t have come to us from America demonstrate the lofty
character of the joy which was manifested after the election. Men shook
hands with each other in the streets; they congratulated each other on
having at last escaped from the yoke of an ignoble policy; they felt as
though relieved from a weight; they breathed more freely; the true, the
noble destinies of the United States reappeared on the horizon, they
saluted a future that should be better than the present, a future worthy
of their sires, those early pilgrims who, carrying nothing with them but
their Bibles, had laid the foundation of a free country with poor but
valiant hands.

I should like to quote here the sermon in which the Rev. Mr. Beecher
poured out his Christian joy at that time. He spoke of the strength of
the weak; he showed that principles, however despised they may be, end
by revenging themselves on interests; he recalled the fact that the
Gospel is a power in America. To rise up, to attack its enemy manfully,
to arraign the causes of the national decline, to approach boldly the
solution of the most formidable problem which could be propounded here
on earth, such is not the act of a nation of calculators. Something
else is implied in it than tactics, something else than combinations of
votes or sectional rivalries. To vote as they did, they had to overcome
almost as many obstacles in the North as in the South; for, in
consequence of the vote, the North had to suffer like the South, and
they knew it.

If you wish to be just to the United States, compare them with other
countries in which slavery exists. In the United States there is a
struggle; the question is a living one; men do not turn aside from it
with lax indifference. I love the noise of free nations; I find in the
very violence of their debates a proof of the earnestness of
convictions. Men must become excited about great social problems; if
abuses exist, they must, at least, be pointed out, attacked, and
stigmatized; the prescription of silence must never be accorded them;
devoted voices must exclaim against them, unceasingly, in the name of
justice and of humanity. Such a spectacle does good to the soul; it
solaces the sorrows of the present, it carries within itself guarantees
for the future.

The sad, profoundly sad, spectacle, is that of nations where crimes make
no noise. Look at Brazil. Like the United States, it has slavery, but it
is an honorable, discreet slavery, of which nothing i