South will see itself smitten at once in all its means of production; and, after the harvest of 1860, which secures our supplies for a year, after that of 1861, which it will succeed, probably, in gathering, but which it will be more difficult to sell, it is not easy to divine how it will set to work to continue its crops.  While the South produces less cotton, and we lose the habit of buying of it, the cotton culture will become acclimated elsewhere; the future will thus be destroyed like the present; final ruin will approach with hasty strides.

They tell us of a loan that the new Confederacy designs to contract!  Unless it be transformed into a forced loan, I have little faith in its chance.  They add that it will be only necessary to establish on exported cotton a duty of a few cents per pound, and the coffers of the South will be filled.  But, in the first place, to export cotton, they must produce it—­they must have money; it is almost impossible that the State should be rich when all its citizens are in distress; then the exportation itself will be exposed to some difficulties if the United States organize a blockade.  And I say nothing of the bad effect that will be produced by this tax a la Turque—­this tax on exportation in the very midst of plans of commercial freedom.  Neither do I speak of the effect which this extra charge, which is termed trifling, but which is, in fact, considerable, will have on the sale of American cotton, already so defective, when compared with the average price of other cottons.

Poor country, which blind passion, and, above all, indomitable pride, precipitates into the path of crime and misery!  Poor, excommunicated nation, whose touch will be dreaded, whose flag will be suspected, whose continually increasing humiliations will not even be compensated by a few meagre profits!  The heart is oppressed at the thought of the clear, certain, inevitable future, which awaits so many men, less guilty than erring.  Between them and the rest of the world there will be nothing longer in common; they will establish on their frontier a police over books and journals, essaying to prevent the fatal introduction of an idea of liberty:  the rest of the world will have for them neither political sympathies, nor moral sympathies, nor religious sympathies.

Will they at least have the consolation of having killed the United States?  Will a glorious confederation have perished by their retreat?  No, a thousand times no.  Even though they should succeed in drawing the border States into the Southern Confederacy, the United States, thank God! will keep their rank among nations.  Where will the United States be after secession?  Where they were before; for a long time the gravitation of their power has been tending towards the Northwest.  The true America is there, that of ancient traditions, and that of present reality.  If any serious fears might have been conceived as to its duration, they disappeared on the day of the election of Mr. Lincoln.  On that day, we all learned that the United States would subsist, and that their malady was not mortal.