rarest and most marvellous prodigies presented by the annals of
humanity. Ordinarily, nations that begin to decline, decline constantly
more and more; a rare power of life is needed to retrieve their
position, and stop in its course a decay once begun.

We have a strange way of seconding the generous enterprise into which
the United States have entered with so much courage! We prophesy to them
nothing but misfortunes; we almost tell them that they have ceased to
exist; we give them to understand, that in electing Mr. Lincoln they
have renounced their greatness; that they have precipitated themselves
head foremost into an abyss; that they have ruined their prosperity,
sacrificed their future, rendered henceforth impossible the magnificent
character which was reserved to them. Mr. Buchanan, we seem to say, is
the last President of the Union.

This, thank God, is the reverse of the truth. But lately, indeed, the
United States were advancing to their ruin; but lately there was reason
to mourn in thinking of them; the steps might have been counted which
it remained for them to take to complete the union of their destiny with
that of an accursed and perishable institution--an institution which
corrupts and destroys every thing with which it comes in contact.
To-day, new prospects are opening to them; they will have to combat, to
labor, to suffer; the crime of a century is not repaired in a day; the
right path when long forsaken is not found again without effort; guilty
traditions and old complicities are not broken through without
sacrifices. It is none the less true, notwithstanding, that the hour of
effort and of sacrifice, grievous as it may be, is the very hour of
deliverance. The election of Mr. Lincoln will be one of the great dates
of American history; it closes the past, but it opens the future. With
it is about to commence, if the same spirit be maintained, and if