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SEPTEMBER, 1860. DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. 323 [[line]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] The insurrectionary movements in Texas, though far less extensive and formidable than is represented, are not without foundation.--From the newspaper reports we gather that on the eighth day of July the town of Dallas was fired, and the whole business portion entirely consumed; that the dwelling houses of MESSRS. EAKINS & NICHOLSON were also fired; that large amounts of grain and oats were consumed; that the loss in Dallas by these fires is estimated at $400,000; that in Belknap eight large store houses were destroyed; that Milford, Ellis Co., was totally destroyed; that in Black Jack Grove one large mercantile house was destroyed--loss $300,000; that destruction to the amount of $100,000 was perpetrated in Denton; and that similar destruction of property occurred at Pilot Point, Fort Worth, Ladonia, and at Jefferson.--These losses by fire have been corroberated by the testimony of different newspapers, from the middle of July down to the middle of August. We may, therefore, assume their substantial truth, though the value of the property lost may not be quite so great as these papers allege it to have been. The theory upon which these incendiary operations are explained is, that they were the result of preconcerted arrangements set on foot by the Abolitionists who had heretofore been expelled from the country. Two white preachers are specified--Messrs. BLUNT and McKINNEY--as the instigators of the plot. No evidence is given in these prints that these men had anything to do with it.--Slavery ever finds it imprudent to publish evidence. In the midst of their panic, they first suspicion and then resort to torture to confirm it. The Houston [[italics]] Telegraph [[/italics]] says that several negroes (this is very vague-no names) belonging to Mr. MILLER, were taken up and examined, and developments of the most startling character elicited. A plot to destroy the country was revealed; nearly or quite a hundred negroes have been examined apart from each other, and they deposed to the existence of a plot to waste the country by fire and assassination; that this work was to begin on the first Monday in August, on the day of election of State officers. Negroes, it is said, never before suspected, are implicated; the jail of Dallas (that edifice, it seems, was not burned) is said to be filled with the conspirators, who will soon be hanged. A white man was found hung in Fort Worth, and the writer in the paper above named says he is [[italics]] believed [[/italics]] to have been one of the scoundrels engaged in this work. Here we have no judge, no jury, no trial, no evidence, but a man is hanged,[[italics]] believed [[/italics]] to be an incendiary.--The same paper of the 31st of July has the following: 'Some of the papers affect to ridicule the idea that this has been an outbreak planned and controlled by Abolitionists. We think there can be no earthly doubt of the fact. The plot seems to have been deep laid and wide spread. A large amount of imported arms and ammunition have been discovered in negroes' hands, and in one instance (Fort Worth) an arsenal was seized, having fifty shot guns and fifty revolvers, ready for distribution to the negroes by a white man. The white man was, of course, hung to the nearest tree. The plan was to be executed simultaneously in several counties, and in the same way in all. Stores and dwelling houses were burned, and others were to have been burned. The people were to have been attacked on election day, and killed by poison, by shooting, &c., and the whole band was to rendezvous for fifty miles around, and march in a body to Kansas or Mexico. [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] 'The negroes from all parts of Dallas, Ellis and Denton Counties have confessed, sometimes voluntarily, and sometimes under the lash, but all to the same effect, and all reporting the same features of the plot. The investigations of the committee have necessarily been carried on with closed doors, and it has been deemed prudent to make no publication of the names of parties implicated until they shall be able to establish their guilt, and above all, till they shall be able to arrest them. 'It seems that outside of these counties the plot was not so well laid, and attempts to carry it out have thus far failed. It is very doubtful to our mind whether it extended as far as some think, though the patrols established in many of the counties will be apt to bring to light all the facts in the case. We believe, however, that the plot was only perfected in Dallas and Denton, but had it not been discovered then it would have been extended to half the counties in the State. 'We shall endeavor to keep our readers advised of whatever may transpire in these movements, as fast as information is received.' An alarming state of facts, truly, if facts they be; and yet they are the legitimate and necessary concomitants of slavery. Let slaveholders beware! There is an energy in the arm and heart of the negro, which cannot sleep forever. A spirit of freedom is abroad. JOHN BROWN, though dead, has yet a voice more piercing and far reaching than the trumpet, careering over all the hills and valleys of the South, summoning the long entombed sable millions to arise and to assert their liberty, and to vindicate their manhood before and against the adverse judgments and disparaging opinions of the world. While men rejoice in the freedom of the serfs of Russia--while they mourn for broken-hearted Hungary, and glory in the victories of GARIBALDI--they cannot be indifferent to the struggles, however desperate and hopeless, of the goaded and mutilated bondmen of America. Twenty years ago the report of such an outbreak as that described in Texas, would have brought a savage scowl to the face of nearly every white man in the country; but now the general feeling at the North, if not one of sympathy with the slaves, is far from one of sympathy with the slaveholders. The judgment of most men here is, that for all their troubles, dangers and panics, the guilty traffickers in human flesh have themselves to thank for it. [[line]] [[bold]] CELEBRATIONS OF WEST INDIA EMANCIPATION [[/bold]] --- These have been more numerous and spirited this year than ever before. The day that gave freedom to eight hundred thousand slaves in the West Indies seems to increase in observance and respectability every year. We hail this increase as an evidence of the growth and permanence of abolition pure and simple in the United States. The men who get up these celebrations are not merely Free Soilers and Non-Extensionists, but men who are determined to bate no jot of heart and hope, but to spend and be spent in compassing the complete abolition of slavery in America and throughout the world. Perhaps the most interesting of all these celebrations are those held by the Garrisonians in Masschusetts. During many years that class of Abolitionists, with Mr. GARRISON at their head, have regularly appropriated the Fourth of July and the First of August to the cause of the slave, and their meetings on these days have been among their best and most effective demonstrations. The [[italics]] Liberator [[/italics]] this week comes to us full of the noble utterances and testimonies of this class of anti-slavery men. It is scarcely necessary to stop here to criticise sharply [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] that part of their speeches which assumes the pro-slavery interpretation of the American Constitution. Looking at their movement as a whole, it must be recognized as the advance guard of the anti-slavery host. The assumption that the Constitution of the U. S. is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell, and that no man can act under it without staining his soul with the guilt of slavery, is a hurtful and paralyzing error, and places the Garrisonian party in a political attitude similar to that which they denounce in the Republican party. They condemn that party for acting under the Federal Government, while they deny its power to abolish slavery in the States; yet they, not less than the Republican party, live under and support the same Government, and refusing to vote, confine their actions, like many Republicans, to moral instrumentalities.---They arrive at the same goal with the Republicans, only by a different route. Neither the one party nor the other will exercise the power of the Federal Government for the abolition of slavery, and both have yet to be converted to the anti-slavery interpretation of the Constitution. The difference between them is, that the one party will not use the Constitution at all, and the other propose to use it against slavery where they think they can. Both are doing a good work, though there is better work for both to do.--We certainly hope to live to see many who are now in the Garrisonian ranks combined with the hosts of Abolitionists now in the Republican party, banded together in a genuine abolition party, giving their votes, as well as their voices, for immediate and unconditional abolition. In reading the accounts of the different celebrations, some of which have come to us in long letters, which we have no room to publish--others in newspapers--we have noticed that those gotten up under the auspices of colored men, have been in some of their features quite characteristic of our race and its condition in this country. The black man has no Fourth of July here, on which to display banners, burn powder, ring bells, dance and drink whisky; so he makes the First of August, in some instances, to serve this purpose. Nevertheless, the first of August speeches by such men as HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET, CHARLES LENNOX REMOND, Dr. JAS. MCCUNE SMITH, H. FORD DOUGLASS, JOHN MERCER LANGSTON, WM. WELLS BROWN, J.W. LOGUEN, Prof. REASON, W.J. WATKINS, CHAS. LANGSTON, and other colored men, evince a seriousness becoming the dignity of the cause of which they are the advocates. Very gladly would we, did our limits permit, publish the proceedings of these significant celebrations. We speak now but once a month, and are compelled to select our matter in such a way as to present our matter in such a way as to present the main features of the anti-slavery spirit of the times, without lengthened details. Our friends and correspondents will please remember this, when they find that their communications have not been published. ---------------- THE ROCHESTER COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE has a high reputation among the many institutions of learning in Western New York, and we doubt not well deserves it. If success is any test of excellence, the Institution has few if any superiors in this section.--Rochester seems peculiarly favored by the number, and the comperative excellence of her educational establishments. See advertisement on our last page. [[/column 3]]
