This leads me to examine a side of the American question upon which, attention is, naturally fixed at the present time; how is it that the iniquities of slavery are maintained among this charitable and liberal people? how is it that such iniquities have subsisted under the influence of so powerful a Christian sentiment? Can it be true that Christians have deserted the cause of justice? Has the Gospel had the place which belongs to it, in the great struggle that is going on between the North and the South? yes; or no. This is perhaps the point of all others most important to clear up; first, because it is the one on which the most errors have accumulated; next, because it is the one most closely connected with the final solution; for this solution will not be happy, if the Gospel has no hand in it.

To judge rightly, let us approach and endeavor to comprehend the true position of those whose conduct we seek to appreciate. See the South, for example, where the almost universal opinion is favorable to slavery, where governors write dithyrambics on its benefits, where many Christians have succeeded in discovering that it is sanctioned by the Gospel, where men of sincerity are now placing their impious crusades in behalf of its extension under the protection of God, where numerous preachers expound in their own way the celebrated text "Cursed be Canaan!" Do not these sentiments of the South, detestable as they are, find, to a certain point, their explanation and excuse in the circumstances in which the South is placed?

The power of surroundings is incalculable. If we ourselves, who condemn slavery, and are right in so doing, had been reared in Charleston; if we had led a planter's life from our earliest infancy; if we had nourished our minds with their ideas; if we considered our monetary interests menaced by Abolitionism; if the image of more fearful perils, of violent destructions and massacres, appeared to haunt our thoughts; if the political antagonism between the North and the South came to add its venom to the passions already excited within us, is it certain that we ourselves should no be figuring at the present time among the desperadoes who are firing upon the ships of the Union, and attempting the foundation of a Southern Confederacy?

It is well to ask this of ourselves, in order to learn to respect, to love, and consequently to aid those whose conduct we blame the most strongly. For my part, whenever I am tempted to set myself up as a judge or an accuser of the South, I ask myself what I should do if I belonged to the South, and this brings me back to the true position. I remember, too, what I saw, with my own eyes, at the time when the discussion on slavery was carried on in France; the colonial passions, the blindest and most violent of all, broke out in Martinique and the isle of Bourbon, as they had broken out before in Jamaica, where the circulars of Mr. Canning, the proposition, for example, to suppress the flagellation of women, had excited a veritable explosion. There were some very honorable men among those who were indignant at this measure; and, among us, likewise, the planters who determined to combat all modification of the negro system, were good men. Severity is almost always a defect of memory; we blame others without pity, only when we begin by forgetting our own history. We Frenchmen, who had so much difficulty in emancipating our own slaves, and who would not, perhaps, have succeeded in it, had it not been for the bold decision of M. Schoelcher; we, who have sought to take back, in part, through our colonial regulations, the liberty accorded the blacks; we, who suffered recruitals by purchase to be made on the African coast; who formerly organized the expedition charged with re-establishing slavery and the slave trade at St. Domingo; who suppressed the slave trade at the Congress of Vienna only in stipulating its continuance for some years; who carried into our discussions on the right of search, a very meagre interest for the victims of the slavers; we, whose consciences are burdened with these misdeeds, are bound to use indulgence towards the States of the South.

This remark was necessary: it is from the South that the Biblical theories in favor of slavery proceed; it is on account of the South that these theories have been adopted by certain Christians of the North, desirous, above every thing, of avoiding both the dismemberment of the United States, and that of the churches and religious societies. Take away the South, and no one in America, any more than in Europe, will dream of discovering in the Gospel the divine approbation of the atrocities of slavery.

I comprehend better than most, the sentiment of indignation that is caused by these deplorable teachings, in which slavery is sometimes excused, sometimes exalted; I comprehend, that, under the impulse of a sentiment so justifiable, one may be led on to anathematize preachers and churches in a mass, that he may even come to the point of representing to himself the Christian faith as the true obstacle to the progress of liberty. This is a great perversion of the truth, but we can easily understand how it has succeeded in gaining the assent of generous and sincere minds. I myself have read a sermon which was listened to with sympathy in a certain Presbyterian church in New York, in which slavery, declares right until the return of Jesus Christ, ceases to be so, I know not why, during the millennium? I know the nature of that theology, too truly styled cottony, which is displayed in the clerical columns of the New York Observer. Notwithstanding, I hasten to say that these revolting excesses seldom appear except in seaports, and especially in New York. The interests of this great city are bound up to such a degree with those of the cotton States, that, until very lately, New York might have been considered as a prolongation of the South. We need not be surprised, therefore, to find some congregations there which are ruled by the prejudices of the South. Besides, even in New York, other churches protest with holy zeal, and other journals, among which I will cite the Independent, the organ of the Congregationalists, combat slavery unceasingly in the name of the Gospel.

Then people persist in seeing only New York, in taking notice only of what passes in New York; but they forget that New York is ordinarily an exception in the North, as much by its commercial position as by its opinions and votes. Let us go ever so short a distance from the city into the surrounding country, and we will encounter a different spirit—a spirit thoroughly impregnated with Christian faith, and little disposed to covenant with slavery. There we begin to see that race of Puritan farmers, but lately represented by John Brown. Has not the attempt been made to transform him also into a free thinker, a philosophic enemy of the Bible, and, from this very cause, an enemy to slavery? We need nothing more than his last letter to his wife, to show from what source he had drawn that courage, so misdirected but so indomitable, which he displayed at Harper's Ferry; the Christian, the Biblical and orthodox Christian, comes to explain the liberal and the hero.

That Christians in general condemned the enterprise of John Brown, while sympathizing with him, I hasten to acknowledge; and I am far from blaming them. That many have committed the real wrong of recoiling before the consequences of an open and decided conduct, I am forced to admit. Yes, without even mentioning the South, where, as every one knows, the reign of terror prevails, there are numerous Protestant and Catholic churches in the remainder of the Confederation, which have refused to declare themselves, as they should have done, in opposition to the crime of slavery. Let us not hasten, however, to cry out against falsehood and hypocrisy; most honorable and sincere men have believed that they would do more harm than good by bringing on a rupture with the South. Let us not forget that political rupture is complicated here with religious rupture. Now, all the churches extend over both North and South; all the charitable societies number committees and subscribers in both North and South. The point in question then, (let us weigh the immensity of the sacrifice,) the point in question is to rend in twain all the churches, to break in pieces all the societies, to expose to perilous risks all the great works that do honor to the United States.

Doubtless, to have gone their way, to have done their duty, and not to have troubled themselves about the consequences, was the great rule of action. I grant it; yet, notwithstanding, I refuse to stigmatize, as many have done, those men who have committed the fault of hesitating; I feel that to rank them among the champions of slavery is to pervert facts, and to fall into a blamable exaggeration. Again, to-day, after the election of Mr. Lincoln, cannot citizens be cited in the North who are devoted to the cause of the negroes, but who refuse to participate in abolitionist demonstrations, because they fear (and the sentiments does them honor) to encourage the impending insurrections?

This said, I wish to prove by some too well-known facts, what has been this forbearance, or even this pretended hesitation of orthodox Christianity. On regarding the churches, I see two, and the most considerable, which have openly declared themselves: the Congregationalists and the Methodists. About six months since, the General Conference of Methodists resolutely plunged into the current without suffering itself to be trammelled by the protests which came to it from the South. I read in a report presented to one of the great divisions of this church: "We believe that to sell or to hold in bondage human beings under the name of chattels, is in contradiction to the divine laws and to humanity; and that it conflicts with the golden rule and with the rule of our discipline." Last year, a numerous assemblage of delegates of the Congregational churches adopted the following resolution: "Slaveholding is immoral, and slaveholders should not be admitted as members of Christian churches. We ought to protest against it without ceasing, in the name of the Gospel, until it shall have entirely disappeared." And this resolution has not remained a dead letter: a Congregational church of Ohio has expelled from its bosom one of its deacons, who had contributed in the capacity of magistrate to the extradition of a fugitive slave.

Other churches, without taking so decided a position, have at least manifested by their internal convulsions the profound interest excited among them by the question of slavery. In this manner a secession has just rent the Presbyterian church in twain, because the declared adversaries of slavery were unwilling to remain responsible for a forbearance which appeared to them criminal. These things are signs of life, and these signs are beginning to show themselves even in the midst of ecclesiastical bodies which have acted, until now, in the most unchristian manner. A warm discussion has been thus called forth, and this signifies a great deal, among the members of the Episcopal church in New York. The majority stifled the debate; will it be able to do this always?

If from the churches we proceed to the religious societies, we find the same symptoms among them; here, they declare themselves openly against slavery, in spite of the menaces of the South; there, they succeed in staving off the question, yet at the price of excited debates, which continually spring up again, of a great scandal, and of protests which are heard by Christians through the whole world. The course of conduct adopted by the great American Board of Missions is the more significant, inasmuch as its committee is composed of members belonging to various evangelical denominations; it stands, therefore, as their permanent representative, yet this has not prevented its adoption, after long hesitation, of resolutions indicating in what course it will henceforth proceed: it has broken off its relations with the missionaries employed among the Choctaws, for the sole reason that they obstinately refused openly to attack Indian slavery, and the abominable practices which it engenders. The Society, which long, too long, contented itself with a timid and inconsistent censure, has been obliged, therefore, to resort to more decisive measures.

Another great body, the Tract Society, unfortunately, has not followed this example; the general assemblies held at New York, and ruled by the spirit of that city, have given a majority to the party opposed to the discussion of the subject; but, be it said to the honor of American Christians, the very large minority resisted to the end; the latter was sustained by outside opinion, and many friends of the Gospel joined with it in deploring the pusillanimity which yielded to the menaces of the South. A crisis thence arose, which has not yet reached its height, and the first fruits of which have been the foundation of a rival society in Boston, to which adherents are gathering from all sides.

These are grave events, for they manifest the inmost revolutions of the human soul. Would you know what will take place in political societies? Begin by informing yourself about what is taking place in the consciences of the public. Now it is evident that the public conscience is in motion in the United States. The vast obstacles by which this movement was trammelled have been surmounted on every side. I wish no other proof of this than the deplorable fact of which I have just made mention: the conduct of the Tract Society, the internal crisis which it has experienced, the reprobation which it encounters, in Europe as in America. Are not these palpable proofs of the too little known truth that the great moral force which is struggling with American slavery is the Gospel?

And how could it be otherwise? If we had not positive facts before our eyes, if we did not know that one entire sect of Christians, the Quakers, have devoted themselves, body and goods, to the service of poor fugitive slaves, if we did not recognize the deep Puritan imprint in the movement which has colonized Kansas, and in that which has borne Mr. Lincoln to the presidency, should we not be forced to ask ourselves whether it is possible that the Gospel remains a stranger to a struggle undertaken for liberty? There exist, thank God, between liberty and the Gospel, close, eternal, and indestructible relations. I know of one species of freedom which contains the germ of all the rest—freedom of soul; now what was it, if not the Gospel, that introduced this freedom into the world? Remember ancient Paganism: neither liberty of conscience, nor liberty of individuals, nor liberty of families—such was its definition. The State laid its hand upon all the inmost part of existence, the creeds of the fathers, and the education of the children; moral slavery also existed everywhere, and if slavery, properly called, had been anywhere wanting, it would have given cause for astonishment. The Gospel came, and with it these new phenomena: individual belief, true independence makes its advent here on earth, a liberty worthy of the name appears finally among men. From this time we see men lifting up their heads, despotism finding its limits, the humblest, the weakest opposing to it insurmountable barriers.

They act without reflection, who attempt to place in opposition these two things: the Gospel and liberty. And remark that in the United States, in particular, the Gospel and liberty are accustomed to go together; they first landed together at New Plymouth with the passengers of the Mayflower. Why had these poor pilgrims torn themselves from all the habits of home and country, to seek in the dead of winter an asylum on an unknown soil? Because they loved the Gospel, and because they desired liberty; the chief of liberties—that of the conscience. From the 21st of December, 1620, there existed on the shores of the New World the beginning of a free people—free through the powerful influence of the Gospel. All who have studied the United States with sincerity, will ratify the opinion of M. de Tocqueville: "America is the place, of all others, where the Christian religion has preserved the most power over souls." This power is such, that we find it at the base of all lasting reforms. In this country, in which the idea of authority has little force, there is one authority, that of the Bible, before which the majority bow, and which is of the more importance inasmuch as it alone commands respect and obedience.

If you doubt the decisive part which the Gospel fills in American debates, look at the pains taken by parties to render public homage to it, the Democrats as the Republicans, Mr. Buchanan as Mr. Lincoln. Then look more closely at the Republican party, do you not find in it again the visible traces of Puritanism? It is the ancient States, it is old America, it is also the Young America of the farmers, of the pioneers of the Western solitudes, the America of the clearers of the forests, the America of the Bible and the schools. This America long since abolished slavery, and prevented its introduction into the territories that acknowledged its influence. In the meanest of its cabins, you will find the Scriptures, hymn books, reports of religious societies; in the majority of its families, domestic worship is celebrated; in its prayer-meetings, it is not rare to see physicians, lawyers, magistrates, marine officers, taking part publicly; its statesmen do not think themselves dishonored by keeping a Sunday-school; the Gospel, in a word, is a power to which no other can compare, and outside of which it would be puerile to expect to succeed in accomplishing any thing of importance.

Here the action of the Gospel can be plainly detected; an important religious event preceded and paved the way for the political event which we have witnessed: before the election of Mr. Lincoln, an awakening took place. The American awakening, which must not be confounded with those revivals, the description and sometimes the caricature of which have been transmitted us by travellers, the awakening, which had neither ecstasies nor convulsive sobs, and the distinctive feature of which was a tone of simplicity and conviction, produced one of those profound agitations of the conscience, which give rise to generous resolutions. The financial crisis had just overthrown the fortunes of the people; they turned towards God and began to pray. On a route of three thousand miles, wherever one might stop, he found a meeting, a simple, spontaneous meeting, at which the pastors did not take the initiative, where they were present instead of presiding. Ere long, public attention became fixed on this movement, the greatness of which could not be contested; the most hostile journals ended by rendering it homage. And it lasted, it still subsists, it has produced something else than meetings and prayers, it has induced extensive moral reforms, it has closed places of debauchery and taverns by hundreds. The military and commercial marine of the United States has been especially subjected to its influence; captains, officers, and sailors in great numbers, have shown by their lives that their habits of piety are more than a vain form; American vessels are perhaps the only ones at the present day in which groups of sailors assemble to converse on the interests of their soul, and to make the praises of God resound over the ocean.

In strengthening the religious element, in exciting the Puritan fibre of America, the awakening certainly contributed a great share to the success of the party opposed to slavery. South Carolina acknowledged this herself lately, when she inserted the following phrase in her declaration of independence: "The public opinion of the North has given to a great political error the sanction of a still more erroneous religious sentiment." Is this religious sentiment, assailed by the slaveholders, that of free thinkers, or of Christians? The South is not mistaken; it knows that the truly difficult acts of emancipation are accomplished on earth only by the power of the Gospel; it saw the great abolition impulse rise in England, and spread over the United States; journals, committees, correspondence, all indicated that the English had become the American movement, and was continued under the same banner. Under this banner, and this alone, it has conquered. A colossal work in fact is here in question, before which all purely human forces fall to the ground. If such prodigious Christian efforts were needed to give the victory to Wilberforce, what will be required in the heart of a country where slavery is not exiled to distant colonies, and where it has acquired formidable proportions with years. There are easy abolitions, which are wrought in some sort of themselves, and which seem the natural corollary of a political revolution; as, for instance, that which occurred forty years ago in the Spanish republics. Bolivar, Quiroga, and the other leaders, needed the support of all classes of the population in their struggle against Spain; they adopted the expedient of suppressing slavery. In taking this resolution, they accomplished a most honorable deed, but they made little change in the condition of the country, for large planting was rare, and both the blacks and the whites were few in numbers, less numerous, indeed, than the Indians and the half breeds.

If political reasons then sufficed, it is evident that they are far from sufficing to-day: we must seek elsewhere for the explanation of the movement which, a long time wavering and suppressed, has just manifested its irresistible power in the United States. We have recognized in it the hand of the Gospel; and this is no indifferent matter, for if the Gospel had no part in it, such a movement would end in destruction.

The responsibility of Christians will be great in America; they can do much for the favorable solution of a problem which menaces the future of their country, and overshadows that of humanity. The mode of pacification here is, to declare themselves; the pretensions of the South, its fatal progress, the extreme peril to which but lately it exposed the Confederation, are due much more than is imagined to the deplorable hesitation of the religious societies and the churches. If it had long since been brought face to face with a determined evangelical doctrine, the South, which knows also, though in a less degree, the influence of the Gospel, would have avoided falling into the excesses to which it is now abandoned. The faults of the past are irreparable, but it is possible to ward off their return. Let all Northern churches, let all societies, let all eminent Christians take henceforth with firmness the position which they ought to have taken from the first; let them present to their Southern brethren a solid rallying point, and the effects of this faithful conduct will not be slow in making themselves felt. There is, in the slave States, especially in those occupying an intermediate position, more disturbance of thought, and more conflicts of feeling, than we generally suppose. Let the banner of the Christian faith be openly displayed, and many good men will rally round it: this is certain.

And let no one put forward the shameful pretext: there are sceptics, rationalists, free thinkers in the ranks of Abolitionism! Why not? Questions of this sort, thanks to the Gospel, have entered in the domain of common morality; shall I desert these questions in order to avoid contact with men who reject the essential doctrines of Christianity? I confess that the orthodoxy which should draw such conclusions would appear suspicious to me. Voltaire pleading for the Calas will not make me turn my back on religious liberty; Channing writing pages against slavery, revealing a heart more Christian than his doctrine; Parker, blending his noble efforts in favor of the negroes with his assaults against the Bible, will not alienate me from a cause which was mine before it was theirs.

I say, besides, that the objections of these men against Christianity force me to ask whether our conduct as Christians be not one of the principal causes of their scepticism. Is it quite certain that Voltaire himself would have been the adversary that we know him, if he had not seen that thought was stifled, that liberty was crushed, that conscience was violated in the name of the Gospel? Would not this same Gospel have presented itself under a different aspect to Parker, Channing, and the other Unitarians of Boston, if they had seen it at its post, the post of honor, at the head of all generous ideas and true liberties? Yes; there are Abolitionists who reject the Bible because they have heard certain orthodox Christians maintain that the Bible is in favor of slavery. Whoever preaches this, is of a school of impiety.