arts? 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 institutions 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 attitude, 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