iberties were compromised, and the Federal institutions were
bending before the "institution" of the South; no more rights of the
majority before the "institution;" no more sovereignty of the States
before the "institution." The ultra policy of Mr. Buchanan had coveted
Cuba, essayed violence in Kansas, given up the government of America in
fine to a cabinet of such a stamp, that a majority was nearly found in
it, ready to disavow Major Anderson, and to order the evacuation of
forts of the Confederation, menaced by Carolinian forces.

During this time, an incredible fact had come to light. It was one of
the glories of America to have abolished the African slave trade before
any other nation, and even to have put it on the same footing with the
crime of piracy. The South had openly demanded the re-establishment of a
commerce which alone could furnish it at some day with the number of
negroes proportioned to its vast designs. What had Mr. Buchanan done? He
doubtless had not consented officially to an enormity which Congress, on
its part, would not have tolerated; but repression had become so lax
under his administration, that the number of slave ships fitted out in
the ports of the United States had at length become very considerable.
The port of New York alone, which participates but too much in the
misdeeds and tendencies of the South, fitted out eighty-five slavers
between the months of February, 1859, and July, 1860. These slavers
proudly bore the United States' flag over the seas, and defied the
English cruisers. As for the American cruisers, Mr. Buchanan had taken
care to remove them all from Cuba, where every one knows that the living
cargoes are landed. The slave trade is therefore in the height of
prosperity, whatever the last presidential message may say of it, and as
to the application of the laws concerning piracy, I do not see that they
have had many victims.

We can now measure the perils which menaced the United States. It was
not such or such a measure in particular, but a collection of measures,
all directed towards the same end, and tending mutually to complete each
other: conquests, the domestic and the foreign slave trade, the
overthrow of the few barriers opposed to the extension of slavery, the
debasement of institutions, the definitive enthroning of an adventurous
policy, a policy without principles and without scruples; to this the
country was advancing with rapid strides. Do they who raise their ha