impunity secured to those numerous slave-ships which daily, to the knowledge and in the sight of all, for years past, have quitted the ports of the Confederation; no more chance of equalling, by the creation and population of new States, the rapid development of the North; henceforth the question is ended, the South must be resigned to it:  the majority of the free States will become such that it can be contested neither in the House of Representatives, nor in the Senate, nor in the presidential election; the supremacy resides at the North, the programme of the South is rent in a thousand pieces.

Against this, all the compromises in the world can do nothing.  If Mr. Lincoln is the first President opposed to slavery, Mr. Buchanan is the last President favorable to slavery; the American policy is henceforth fixed.  Reflect, in fact, on what these four years of government will produce.  The result is so enormous, that, unhappily, one might be tempted to say at Washington:  “We will do all that is wished, provided we preserve the handling of affairs.”

The power of a President is doubtless inconsiderable, but his advent is that of a party.  This party is about to renew all administrations, great and small; the same majority which has elected him will modify before long the tendencies of the courts; in fine, the general affairs of the Union will be managed in a new spirit.  It was advancing in one direction, it is about to move in the opposite.  Mr. Lincoln is not one to shut his eyes on filibustering attempts to strive to take Cuba for the slavery party, to permit States to be carved out of Mexico, and others to be made ready by subdividing Texas.  The process which is about to be accomplished reminds me of the measures taken to combat a vast conflagration:  the first thing done is to circumscribe its locality.

At the end of the four years of Mr. Lincoln’s administration, the flames which threatened to devour the Union will be completely hemmed in.  Considering the United States as a whole, and independently of the incidents of separation, we are justified in believing that the respective number of free and of slave States will leave no chance for the ulterior extension of a great scourge.  Do we delude ourselves by thinking that the progress already begun in the border States will have been accelerated in its course, and that many of them will have freely passed over to the side of liberty?  Is it certain, moreover, that the hesitation of some of the churches will have ceased, and that the influence of the Gospel, so decisive in America, will have finally placed itself entire at the service of the good cause?

Let there be a compromise or not, let the great secession of the South be prevented or not, let civil war break forth or not, let it give or not give to the South the fleeting eclat of first successes, one fact remains settled henceforth:  the United States were tottering on their base, they have regained their equilibrium; the deadly perils which they lately incurred from the plans of conquest of the South and the indefinite extension of slavery, are at length conjured down; they have no longer to ask whether, some day, the South having grown beyond measure, secession must not be effected by the North, leaving in the hands of the slaveholders the glorious name and the starry banner of the Union.