in its birth a germ of death which its illustrious founders had the weakness not to stifle. It is not liberty that is impossible, but the union of liberty with slavery.

The American Union has been blighted by slavery, debased by slavery, agitated by slavery, rent asunder by slavery this is the great criminal; if there be ruin, it has caused it; if blood flow, it has been shed by it,

This dangerous scourge is well defined by these four characteristics :

"The monstrous pretence that one man can be the owner of another, the complete destruction of all relations, of husband and wife, of parents and children, the positive refusal of all instruction, and compulsory labor without wages.

Slavery had already called forth ardent imprecations from pious souls and just consciences, for the evil it had caused to innocent unfortunates. The history of the United States will henceforth devote it to the execration of all who are not indifferent to the progress of the human race; for this onerous contract not only oppresses the small, but debases the great; it desolated, decimated, and crushed the lowest races of Africa; it has sullied, divided, and imperilled the higher races of the New World; it has blighted the germs which might have taken root, it has withered the fruits which reason, courage, virtue, wealth, and liberty might have matured. If the miserable tyrant of Dahomey slaughters innocent beings, it is by the aid of slavery, and if the great idea of Washington seems about, alas! to be come extinct, it is in consequence of slavery.

Witnesses of these vicissitudes, forget not the lesson! The friends of despotism are about to exclaim, “Cursed be liberty, for with it a great nation cannot live."

But we can reply: "Blessed be God, for he is just; he does not permit liberty to be wedded to servitude, and his

*Speech of Charles Sumner.

sovereign hand, in falling heavily upon the United States, does not smite liberty; it blights, it convulses, it forever condemns slavery.

Europe has learned with sorrow of the battle fought by the Americans near Richmond, a formidable and lugubrious conflict, in which, for wellnigh seven consecutive days, 300,000 men of the same nation have been engaged in hand-to-hand combat; 95,000 on the side of the North, 185,000 on the side of the South. The New York despatches which announce this terrible combat come to us dated July 4 and 5, 1862, precisely the same date of the month that the Congress of the United States adopted the memorable Declaration of Independence. Less than a century after the signature of this great charter, signed (these are the very words) with the end to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquillity, to provide for the common defence, to promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to the people of the United States and their posterity, this people, become one of the first on the globe, is energetic and powerful enough to raise a million men in the space of a few months; but only to make use of its strength for its ruin; and these men, these fellow-citizens, these States so united, have been exterminating each other for more than a year! There is not a generous mind that does not desire, for the interests of humanity, the end of this bloody duel. But humanity also offers up prayers that so much blood shall not be spilt in vain, and that the result of the civil war, whatever it may prove, may at least be turned to the profit of the liberty of the slaves. Can we hope for this?

The friends of the South, more numerous in France and * Journal des Débats, Aug. 9, 1862.

England than one would suppose, continue to affirm that slavery is not the cause of the war; - this is a good way to prevent emancipation from being its consequence. We will not weary of replying a hundred times to this assertion a hundred times repeated; next, we will endeavor to prove that, whatever may be the cause of the war, slavery has received its death-blow.

I have before my eyes a speech delivered at New York on the last anniversary but one of the Declaration of Independence, by a celebrated citizen of the United States, Edward Everett. The speech is published under the title, "The Question of the Day." I know of no more precise refutation of the pretensions of the South. Himself the candidate for the Vice-Presidency on a defeated ticket, Mr. Everett loyally declares that the vote which made Abraham Lincoln the nineteenth successor of Washington was perfectly legal, and in conformity with the Constitution, which expressly declares that the laws and treaties made by a State in opposition to its prescriptions are rightfully null and void. In breaking the Union by a statute of December 20, 1860, South Carolina has, therefore, violated the Constitution adopted by it, May 28, 1788, and to which this State itself caused an amendment to be added, containing the words forever inseparable. Now the right to make a contract does not involve the right to dissolve it by one's self alone; on the contrary, each of the parties can force the other party to execute it; while several of the seceded States were not parties in the original contract, as Louisiana and Florida, which were purchased, and Texas, which was conquered. The pretended right of secession or nullification, which is neither sanctioned nor reserved by the Constitution, is only a theory invented by Mr. Calhoun, in 1830, and which was then refuted and overthrown by Jackson, Livingston, Clay, and Webster, and by the framer of the Constitution himself, the aged Madison, who

was still living. The blood spilt rests, therefore, on the head of the South; the right is on the side of the North; the South is purely and simply in revolution.

Doubtless one cannot anathematize revolutions in a country which had a revolution for its origin; yet still it is necessary that the uprising of an indignant people should be justified by the oppression and tyranny of the government. Scarcely any army, no conscription, no impressment of sailors, no burdensome taxes, prosperous finances, churches and schools without number or limit, a cheap free press, free elections, such are the characteristics of this tyranny! What grievances have been put forward? Georgia has complained of fishing bounties levied for the interests of the North; these bounties do not exceed $200,000, regularly voted. Complaints have been made of the navigation laws, to which the Union owes its navy, and of the protective tariff, which was demanded by the South itself, in order to protect its cotton against that of foreign countries, and to call forth the establishment of manufactories in the North, and secure to itself the monopoly of their supply.

Finally, and above all, is alleged the interference of the North in the question of slavery, and especially the nonobservance of the Fugitive Slave Law. It is true that several States have not been able to persuade themselves to execute this monstrous law, which transforms their magistrates into kidnappers. But to what is this grievance reduced? There are 3,953,760 slaves in the South; the number of fugitive slaves enumerated during 1860 was 803, and even these did not all take the way to the North; it is much if South Carolina numbers a dozen fugitives a year. It is affirmed that there are 40,000 negroes in Canada; but it is forgotten that the number of slaves annually emancipated exceeds 3,000, and that these unhappy freedmen are obliged by custom, if not by law, to expatriate themselves.

Vain accusations! insufficient pretexts! The present war is a war of predominance. For forty-four years the Southerners have had the rulership of the United States. Thanks to their slaves, who, without being voters, have counted in the population, the amount of which determined the number of representatives, the Southern States, less numerous, less populous, less important, have had the superiority in Congress, and they have been unable to resign themselves to see the political influence pass at length to the North. They have risen because they wished to rule. And why do they wish to rule? In order to maintain and extend slavery. The North is fighting to defend the Constitution; the South is violating the Constitution to defend slavery.

The maintenance or destruction of the Constitution, such is the direct end of the war; the maintenance or the destruction of slavery, such is the first cause of the war, the cause of this ancient struggle, long rumbling, then bursting forth, which the eminent statesman placed by Mr. Lincoln at the head of his Cabinet, Mr. Seward, defined three years ago, by a memorable expression, the irrepressible conflict.

This painful question is really at the bottom of the war, which the administration at Washington, urged, moreover, by the eloquent and logical entreaties of the indefatigable friends of liberty, before all by Charles Sumner, has deemed incumbent upon itself to conduct by slow but important steps towards emancipation. Mr. Lincoln has acted slowly, prudently, legally, refusing and even suppressing all incitements to insurrection, for which he cannot be sufficiently thanked; but he has acted with the loyalty, perseverance, good sense, and conscientiousness which are the distinct characteristics of his individuality. Mark the acts due to his initiative.

An appeal has been made and a subsidy promised to as