o learn to respect, to
love, and consequently to aid those whose conduct we blame the most
strongly. For my part, whenever I am tempted to set myself up as a judge
or an accuser of the South, I ask myself what I should do if I belonged
to the South, and this brings me back to the true position. I remember,
too, what I saw, with my own eyes, at the time when the discussion on
slavery was carried on in France; the colonial passions, the blindest
and most violent of all, broke out in Martinique and the isle of
Bourbon, as they had broken out before in Jamaica, where the circulars
of Mr. Canning, the proposition, for example, to suppress the
flagellation of women, had excited a veritable explosion. There were
some very honorable men among those who were indignant at this measure;
and, among us, likewise, the planters who determined to combat all
modification of the negro system, were good men. Severity is almost
always a defect of memory; we blame others without pity, only when we
begin by forgetting our own history. We Frenchmen, who had so much
difficulty in emancipating our own slaves, and who would not, perhaps,
have succeeded in it, had it not been for the bold decision of M.
Schoelcher; we, who have sought to take back, in part, through our
colonial regulations, the liberty accorded the blacks; we, who suffered
recruitals by purchase to be made on the African coast; who formerly
organized the expedition charged with re-establishing slavery and the
slave trade at St. Domingo; who suppressed the slave trade at the
Congress of Vienna only in stipulating its continuance for some years;
who carried into our discussions on the right of search, a very meagre
interest for the victims of the slavers; we, whose consciences are
burdened with these misdeeds, are bound to use indulgence towards the
States of the South.

This remark was necessary: it is from the South that the Biblical
theories in favor of slavery proceed; it is on account of the South that
these theories have been adopted by certain Christians of the North,
desirous, above every thing, of avoiding both the dismemberment of the
United States, and that of the churches and religious societies. Take
away the South, and no one in America, any more than in Europe, will
dream of discovering in the Gospel the divine approbation of the
atrocities of slavery.

I comprehend better than most, the sentiment of indignation that is
caused by these deplorable teachings, in whic