“MY DEAR HAMILTON,-- … In one of your New York Gazettes I find an association _against the slavery of negroes_, which seems to me worded in such a way as to give no offence to the moderate men in the Southern States. As I ever have been _partial to my brethren of that color_, I wish, if you are one in the society, you would move, in your own name, for my being admitted on the list. My best respects wait on Mrs. Hamilton. Adieu. “Your affectionate friend, “LAFAYETTE.”[90] How much in little! The testimony is plain. The witness is a volunteer. In simple words he records himself once more “against the slavery of negroes,” and then declares that he has ever been “partial to his brethren of that color.” For him the degraded slave is brother, although of a color not his own. * * * * * That great event was now at hand, which, beginning in a claim of rights denied, and inspired by generous ideas, was destined, amidst falling privileges and toppling thrones, to let loose the most direful furies of Discord and War,--to feed the scaffold with blood of King and Queen, and of good men in all the ranks of life,--to lift the nation to unknown heights of audacity and power,--to dash back the hosts of foreign invasion, as the angry surge from the rock,--to achieve victory on a scale of grandeur never witnessed since the eagles of Cæsar passed from Britain to Egypt,--and, finally, to mark a new epoch in the history of the Human Family. The French Revolution had come. It was foreshadowed in the writings of philosophers, in the gradual march of Human Progress, in the wide-spread influence of the American Revolution, in the growing instincts of the people, and the obvious injustice of existing things,--and it was begun in the example of Lafayette. Of all men, he was its natural leader, just so long as it continued moderate and humane. Alas, that such a cause, so beautiful in itself and so grand in promise, was wrested from its original character by the passions of men!