight. 
 
 - ? iv. 
 
 The news of this great prospei&y and its unprecedented rapidity will crosa 
 the sea, and the people of the olu v world, deprived of their share in the soil 
 will cross the Atlantic, and cover the predestined land of the West with a 
 Jiving alluvium. It will be a crusade of labor. All the energy of Europe, 
 (for it takes strong nerve tojsubmit to expatriation), will thus concur to 
 swell the energy of America ; und from their combination, and from the ac 
 tion and reaction of their double electricity a new and unexpected race will 
 arise ; one that will grow an inch in each generation. 
 
 The Saxon element will prove the richest soil, and will give the deepest 
 impress to this new civilization. It will lead foreign emigrants to the wor 
 ship of labor and of liberty, (he parent of labor. It will fulfil a purpose 
 similar to the great tun at Heidelberg, into which new wine was poured 
 each year, that it might at once partake of the nature of the old. Then a 
 bci'ig hitherto unknown will appear ; the last type of man ; man master of 
 himself ; man his own sovereign, his own policeman, his own priest : tho I 
 absolute, the Yankee. He will not wait for the government to protect him, 
 he will protect himself, nor for the State to enrich him, he will make his 
 own fortune ; nor wait for the government to designate his religion in 
 the budget, for he will choose his own religion himself, supporting it out 
 of his savings. 
 
 There will be no more oppression, either of conscience or any other spe 
 cies ; no oppression of one class by another, or of all classes of society by a 
 permanent army. North America will only have an army for appearance 
 
sake, consisting at most of twelve thousand men, disseminated" In little 
 bands over the entire extent of her territory. There, there will be no un 
 pleasant trac.es of the past, no law of primogeniture, no exclusive acade 
 mies, no embroidery of distinctive rank, no crosses and decorations, no 
 cringing courtiers, no sinecure officers, no charity under the name of re 
 ward Men will be estimated at their real value ; nothing will be respect 
 ed save work and money the incarnation of labor ; but it will have to be 
 earned by the sweat of one's brow, for the Dolce far niente will bo looked 
 upon in America as a robbery committed upon society in general. On tho 
 other hand every sort of trade will become glorious. Work, no matter in 
 what manner ; be what you list, bootmaker, tailor, gardener or lawyer ; 
 choose your own calling, provided that you loyally furnish your tribute of 
 labor. In America every trade has its own nobility ; the President of the 
 republic may be chosen from a carpenter's shop. 
 
 A seer might have spoken thus two centuries since ; but had he done so, 
 he would have been treated as a visionary, he might perhaps even been 
 publicly burnt, as duly attainted and convicted of dealings with the evil 
 one. And still the prophecy would have been but an anticipation of the 
 reality ; for if a nation has ever existed in the universe that has done honor 
 to the species, that nation is North America, with its motto, "God and Lib 
 erty," and which, with the Bible in one hand and the ax in the other, has 
 cleared the surface of a world in a twinkling, and shown man in all the 
 sple jdor of virtue. 
 
 In the very air of this new country, there is an indefinable breathing of 
 its juvenile nature, an inexplicable strength that expands one's chest, an 
 exhuberant healthfulness in its exhalations that fortifies both body and 
 mind. There is in the daily labors of the pioneer, alone with Providence, 
 a something of religion which in a manner elevates the soul to the mountain 
 tops. lu this poetical and odorous laboratory of agriculture, with no roof 
 but the heavens, no boundary save the horizon, there exists a continual re 
 semblance to the Infinite, reminding man of his ultimate destiny. 
 
 But while the American race was growing great by labor, what were 
 you doing, Sire, on your part, you and your partisans? You wi-re looking 
 jealously upon the constantly increasing prosperity of your Western neigh 
 bor, for whom you felt a fraternal friendship like that of Cain. You were 
 conspiring secretly in order to establish the kingdom of cotton and the 
 supremacy of cotton shirts upon the ruins of the republic. 
 
 But you were BO unfortunate as to have been born too near the sun, iu a 
 colony of bad origin whose godfather was the prince of libertines, and 
 whose godmother was the sctiui of the Jacobite army. The first viceroy 
 called by Locke's constitution to the rule of Carolina was, I believe, Gener 
 al Monk, a bedizened traitor who sold the liberty of his country for money. 
 Your ancestor was a scoundrel, Sire ; and you have not disgraced your 
 descent. 
 
 V. 
 
 i. Why then do you wish to rend asunder this splendid American republiq 
 die joy and glory of humanity ? We must know it for the instruction ol 
 this century, and that man may learn to do his duty alway despite every 
 thing. The American Constitution certainly compared the ultimatum of 
 wisdom ; but it lacked courage in one clause, aud this weakness was des 
 tined one day to compromise tne very existence of the confederacy * Provi- 
 
denco does not allow evil to remain in what is good. When it has one 
 entered it acts like the lead in a wound ; either the wound expels the 
 im'sHi'le or the metal aggravates the wound until death ensues. 
 
 When America became possessed of liberty slavery already existed in a 
 portion of the country : but the day that she solemnly proclaimed before 
 God the right of every man to happiness, she should have placed the reali 
 ty in harmony with the principle, without futile distinctions. She was 
 afraid of justice and dared neither abolish nor recognixe slavery ; she did 
 not even dare name it. It was tacitly permitted as though a question of 
 this nature could be passed over and avoided in silence ; but in truth its so 
 lution was entrusted to time. 
 
 But time only accepts such drafts by doubling the debt of the past. Tho 
 longer emancipation was put off the more aggravated did the difficulty be 
 come, and to you, Sire, is due the credit of the spread of this scourge. The 
 very moment that some poor devil, accidentally but honestly, found an in 
 fernal machine to pick cotton, you transformed the South into a cotton 
 plantation. And in order to cultivate this plantation the special labor of 
 the slave became necessary. 
 
 What is a slave ? Those black metaphysicians who wish to elevate ser 
 vitude into a theory in order to quiet their consciences, give us such a po- 
 *tie idyl of negro existence that we needs must re-assert the truth in the 
 euphemism "involuntary labor." 
 
 Slavery is thus termed so as to spare the delicacy of "cars polite." You, 
 yourself, Sire, posted as you are in the matter, never call it except by a 
 peri phrase. In your code, if I am not mistaken, you designate it the "pe 
 culiar institution." Barefaced as you arc in reality, you at least show hu 
 manity in this title ; and in this you imitate the inquisition which always 
 dealt in euphemisms toward its victims ; thus the torture room was termed 
 t'je "*?wffl xanta" and upon tho stake was inscribed the word "miscricordia." 
 
 But what is a slave? A slave is u man robbed of his soul, he and his 
 rae<\ until the end of posterity ; a man doomed from father to son to think 
 with the brains and will through the volition of another; a man di 
 vested of the first sacred right of man ; to wit, individuality ; a being 
 changed from his nature ; in a word an artificial monster, a moral ennuch, 
 undeserving of the deprivation. The church castrates the child to make 
 him Miig well, but you, Sire, you castrate him that he may pick your cot 
 ton. This is the only difference. 
 
 If in order to render a man a slave it were necessary to cut off one of his 
 legs or arms, the sight of the knife and of the stump would certainly in the 
 end excite pity ; and pity once raised what might not ensue. 
 
 But the white man, having tired of cutting and maiming, finally wished 
 to leave the negro entire. In order to transform a man into an automaton 
 it suffices to take away his soul gently ; and as this requires neither knife 
 nor surgical operation, MS it causes neither outcries nor bloodshed the 
 world looks on quietly. After all it is only a metaphysical murder com 
 mitted in the realms of tho invisible. We do not sec or touch it and we 
 .sleep with a sound conscience. And yet, whatever may be said in the 
 country of yellow fever or sugar cane, there is more cruelty in mutilating 
 him physically. Place the one against the other and were fate to summon 
 us to choose we should certainly prefer the loss of a leg to that of our in 
 telligence, we had ra-ther lose an arm than our will. 
 
 ^Servitude in common with every human institution has its own logic. 
 iMiumatxng from barbarity it leads from cruelty to cruelty, as result follows 
 result in reasoning. 
 
 You feed the slave while in infancy (I had nearly added while in old 
 
7 - 
 
 age also ; but forced labor beneath a tropical sun rarely allows nim to 
 grow old) therefore tho negro must earn by his daily labor not only his 
 present but his past sustenance ; but the uegro has no interest to stimulate 
 Slim to work, so you supply its place with the whip. This is your idea of 
 the perfection of labor ; but this is not all : discipline must be maintained 
 .in this band of scourged creatures, giddy and noisy as children 
 
 The raw hide teaches him to keep order and to love his master or mis 
 tress. Both in France and in England by a braminical species of law cruel 
 ty to animals is punishable ; but in America the skin of man is not held in 
 such high esteem. There the negro's blood is shed upon the slightest pro 
 vocation, for a petty blunder. 
 
 It was evening. The sun was fading away in a golden mist. Upon a 
 verandah beneath the shade of the blossoming vanilla a young Creole wo 
 man was enjoying the cool evening She was a mother for the first time 
 and the mysterious feeling of maternity thrilled her heart. She looked 
 up into the heavens dreamily, when suddenly she heard a piercing cry, 
 then a stifled sigh. For an instant she listened, then with a smile she bent 
 over the odor of a rose. In liiis attitude she was beautiful as the MauS 
 
 O1I1IA. 
 
 A pregnant negress hud been tiod to a ladder and they were whipping 
 her poetically by tho light of the setting sun. Do you know what she Imd 
 done ? She had broken a saucer. They had to take a round out of the 
 ladder to make room for the bosom where the Almighty had deposited a 
 soul. 
 
 VI.' 
 
 Sire, you go regularly to church every Sunday. You must .consent 
 therefore, out of respect to the gospel, to allow the slave to become, if not a 
 man, at least a Christian. Let him be baptised in the name of the Father, the 
 Sou, and the Holy Ghost, and by virtue of his baptism lie will be granted a 
 place in the city of the dead and equality ui paradise. But there is a slight 
 drawback which you did not at first foresee, in that the Bible constitutes the 
 whole Protestant worship. You should therefore, Sire, as a Protestant, 
 teach the slave to rend so as to make him a good Christian, lint 'when he 
 learns to read what will he read? 
 
 You may refuse to allow the slave to exorcise his intelligence, but you 
 cannot root this intelligence out of his brain. His intellect works even un 
 der the yoke, although confusedly as though under a fog What would it 
 be then were his mind to become educated and were he to learn that 
 you were no better than himself, and say to you let it be decided between 
 us ! Man to man ! 
 
 You foresaw the danger of this, and in order to avert it you made his 
 ignorance the safeguard of slavery. Keeping the slave in ignorance, Sire, 
 this has been your policy You have closed the schools to the negro, aurt 
 have hidden the alphabet from him. The Scythians put out the bodily eyes, 
 of their slaves as a prudential measure ; but you treat your slaves infinitely 
 more cruelly, for you put out their mental eyes; und the negro, who is crea 
 ted after God's image like .yourself, will go henceforth from, th,e cradle fa'tho 
 grave with night in his soul and night on his face. 
 
 You have elevated him to Christianity, probably that he may practice the 
 gospel, and the gospel condemns proinisciionsn,cs**. You take pains that the 
 blacks shall intermarry, and a clergyman blesses their union. Why should it 
 be blessed ? Kuther lo$ it be cursed iind the wouinu be rendered barren, for 
 
 '" 
 
. g _ 
 
 she will only bring forth heirs to slavery. And the children born of this 
 love, whom she has nourished at her breast and cherished in her heart what 
 will become of them when they reach a marketable ago ? The master will 
 send them to market, and marriage, tho most moral of all institutions, be 
 comes but another torment added to slavery. 
 
 Without irony, let tho inmates of the negro pen be considered simply as 
 male and female ; let them come together and bring forth after the lapse of 
 nine months; let them mix indiscriminately; let the m meet promiscuously and 
 then forget each other; this will do for negroes. Why have any marriage* 
 at all? And the young white girl, Sire, your own daughter will receive 
 her education in this school. I say nothing of your sou : I know already 
 what his first love affair will be. 
 
 Occasionally the slave takes to flight. In local phraseology, he vamoses. 
 The swamps urc deserted and tho underwood dense. By sleeping during 
 the day and traveling at night, he may be able to gain the border. * What 
 do you do to recapture him ? You train up a pack of bloodhounds to track 
 the runaway. The slave owner has a right to hunthim, and if he chooses to 
 risk tlj thousand tJollars represented by his human game, he may shoot at 
 him, and kill him, tho law allows it. 
 
 And these nameless crimes, these insults to God and man, are not repug 
 nant to, and do not even astonish the gentle blue-eyed Creoles, the wives 
 and bisters of the knights of the whip I The frequency of their occurrence 
 bus to a great extent made them a normal state of affairs, an old established 
 tradition, rendered legitimate by custom. What in fact is there to com 
 plain of in the negro's destiny ? Does he not get enough to cat when he is 
 hungry ? Does he not dance at Christmas? Yes, eat or die, such is thy 
 lot; King Cotton has declared it. And if thou shouldst incautiously murmur 
 at thy portion, thy master will send thec to the plantation executioner with 
 an order for fifty lashes, payable to bearer, and tho official will pay them at 
 sight without further formality. 
 
 You degrade the slave at pleasure ; you put him up at auction on a 
 olnc.k like butcher's meat. Draw near, here is a negro, or better still a. ne- 
 gress ; you may examine her at leisure, undress her, turn her round, dis- 
 russ her price before her, stipulate against any hidden imperfection, and 
 then take possession of the merchandise. If she groans and weeps you may 
 take her away tied to the tail of your horse ; the town of Raleigh in North 
 Carolina has witnessed such an act. 
 
 And after you have debased the negro, and corrupted him by his degra 
 dation, how, Sire, do you satisfy your conscience ? You make the slave 
 himself responsible for the effects of slavery : you use his baseness as an ar 
 gument to maintain him in servitude. But who has branded him with igno 
 miny except you, his master his second creator? And you have recourse to a 
 second crime in order to justify the first. 
 
 You lower the negro to the level of a brute, and then you say that he is not 
 a man. And whose fault is this, I pray; He is not a man, you say; but is 
 not the negress a woman ? Yes, when she is young and well made this 
 you condescend to prove. And the profit is all your own, for later you will 
 be able to sell your own child. A mulatto is more valuable than a full- 
 blooded African. 
 
 I will take your word for it that the negro is despicable ; but there is 
 one still more despicable than he, to wit ; you, yourself, King Cotton. The 
 slave is debased, but you are cruel. Which is to be preferred, a vitiated 
 nature or crime ? Moreover the negro is your work, and the work is a cri 
 terion of the workman. 
 
 r f he slave being degraded by his master, degrades the latter in his turn. 
 
The master loses his sense of right and wrong ; the planter does wrong 
 without even suspecting that he is doing so. The Caesarian folly of des 
 potism extinguishes the last symptom ot conscience and kills remorse. He 
 is candid in his own crime. 
 
 Immorality begets immorality. The burning soil of the South devours the 
 laborer, who can only live thero about seven years upon an average. The 
 consumption exceeds the supply, and slavery might die out for want of the 
 raw material; but in the border states, rejoicing in the "peculiar institution," 
 there are good fathers of families, prudeutly intent upon establishing their 
 sous aud endowing their daughters. Tht^e men will originate the ingenious 
 idea of profiting by the mildness of a temperate climate to breed up. human 
 cattle on a large scale, 
 
 The.-e prudent mon will neck out well-proportioned brood ncgressea' wfio 
 will produce first-class ntock which they will subsequently dispose ot further 
 South at high rates. Sire, I congratulate you upon thU stroke of genius : 
 you have iuvented a new wort of conscription. You may say, as another 
 king onco said : "I have so many men to spend upon uiy battle-field/' 
 
 But the breeding district will not suffice to supply the slave-market; 
 something more will be required, and despite the law, despite the penalty 
 ot death provided by the law lor the slaver captain, the Southron will bold- 
 ty keep up the slave trade in the open light of day. You will protect him 
 secretly ; you will interpose your authority between tho criminal and the 
 g'allows. When a cruiser brings to Charleston a slaver aptured in the ex 
 ercise of his vocation, the planter-judge; will declare that ;he honest dealer 
 in human flesh has been calumniated, and that he was sailing along the Af-' 
 ricau coast for purely philanthropic purposes, solely in order to offer the 
 advantages of commerce to the black race. 
 
 But before long the farce of this underhand traffic, continually pursued 
 with impunity, will prove too revolting to the uprightness of the South, and 
 some honest citizen will demand the reestablishroeut of the slave trade open- 
 ly and undisguisedly. This man merits mention. He is called Doctor Thor- 
 well, and his name should be nailed like a rook to Jefferson Davis' door. 
 
 I do not say, Sire, that your Southern vassals are altogether bloodthirsty 
 men, of repulsive mien, whose clothes reek with the professional odor of 
 butchers. On the contrary, they are perfect gentlemen, agreeable, amiable, 
 and always ready to do the honors of the-r homes with smiling, constant 
 courtesy. They have debts, white hands, and good manners. They are 
 good hunters, riders, and pistol shotH. They arc fond of painting, music 
 und literature. They look upon labor as derogatory, therefore they do not 
 work; but they possess all the charms of aristocratic slothluiness, includ 
 ing good-breeding, good-taste, and well-lined purses. 
 
 Do not fear that they will ever doubt the right fulness of slavery. Their 
 theologians of all denominations and they arc more subtle than the most 
 wily casuists of the old school of Ignatius Loyola have long since re 
 lieved the conscience of the planter ot' nil anxiety on this head. These 
 religion-mongers who, like Judas Iscuriot, would sell Christ a second time, 
 open their Bible with a pious air, and through the assistance of the Holy 
 Ghost they discover that the Lord eternally empowers the white men of 
 Louisiami to buy black flesh for their use, and to whip the same ad libitum, 
 
 Whenever a crime is committed in this world there will always be a crea 
 ture in. clerical guise upon its trace, ready to canonize the deed and make 
 God have a hand ia it. 0m nut potestas a Deo. Your chaplain, Sire, has 
 no doubt communicated this text to your august ear, aud demonstrated to 
 you from the pulpit that you possess a ri^ht of life and death over your 
 fellow -creatures for the public welfare of Cotton. 
 
10 
 
 VII. 
 
 Still, North America permitted matters to take their course. She seemed 
 to have good-naturedly consented to the scandal of a republic in two parts, 
 with liberty inscribed "upon one page of its constitution and slavery upon the 
 other ; but liberty possess- H such virture in itself that if you link it to ser 
 vitude one of two results in list ensue ; either servitude will stifle it, or it 
 will efface the former. 
 
 The dtiy was destined to come when men worthy of the name should ex 
 amine the conscience of the republic and demand whether the living para 
 dox of the "peculiar institution" should still longer dishonor the country .of 
 AVashington. A voice, low and indistinct at first, risen from Pcnn's colony, 
 pronouncing the word "abolition; " but timidly like ajwcrot whispered in 
 one's car. 
 
 This lirst protest astonished, and then irritated even the immaculate 
 North. Why raise thus unseasonably a ditliculty'of this nature? Why 
 disturb the quiet of those who siw nothing and the peflce of those who did 
 not wish to see anything, of those who turned aside their heads and kept 
 on their way ? Therefore the people of Philadelphia grew indignant and 
 set tire to, the hall where abolitionism held its first meeting. 
 
 Then Channing began to speak, and by the evangelical serenity of his 
 eloquence h^ gently brought North America to blush for this and to har 
 monise her policy with that liberty decreed by the heart of man before it 
 was countersigned by the constitution. From thai moment the abolition 
 party weighed in the balance of public opinion wiih all the weight of jus 
 tice. 
 
 But win. 1 to the ingenuous apostle simple-minded enough to believe, that, 
 under a rfyime of absolute liberty, h* hud a right to utter his opinions 
 aloud in the streets. If, by chance, he had the impudence to show .a luck 
 of respect for the "peculiar institution" or to assert casually that a' a very 
 was perhaps not the bran-idenl of civ Hi/at ion, when in the land of good-bivcd- 
 ing, the home of your rich, last planters, well gloved and curled, elegant in 
 Panama hats nnd white pantaloons, that very instant the unfortunate aboli 
 tionist found himself seized by the collar to be tarred and feathered in the 
 Stat 1 . 4 HO.IIMQ ; for the knights of the lash are a jovial race and fondut joke 
 in thoJr idle moments. When they have no slaves to punish with their 
 lordly hands, they love to enjoy a free, hearty laugh, especially after a 
 "cocktail." They hold that since the days of Moliere a mun daubed with 
 tar is the wittiest thing invented, and they repat the joke ad nauseam/ 
 
 Still, experience showed tlm relative value of free labor and slave labor. 
 While free labor in the north of America was incessantly invading the wil 
 derness, peopling the desert, drawing the stout sons of Europe to its rank.*?, 
 and jointly with them transforming a desert into a nation at every step, ser 
 vile labor, despite the development of the cultivation of cotton, aiid not 
 withstanding that it monopolized the European markets, was barely enabled 
 to keep a people, burdened with debt, at the same level during the sahfe 
 period. With progress o.n the one hand and stagnation on the other must 
 result the following consequence. 
 
 The Senate represents the States. So many states send so many Senators, 
 whatever be tl 'r population ; but owing to the increasing flow of emigra 
 tion the North was alone able to improvise new states and consequently to 
 ..-.end new Senators to Congress. The North, therefore, year after year, had 
 a, majoiity in the Senate ; and a* the section inclined more and more toward 
 abolitionism, the day drew near to put the slavery question to the vote. 
 
a 
 
 What did the South do in order to restore \he equilibrium and retain the 
 majority? Being unable 1 to create new states by their labor, they essayed 
 to conquer such by dint of arms and to sow slavery by force. Thus they 
 got up the Mexican expedition and imposed involuntary labor upon Texas. 
 Labor in vain, the North was always ahead. 
 
 The South, feeling that their human property was in danger, thought fit 
 to play a bold game, and on their part to threaten to split the republic in 
 twain. They, thus succeeded in obtaining from the easy-going good-na 
 tured North, first the Missouri compromise, then its violation, then the ex 
 tradition law, then the decision ot the United States Court placing slave 
 property on a footing with all other kinds of property in every state in the 
 Union. This amounted to rendering slavery universal. The South went 
 too far. Destiny looked on and cried, Halt ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 But one day an honest man named John Brown tried to discover whether 
 there were any pulsation left beneath the -negro's cotton shirt. This was 
 an -error, I admit. You seized the noble champion of humanity, you tried 
 him and you hung him. Bravo, Sire, 1 recognize you by this act of clemen 
 cy, for you could have burnt him alive at the stake I But when he was ex 
 ecuted a great shudder swept through the North of America. Thenceforth 
 the sacred cause of abolitionism was invested with the halo of martyrdom. 
 
 It had already sounded its tocsin, ii* the shape of a paltry little book 
 written by a woman ; and it was less than a book, it was a novel. You 
 smiled compassionately at it, did you not ? Your children may cry over it 
 lor a long while. America read Mrs. Stowe's elegy and bewailed her state ; 
 and the presidency of Abraham Lincoln sprang from the presidency of Uii- 
 clc Tom. 
 
 I breathe again. I have rid me of a nightmare, for the time for justice 
 has arrived : right is not a lie. Scarcely had the South learned the election 
 of Lincoln before with their impious hand, already polluted with the blood 
 of the slave, they dared to strike their mother, to strangle the Constitution, 
 throwing to the winds the common glory ef their common country, tolling 
 the Union their intention to walk thenceforward independently with the 
 negro trampled beneath their feet. 
 
 You, Sire, and you alone, without provocation or excnse, have broken 
 the compact which you signed and swore to keep. In your rebellious folty 
 you said to yourself, "What have I to fear from the North, from the lovers 
 of peace and dollars ? Will they dare to raise an army tor the abstract 
 satisfaction of unity? And supposing that they dare, I need only hold fast to 
 my bajcft of cotton. At one blow I can cause a famine in nil the markets 
 of Europe, and array all the spindles and looms of Manchester and Mul- 
 house against these fanatical Yankees, and their Constitution. Then Eng 
 land and France must of necessity, either jointly or separately intervene, 
 in favor of slavery in order to save their cotton. 
 
 And if they hesitate, if they shrink from armed mediation, what will 'they 
 do with their disbanded hosts of cotton spinners ? Will they be allowed to 
 wander at random, pale and ragged, like the spectres of famine, about the 
 extinguished furnaces and silent factories, until at Jast, tired of suffering 
 they make one desperate effort and throw themselves upon the bayonets of 
 their countrymen ? Certainly not ; France as well as England must prefer 
 to open the Southern markets at any cost, even by force of shot and she41. 
 
in 
 
 -* ^ J| 
 
 is the impious 'calculation you made when you labelled 
 he Constitution. You condemned the poorer classes of Europe to want fo r 
 work, in other word*, to a slow death, so as to preserve slavery in all its 
 parity ; after adding another crime to your list, you hauled down the federal 
 dag waving over Fort Surnter. 
 
 During the last ten year*, Sire, you have been silently preparing for civil 
 war. You furnished the first example of a conspirator in the Cabinet. You 
 have overspread the South with an immense network of rabid democracy. 
 Long since you organised the secret society of the Knights of the Golden 
 Circle, the three golden circles inclosed the one within the other, with all 
 the dexterity of a Chinese puz/Je. The first was to separate the sec 
 ond, and t?ie second the third, and the countersign passed from one to the 
 other without tint possibility of discovering who hud given it. 
 
 You chose your tinit; well. The Constitution places an interval of three 
 months batween the election of the President and his inauguration ; during 
 that period, Buchanan was finishing his presidential term, like a gloomy 
 sunset, lie was a mart after your own heart, a mind devoted to sla 
 very, a magnetic needle turned to the South pole instead of toward 
 the North, and he conscientiously employed the balance of his presidency 
 in betraying the Union. 
 
 Treason is perhaps too forcible an expression he was not exactly a 
 traitor. But when the rebellion boldly declared itself, when civil war was 
 openly begun, Buchanan was most conveniently affected with a wilful dim 
 ness of ocular and mental vision ; ho saw nothing, and knew nothing. He 
 sent all the Northern ordnance to the South ; he sent the army to the 
 Western frontier in order to prevent the imminent invasion of a dozen red 
 skins win) threatened to pillage the New York banks. 
 
 Thus you had three months start of the North. You took them unawares. 
 You had them within range, you had an army while they had but militia. 
 They rushed heedlessly against you at Bull Km, and you butchered them. 
 o there was nothing left but to admit the defeat and beg for mercy! 
 
 By no means ! While still under the first shock of the disaster, this peace 
 ful laborious people, thus villainously attack" 1 and abominably massacred 
 in ambuscades, sent back a shout of defiance, and staked everything in the 
 struggle, to its last man and its last dollar. 
 
 Heroism is contagious. America oftVred so magnificent a spectacle to 
 right-minded Europeans, that young princes, ignorant of democracy through 
 the accident of their birth, deemed it an honor to win their spurs beneath 
 , the banner of the Republic. The fact is greatly to their credit; 1 say it 
 without flattery, for between their principles and our principles, lies the 
 broad Atlantic. For their account I hope, that while serving under the 
 star-spangled banner, they may havu loanied that there is something high 
 er thaa princes, that there is the citizen. 
 
 IX. 
 
 During this time, Sire, you sent agents to Europe to decoy public 
 ion to the side of slavery. Your legates it latere are at this moment dis 
 pensing a prodigious amount of philanthropy. They say, or make others 
 say, in affecting tones ; see, blood is being poured out like water ; battles 
 constantly succeed cuch other and always without result ; after two years 
 slaughter in line upon the banks of the Potomac the Nortli has been unable 
 to advauee a step without falling back immediately afterward. The mari- 
 
13 
 
 time nation* of Europe should throw themselves between tbe combatants 
 in imitation of the Sabines. The interests of humanity are at stake as well 
 as your industrial interests. 
 
 This is what the missionaries from the South preach 10 the four corners 
 nf i he earth. Do not delude yourself, Sire. Despite the sullying that your frat 
 ricidal struggle inflicts upon our country, you will not succeed in pervert 
 ing public opinion ; you may try every avc-iuo of publicity, but you will 
 ouly find fickle partisans and doubtful friends of freedom. We have seen 
 them at work, wo know their record ; they like your despotism, not that 
 they uphold slavery, for its name frightens them ; they would condemn the 
 property and glorify the owner. 
 
 With such as these there can be no discussion ; they are kuown and re 
 futed. There arc, however, in the ranks of the French press, partisans 
 of liberty like ourselves, who think themselves able to defend what they 
 call the principle of secession without offence to liberty. They say honest 
 ly that, with ourselves, they reject slavery in principle with this addition, 
 that the American republic is not a State, that it is a juxta-position of States, 
 each of which has the right to withdraw from tho Union arid take its star 
 from the flag. 
 
 The American republic not a State I Verily, we must be asleep with our 
 eyes open. According to this, Holland also was not a state in the seven 
 teenth century ! Then Switzerland too, is not a nation at this hour of her 
 history ; and when General Dufour crushed the Sonderbuud insurrection, he 
 committed in reality tho same crime that Catherine was guilty of toward 
 Poland ! 
 
 What ! The North and the South of' America one memorable day in 
 the last century by common consent threw off the supremacy of the mother 
 country, to enjoy it entirely in common ; they voted a federal constitution 
 in common ; they built a federal capitol in common, where they instal and 
 organize a federal legislative system in common and a federal presidency, a 
 federal administration, a federal diplomacy, a federal urmy and navy, a fed 
 eral mint, and later jointly also, they bought Louisiana from France and 
 Florida from Spain with federal money, and again out of federal funds they 
 armed forts and built arsenals for the universal defence of all their frontiers, 
 and yet they are not a State, nor even a nation, but simply a handful of 
 dust vhich the first gust of wind may disperse ! 
 
 Read the constitution over again ! There you will see that the thirteen 
 original states entered into a solemn agreement each one with the. other, to 
 form always one single national body. As long as the South held a majori 
 ty in i he republic, (and as a consequence of such majority the monopoly 
 of the presidency, and with the presidency the disposal of the federal offices, 
 a welcome gift for distribution among their party leaders) they never 
 dreamed, that I know, of disputing the sucredness of the contract, or of 
 contesting the legitimacy of a power which they monopolized for their ad 
 vantage, and enjoyed among themselves. 
 
 And now that luck is against them, when they are in a minority, when 
 it is the turu of the North" to hold the presidency, after legally gaining it, 
 the South complains of overbearing. They held the place long but now 
 they are told to leave and make room for another. The grandee's honor is 
 insulted : he puts on his hat and leaves, in a rage, nothing but a duel to the 
 death can avenge the 
 
14 
 
 Since when has it been optional with one party to an agreement to an 
 nul the contract without tho consent of the other party ? A contract in en 
 tered into precisely in order to prevent such a contingency. Otherwise 
 there would never be any treaty in tho world and man's hand-writing 
 would be but a writing upon sand. Tho fate of the world would be contin 
 ually dependent upon the peculiar system of pitch and toss called military 
 science. 
 
 Why was the thing called a constitution thought of, unless in order to 
 prevent what the South i* doing at this moment. Every nation, even when 
 self-styled one .and indivisible, must always run the risk of domestic' quar 
 rels ; and there are but two means to dccido the difference, war or the bal 
 lot box. 
 
 When war is resorted to the stronger crushes down the weaker until the 
 latter rises up and crushes the conqueror in his turn and thus war begets . 
 war without end, until the country after tearing itself to pieces with it's own 
 hands, expires in a convulsion of anarchy and disappears in a conquest. 
 
 If it is to be settled by the constitution, then, instead of appealing to the 
 sword tho verdict of public opinion will be Bought : the struggle will be 
 definitively settled by suffrage. . The minority will respectfully agree to the 
 decision of the majority as the expression of justice. This is a simple fic 
 tion for the benefit of the common weal, implying no irrevocable decree, 
 for, according to the constitution itself, the minority always possess the 
 right of reconsidering the subject before the people when what is lacking 
 may be recovered. 
 
 .Hitherto this has been the great rule in politics. Hut tho South thought 
 fit to make an exception. Tliey willingly approved the ballot box when it 
 gave them a majority, but when they found themselves in a minority they 
 to(>k up tho musket. We must certainly admit tho right to revolt or else 
 .proclaim the inviolability of tyranny, but recourse to force; can never rank 
 as a system. It can only be resorted to as a forlorn hope, and there must 
 exist the sacred incentive of freedom to be gained in order to justify an up 
 right man in'assurning the tragical responsibility of a revolution. 
 
 But when all the advantages of liberty are combined, when a people are 
 thus above public opinion, and with every means of redress at hand, what 
 right can they hope to obtain by victory which they do not already pos 
 sess ? One of the best and most deserving feature* of the American Con 
 stitution is that it lends no species of plea for insurrection. Why, for in 
 stance, should the people of Illinois declare war against the Union, when 
 tho Union oppresses liberty in no section, but on tho contrary everywhere 
 guarantees it. 
 
 And yet, Sire, you have unsheathed the sword, and why? Had the ne 
 gro race not been iu existence you would not have dreamed of rebelling, 
 for your rebellion will not give you a single additional right or guarantee. 
 You have revolted for one object only, the maintenance of slavery. 
 Hitherto nations have rebelled for liberty alone. Your subjects, Sire, will 
 be the first that have risen to support despotism. 
 
 Your keep up your rebellion by means worthy of its origin. I do not al 
 lude to the reign of terror that you have created at home in order to stifle 
 he muruiurings of the loyal partisans of the Union who still look wistfully 
 in the direction of their common home. Nor will I refor to the tcrriblo 
 cannibal-Urn which a certain young Belgian savant has depicted in all its 
 
-15- 
 
 tenlble truthfulness. You have closed the door upon us, Siro, And bidder 
 yourself from our sight. You are modest regarding your handiwork, lear 
 ing its perfections to be inferred rather than admired. 
 
 I speak only of your fpen and avowed acts; of your barbarous proclam 
 ations unworthy of Ghcngis-Kim in which you condemned Union General* 
 and negro soldiers to the baiter. And this is not merely a threat, for you 
 have already carried the sentence into effect. Still you had a scruple you 
 might have simply hanged your black prisoners ; but you preferred to shoot 
 them. This is shorter and more honorable. Sire, yoar conduct is hor 
 rible. 
 
 After this what can it serve to mention the Alabama, a corsair that 
 plunders and then sinks every merchant vessel in her path, brazenly violat 
 ing the first law of privateering, for even privateering has its iaws. We 
 note this, Sire, and we see by your conduct that you are really the pirate 
 king that rumor terms you. By your present acts we see that you need 
 hypocrisy in order to wheedle some European power into an alliance. We 
 can foresee to what extent you would carry your filibustering if victory 
 could obliterate your revolt. You lay down the mask too soon, Sire. I 
 despise you, for you lack sense. 
 
 XI. 
 
 I know that there are men among us ^who feel a natural antipathy to the 
 Yankee race. How cau they like a pco'ple who never laugh and hardly 
 smile, who speak but little and meditate eternally ? What merit can be 
 granted to a morose race who have, up to the present, failed to produce an 
 actress or a milliner of any note, or even a racy specimen of their literature? 
 TlKjy chew, smoke, and spit, mid sit with their heels on the mantel-piece. 
 How disgusting u spectacle to the goddess of liberty. At the theatre when 
 they ought to hiss they applaud, and when they should applaud they hiss. 
 Is not this turning the world upside down? You will soon see them wear 
 ing white mourning: like the Chinese. And how about this democratic 
 equality where onelms but one scat in a steamboat or railroad car, whoro 
 the millionaire must sit side by side with his bootblack! A certain French 
 lady, tolerably well known in print, even goes so far as to affirm that the 
 Yankee sleeps with his boots on. Pray how do you know, madam ? Did you 
 look under the. counterpane ? 
 
 The Yankee, I admit, possesses the defect of being a meditative man. 
 He is as taciturn as the Western wilderness. He does not slap you on the 
 shoulder at the first meeting ; he does not jump into familiarity at the sec 
 ond ; he does not burrow a dollar or your wife the third time he sees' 
 you ; but is- this a fair reason why one should set one'sself against right, 
 because the Yankee happens to represent right, dry and unadorned. And 
 is it not an evidence of being prejudiced against right when you place the 
 North and the South on a footing of equality ? Peace is desirable in the 
 interest of Immunity, we are told. Undoubtedly it is to be desired ; but 
 how is it to be obtained ? 
 
 Can it be secured by recogni/.ing the schism of the South as a perfected 
 act, and by advising the North to accept this basis ? This view of the 
 question would encourage the South to continue the war ; it would lead 
 them to believe that they were secretly supported by some great European 
 nation ; and further, it Would be an unmerited blow to the North, legaliz 
 ing rebellion by I know not what sort of diplomatic chicanery. 
 
-16- 
 
 When an established government permits foreign intervention between 
 the cons tU ition wliicl. it should defend, and a portion of its .people in re, 
 Sst thin constitution, it docs not negoc.ate ; it resigns its rights 
 nd would have done. had she accepted the mediation of Austria at 
 
 Scotland. But the North, irritated and 
 this traitorous war self- 
 
 toMtw 
 
 co H lei t and firm in their sense f right, will spend ten years of heroic 
 fi-htin.- and ten thousand millions of money, bciorc they will consent to 
 forfeit these rights, or admit that they are in any degree in the wrong. 
 
 If a peedy peace is wished for, the South must be placed beyond the pale 
 of miblic opinion A moral blockade is necessary. One must turn aside 
 anrS'ldouotknowyou; you may win battles and shoot negroes, you 
 may Im n defenceless vessels, you may be able to accomplish all of which 
 unbridled force is capable: you may do all tins, but you cannot enlist the 
 sympathies of a single honest man in Europe. 
 
 * This state of "Coventry" would have checked the arrogance of the South, 
 arid micM upon the popular mind in the l'.'g run The secret opposition 
 
 a pJrnon of the Southern people would gradually have grown in s rength, 
 and Laity the majority would have comprehended Urn : tuoy were the main 
 stay of. his terrible tragedy. A war for what object ? To maintain sla- 
 vjrv fur the benefit of one hundred thousand planters, deeply indebted and 
 mortgaged to the North, and who find it convenient at present to pay their 
 debts with musket balls. 
 
 The South cannot conquer. They have gained temporary advantages, 
 but at this moment their armies arc harmless and lionimcd in beyond the 
 possibility of escape. The South has to face a terrible enemy, one that 
 strikes incessantly" and destroys them in detail. Ihia enemy is Time. 
 Every day "xhau-ts them more and more. llicy are only able to carry on 
 the war BOW, by conscription and paper money ; they have no longer any 
 revenue or products, and the grass grows in more than one city in your 
 
 ^"nlJTbolition of slavery has given tho rebellion its death-blow. The 
 
 .'Southerners may point a pistol at the heart of every negro ; but the sacred 
 
 "leaven of liberty will act with greater or less rapidity, doubtless-yct it 
 
 h destined in one way or another to work upon tho minds of the enslaved 
 
 'race and at this moment more than one negro is thinking of I he northern 
 
 ban^ot the Potomac, with his car to the earth to catch the sound of the 
 
 C< \nd asVn opportunity now offers, I crave leave to render my homage to 
 the i.'iticnt genius of Mr. Lincoln. In France we have an incurable passion 
 tor theatrical effect in politics : we deem it fashionable to sneer at the en- 
 cr-etic slowness of the taukee President, Being unable, with our Gallic 
 temperament, to comprehend those phlematic natures that grow greater 
 under defeat than victory-1'kc Coligny or William ot Orangc-we ask of 
 ourselves why Mr. Lincoln signed the emancipation bill with two clauses, 
 the one decreeing the immediate, and the other the prospective abolition of 
 
 ft '*W?rca*oii a though Mr. Lincoln wielded a dictatorial, unrestricted 
 power at the White House, accounting solely to the God of his conscience. 
 lint Mr. Lincoln simply presides over a republic where popular opinion 
 rules, and he is surrounded by divers opinions upon the question ot sla 
 very The democratic party wish to uphold it, and the republicans desire 
 to abolish it, therefore Mr. Lincoln waits, with an oye-lixed upon each Bide 
 
 of th% 
 
17 
 
 XII. 
 
 No one knows better than Mr. Lincoln how to utilize defeat When, by 
 a bold victory, the South provoked the North to recognize the necessity of 
 emancipation, Mr. Lincoln at once yielded and made a step forward. And 
 in like manner, after the disaster at Chreronea, the Lincoln of Athens, did 
 away with slavery, and when a slave thanked him he answered, you owe 
 your freedom not to me but to Ghferonea. I borrow this historical incident 
 from Mr. Agenor do Gasparin's eloquent work. 
 
 I have faith in Lincoln, I believe in the old rail-splitter. At tin's Moment 
 he holds u world in his hand, and I hope that he will not let it fall ; but im 
 possible as it seems, if, at some future day the North should mistrust itself and 
 regret the old state of affairs in the past, what could such an act of weak 
 ness effect? The artery once opened, its tide could be arrested for an in 
 stant only. 
 
 I will even admit the hypothesis that the North may confess its powerless- 
 ness and say to the slave-whippers, to the rag-pickers of the Constitution, 
 who have thrown it into their basket as though it were an old rag, I am 
 wrong, and I am sorry. Let us call our witnesses and amicably establish 
 our respective frontiers. 
 
 But where will you place the boundary ? Perhaps you will lay it down 
 along the Hue of the Potomac, a line so often won and lost, and watered 
 with human blood, or by the long trail of the five hundred thousand corpses 
 of what were once father?, sons, brother.*, men loving and beloved, who lie 
 rotting now because the gentlemen of South Carolina thought fit one day to 
 commit a double crime; a crime against humanity and a crime against 
 their country. 
 
 You will set your stakes across this cemetery, above the almost uncovered 
 bones mouldering there ; but sink them as deep as you may, they will not 
 hold. You will sign a peace, but you will not have it ; for beneath the very 
 feet of the plenipotentiaries this tragic soil, choked with the dead, will yawn 
 and open to yield up the spectres of the Bull Run victims. In the absence 
 of the living, the dead will rise to protest against this embrace between the 
 ugressive South and the victimized North. 
 
 And think you that a few signatures written down side by side on a sheet 
 of paper, will suilico to efface the recollection of this terrible slaughter. No, 
 these reminiscences will remain written upon men's hearts in hitters ot fire 
 and blood, and the widows in the most distant villages of the West will wa 
 ter them with their tears by their firesides and at their work. 
 
 North and South, you will ever regard each other with an angry eye. At 
 the first opportunity you will break out again ; there will be another slaugh 
 ter-house on the face of the earth, and the new world will have nothing to 
 envy the old. Henceforward you must go armed and each keep up an army 
 of four hundred thousand soldiers. You will attempt to avoid a momentary 
 expense by a patched-up peace and before the end of the century your na 
 tional debt will have reached two hundred or three hundred thousand mil 
 lions. This is the ordinary cost of an army during one generation. If you 
 doubt it inquire of Austria. 
 
 The day that a pcrmiwient army shall exist in North America, you may 
 bid adieu to liberty, a it has been accepted and practised hitherto. 'With 
 the danger of foreign war will come the doctrine ot public safety, and 
 governments will be made and unmade with the .bayonet, as in Buenos- 
 Awes. I cannot see how the commerce of Europe is to profit by tin.-. 
 
18 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Should Europe, however, entertain the unfortunate idea of creating with 
 her own hand, in the Gulf of Mexico, a cotton republic, a black state founded . 
 upon slavery, such a rash act would inflict upon the world an element of 
 perturbation and a scourge more terrible than the cholera. Once master of 
 its own movements, this pro-slavery government, this despicable and ac 
 cursed political monstrosity, repulsive to the entire world, would speedily 
 bid defiance to everything, aggravating in order to diminish the horror of 
 its crime, and would become so powerful that it would finally command 
 respect. 
 
 It would not be as in the past a disgraceful underhand attack upon 
 Texas or Cuba ; it would bo piracy exercised on a grand scale in order to 
 render slavery universal. The slave trade would be carried on for reasons 
 of state, and carried on in a royal manner by squadrons of vessels. From 
 that day the negro would eternally wear the mourning of civilization upon 
 his brow. 
 
 But, whatever may happen, I hope that France, the offspring of revolu 
 tion, will never lend a hand to such an anachronism, and oi*c so inconsistent 
 with her past Ir'story ; did not the French revolution inaugurate negro 
 emancipation and first grant the black the right of citizenship ? And as 
 one reminiscence calls up .others, I beg leave to mention here an incident ot 
 the present time, although it is already FO distant that it seems like the 
 past. 
 
 It was in February. Revolution was everywhere at work, and through 
 out Europe every instant a <resh explosion announced the fall of another 
 kingdom. All Paris was on foot , the streets were alive ; and clouds of 
 smoke iloated HI the air. The wind was laden with words as though an in 
 visible spirit spoke in the mist. The crowd marched restlessly and excited 
 ly from street to street with colors flying and drums beating, parading 
 their chimera and their hope ; their truth or their dream. 
 
 But above this ugitated, swaying sea of humanity, abovo its" uproar and 
 'tumult, in the calm region of high inspirations and sacred desires, the new 
 republic, serene and holy, looked mentally beyond the sea. Full of the 
 love oi : human dignity and every where present where there was a wound 
 to heal, tlie new republic drew up the decree abolishing slavery, and the 
 eleven members of the provisional government signed it. When the last 
 signer laid down his pen they threw themselves into each other's arms and 
 embraced with all the joy of the workmen of humanity after doing a good 
 act. 
 
 Ah 1 the men, whoever they were, who signed that decree may be forgot 
 ten now, but their short term of power was not spent in vain. Had a 
 king signed it, such a decree would have sufficed to make his reign glori 
 ous The provisional government were not even allowed the credit of it. 
 Serve humanity and such will bo your reward ! But the good was ac 
 complished and it remains. The divine spirit has also its day in our coun 
 try, and if this day is drawing to its close, there arc at least others beyond 
 the ocean to whom the last revolution has given Jthe right to shout for 
 Liberty ! 
 
 This, Sire, is what I had to say to Your Majesty. 1 have finished ; but 
 lot me give you a parting word of advice. I will not appeal to your heart, 
 for that would be speaking to the absent : I will appeal simply to your 
 then I may have some chance of fixing your attention. 
 
-19 
 
 Believe me and tompt destiny no longer. Remember the example ef the 
 French nobility. They left the* soil rather than submit to common law, and 
 the soil passed frem them into the hands of a class sprung from revolution 
 and identified with liberty. Since that day the French nation has formed 
 one family. I leave you to meditate, Sire, upon this lesson of history. 
 
 ,How many vassals have you in reality ? Scarcely a hundred thousand. 
 These alone are guilty of the insurrection. All that will be necessary will 
 be to turn their plantations into money and introduce the population of 
 the West into this regenerated section. This is the way to solve the sla 
 very question and efl'ect the reconciliation of the South. And now, Sire, I 
 pray G'od to have you in his keeping, to correct, you and incline you to 
 ward repentance. Amend, Sire, otherwise one may soon see in Paris a 
 ragged old man asking the police for a passport in order to follow the 
 Duke of Modcna to Venice. That old man will be King Cotton. 
 
 THE END. : -. 
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 An address to King 
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