Great news was this!  Did you ever ask yourself how much would be missing here on earth if such a people should disappear?  It lives and it will live.  Look at the calm and confident air of the North, and compare it with the noisy violence of the South.  The North is so sure of itself that it does not deign either to become angered, or to hasten; it even carries this last to extremes.  It has the air of knowing that, in spite of the apparent successes which may mark the first efforts of the South, the final success must be elsewhere.  Let the South take care! to have against it both right and might is twice as much as is needed to be beaten.  The North supported Mr. Buchanan because it was awaiting Mr. Lincoln.  Mr. Lincoln came, the North still has patience, but will end by falling into line, and the serious struggle will begin, in case of need.

The final issue of this struggle can scarcely be doubtful.  On one side, I see a confederacy divided, impoverished, bending under the weight of a crushing social problem, seeing constantly on its horizon the menace of insurrections and of massacres, unable either to negotiate, or to draw the sword, or to resolve any of the difficulties from without, without thinking of the still more formidable difficulties from within; on the other side, I see the United States, masters of themselves, unanimous, knowing what they want, and placing at the service of a noble cause, a power which is continually increasing.

The match will not be equal.  I cannot help believing, therefore, that the triumph of the North will be even much more complete than we imagine to-day.  I do not know what is to happen, but this I know:  the North is more populous, richer, more united; European immigration goes only to the North, European capital goes only to the North.  Of what elements is the population of the South composed?  The first six States that proclaimed their separation number exactly as many slaves as freemen.  What a position!  Is it probable indeed that this confederation contrary to nature, in which each white will be charged with guarding a black, can afford a long career?  The South, divided, weakened, bearing in its side the continually bleeding wound of slavery, reduced to choose in the end between the direful plans which must destroy after having dishonored it, and the Union which consolidates its interests while thwarting its passions—­is it possible that the South will not return to the Union?

Something tells me that if the Union be dissolved, it will be formed again.  A lasting separation is more difficult than is imagined.  Face to face with Europe, face to face with the United States, the great republic of the South would find it too difficult to live.  To live at peace is impossible; to live without peace is not to be thought of.  The great Southern republic must perish surely by its failure, and still more surely by its success, for this monstrous success will draw down its destruction.  There is in America a necessity, as it were, of union.  Unity is at the foundation, diversity is only on the surface; unity is bound up with the national life itself, with race, origin, belief, common destiny, a like degree of civilization, in a word, with profound and permanent causes; diversity proceeds from the accidents of institutions.