ibility in one of the gravest conflicts of this age.

Let us enlist; for the Slave States, on their part, are losing no time.
They have profited well, I must admit, by the advantages assured to them
by the complicity of the ministers of Mr. Buchanan. In the face of the
inevitable indecision of a new government, around which care had been
taken to accumulate in advance every impossibility of acting, the
decided bearing of the extreme South, its airs of audacity and defiance
have had a certain eclat and a certain success. Already its partisans
raise their heads; they dare speak in its favor among us; they insult
free trade, by transforming it into an argument destined to serve the
interests of slavery. And shall we remain mute? Shall we listen to the
counsels of that false wisdom that always comes too late, so much does
it fear to declare itself too early? Shall we not feel impelled to show
in all its true light the sacred cause of liberty? Ah! I declare that
the blood boils in my veins; I have hastened and would gladly have
hastened still more. Circumstances independent of my will alone have
retarded a publication prepared more than a month ago.

ORANGE, _March_ 19, 1861.

* * * * *

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.

I.--AMERICAN SLAVERY

II.--WHERE THE NATION WAS DRIFTING BEFORE THE ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN.

III.--WHAT THE ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN SIGNIFIES.

IV.--WHAT WE ARE TO THINK OF THE UNITED STATES.

V.--THE CHURCHES AND SLAVERY.

VI.--THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY.

VII.--THE PRESENT CRISIS.

VIII.--PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS.

IX.--COEXISTENCE OF THE TWO RACES AFTER EMANCIPATION.

X.--THE PRESENT CRISIS WILL REGENERATE THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE
UNITED STATES.

CONCLUSION.

* * * * *

A GREAT PEOPLE RISING.

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION.

The title of this work will produce the effect of a paradox. The general
opinion is that the United States continued to pursue an upward course
until the election of Mr. Lincoln, and that since then they have been
declining. It is not difficult, and it is very necessary, to show that
this opinion is absolutely false. Before the recent victory of the
adversaries of slavery, the American Confederation, in spite of its
external progress and its apparent prosperity, was suffering from a
fe