Page:Letters on American slavery from Victor Hugo, de Tocqueville, Emile de Girardin, Carnot, Passy, Mazzini, Humboldt, O. Lafayette.djvu/19

Rh ought to have stood against it, as you say, he moved with it. You came from New England, where there is so much antislavery feeling, and where you have learned to think slavery is bad. While you are here in Europe, you may see things which you think bad; but I know Europe, and I tell you that you will find nothing here that is one half so bad as your slavery is."

These were the opinions of Baron Humboldt, a Christian philosopher of world-wide renown, whose views of men and of nations went further to establish their character, than any man now living. As Humboldt thought, the Christian world would think. Mr. Webster, as one of Fillmore's Cabinet, approved the Fugitive Act, and lent his personal and official influence to sustain it. By doing that, he let down his own moral nature. He not only disgraced himself, but the nation who placed him in that conspicuous position. We would not speak unkindly of any man; but who that reads and reflects can be ignorant of the fact, that all who sustain or sanction that infamous enactment must tarnish their own characters, and degrade themselves in their own opinion, and in the opinion of all good men?

, April 26, 1851. To M. Victor Schœlcher, Representative of the People. ,—You have been so obliging as to ask for my views and impressions respecting one of the most important events of our epoch,—the Abolition of Slavery in the French Colonies. I know well that you have an almost paternal interest in this question. You have contributed more than any one to the emancipation of the blacks, in our possessions beyond the seas, and you have enjoyed the double pleasure of seeing the problem completely resolved, and resolved by the Government of the Republic. At the present time, wearied by controversy, the mind loves to repose upon