planters to listen to theories that have infatuated and lost them, such sophistries will never cross the ocean. The advocates of the South have done it a fatal service; they have made it believe that Europe, enlightened or seduced, would range itself on its side and finally throw into the balance something more than empty promises. This delusion has and still maintains the resistance of the South, it prolongs the war, and with it our sufferings. If, as the North had a right to expect, the friends of liberty had, from the first, boldly pronounced against the policy of slavery, if the advocates of peace upon the seas, if the defenders of the rights of neutrals had spoken in favor of the Union and rejected a separation, which could only profit England, it is probable that the South would have been less anxious to start on a journey without visible end. If, in spite of the courage and devotion of its soldiers; if, in spite of the ability of its generals, the South fails in an enterprise which, in my opinion, cannot be too much blamed, let it lay the fault on those who have so poor an opinion of Europe as to imagine that they will subject _its_ opinion to a policy against which patriotism protests, and which the gospel and humanity condemn. We will grant, they may say, that the South is altogether wrong; nevertheless it wishes to separate, it can no longer live with the people of the North. The war alone, whatever may be its origin, is a new cause of disunion. By what right can twenty millions of men force ten millions (of those ten millions there are four millions of slaves whose will is not consulted in the least) of their countrymen to continue a detested alliance, to respect a contract which they wish to break at any price? Is it possible to imagine that after two or three years of fighting and misery, conquerors and conquered can be made to live harmoniously together? Can a country two or three times the size of France be subjugated? Would there not always be bloodshed between the parties? Separation is perhaps a misfortune, but now it is an irreparable one. Let us grant that the North has law, the letter and spirit of the Constitution on her side; there always remains an indisputable point--the South wishes to govern itself. You have no right to crush a people that defends itself so valiantly. Give it up!