A deputation consisting of the chairman, M. Picard, officers and other
participants of a public meeting of Belgians held in this city, preceded
by music and the flags of the United States and Belgium and followed by
a large procession with torchlights, came to this legation on the
evening of the 22dto present an address of congratulation upon this
event.
I enclose a copy of the address, and also of my reply (A) and rough
translations of each, (B and C.)
In response to the serenade which followed, and the enthusiastic cheers
of the immense crowd which had accompanied the deputation, I appeared at
the balcony and thanked them for their congratulations. Although what I
said would appear too insignificant to bear repetition, I annex D, in
accordance with general instructions—verbatim in translation—the few
words I said to the assembled multitude.
I have the honor to be, with great respect, your most obedient
servant,
B.
Sir: Deputed by a large number of our
fellow-citizens assembled in public meeting, we come to congratulate
you upon the brilliant triumphs gained by the people of the United
States, and to evince at the same time the lively sympathies which
we ever entertain for them.
We are happy and proud to be near you, sir, who represent here the
great American republic, the organ of this manifestation.
During the days of trial which the Union has traversed we have not
ceased to pray for its triumph. Today, when that noble cause is
victorious, permit us to associate ourselves with the joy of the
people of the United States, and to salute them as brothers.
The capital of the rebels is taken; the star-spangled banner floats
over the walls of Richmond. It may be asserted henceforth that the
revolt is conquered, and that the Union will subsist in its
integrity.
These facts represent more than material victories, and therefore we
could not remain in different to them.
When a country enjoys, as yours does, every liberty; when every part
of its territory, when every individual, has its share in the
national sovereignty, resistance to the laws of the majority is an
attack upon right; armed rebellion becomes a crime.
The revolt of the south against the north was unjustifiable. It could
not be that right, desperately struggling with blind interests, was
to issue mutilated from this great combat.
War, often an iniquitous scourge, has been elevated with you to a
mission of justice and of humanity. It was, in fact, the arm, the
mailed arm, of civilization.
The blood which has been shed will not flow in vain. The dead have
freed the living. Two hundred and fifty thousand men of the north
have perished, but, in falling, they have given liberty, and
admitted to the common law, four millions of slaves, and with them a
whole race up to this day oppressed and despised.
Doubly fruitful sacrifice! It suppressed slavery at the same time
that it strengthened the American Union.
The whole people of the United States will again enter upon the
tranquil current of works of peace, and give us the blessed example
of the complete development of its liberties.
The whole world has been deeply moved by your successes, for it feels
that beyond the seas you are a harbor to it.
It knows that the United States represent the aurora of a new policy,
which is caused to replace everywhere the ancient law. It knows
that, after having repudiated governments based upon force or divine
rights, you have, since a long time, proclaimed the principle of
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the autonomy of every
nation. It knows that with you every man is really a citizen in the
true acceptation and grandeur of that word, and in the whole reality
also it knows that with you all the powers emanate from the nation.
These principles are not only inscribed in your Constitution—the
practice of each day reaffirms them.
You have the veritable sentiments of democracy, and this sentiment
has caused American society to tend constantly towards the most
perfect realization of self-government, that political ideal of
society. Hence, what marvellous results have everywhere been
obtained by you! Human invention, extending each day its limits;
your system of railroads and telegraphs, vaster than that of all
Europe, carrying the conquest of civilization from the shores of the
Pacific to those of the Atlantic; popular instruction, that
vivifying well-spring, penetrating from strata to strata, till it
reaches the home of the poorest citizen, and from prairie to prairie
across your immense territories to the most distant hamlets; the
participation in public affairs of all the citizens formed in the
double school of a vigilant press, which spreads abroad everywhere
the opening idea, and of immense popular assemblies, where come, and
whence issue in every direction, the great currents of opinion; the
constant accord of the administration with the nation it represents,
and of which it is proud to be the simple organ; finally, even in
the midst of the severest trials, this admirable spectacle of order
always maintained in the midst of agitation, and of liberty ever
respected.
Such noble efforts, such noble conquests, will bear their fruits for
humanity.
Your entire continent will be gradually drawn into the current of
your expansive civilization.
These teachings which Young America gives us will not be lost on Old
Europe.
You have thus paved the way for universal brotherhood. You have
strengthened the Union at home; we count upon you to cement the
union of peoples.
C.
Gentlemen; I thank you for this
manifestation of your sympathies for the American Union and for your
congratulatory address to the people of the United States by your
fellow-citizens without party distinction, on the occasion of the
victories which assure the end of the slaveholders’ rebellion.
It is natural that the friends of civilization, humanity, and
progress everywhere, should celebrate an event of such great
influence upon the world’s affairs. The triumph of this formidable
but now expiring rebellion would have been a retrograde of
civilization and a perpetual menace for public peace. It was,
indeed, devised by a class for its own selfish and criminal
purposes, not only to overthrow the republic but to make itself,
while destroying universal suffrage, an oligarchy of slaveholders
and fillibusters, and it believed with the monopoly of cotton to be
able to dictate laws to the universe. And our victories are not
alone the defeat of a class of slaveholders; they complete
emancipation, strengthen the Union, elevate the nation, abase our
enemies, and consolidate American liberty. The rebel chiefs will
seek to escape by flight from the vengeance of their fellow-citizens
whom they have destroyed, as much as from the penalties of the laws
they have violated; and the world will see how a great people, which
to crush the rebellion and to defend its cherished institutions has
made unheard-of sacrifices, will be generous and magnanimous towards
its erring brethren. Those who think that the Union will not come
out intact from this last great trial, deceive themselves; there
will be, it is true, a change in the Constitution; the stain of
slavery will disappear from its pages; but with that respect for
legality which is one of the most striking characteristics of our
people, and which they have constantly maintained during this crisis
of civil war, it will be done legally and in accordance with the
provisions of that venerated charter.
We shall soon enter, I hope, upon an era of peace. Certainly it will
not be the people of the United States which will desire to see it
disturbed; they comprehend, and hope that others will comprehend,
that every State has the right to, discuss, vote, and, if need be,
to fight out its own internal questions, without interference on its
part against others, or on the part of others against it.
I thank you again, gentlemen, and I pray you to thank, in my name,
those you represent, for their sentiments towards the people of the
United States and their sympathies for our cause, which you have
expressed to me; they cannot but tighten the bonds of friendship and
of brotherhood which so visibly draw together the two peoples.
D.
My voice cannot command this vast crowd; but, although I have just
thanked your deputation, I cannot omit to thank you personally for
this imposing manifestation of your sympathies for the cause of the
American Union, and your congratulations upon the defeat of the
slaveholders’ rebellion.
I am happy to salute the flag of Belgium which I see here by the side
of that of my country. Again I thank you.
