The American people are now striving to rise.  Enterprise as difficult as glorious!  Whatever may be the issue of the first conflict, it will be only the first conflict.  There will be many others; the uprising of a great people is not the work of a day.  Sometimes at peace, sometimes perhaps at war with the States that take in hand the cause of slavery, the American Confederation will witness the development, one after another, of the consequences necessarily produced by that decisive event, the election of Mr. Lincoln.  Having broken with the past, it will be forced to enter further and further into the path of the future.  We have already seen that, whichever hypothesis is realized of those which we are permitted to foresee, the cause of slavery is destined to experience defeat after defeat.  It has ceased to grow, it is about to decrease, to decrease by separation, to decrease by union, to decrease by peace, to decrease by war.  As surely as there will be obstacles without number to surmount in order to accomplish this work, so surely will this work be accomplished.  Certainly, it deserves to be loved and sustained, without discouragement and hesitation.  Europe will comprehend it.

On seeing her attitude, the angry champions of slavery will doubtless perceive that they are mistaken, and that it is time to make new calculations.  As for the brave men of the North, they will he glad to learn what is thought of them on this side of the Atlantic.  This may aid, and greatly, in the more or less distant re-establishment of the Union.  If the Gulf States knew what insurmountable disgust will be aroused here by their Confederacy, founded to secure the duration and prosperity of slavery; if the border States knew what sympathies they will gain by siding with liberty, and what maledictions they will incur by declaring themselves for slavery; if the Northern States knew what support is secured to them by that power, the chief of all others, public opinion, we are justified in believing that the present crisis would come to a prompt and peaceful solution.

It is a fixed fact that the nineteenth century will see the end of slavery in all its forms; and woe to him who opposes the march of such a progress!  Who is not deeply impressed by the thought that, on the 4th of March, at the very hour when Mr. Lincoln, in taking possession of the Presidency at Washington, signified to the attentive world the will of a great republic, determined to arrest the conquests of slavery, the generous head of a great empire signified to his ministers his immutable resolve to prepare for the emancipation of the serfs.  In such coincidences, who does not recognize the finger of God.  I am, therefore, tranquil:  Russian opposition has failed, American opposition will fail.  There will be American opposition; there will be, there is such already, in the very surroundings and cabinet of the President.  We have just seen how it seeks to enervate his resolutions,