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Pour approfondir leur analyse du problème, ils font une incursion du 28 octobre au 6 novembre à Baltimore, qui se situe dans l'État du Maryland, où l'esclavage est maintenu : cette ville aux habitudes festives et fastueuses leur donne un avant-goût des mours sudistes, et le spectacle de la discrimination permanente entre les races les choque suffisamment pour que Beaumont y situe l'action de son roman Marie ou l'esclavage aux États-Unis.
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To extend their analysis of the situation, between October 28th and November 6 they made an excursion to Baltimore, Maryland, where slavery was allowed. This city, with its festive, luxurious lifestyle, served as an introduction to the way of life in the south, and the experience of permanent discrimination between the races was sufficiently shocking that when Beaumont wrote his novel Marie; or, slavery in the United-States, the action was set in Baltimore. They finally left Philadelphia on November 21, 1831, and headed for Cincinnati. Before they got there, however, they experienced one of the greatest dangers they had ever faced in America - their steamboat, the Fourth of July, nearly sank in the Ohio River, and they were saved only by the extremely fortunate passage of another ship. As for Cincinnati, it had grown so fast, and without taking the time to organize itself rationally, that Tocqueville thought it looked like "a sketch of a city" rather than a real city. However, the dynamism that accompanied this mushrooming city's feverish growth fascinated both men, who saw it as the symbol of energy, courage and initiative that could be found everywhere on American soil.
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