consists in attacking evil has been the one sanctioned by success. In
America itself, the progress made by the border States does not seem to
confirm what is told us of the reaction caused by the aggressions of
abolitionism. In Virginia, in Kentucky, in Missouri, in Delaware, etc.,
the liberty party has been continually gaining ground; and the votes
received in the slave States by Mr. Lincoln prove it a very great
mistake to suppose letting alone to be the condition of progress. Would
to God that slavery had not been let alone when the republic of the
United States was founded! Then, abolition was easy, the slaves were few
in number, and no really formidable antagonism was in play. Unhappily,
false prudence made itself heard: it was resolved to keep silence, and
not to deprive the South of the honor of a voluntary emancipation--in
fine, to reserve the question for the future. The future has bent under
the weight of a task which has continued to increase with years, thanks
to letting it alone.

A little more letting alone, and the weight would have crushed America;
it was time to act. The Abolition party, or rather the party opposed to
the extension of slavery, has acted with a resolution which should
excite our sympathies. The future of the United States was at stake; it
knew it, and it struggled in consequence. Remember the efforts essayed
four years ago for the election of Mr. Fremont, efforts which would have
succeeded perhaps, if Mr. Fremont had not been a Catholic. Remember
those three months of balloting, by which the North succeeded in
carrying the election of speaker of the House of Representatives.
Remember the conduct of the North, in the sad affair of John Brown, its
refusal to approve an illegal act, its admiration of the heroic farmer
who died after having witnessed the death of his sons. On seeing the
public mourning of the Free States, on hearing the minute gun discharged
in the capital of the State of New York on the day of execution, one