of the formation of two
Confederacies, almost equal, (in appearance at least,) will permit no
one to count on the prolonged preservation of peace. What repulsion,
what grievances will be found in all relations, in all questions! And
from a grievance to war, from war to negro insurrections, what will be
the distance, I ask? The South will be then an immense powder magazine,
to which the first spark will set fire. And the South will not lose its
habits of arrogance, it will be quarrelsome as always. Has it not
already announced in its journals that, on the first encouragement
given to its fugitive slaves, it will draw the sword? Now, such
encouragement certainly will not be wanting. The South does not know at
the present time how much the North, of which it complains, contributes
to prevent the escapes which it fears. The Federal Government is at hand
to oppose them, in some measure at least. When the preventive obstacle
shall have disappeared, the South will see with what rapidity its
slavery will glide away on every point of its frontier; it will see its
_happy_ negroes ready to brave a thousand perils rather than remain
under its law. Alas! it will see many other proofs of their devotion to
servitude. I do not like to bring bloody images, at which I shudder, too
often before the eyes of the reader; it must be said, notwithstanding,
while it is yet time, that the general Confederacy of the South,
intoxicated with its projects, resolved to increase its possessions,
forced to demand from the African slave trade the means of repeopling
its States, depopulated by escape, and to install slavery into new
territories, will draw upon it, not only the wrath of the United States,
but the indignation of the entire world. And what misery, what ruin will
ensue from the first conflict!

I like better to fix my thoughts on the third hypothesis--that of a
return to the now broken Union. Taught by experience, recognizing how
little weight it has in the world since its separation from the United
States, poor, weak, divided, comprehending the impossibility of
realizing its true plans without exposing itself to calamities, losing
its resources, one after another, even to the cultivation of cotton,
which also demands credit and security, incapable of preventing the
flight of its slaves, and not daring to brave that great power of public
opinion which will interdict it the African trade, the Southern
Confederacy, exhausted and dismayed, will