scarcely begun; the point in question is to give our support--the very
considerable support of European opinion--at the time when it can be of
service; the point in question is to assume our small share of
responsibility in one of the gravest conflicts of this age.

Let us enlist; for the Slave States, on their part, are losing no time.
They have profited well, I must admit, by the advantages assured to them
by the complicity of the ministers of Mr. Buchanan. In the face of the
inevitable indecision of a new government, around which care had been
taken to accumulate in advance every impossibility of acting, the
decided bearing of the extreme South, its airs of audacity and defiance
have had a certain éclat and a certain success. Already its partisans
raise their heads; they dare speak in its favor among us; they insult
free trade, by transforming it into an argument destined to serve the
interests of slavery. And shall we remain mute? Shall we listen to the
counsels of that false wisdom that always comes too late, so much does
it fear to declare itself too early? Shall we not feel impelled to show
in all its true light the sacred cause of liberty? Ah! I declare that
the blood boils in my veins; I have hastened and would gladly have
hastened still more. Circumstances independent of my will alone have
retarded a publication prepared more than a month ago.

ORANGE, _March_ 19, 1861.



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