s are little in harmony with
their brilliant programme. Far from, proclaiming free trade, the
"Confederate" States, by a formal act adopted on the 18th of February,
have maintained the tariff of 1857. They have gone further: their
Congress has just established a new and relatively heavy tax, which must
burden the exportation of cotton. This is not commercial liberty as I
understand it.

Notwithstanding, the watchword has been given, the champions of slavery
have skilfully organized their system of manoeuvre in Europe, and it is
developing according to their wishes. To be indignant at the new
tariff, to speak only of the new tariff, to create by means of the new
tariff a sort of popularity for the Southern republic--such is the end
which they sought to attain. I doubt whether they have fully obtained
it, although the South, I say it to our shame, has already succeeded in
procuring friends and praisers among us. The factitious indignation will
fall without doubt; but cotton remains: at the bottom, the South counts
much more upon cotton than free trade to bring the Old World into her
interests. On rushing into a mad enterprise, all the perils of which,
enraged as it was, it could not disguise, it said to itself that its
cotton would protect it. Is it not the principal and almost the only
producer of a raw material, without which the manufactures of the whole
world would stand still? Are there not millions of workmen in England
(one-sixth of the whole population!) who live by the manufacture of
cotton? Is not the wealth of Great Britain founded on cotton, which
alone furnishes four-fifths of its exported manufactures? All this is
true, and they are not ignorant of it at Manchester. Notwithstanding,
what happened there the other day? An immense meeting was convoked for
the purpose of carefully examining the great cotton business, and the
perils created by the present crisis. I do not know that among these
manufacturers, knowing that their interests were menaced, that among
these workmen, knowing that their means of livelihood were at stake,
that from the heart of this country, knowing that want, famine, and
insurrections might come to her door, there arose a voice, a single one,
to address a word of sympathy to the Southern States, and to promise
them the slightest support. It was because there was something
transcending manufacturing supplies, and even the bread of families: the
need, I am glad to state, of protesting again