Ii.--American Life in France: 1851

MONDAY, September 1st. − Yesterday we went to the English church. The clergyman read the service in a serious and impressive manner, but the sermon was a thoroughly doctrinal one. When the children understand French without effort, we mean to take them to a French church. I have an impression that the French preachers have more fervor than the English clergy. But we do not wish to take them to church for a lesson in French.

The children have been into the garden. I had not before permitted them to take advantage of M. de Rochejacquelein’s invitation to go there when they pleased ; but as he was walking there yesterday morning he saw them on the balcony and asked them to come down. Willie was delighted with the birds, of which there is a beautiful collection in the little aviary.

I think Willie will speak French very soon, he is of such a social disposition. We were very much amused, when we were in England, at the facility with which he made friends with everybody. In the railway carriages, whenever he wanted to ask a question, he applied to any one who looked as if he might be able to give him an answer; but so courteously and so simply, that the most inexpressive faces expanded into graciousness, and the information he wanted was given in the spirit in which it was asked. I saw him once sitting beside a very English-looking elderly gentleman, who was giving him some explanation with an amused smile, while Willie looked up to him with such a respectful, confiding air, as if taking it for granted that, wherever they met, it was the part of age to teach and of youth to listen.

We have had no disappointment in our apartment. There was no drawback to discover, and it is as cheerful and homelike as possible. The lady who has the charge of letting it, and with whom all the business matters are transacted, is very kind and attentive. She has provided us with a cook, and is always ready to give me advice as to household arrangements. She is so evidently desirous to aid me, that I do not scruple to apply to her when I am in any little dilemma. The French, so far as we have seen anything of them yet, show themselves very kind, obliging, and reasonable.

Our house fronts towards a street which formerly bore the name of Rue Neuve de Berry; but in the last revolution, when all the streets whose names awakened unpopular associations were republicanized, it assumed, in deference to the feeling of the time, that of Rue de la Fraternité. This pleasant appellation is the legal one. In the directories and on the plans of Paris the street is known by no other ; yet the change is ignored by the conservative part of the community ; with them it remains Rue Neuve de Berry still. I have learned to guess at the political opinions of the tradespeople from whom I order goods by the direction which they put on their parcels. According to the contract for the lease of our apartment, we are living in Rue Neuve de Berry. The address on our newspapers and on the letters sent from the bankers supposes us to be in Rue de la Fraternité. You are at liberty to regard us as inhabitants of either of these streets, as your sympathies may incline. For myself, if republicanism had been in the ascendant here, my respect for the past would perhaps have led me to cherish the older name; but since it is at this moment the proscribed and suffering cause, I adhere firmly to that which the Revolution of 1848 bestowed.

The French journals are very interesting. The leading organs of the different parties are ably edited; with great vigor and earnestness these, with great dexterity those. The writers in French journals are obliged to sign their articles. This I cannot think a hardship. Every man ought to be willing to take the responsibility of his words. And the public has a right to know who is addressing it.

The condition of the press seems an anomaly in this arbitrary time. Not that it is absolutely untrammelled ; there is the drawback of danger. A writer may be punished for his article ; the editor of the journal in which it has appeared may be punished ; but, at all events, it has appeared. The Constitution forbids censorship of the press, and requires that trials for offences of the press shall take place before a jury. These privileges remain standing in the midst of so many wrecks of the fabric of 1848. They are the stronghold of the liberal party. It has eloquent speakers and able writers, whose words go through France, even adverse journals being often obliged to reproduce them ; for their readers must know what is said and done in the world, and even in the republican world. The manifesto put forth by the Mountain at the time of the adjournment of the Assembly must have done a great work of instruction. It is not too long to be easily read. It gives a clear statement of the position of affairs from the republican point of view, relating the wrongs and sufferings of the Republic, but claiming the future, and the near future, for the liberal party, which is, it asserts, with the defeat of revision, entering upon a series of successes.

It is a surprising and a mournful thing to see the majority of the National Assembly uniting with the President in subversive and repressive measures. Doubtless they believe they are acting in the interests of royalty ; they affirm that they are acting in conformity with the wishes of France.

France is royalist, they say. If France is royalist, why not let France say so herself? Why must she be bound and gagged, if her hands would only applaud a restoration, and her free voice cry Vive le roi?

I hear the same things said here that I have heard at home : “ The French cannot have a republic. They are not fit to govern themselves.” These things of a country which holds the place in the industry of the world that France does ! If the intelligent people of France are not fit to govern themselves, what does it say for the education which the monarchy has given them ? It is surely time to try some other system.

The more closely I look at the history of the present time, the greater is my respect for the French people and the stronger my confidence in their future. Even in their mistakes, the result of inexperience, they are often to be respected, the motives of their conduct are so honorable.

I do not suppose that, if the Republic should succeed in establishing itself, all will at once go smoothly. Everything that is worth having costs trouble both in the winning and the keeping. Was our Republic founded without trouble, organized without trouble ? To speak only of that particular kind of trouble with which we reproach the French and with which they reproach themselves, is there not, even in the history of our order-loving State of Massachusetts, a passage which has come down to us under the name of Shays’s Insurrection ?

Can it be pretended that monarchy, even the most prudent, offers any greater assurance of tranquillity ? One of the leading Orleanist journals said of Louis Philippe, just after his death, that he who had just died in a foreign land “ had secured to his country the calmest and the most prosperous eighteen years of its history.” And yet what disturbed, disastrous years were many of these !

The natural instincts of justice and order will always keep the majority of men in the right path, if they are left free to take it; and these will restrain the hostile minority, whether the high or the low, more effectually than any outward force can restrain it.

“ But France does not want a republic. The people do not wish to manage their own affairs. They prefer to have all that done for them.” Does the reaction itself believe that the people of France do not want a republic ? What did M. Baroche, for example, think in 1848 ? − M. Baroche, who, as Minister of the Interior, proposed to the Assembly, on the part of the President, this ill-omened law of the 31st May, which struck a third of the voters of France from the lists. He may well represent the reaction.

M. Baroche, after the Revolution of February, proposed himself to the electors of the department of CharenteInférieure as a candidate for election to the Assembly.

He recommended himself to them, first, on the ground that, under the régime which had just passed away, he had “ constantly associated himself by energetic votes to the most advanced members of the opposition ” ; that he “ was one of ninety-six deputies who had accepted the invitation to the banquet of the twelfth arrondissement ” ; that he “was one of those, anticipating by some hours the justice of the people, had proposed the impeachment of an odious and guilty Ministry.”

These were the claims of his past; those of the actual time were not less emphatic : −

“ I am a Republican by reason, by sentiment, by conviction. I adopt the Republic as the only form of government which can assure the greatness and the prosperity of France.

“ I am convinced that royalty has had its time in France; that it has no more roots, no more foundation in the country.

“ It is to the Republic that all good citizens should rally without reserve, considering as culpable every attempt at monarchical restoration.

“ The Republic alone can give the laborious classes of city and country the well-being and the political liberty to which all citizens have a right.”

M. Baroche must have thought the Republic was in favor with the people of Charente - Inférieure ; and he was not mistaken. They elected him.

M. Baroche was not the only member of what is now the reaction who used such language in 1848, and used it successfully. Has the number of Republicans decreased since then ? In certain classes, possibly. But, with the whole people, according to the testimony of both foes and friends of the Republic, republican principles and feelings have gained ground and are constantly gaining it.

M. Baroche, in introducing the electoral law of May, 1850, showed no belief that it would be received with favor by the people. He desired to have it acted on speedily, in order that the agitation which the mere mention of this law produced in the country might as soon as possible run its course and subside, in presence of an established fact.

M. de Falloux, in the debate on revision, arguing forcibly for this measure, in the interests of monarchy, warns those of his own party of the rapid progress of the doctrines, which, as he says, “we do not hesitate to call anarchical.” He begs them not to overlook the fact, that it is not among the poor and miserable that these doctrines find their converts ; but chiefly in the respectable class of working people, those who earn a comfortable subsistence.

M. de Falloux began his argument in favor of revision, by citing with approbation a passage which Louis XIV. had “written with his own hand” in his memoirs. It contained a warning against hope: “ Hope, the deceiver, makes us speak ill and act ill. Beware of hope, a bad guide.” Let the reaction by all means lay down its backward longings, but let it leave to the nation its generous, onward impulse. What leaders for it are these who are ready to renounce hope, and to take for their motto this weak outburst of royal despondency ?

September 3d. — The organization of the Republicans is understood to be very complete. They have labored and labor indefatigably to carry on the political education of the people. News of whatever transpires in the domain of public affairs is immediately communicated to men in the different departments, who pass it on, with the necessary comments and explanations, to others, who are again disseminators in their appointed districts. Once all this was an unknown world to the peasant; but now his intelligence exercises itself keenly on the questions of the day. Imagine the enlightenment poured into the mind becoming eager for enlightenment through the reading, or the hearing read, debates in the Assembly in which Michel (de Bourges) or Crémieux or Jules Favre takes part. Not less instructive are the speeches of the reactionist members. The people have, through these, an opportunity of learning how they are spoken of by their best friends, when supposed to be out of hearing.

To break up this machinery, or to disturb its perfect working, is of course a great object with the government. But men cannot yet be brought to trial for reading or lending in the departments newspapers freely published in Paris, or for relating and discussing occurrences which have perhaps been noticed even in the official journals. The republican propagandists strive to keep within the limits of the law, narrow as those limits are, and endeavor to avoid furnishing pretexts for accusation. But a government like this cannot long want pretexts. A very effective means of sending a saving fear into the respectable mind, and a guilty terror into the heart conscious of republicanism, has been found in the discovery of plots against the safety of the state.

A trial for conspiracy against the safety of the state has recently been going on at Lyons. It has been a failure as far as establishing the guilt of the accused is concerned, but a success in so far as it has joined associations of criminal charges and conviction with the republican name, and inasmuch as it has given republican propagandists new and severe warning of the dangers attendant upon political zeal.

The passage of the electoral law of May 31st occasioned a great agitation throughout the country, and especially through the southern and southeastern departments. The people in many places thought it was their duty to rise in defence of the Constitution and of their own violated rights. They were restrained and calmed as before on more than one occasion by their Republican leaders, who prevailed upon them to wait until the elections of 1852 should afford the Republic a peaceful triumph. But the men who could control an insurrection by their simple word were too powerful with the people not to be dangerous to the government.

Of the prisoners who have just been undergoing trial and sentence, M. Gent, an ex-member of the Constituent Assembly, was regarded as the principal criminal, the contriver and head of the pretended conspiracy. Next in importance was M. Thourel, a distinguished advocate. With them were tried more than thirty others of various professions and occupations. They were arrested a year ago, and have been carried from prison to prison. The republican journals have continually demanded that the accused should be brought to trial. This demand was at last answered, but in a way to disappoint hope of exculpation, if any had been entertained. The trial took place before a military tribunal.

There was no evidence of criminal conspiracy which could deceive any but those who wished to be deceived ; but the testimony offered furnished abundant proof of a state of things far more alarming to the real plotters against the Republic. It furnished proof that the people, instead of being ignorant, obtuse, and indifferent to public affairs, were perfectly capable of comprehending and discussing constitutional and legal questions ; that, so far from being turbulent and volatile, they were intelligent and devoted observers and upholders of constitution and law.

It was made clear that the restriction of suffrage by the National Assembly had sent a profound accusation through the country. The prosecution used the general excitement occasioned by this law to give probability to the charge of conspiracy; while the accused defended themselves by maintaining that they had intended to work for its repeal by legal means through a legal organization. The accused, while they denied having planned insurrection, admitted that they had talked of insurrection, and that it had been talked of widely with reference to a certain case, − the case of an insurrection against the Republic, on the part of the government.

The commissaries of police, who, with some miserable creatures, evidently their agents, were the principal witnesses against the accused, spoke of the law of the 31 st of May as the cause of the agitation which prevailed in the country and of the insurrectionary symptoms which here and there manifested themselves in 1850.

The public prosecutor questioned one of the accused as to a certain dinner at Mâcon, at which it was pretended the Republicans had met to conspire. The prisoner said that nothing objectionable had passed at that dinner. “Did not,” asked the public prosecutor, “ one of the principal guests rise and say that the result of the conference was that the law of the 31 st May ought to be repealed?” One of the accused, M. Sauve, an advocate of Digne, who had once held the office of sub-prefect of Forcalquier, admitted, in answer to interrogatories by the prosecution, that he had circulated petitions for the repeal of the electoral law of the 31 st May. He stated that he had spoken of the necessity of defending the Republic if it were attacked, though he had never talked or thought of attacking it. There had been no question of insurrection, except in reference to the case of “ a coup d'état attempted in the governmental regions.”Another of the accused, Paul Maistre, clerk to a notary, stated that the question had been discussed among the Republicans, what was to be done in two supposed cases, − that of a coup d’état by the President without the cooperation of the Assembly, and that of a coup d’état by the President in conjunction with the Assembly. It was only in reference to these events that armed resistance had been spoken of. Maistre admitted that he was the writer of a paper found in his house, in which armed resistance to an attack upon the Republic was justified. He said that this paper, which had never been sent to any one, was written at a time when “ there were rumors of a coup d'état being imminent.” One of the witnesses, a hair-dresser of Marseilles, testified that there had been a good deal of talk about an insurrection in the southern departments ; that “ the Whites were very much excited by fear of one ; but that it was understood that a rising was to take place only in case of a coup d’état.”

Highly respectable witnesses testified to the earnest and courageous exertions used by some of the principal accused in maintaining tranquillity in times of excitement. M. Courant, of Aix, an ex-procureur-general, testified that the conduct of M. Gent, on one such occasion, had been “ admirable.” The same witness testified in regard to M. Thourel, that he had once prevented an émeute at Marseilles by his personal influence, energetically and devotedly employed. M. Courant spoke very warmly of M. Thourel: “In his own home M. Thourel was a real child, for gayety and sweetness. At the bar and in his office he was a great advocate. In learning he was a living library. The more I knew M. Thourel the more I loved him. As for his political opinions, I am proud to share them. We were both of us of opinion that the salvation of the Republic depended on the maintenance of calm. What his intentions were in going to Lyons I do not know, but very certainly they were good.”

M. Talon, an attorney of Aix, testified that he knew M. Thourel and esteemed him highly. “ He was made uneasy, as many others were,” said M. Talon, “ by the agitation caused by this law of the 31st May, which they talk of abrogating.”

“ We must speak respectfully of this law since it has been voted by the Assembly,” interrupted the President of the Court ; “ abstain from all reflections.”

M. Talon proceeded : “ M. Thourel told me that he went to Lyons to consult with an influential person in order to prevent any disturbances. On his return he told me that he had a perfect understanding with M. Gent, and that all disturbances were to be prevented.” M. Cote, an advocate of Digne, bore testimony to the high character of M. Thourel, speaking especially of his disinterestedness and goodness of heart. He expressed emphatically his belief that M. Thourel was not a man to be concerned in a conspiracy.

M. Crémieux, a member of the provisional government of 1848, appeared as a witness for one of the accused, M. Bouvier. His testimony was to the same effect as that of M. Courant in regard to the intentions of the Republicans and their desire to prevent disturbances. He had seen M. Bouvier several times in the summer of 1850, at Crest, in the department of Drôme. There was a good deal of agitation in the department at that time, caused by the electoral law of the 31st May. Bouvier was of the same opinion with himself, that it was necessary to maintain quiet and wait for 1852. “ I saw Bouvier,” said M. Crémieux, “ after his return from Mâcon. These are his exact words : ‘ Nothing unconstitutional will be done. No one thinks of an insurrection. Everybody wishes to wait for 1852.’ Bouvier is a Republican,” said M. Crémieux, “ I do not deny it.”

The President of the court felt himself touched by the form of this statement, and reproved the witness accordingly : “ The accused is not here for being a Republican, but for plotting against the Republic.”

The President was sensitive on this point. M. Longomazino, one of the accused, said that he had established his journal to defend republican principles : “ The principles,” he added, “ for which I am here.”

“ Longomazino,” said the President, “express yourself more clearly. You are not here for holding republican principles ; but, on the contrary, under the inculpation of plotting to destroy the republican government.”

When the first and principal witness for the prosecution, a commissary of police, had told a long story, one of the counsel for the defence asked him how he had obtained his information. Whereupon the President of the court indignantly : “ You must understand that a commissary of police cannot name the agents he employs. If they wore a label, indicating their functions, the police would not be possible. You know that as well as I do.”

Among the advocates for the defence was M. Michel (de Bourges). He drew from one of the witnesses, evidently a police agent, an admission that he had been condemned to fourteen months’ imprisonment for robbery. The public prosecutor administered a reproof to the advocate, reminding him that this man was a witness, not one of the accused, and that he was not obliged to answer any question unconnected with the case. M. Michel, in the next sitting of the court, asked that an investigation might be made into the character of the witnesses, as he had evidence to present of the discreditable character of some of them. The court retired to deliberate, and returned to announce that “ the investigation proposed by M. Michel (de Bourges) was not of a nature to aid in the demonstration of truth.”

While the witnesses were thus carefully protected, the prosecution did not fail to employ against the prisoners the usual method of weakening public sympathy in their behalf by defaming them. More than one was cruelly treated in this way, without redress. A commissary of police, employed to collect evidence in regard to the character of M. Gent, brought against him various accusations, not connected with the actual case ; prefacing his statements with “ they say,” or “ it is well known,” etc.

M. Gent appealed to the court for protection.

“ Could you say from whom you had your information ?” asks the President of the witness.

“ I cannot. Such confidences are received, so to speak, under the seal of an oath.”

The court sustained the witness in his refusal : “ I told you the other day the agents of the police are not to be ticketed.”

“ But these are not police agents. He said that they were conscientious men,” urged poor Gent, and, turning to the witness, − “ Give their names.”

“ I know what my duty requires of me,” replies the virtuous commissary, “and nothing shall turn me from it.”

M. Michel (de Bourges) came to the aid of his client, and required the names of the informants, that they might be cited.

The witness persisted in his silence, and the court sustained him in it.

M. Michel and three other of the advocates united in a demand that the witness, Portenart, should be compelled to give the names of his informants, or that his statements should be regarded as calumnious, and he himself arrested as a false witness.

M. Michel appealed to the code, which he affirmed was on the side of his client. “No man’s honor is safe,” he continued, “ if the police are not obliged to produce authority for their statements. If this is not done in the present case, a great crime will be committed against justice ; the sacred rights of defence will be shamefully violated,”

The court retired to deliberate. It returned to confirm its first decision : “ There is no propriety in the measure demanded by Gent and his advocate.”

In the end, so plain was the inutility of any attempt to obtain justice, that the accused, through their counsel, who gave their approbation to this decision, declined to offer any defence.

The prisoners being asked if they had anything to say before sentence was pronounced, Thourel addressed a few words to their judges.

“ We commit our cause to the court, trusting that men independent and free, whose consciences are not under martial law, will remember that they are to render justice in the name of God and the Republic.”

When the prisoners were together in the court-room for the last time, waiting for their sentence, they addressed a letter to their counsel, thanking them for the zeal and devotion displayed during the trial; expressing a sense of the entire harmony of principle, feeling, and purpose which existed between themselves and their defenders, and a hope that the same harmony might unite the whole republican party. The letter concludes: “Your friendship and the sympathy of the people for whom we suffer will heighten the joy of those who are to obtain release, and to those of us who are to be condemned will supply inexhaustible consolations under temporary tortures.”

A certain number of the accused were acquitted. The others were condemned, some to deportation ; others to detention or imprisonment for periods varying from fifteen years to one year; the minor punishments being, however, augmented by fines and by deprivation of civic rights for a longer or shorter term.

Twenty-one of the condemned prisoners have appealed from the decision of the military court.

September 4th. − It is very interesting to find that those parts of France which are now distinguished by their fidelity to principle are the same which have been distinguished by it from early time.

The prosecuting officer and some of the witnesses against the accused of the Lyons plot, stigmatized fifteen departments, eleven in the south, four in the east, as especially united in a republican bond.

The soil of everyone of these departments is holy ground. It has been drenched again and again with the blood of the martyrs of liberty. These people have been persecuted as Albigenses, persecuted as Waldenses ; persecuted as Huguenots, who are now persecuted as Republicans.

We do not at once recognize under their departmental disguises the names so sacred to every descendant of the Puritans. But the proscribed departments of the South represent Provence, Languedoc, Franche-Comté, Dauphiné, Venaisson, Avignon, Vivarais. To each of these names the past has joined associations of sorrow and of heroism, which do not obliterate or dim their other titles to glory, but which are yet their greatest.

These people of the South of France have among their ancestors the men and women who, when deprived of everything, when tracked and hunted down like wild beasts, could still say: “ Our least care is for life and goods ; our greatest is to keep entire our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and in his word.”

Many times their enemies have believed the race exterminated ; but its spirit is inextinguishable. The descendants even of those who suffered a violent or − stolen in their childhood − a treacherous conversion, have inherited the cast of intellect and tone of character which makes investigators, protesters, and reformers.

These people are of our own kindred. Their blood flows, intermingled with our English blood, through every State of our Union. But in the Christian world there are no French and no English. Geographical limits do not make distinctions between men and men. Differences of race, such slight differences as exist between the peoples of France and England, do not make a distinction. The only true division is between the servants of God and the slaves of the Prince of this World. The Huguenots of France and the Puritans of England are of one lineage.

September 5th. − An article has recently appeared in the Constitutionnel by Dr. Véron, one of the most unhesitating of the partisans of Napoleon. In this article he sounds the alarm, after the usual fashion, in regard to the ferocious designs of the socialists, and reproaches society with its apathy in the presence of such frightful dangers. “The perils of the country are extreme,” he says. “ This fatal rencounter of 1852 is to-morrow; and yet, to look only at appearances, society is calm, tranquil, confident.” He admits, after his own manner, that the republican leaders exert themselves to maintain peace and order : “ The chiefs of demagogy and of socialism employ all their efforts to keep in check the gross appetites, eager for disorder and pillage, and to suppress any inopportune outbreak.” The inference of course is, that in 1852 outbreak will be opportune, and that disorder and pillage will no longer be kept in check. And what is the remedy proposed by Dr. Véron ? Simply that the President shall take the initiative, in the repeal of the law of the 31 st May. “ Let the President of the Republic address to the National Assembly, to the country, on this subject, those spirited and loyal words with which his patriotism knows how to inspire him..... Give way to the just demand for universal suffrage, and the fate of arms will not blindly decide our future destinies.”

Instincts of disorder and plunder controlled by the repeal of an unconstitutional law !

This article is thought to foreshadow the future policy of the President. There is no hope of obtaining revision from the present Assembly ; he cannot, it is thought, rely on the army to sustain him in the so-long-talked-of coup d'état. An appeal to the “ national sovereignty ” is now the cry. That is, since neither Constitution nor Assembly can be made to give way to his pretensions, he will appeal from Constitution and Assembly to the people, as to the original source of power. But the people have learned something since 1848.

It is cheering to see what an independent and resolute spirit the Republicans maintain, notwithstanding the dangers that a profession of their faith brings with it. Here is a voice from Côte d’Or. This is not one of the fifteen departments stigmatized at the Lyons trial as ultra-republican ; but it has one of them − Saone-et-Loire − for its southern boundary. The mayor of the city of Beaune, in the southern part of this department, lately presided at a distribution of prizes in the college of that city. The address which he made to the students concludes thus:−

“ In a time of meanness and servility, when the adorers of power abjure liberty and calumniate its martyrs, it is for the new generation, the young and devoted hearts, to rescue the future, and bear witness to the immortality of progress.

“For sixty years, − ever since our illustrious date of ’89, − whenever a usurpation has attacked the sovereignty of the people, − this power incontestably legitimate, this property not less sacred than any other, − whenever liberty could be served only by a struggle, the youth of our schools have always risen with the people to respond to aggression. It is on you that those count, as upon themselves, who devote their life to the realization of this imperishable programme : Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood ; Democracy beneficent and progressive.

“ Children of our city, wholly republican, where the love of order and the love of liberty are inseparable, may you make fruitful the happy future which we foresee. We shall bless Heaven if we can leave you such an inheritance, even if we are to perish in clearing your way to it.”

The same paper which gives this bold address contains the announcement of the suspension, by the prefect, of the Mayor of Beaune.

A committee appointed by the republican members of the Assembly, called the Committee of Surveillance, holds meetings from time to time while the Assembly is not in session, and reports upon the condition of the country. This committee is probably intended to correspond to the Permanent Committee of the Assembly, which, of course, represents the majority.

The Committee of Surveillance has recently published a note, expressing great satisfaction with the aspect of things : “ The calm which reigns in Paris and in the departments must give confidence. The attitude of the people is in admirable contrast with all the violent and unconstitutional expectations of a portion of the press of the great party of order.”

The Republicans have made mistakes in their time, of course, though not all the mistakes were theirs which have been ascribed to them. Their greatest fault, their want of union, the tenacity with which each separate set clung to its own particular theories or plans of action, they have recognized and amended. We do not now find the more moderate Republicans reproaching the ardent with their zeal, or guarding themselves from all appearance of being infected by it. They endeavor to restrain, indeed, but with sympathy. Nor does this change appear to be mere political compromise. The different parties of Republicans understand each other better, and respect each other’s sincerity. Patriotism is now the common bond. They tacitly agree to rescue the Republic, and let other questions wait for their solution until this great one, justly decided, leaves a free field for their open discussion and equitable adjustment.

M. L. P.