Vain accusations! insufficient pretexts! The present war is a war of predominance. For forty-four years the Southerners have had the rulership of the United States. Thanks to their slaves, who, without being voters, have counted in the population, the amount of which determined the number of representatives, the Southern States, less numerous, less populous, less important, have had the superiority in Congress, and they have been unable to resign themselves to see the political influence pass at length to the North. They have risen because they wished to rule. And why do they wish to rule? In order to maintain and extend slavery. The North is fighting to defend the Constitution; the South is violating the Constitution to defend slavery.

The maintenance or destruction of the Constitution, such is the direct end of the war; the maintenance or the destruction of slavery, such is the first cause of the war, the cause of this ancient struggle, long rumbling, then bursting forth, which the eminent statesman placed by Mr. Lincoln at the head of his Cabinet, Mr. Seward, defined three years ago, by a memorable expression, the irrepressible conflict.

This painful question is really at the bottom of the war, which the administration at Washington, urged, moreover, by the eloquent and logical entreaties of the indefatigable friends of liberty, before all by Charles Sumner, has deemed incumbent upon itself to conduct by slow but important steps towards emancipation. Mr. Lincoln has acted slowly, prudently, legally, refusing and even suppressing all incitements to insurrection, for which he cannot be sufficiently thanked; but he has acted with the loyalty, perseverance, good sense, and conscientiousness which are the distinct characteristics of his individuality. Mark the acts due to his initiative.

An appeal has been made and a subsidy promised to as

many States as are willing to emancipate their slaves. (Message and law of March 8, 1862.)

Slavery has been abolished in the District of Columbia, which still contained 3,185 slaves. (April, 1862.)

Various incompatibilities which still rested on the free negroes, such as exclusion from the office of factor of the port, have been destroyed.

The republics of Hayti and Liberia have been recognized. All slaves of rebels who have taken refuge in the Federal camps are declared free.

Slavery has been abolished in the Territories of the United States not yet recognized as States.

Finally, a treaty for the suppression of the slave-trade. and for the right of visit, always hitherto refused, has been signed with England. (April 7, May 20.)

Since this time, Mr. Sumner has framed a bill to suppress the coast traffic in slaves between the States, while by ardent and practical speeches he has unceasingly moved public opinion to advance the cause of emancipation.

What will be the influence of the war on the great cause of humanity? We see that it has already done more in six months than had been done in sixty years; but what will the end be?

Either the Union will be established, or it will be broken. In France, all ought to wish that the Union might be re-established. In this great nation, France should see its work, its protégé, its ally, the counterpoise to England on the seas. England has other interests; it would joyfully witness the fall of a rebellious scion and growing rival. But will the Union be re-established? Is there a strong Union party in the South? After a discordant family life, is not divorce necessary? We leave the answer to the chances of war and the will of God. We only examine the probable causes in what concerns slavery.

If the Union be maintained, all the laws which we have

indicated will be at least maintained and extended; it is the smallest possible gain that we can expect. Delays, temporizing, will be accorded, but the end of slavery will be only the affair of a little time.

If the Union be destroyed, either France or England will offer the mediation which Lord Palmerston rightly finds still untimely, in which case both nations would dishonor themselves if they did not at least prescribe that the South should directly renounce the barbarous laws which fetter the instruction, marriage, and enfranchisement of the unhappy slaves, by making more ample promises for the future; and that it should adhere to the agreement against the slave-trade.

Or the Union will be divided without mediation, in which case Nature herself will intervene; for an immense frontier will separate the negro republic from the free republic, and there will be no more Fugitive Slave Laws. Beyond this frontier there will be, as it were, a vast Canada within little distance. On the coasts, the surveillance will become costly and troublesome. It will be impossible either to increase or retain the slaves, without maintaining a standing army at ruinous cost, and braving the navies of the world, to say nothing of the universal conscience.

Thus, in both cases, it will be for the interest of the 300,000 masters who hold 4,000,000 men in bondage to soften slavery, then abolish it, with more or less delay, despite more or less resistance, with more or less persecution. After the numberless evils of civil war, I know not what of the Union will remain standing; but I believe that it can be affirmed, that slavery will have received its deathblow, and this will be justice.

BOOK SECOND.

SPANISH COLONIES.*

CUBA. - PORTO RICO.

THE cities and temples formerly founded by Spain on the continent of Southern America, the monuments which it raised, the works of art which it had skill to execute, have left imposing ruins. We ask ourselves wherefore so much greatness disappeared. The contempt of a few exclusive minds for the genius of the Latin races explains nothing. For, in North America, the English were deprived of their fairest colonies with a facility which excites no less surprise. We can scarcely believe that the soldiers whom Washington had to fight were of the same blood as those who coped a few years later with the armies of France. Why did the English, why the Spaniards, let fall from their hands these magnificent possessions? Because these hands had become feeble and corrupt.

This corruption, due to very diverse causes, proceeds most of all from this, over the entire surface of the globe the races who compel others to labor without laboring themselves fall to decay. Wherever the Turk sets foot, the fam

* Voyages de Humboldt et de Bonpland, Part I. Relation Historique, Tom. III. Liv. X. Chap. VII. and VIII. Paris, 1825, in fol.— Description de l'le de Cuba, by M. Ramon de la Sagra, correspondent of the Institute.—Cuba, ses ressources, etc., by Don Vasquez Queipo and Don Jose Antonio Saco; translated by M. d'Avrainville. Imperial Press, 1851. Spanish and English documents concerning Cuba and Porto Rico, Revue Coloniale, 1843-1860.- La Question de Cuba, Paris. 1859. Dentu. The West Indies and the Spanish Main, by Anthony Trollope. 1860, etc.

ily disappears, the blood becomes impoverished, the earth grows sterile. It is a general law, and this law is. justice's self.

Compare to-day the Northern with the Southern United States, or the Northern United States with Brazil: under different aspects, the same law is manifested.

In the only colony which they have preserved in America, the island of Cuba, the Spaniards nevertheless obstinately maintain slavery.

The prosperity of this colony even appears an argument, the chief argument of the partisans of slavery.

Enormous fortunes are made in Cuba, and the city of Havana, with its 200,000 inhabitants, is one of the most wealthy and luxurious capitals on the globe, one of the principal markets of the commercial world. The Spanish government draws a constantly increasing revenue from Cuba. The amount of imports and exports is prodigious.*

* It is the policy of Spain not to make annual statements of the revenue which it derives from its commerce. Nevertheless, from various information collected in the Balanza general de comercio, and other documents, we gain the following table of the progress of imports, exports, and revenues, from 1827 to 1847. (Revue Coloniale, 1851, No. 7, p. 445, from the Anti-Slavery Reporter, and 1847, No. 13, p. 164, from the Colonial Magazine. Cuba, by D'Avrainville, supplementary tables.)

The two following years witnessed a decline, viz.:

25,434,655 piasters. 26,077,068 piasters.

1848

The exportation of sugar rose from 6,508,138 arrobas (four to a quintal) in 1826, to 10,166,555 arrobas in 1840; that of coffee from 1,718,865 arrobas to 1,877,646. The exportation of tobacco rose from 5,940,000 lbs. in 1842 to 9,309,000 lbs. in 1847. The statistics of 1848 and 1849 give:

Leaf tobacco

Cigars

1848. 6,275,630 lbs. 161,480 66

1849. 4,017,133 lbs. 123,720 "

Lastly, mark the comparative amounts of 1857 and 1858, extracted from the