stop to the escape of the
slaves. These escapes, taken all in all, remained insignificant, so long
as the Union was maintained; there are not more than fifty thousand free
negroes in Canada. But henceforth the Southern Confederacy will have a
Canada everywhere on its frontiers. How retain that slavery that will
escape simultaneously on the North, and the South? The Southern republic
will be as it were the common enemy, and no one assuredly will aid it to
keep its slaves.

It must not be believed, moreover, that it will succeed long in
preserving itself from intestine divisions--divisions among the whites.
If, at the first moment, when every thing is easy, unanimity is far from
appearing as complete as had been foretold, it will, later, be much
worse. We shall then perceive how prophetic, if I may dare say so, were
the often-quoted words of Washington's farewell address: "It is
necessary that you should accustom yourselves to regard the Union as the
palladium of your happiness and your security; that you should watch
over it with a jealous eye; that you should impose silence on any who
shall ever dare counsel you to renounce it; that you should give vent to
all your indignation on the first effort that shall be attempted to
detach from the whole any part of the Confederation."

A very different voice, that of Jefferson, spoke the same language. A
Southern man, addressing himself to the South, which talked already of
seceding he described in thrilling words the inevitable consequences of
such an act: "If, to rid ourselves of the present supremacy of
Massachusetts and Connecticut, we were to break up the Union, would the
trouble stop there?... We should soon see a Pennsylvanian party and a
Virginian party forming, in what remained of the Confederation, and the
same party spirit would agitate public opinion. By what new weapons
would these parties be armed, if they had power to threaten each other
continually with joining their Northern neighbors, in case things did
not go on in such or such a manner! If we were to reduce our Union to
North Carolina and Virginia, the conflict would break out again directly
between the representatives of these two States; we should end by being
reduced to simple unities."

Is not this the anticipated history of what is about to happen in the
Southern Confederacy, supposing it to succeed in uniting with a part of
the border States? The opening programme will last as long as programmes
usua