tes to
escape from theories of territorial monopoly, those evil counsellors but
too much heeded? Who knows, in fine, whether the day will not come,
when, the questions of slavery once settled, new federal ties will again
bind to the centre the parts that stray from it to-day?

I put these questions; I make no pretensions to resolve them. In any
case, the imagination has had full scope for some time past. People have
not been satisfied with the Southern Confederacy; have they not invented
both the pretended Pacific Confederacy which I have just mentioned, and
the central Confederacy, in which the border States will take shelter in
common with two or three free States, as Pennsylvania and Indiana? Have
they not supposed, in the bargain, (for they seem to find it necessary
to discover the dissolution of the Union every where at all costs,) that
the agricultural population of the West, discontented with the tariff
recently adopted, and putting in practice the new maxim, according to
which they are to have recourse to separation, instead of pursuing
reforms, will seek an asylum in Canada? I need not discuss such fables.
I am convinced, for my part, that the principle of American unity is
much more solid than people affirm; I see in the United States a single
race, and almost a single family: they may divide, they will not cease
to be related. The relationship will take back its rights. For the time,
however, secession seems to have a providential part to enact. It
facilitates, in certain respects, the first steps of Mr. Lincoln; thanks
to it, the hostile majority in the Senate is blotted out, the
uncertainty of the House of Representatives is decided, the Government
becomes possible. In the face of the senators and representatives of the
gulf States, I do not see how Mr. Lincoln could have succeeded in
acting. Did not the Senate, last year, adopt the proposition of Mr.
Jefferson Davis in opposition to the liberty of the Territories?
Congress would have trammelled, one after another, all the measures of
the new administration. Now, on the contrary, the role of the victorious
party will be easy; its preponderance is assured in both Houses; the
Supreme Court will cease, ere long, to represent the doctrines of the
extreme South, and to issue Dred Scott decrees. This is a vast change.
General Cass, in truth, comprehended the interests of slavery better
than Mr. Buchanan, when he demanded that the Government should arrest
with vig