We hear very nearly the same thing said of that glorious movement which has just taken place in America.  We would gladly detect all motives in it except one that is generous and Christian.  As if a vulgar calculation of interest would not have dictated a contrary course!  And it is precisely this that makes the greatness of the resolution adopted by the North.  It knew all the consequences; they had been announced by the South, recapitulated by prudent men, stated in detail by the newspapers of great commercial cities; it chose to be just.  Despite the inevitable mingling of base and selfish impulses, which always become complicated in such manifestations, the ruling motive in this was a protest of conscience, and of the spirit of liberty.

The accounts that 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.