I repeat that it will amount to nothing.  Moreover, do not let us exaggerate either the protective instincts of the North or the free trade of the South.  The new tariff just adopted at Washington (a grave error, assuredly, which I do not seek to palliate) may be amended in such a manner as to lose the character of prohibition with which certain States have sought to invest it.  Let us not forget, that by the side of Pennsylvania, which urges the excessive increase of taxes, the North counts a considerable number of agricultural States, the interests of which are very different.  Now, these are the States which elected Mr. Lincoln, and which will henceforth have the most decisive weight on the destinies of the Union.  We may be tranquil, the protective reaction which has just triumphed in part will not long be victorious.  All liberties cling together:  the liberty of commerce will have its day in the United States.

But if all liberties cling together, all slaveries cling together also, and cannot be liberal at will, even in commercial matters.  The Southern States plume themselves on being thus liberal, and it is sought to give them this reputation.  However, the facts are little in harmony with their brilliant programme.  Far from, proclaiming free trade, the “Confederate” States, by a formal act adopted on the 18th of February, have maintained the tariff of 1857.  They have gone further:  their Congress has just established a new and relatively heavy tax, which must burden the exportation of cotton.  This is not commercial liberty as I understand it.

Notwithstanding, the watchword has been given, the champions of slavery have skilfully organized their system of manoeuvre in Europe, and it is developing according to their wishes.  To be indignant at the new tariff, to speak only of the new tariff, to create by means of the new tariff a sort of popularity for the Southern republic—­such is the end which they sought to attain.  I doubt whether they have fully obtained it, although the South, I say it to our shame, has already succeeded in procuring friends and praisers among us.  The factitious indignation will fall without doubt; but cotton remains:  at the bottom, the South counts much more upon cotton than free trade to bring the Old World into her interests.  On rushing into a mad enterprise, all the perils of which, enraged as it was, it could not disguise, it said to itself that its cotton would protect it.  Is it not the principal and almost the only producer of a raw material, without which the manufactures of the whole world would stand still?  Are there not millions of workmen in England (one-sixth of the whole population!) who live by the manufacture of cotton?  Is not the wealth of Great Britain founded on cotton, which alone furnishes four-fifths of its exported manufactures?  All this is true, and they are not ignorant of it at Manchester.  Notwithstanding, what happened there the other day?  An immense meeting was convoked for the purpose of carefully