Viewing page 9 of 15
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
330 DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. September, 1860 [[line]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] slaveholders, says:—I am your humble, obedient servant. I stand by the Dred Scott decision; and if that, or any other decision of the Supreme Court establishes slavery in the Territories, I am for it also. I am ready, upon a knowledge of this fact, to send all the moonshine I now hold, about the right of the people to govern themselves, to the winds.—The difference between DOUGLAS and BRECKINRIDGE is, therefore, simply the difference between [[italics]] now [[/italics]] and [[italics]] then [[/italics]]—a difference which seems wide before the election, but which will vanish immediately after the election, let who will attain the Presidency—for there can be no doubt as to how the Supreme Court, with a majority of slaveholders, will decide the question, if it has not already decided. In view of this state of the case, it is scarcely worth while to do more than denounce the humbug with which Mr. DOUGLAS is just now seeking to win your votes. By a peculiar use of words, he confounds [[italics]] power [[/italics]] with [[italics]] right [[/italics]] in such a manner as to make the [[italics]] power [[/italics]] to do wrong the [[italics]] right [[/italics]] to do wrong. By his notion of human rights, everything depends upon the majority. It is not a bit more absurd and monstrous to say that the first settlers in a Territory have the right to protect slavery. The right to do the one is just as good as the right to do the other. The right of the slaveholder is precisely the right of the highway robber. The one says your money or your life, and the other says your liberty or your life, and both depend upon superior force for their existence. I say nothing here and now about the BELL and EVERETT party. A party without any opinion need have no opinion expressed of it. If a party is a mind to be blind and dumb, it cannot be surprised as being considered deaf as well. There is doubt now that there is any such party in existence, since the leaders of it have been endeavoring to sell the party out. It is a question who holds the bill of sale in this State—Mr. BROOKS or Mr. DOUGLAS. But could such a party as the BELL and EVERETT party, made up of the old effete Know Nothing elements, succeed in gaining power, there is nothing in its character to inspire a single ray of hope for the slave or humanity, but in addition to negro hate, we should have an equally abominable hate toward foreigners. Of the HOUSTON and STOCKTON party, (the South Americans,) we may say just what has been said of the BELL and EVERETT party, and that is [[italics]] as much as nothing. [[/italics]] It is impossible to distinguish between the two factions. On the great question of slavery they stand together, and may be relied upon in any emergency for slavery. I alluded at the beginning to the exciting vicissitudes and incidents of the past year.—Three months after our last anniversary, there appeared upon the theatre of American life a man whose character and deeds dazzled, astonished and bewildered the whole nation.—A knowledge of him flashed across the oceans and continents like a splendid meteor. For a time, the whole civilized world stood amazed and gazing. There was that peculiarity in him, which in all the ages had awakened the reverence of men, the sage not less than the simple—a human soul illuminated with divine qualities in such high degree as to raise the question, was he our brother?—a man of like passions with ourselves. His behavior was so unusual that men did not know what to make of him. It was thought that the race of such men had become extinct. Men had read of them, as beings belonging to another age. They could not believe that any such man could now be on the earth, and not until they were startled by the reality could they admit the possibility. We have not yet recovered from the wonder with which this man’s deeds filled us. His character is yet the study of great minds. Poets, statesmen and philosophers study him as the astronomers the heavenly bodies. He was as a comet, whose brightness overspread half the sky, and men, timid men, thought that a second visit might fire the earth. I need not [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] tell you who this strange man was. You have anticipated me. You know that I allude to the hero of Harper’s Ferry. The ablest and best men of the land have spoken of JOHN BROWN, and have confessed their inability to do him justice. – The [[italics]] Tribune [[/italics]] never said a truer thing than when it said the time had not come to pronounce judgment upon the character and deeds of JOHN BROWN. Our land is too fat with the lost sweat and warm blood of slaves driven to toil and death; our civilization is yet too selfish and barbarous; our statesmen are yet too narrow, base, and mobocratic; our press is yet too venal and truckling; our religion is too commercial, too much after the pattern of the pride and prejudices of our times, to understand and appreciate the great character who sacrificed himself for the hated negroes of this country. With the statesmanship, civilization and Christianity of America, the negro is simply a piece of property, having no rights which white men are required to respect; but with JOHN BROWN and his noble associates, the NEGRO IS A MAN, entitled to all the rights claimed by the whitest man on the earth. Brave and glorious old man! Yours was the life of a true friend of humanity, and the triumphant death of a hero.—The friends of freedom shall be nerved to the glorious struggle with slavery by your example; the hopes of the slave shall not die while your name shall live, and after ages shall rejoice to do justice to your great history. [[line]] [[bold]] POLITICAL ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION, IN THE CITY OF WORCHESTER, MASS. [[/bold]] [[line]] An adjourned meeting of the Political Anti-Slavery Convention, which met in the city of Boston, on the 29th day of May last, will be held in the city of Worcester, on Wednesday and Thursday, the 19th and 20th days of Sept. next, at 10 o’clock A.M. The object of this Convention is to consider the propriety of organizing a [[italics]] Political Party [[/italics]] upon an Anti-Slavery interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, with the avowed purpose of abolishing slavery in the States, as well as the territories of the Union. At its former meeting, resolutions setting forth the great principles of liberty and equality which must underlie and permeate a political movement, to entitle it to the confidence and support of the friends of freedom, were introduced, and discussed, but without taking action upon them, the Convention adjourned, to meet in the city of Worcester, at the call of the President and Chairman or the Business Committee. In discharging the duty thus devolved upon us, we now make an appeal to you, fellow-citizens, lovers of freedom of both sexes, in behalf of four millions of enslaved countrymen, who, in the name of justice and a common brotherhood, demand their liberty at your hands. Nearly an entire generation has passed away since the commencement of the present Anti-Slavery agitation, and yet slavery is still triumphant over our whole land! There is not yet a single foot of soil, in all this broad Republic, on which the escaping slave can stand, and feel that he is free! There is not yet in existence a political party, (if we except a meagre local organization in a single State,) which does not shamelessly avow the purpose to wield the National sword in defence of the bloody slave system, wherever it exists under State jurisdiction!—The church is still in league with the tyrant, with both her heels upon the necks of his helpless victims! We have had discussions upon the character of slavery and the sources of its power, till the whole subject is thoroughly understood by all who have any disposition to investigate. What now remains for us, therefore is ACTION. [[italics]] Our only hope of success is in translating our sentiments into statues, and coining our words into deeds! [[/italics]] What the slave demands of us is [[italics]] protection. [[/italics]] It is not enough that we stand aloof from his oppressors—that we have 'No union with slaveholders.' We can only make good our claim to be regarded as his friends, by [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] throwing around his liberty and rights the legal safeguards on which we depend for the protection of our own. For this purpose, we invite to this Convention all who desire to see the principles of the Declaration of Independence incorporated into the administration of our National Government, and our country thus purged of the hypocrisy which has made its very name a reproach to the cause of freedom, in all lands! We especially desire the presence and cooperation of those who are not content with mere words, but prefer to prove their faith by their works. Here is a field in which the largest powers will find ample scope. Come! you who have hitherto stood aloof from this holy enterprise, because its leaders presented no 'plan!' Here you will see presented a plan which is at once morally just, politically consistent, and practically efficient. Come! you who minister at the alters of our religion, and aid us in erecting a political platform on which you can stand, and act for the protection of your own rights, without thereby becoming accomplices and abettors in the crime of enslaving millions of your countrymen. Come, and help us wipe out the deep infamy which now covers your churches, for their support of a government which legalizes the sale of American Women in its Capital, and protects the infamous practice in half the States in the Union! Come! you who profess to take Christian Scriptures as the rule of your faith and practice, and no longer stand before the world identified with parties which openly contemn the Divine command, 'Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which has escaped from his master unto thee.' Come! you who, on account of your sex, are excluded by all existing parties from your God-given right to participate in the management of political affairs. We greatly need the aid of your superior moral instincts in the difficult experiment of laying the foundations of a party in which not sex, nor color, but superior merit shall the passport to preferment. Come! especially, you whose hearts are yet warm with the generous impulses of uncorrupted youth. Aid us, by your inspiring presence and ardent zeal, in this sublime effort to re-construct the rotten fabric of our Republic, that we may have the happiness of bequeathing to you, our children, a National Patrimony, which you will not blush to accept at our hands as evidence of a noble ancestry. To all who desire to see slavery speedily and peacefully abolished, and our beloved country free, united and happy—young and old, men and women, clergy and laity—again we say, Come up to this Convention! Unite your efforts with ours in the divine attempt to outlaw the slave power, and place Justice on the throne. God has given us the power; we only lack the [[italics]] wisdom, [[/italics]] and the [[italics]] will! [[/italics]] The bloody institution holds its lease of life, today, only from the divisions in the ranks of its enemies. We aim at UNION! Our purpose is to present to the public a Platform on which all the genuine friends of freedom can stand, side by side, without the sacrifice of principle, or of honor, each contending with the weapon of his choice, and thus to gather up that vast harvest of scattered and dormant anti-slavery feeling which more than a quarter of a century of seed-sowing has produced, and concentrate in one grand, continuous, systematic assault upon the citadel of slavery, until its walls shall crumble, and it destruction shall be as signal and complete, as its triumph has hitherto been haughty and irresistible. Friends of the oppressed! let our fondest hopes be more than realized in your hearty response to this summons to a new and untried field of conflict with the slave power. In behalf of the Convention, JOHN PIERPONT, [[italics]] Pres’t. [[/italics]] STEPHEN S. FOSTER, [[italics]] C.B. Com. Worcester, [[/italics]] Aug. 10 1860. [[line]] —The Mississippi Meridian publishes the rumor that an organized band of Abolitionists exist in that State and Alabama. [[/column 3]]
