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il
gated ? Would there not be always ill blood between the
parties? Separation is perhaps a misfortune, but to-day the
misfortune is irreparable. Let it be admitted that the North
has the law, the letter and the spirit of the constitution on her
side, there remains always an undebateable point: the South
wills to be master at the South. You have not the right to
crush a people that fights so bravely.    Resign yourselves."  .
If we were less enervated by the luxuries of modern life and
by the idleness of a long peace, if our hearts still retained some
remnant of that patriotism which, in 1792, sent our forefathers
to the shores of the Rhine, the answer would be an easy one.
To-day I fear we can no longer comprehend it. If to-morrow
the south of France should revolt and demand separation, if
Alsace and Lorraine wished to isolate themselves, what would
be, I do not say our right, but our duty ? Would we stop to
count votes, to know if a third or a half of the French people
had a right to destroy the national unity, to annihilate France,
to rend in fragments the glorious heritage bought with the
blood of our fathers ? h!o, we would take up our muskets and
march. Woe to him who does not feel that his country is
sacred, and that it is glorious to defend it, even at the cost of all
possible sufferings and dangers.
" America is not France ; it is a confederation, it is not a
nation." Who says that? The South, to justify her crime. The
North says the contrary, and for two years, at the price of
sacrifices without number, affirms that the people of the United
States are one people, and that their country shall not be cut
in two. This is noble. This is grand, and what astonishes me
is, that France can remain unmoved in view of such patriotism.
Love of country—is not that the distinguishing virtue of the
French people'?
^ What, then, is the South, and whence does she derive this
right of separation, so loudly proclaimed? Is it a conquered
people that seeks to recover its independence, like Lombardy ?
Is it a distinct race that wishes no longer to continue an op-
pressive alliance ? No, they are communities of planters estab-
lished by American hands, on the territories of the Union, who
revolt without any other reason than their own ambition. Let
us take a map of the United States.   If we except Virginia, the