290 A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



That day's session was, as might be expected, a very stormy 

 one, and, in the course of the debate, His Excellency the Premier 

 stated that he would vote for a project of immediate total 

 abolition, should such an idea be started. 



The next morning there appeared an article in the Journal de 

 Commercio, from which I make the following extracts : — 



" One more grand step on the path of progress and civilization. One more 

 great man for the national pantheon. The 15th of July, 1884, will be 

 inscribed among the most glorious days of B razilian history : for Senhor 

 Dantas, it is the date of his obtaining immortality. To two eminent Bahian 

 statesmen the history of the country will assign one antithesis : the 

 Visconde do Rio Branco obtained that none should be born a slave in 

 Brazil ; to Dantas is the glory that none should die a slave after half a 

 century of work. It only remains, to complete the evolution of abolition- 

 ism, that none should live a slave. To those who consider Brazil as a 

 great coffee plantation, who see in the slave only an instrument for pro- 

 ducing coffee ; to those who have no tears for the sufferings of their 

 fellow-creatures ; — to all these it will appear a slight thing, the hope of not 

 dying in slavery, of not relieving till death the chains of the captive. . . . 

 But to those who aspire to see their country regenerated, noble, and grand, 

 placed among the first nations of the world ; to those who are convinced 

 of the injustice of slavery — for, in spite of all, one cannot take away from 

 the slave the quality of being man ; to those who have compassion and 

 charity ; — to all these there is a great compensation in the certainty of not 

 dying aged and yet still in slavery. ... In good time the Senator 

 Dantas came into power, and he soon had courage to undertake his 

 glorious mission. Yesterday he redeemed well the engagements he made 

 in the sight of his country and of humanity. Thus the evolution of 

 abohtion proceeds majestically on its way — Rursus et ultra (each time 

 more and better). " 



The Gazeta de Noticias of July 20, said — 



" As to our friends in the Government, it is needless to say that it is to their 

 interest that the question of confidence should rest on this one point in the 

 ministerial programme, which constitutes the raison d'etre of the Cabinet, 

 and which was the reason of the accession to power of Senhor Dantas. 

 This is, in fact, the idea with which the Liberal party intends to plead in 

 the future election, to stand or fall ; and it has become the centre of 

 national agitation in Parliament to stand by it, and to press on by all 

 means to its accomplishment the imminent reorganization of the country 

 or to be beaten. " 



Dr. J. Nabuco, an ardent Abolitionist, writing to Le Bresil, of 

 Paris, July 22, says — 



