r. Lincoln;
it is nothing more than this, but it is all this: it is prudence in the
present, and it is also the certainty of success in the future.
Emancipation is by no means decreed; it will not be for a long time,
perhaps: yet the principle of emancipation is established, irrevocably
established in the sight of all. Irrevocability has prodigious power
over our minds: without being conscious of it, we make way for it; we
arrange in view of it our conduct, our plans, and even our doctrines.
Once fully convinced that its propagandism is checked, that the future
of which it dreamed has no longer any chances of success, the South
itself will become accustomed to consider its destiny under a wholly new
aspect. The border States, in which emancipation is easy, will range
themselves one after another on the side of liberty. Thus the extent of
the evil will become reduced of itself, and instead of advancing, as
during some years past, towards a colossal development of servitude, it
will proceed in the direction of its gradual attenuation.

I reason on the hypothesis of a final maintenance of the Union, whatever
may be the incidents of temporary secession. I am not ignorant that
there are other hypotheses, which may possibly be realized, and which I
shall examine in the course of this treatise; but whatever may happen, I
have a full right to call to mind the true scope of the vote which has
just been taken. It does not involve the slightest idea of present
emancipation; it contents itself with checking the progress of slavery;
and to check its progress is, doubtless, to diminish the perils of its
future abolition.

It was important to present this observation, for nothing perverts our
judgment of the American crisis more than the inexact definitions which
are given of abolitionism. We willingly picture abolitionists to
ourselves as madmen, seeking to attain their end on the spot, regardless
of all else, through blood and ruin! That there may be such is possible,
is even inevitable; but the men who exercise any political influence
over the North have not for a moment adopted such theories. This is so
true, that the other day, at Boston, the people themselves (the people
who nominated Mr. Lincoln) dispersed a meeting intended to discuss
plans of immediate emancipation.

What if abolitionism, moreover, be a party? what if it make use of the
means employed by parties? what if it have its journals, its publicists,
its orators? w