LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GDDlEE3^17fl < c. < c . r^c^^Q) '<«.;- OCT «i < •roc, « ^ -- _j^C_ 'j ' - ■E P**" ; , justify her crime. The North says the contrary, and for two years, at the price of sacrifices without number, affirms that the people of the United States are one people, and that their country shall not be cut in two. This is noble. This is grand, and what astonishes ine is, that France can remain unmoved in view of such patriotism. Love of country — is not that the distinguishing virtue of the French people 1 What, then, is the South, and whence dors she derive fids right of separation, so loudly proclaimed I Is it a conquered people that seeks to recover its independence, like Lombardy ■ 1^ it a distinct race that wishes no longer to continue an op- pressive alliance 2 No, they are communities of planters estab- lished by American hands, o:i the territories of the Union, who revolt without any other reasou than their own ambition. Let us take a map of the United States. W we except Virginia, the 13 two Carolinas, and Georgia, which were originally English col- onies, all the rest of the South is settled upon lands bought and paid for by the Union. That is to say, the North has borne the greatest part of the expense. Louisiana was sold to the United States in 1S0I, by the first consul, for fifteen millions of dollars. Florida was purchased of Spain in 1820, for about five millions. The Mexican war, with its cost of a bil- lion of money and its cruel losses, was necessary to secure Texas. In short, of all the rich territories that border the Mis- sissippi and the Missouri from their source to their mouth, there is not one inch but has been paid for by the Union, and therefore belongs to it. It is the Union that has driven out or indemni- fied the Indians. It is the Union that has built all the forts, the docks, the lighthouses, and harbors. It is the Union that made all these desert places of value, and rendered colonization possible. Northern as well as Southern men cleared and planted these lands, and transformed into flourishing States these sterile solitudes. Can old Europe, where unity is every- \v here the result of conquest, show us a title to property so sacred as this? A country more entirely the common work of a whole people ? And now, shall a minority be permitted to appropriate a territory which belongs to all, and to choose for themselves the best part of it ? Can a minority be permitted to destroy the Union and to imperil its first benefactors, with- out whom, indeed, it could not exist? To say that this revolt is not impious, is to say that caprice constitutes right. It is not, however, a political reason only, which opposes the separation. Its geography, the situation of the different por- tions, obliges the United States to form one nation. Strabo, contemplating the vast country we now call France, said, with the foresight of genius, that beholding the nature of the territory and the courses of the streams, it was evident that the forests of Gaul, then thinly inhabited, would become the home of a great people. Nature had prepared our territory to become tho theatre of a great civilization. This is no less true of Amer- ica. She is, in truth, only a double valley with an impercep- tible head-level and two great water courses, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. No high mountains which separate and isolate peoples; no natural barriers like the Alps and Pyrenees. 14 The West cannot live without the Mississippi — to possess the mouth of the river is for the farmers of the West a question of life and death. The United States have felt this from the first. When the Ohio and Mississippi were still only streams lost in the great forests of the Southwest — when the first planters were but a handful of men scattered over the wilderness, the Americans knew already that New Orleans was the key of the whole coun- try. They would not leave it in possession of Spain or France. Napoleon understood this. He held in his hands the future greatness of the United States. It did not displease hira to cede to America this vast territory, with the intention, he said, of giving to England a maritime rival which sooner or later would humble the pride of our enemy. He might have dis- possessed himself merely of the left bank of the river, and thus have satisfied the United States, who at that time asked no more ; but he did more (and here 1 think he was very wrong), he renounced, with a stroke of the pen, a country as vast as half of Europe, and gave up our last right to the beautiful river, we had ourselves discovered. Very soon sixty years will have elapsed since this cession. The states now called Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Oregon, the ter- ritories of Nebraska, Dacotah, Jefferson, and Washington, which will soon become states, have been established on the immenso domain abandoned by Napoleon. Without counting the slave- holding population, which seeks to destroy the Union, there are ton millions of freemen between Pittsburg and Fort Union, who claim the course and mouth of the Mississippi as having been ceded to them by Franco. It is from us that they hold their title and their possession. They have the right of sixty years' occupancy — a right consecrated by labor and cultivation — a right derived from a solemn contract, and better still, from nature and from God. And for defending this right, we re- proach them. They are usurpers and tyrants, because tiny will 7)' it put themselves at the mercy of an ambitious minority. Wh:i1 should we say if tomorrow, Normandy, in rebellion, should claim as her own Rouen and Havre? And yet, what is the course of the Seine compared to that of the Mississippi, which extends two thousand two hundred and fifty miles, and 15 receives as tributaries all the waters of the West? To possess New Orleans is to command a valley which comprises two- thirds of the United States. " We will neutralize the river," they say: We all know what snch promises are worth. We have seen what Russia did with the mouth of the Danube. The Crimean war was necessary that Germany might regain the free • use of her great river. If to-morrow a new war should break . out between Austria and Russia, we may be sure that the pos- session of the Danube would be the stake of the contest. It cannot be otherwise in America from the day when the Mississippi, for hundreds of leagues, shall flow between two slave- holding shores. Already the effect of the war has been to stop the exportation of wheat and corn, the riches of the West. In 1861 it became necessary to burn the useless crops, to the great injury of Europe, who is the gainer by these exports. The South understands so thoroughly the strength of her posi- tion, that her ambition is to separate the valley of the Missis- sippi from the Eastern States, to unite herself with the AVest, and to condemn thus the Yankees of New England to a ruin- ous isolation. The Confederates use the Mississippi as a bait by which they hope to reconstruct, profitably to themselves — that is to say, in the interests of slavery — the Union which they have broken up through fear of liberty. We see, then, what to think of the pretended tyranny of the North ; what truth there is in the assertion that she wishes to oppress aud subjugate the South. On the contrary, the North only defends herself. In maintaining the Union, it is her rigut, it is her existence that she would save. Thus far I have spoken in the name of the material interests only — legitimate interests, and which, founded on solemn titles, constitutes a sacred right ; but if we examine the moral and political interests — interests of a superior order — we shall see still more clearly that the North cannot yield without self- destruction. The United States are a Republic, the freest and at the same time the mildest and happiest government that tho world has ever seen. In what consists this prosperity of the Americans? They are alone upon an immense territory; they have never been obliged to concentrate power and weaken l'berty, for the purpose of resisting the ambition and jealousy of 1G their neighbors. In the United States there was no standing army, no great war navy. The immense sums spent by us to avoid or maintain war were used by the Americans to establish schools — in giving to every citizen, rich or poor, that education, that instruction which constitutes the moral grandeur and the true riches of a people. Their foreign policy was contained in a single maxim. Never to intermeddle in the political quarrels of Europe on the sole condition that Europe would never inter- fere in their affairs, and would respect the liberty of the seas. Thanks to those wise principle?, bequeathed to them by Washington, in his immortal Farewell Address, the United States have enjoyed for eighty years a peace undisturbed but once, in 1S12, when they were obliged to withstand England and maintain the rights of neutrals. For the last seventy years, we have spent billions to maintain our liberty or our preponderance in Europe. The United States have employed these billions in ameliorations of all kinds. That is the secret of their prodigious success ; their isolation has made their prosperity. Suppose, now, that this separation should be accomplished, and that the new confederacy should comprise all the slave-states ; the North loses at once her power and her institutions. The Republic is stabbed to the heart. There would be in America two rival nations, always on the eve of conflict. Peace would by no means extinguish enmities. It would not obliterate the memories of past greatness, nor of the Union destroyed. The South victorious would be doubtless no less a friend of slavery, no less in love with dominion, than in former times. The enemies of slavery, now masters of their own policy, would not surely be made more moderate by separation. What would the Southern Confederacy be to the North? A foreign power blished in America, with a frontier of fifteen hundred miles — a frontier open on all sides, and consequently, always threat- ening or threatened. This power, hostile by reason of its vicin- ity, and still more so on account of its institutions, would pos- sess some of the most important portions of the New World. She would own half of the sea-coasts of the Union — she would command the Gulf of Mexico, an inland sea one third the size of the Mediterranean. She would be mistress of the mouth of the Mississippi, and could at her will ruin the people of the West. The remnant of the old Union must, then, always maintain an attitude of defense towards their rivals. Custom- house and frontier difficulties, rivalries, jealousies — all the scourges of old Europe, would at once overwhelm America. It would he necsssary to establish custom-houses over an extent of five hundred leagues — to construct and arm forts along this immense frontier, support a large standing army and navy. In other words — they must renounce the old constitution — weaken municipal independence and concentrate power. Adieu then to the old and glorious liberty ! Adieu to those institutions which made America the common country of all those who lacked a breathing place in Europe. The work of Washing- ton would be utterly destroyed, and the new condition of things ■would be full of difficulty and of peril. I understand how such a future might rejoice the people who can never pardon Amer- ica her prosperity and her grandeur. History is full of these deplorable jealouses. But I understand, even still better how a people accustomed to liberty should risk their last man and their last dollar to keep the inheritance of their fathers, ami t respect it. What I do not comprehend is, that there should be found in Europe, people, calling themselves liberal, who reproach the North for her courageous resistance, and counsel a shameful abdication. The war is a terrible evil ; but from the war a durable peace may spring. The South may be worn out by an exhausting struggle. The old Union may be again restored — the future may be saved. But what can be the issue of separ- ation, if not war without end and miseries without number ? The dismemberment of the Union — the rendering asunder of the country, would be a degradation without remedy. A fate so shameful is to be accepted, only, when one is utterly crushed out and trodden under foot. So far I have argued on the hypothesis that the South would remain an independent power. But unless the West should join the Confederates, re-establishing a Union which should exclude New England, this independence is a chimera. It might hist a few years, but in ten or twenty years, when the West shall have doubled or tripled its \'t\^ population, what will the Confederacy be — weakened, per force, by servile cultiva 18 tion — compared to a people of thirty millions of men shutting her in on two sides ? In self-defence the South would be forced to lean on Europe. Her existence would depend on her being protected by a maritime power. England alone is in a condi- tion to guaranty her sovereignty. This would be a new danger for free America and for Europe. There is no navy in the South, and with slavery there never will be any. England at once would seize the monopoly of cotton, and would furnish the South with capital and ships. In two words, the triumph of the South is the re-establishment of England on the continent, whence she was driven by the policy of Louis Sixteenth and Napoleon. It weakens neutrals, it entangles France again, in all those vexed questions of libert} r of the seas, which have cost us already two centuries of struggle and suffering. The Ameri- can Union, while defending its own rights, had assured the freedom of the seas. The Union destroyed, English supremacy would revive again. It is peace banished from the world ; it is a return to a policy which has so far only favored our rivals. This is what Napoleon felt to be true — this is what we forget to-day. It would seem as if history were merely a collection of pleasant stories to amuse children. No one is willing to understand the lessons of the past. If the experience of our fathers was not lost upon our ignorance, we should see that in defending her own independence, and in main- taining the national unity, the North defends our cause as well as her own. All our prayers would be for the triumph of our old and faithful friend?. To weaken the United States will be to weaken ourselves. At the first quarrel with England we shall regret, but too late, that we abandoned a policy which for forty years has been the guaranty of our own safety. In writing these pages, I do not expect to convert those who have in their hearts an innate sympathy for slavery. I write tor those honest souls, who allow themselves to be enticed by the great words of national independence, paraded before their eyes purposely to deceive and delude them. The South has never been threatened. To-day she might como back into the Union, even with her slaves. It is only demanded of her not to destroy the national unity, and not to subvert liberty. We cannot repeat it too often : the North is not the aggressor. It only defends, as every true citizen should, the national coin- 10 pact, the integrity of the country. It is sad that it has found so little support in Europe, and especially in France. They relied on us — in us they placed their trust — and we have abandoned them as if the sacred words of Country and of Liberty no longer awoke a response in our hearts What has become of the days when the whole of France applauded the young Lafayette, as he buckled on his sword in the cause of America? "Who has imitated him, who has recalled that glori- ous memory ? Have we grown so old as to have forgotten all that? What will be the issue of the war? It is impossible to fore- see. The South may succeed. The North may be divided and exhausted by intestine strife. The Union is, perhaps, even now, but a great memory. But whatever may be the future, or whatever fortune may attend it, the duty of every man who does not allow himself to be carried away by the success of the present hour, is to sustain and encourage the North to the last — to condemn those whose ambition threatens to destroy the most perfect and the most patriotic work of humanity — to re- main faithful to the end of the war, and, even after defeat, to those, who will have fought to the last moment for Eight and Liberty. EDOUARD LABOULAYE. ^3»^st: ,j?>~~> '=>'":> >>."> « -*> > 7» > ~5> > ^ > :> -> >3 > > •» >-a> » »■>»>> >'-> > > > > > > £:>*§(! *^~m£% ^^^'f , 23>^^> > > > > j> ^ i> > j> > > > > > "> >' >'