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OCTOBER, 1860.          DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.          339
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duct has continued, bringing new divisions and parties into the field, till at length there is little of associated effort left to carry on the work of popular anti-slavery agitation.

It is hardly necessary to stop in this place to ascertain who are responsible for these divisions, or to attach blame to those through whose errors and faults they may have come.  Our business is the immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery in every State and Territory covered by the Constitution of the United States, and in our judgment that business requires a union of effort on the part of all those who desire to see this great and glorious object accomplished.

With such views and feelings, we rejoice to see a call far a great Convention soon to be held in Worcester,Mass., having in view the re-organization of the anti-slavery forces. At the head of this movement we find our old and esteemed friend STEPHEN S. FOSTER, a man of inflexible will and of high moral principle, and one of the ablest speakers in the anti-slavery ranks. The great object of Mr.FOSTER'S efforts now is to re-unite the scattered anti-slavery elements of the country, and produce one solid abolition organization, who will use all the powers of the Federal as well as State Governments of the country for the abolition of slavery.

We shall attend that Convention,and do all we can to promote the noble objects which it has in view. The old proverb, ' united we stand, divided we fall,' has been fully and painfully illustrated by our anti slavery experience, and it is quite time that we had learned its lesson of wisdom. Moral enterprizes, not less than political and physical ones, require union of feeling, union of aim, union of effort.  Too long, we think, has this important truth been under estimated.  Why should the friends of abolition stand longer divided? Why should they not come together, and do their utmost to establish an abolition organization upon which all may honorably stand and labor together for the extirpation of the common evil of the country?  We know not what will be the fate of Mr. FOSTER'S effort.  It may fail, as many other good things have, for the time, failed; but it need not fail, and if Abolitionists are true to themselves and their cause, it will not fail.
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REPUBLICAN OPPOSITION TO THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE.
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[[italicized]] The World [[/italicized]], a newly established and widely circulated Republican daily paper, published in New York, is opposed to the repeal of the law which requires that colored citizens be seized and possessed of two hundred and fifty dollars worth of real estate as a condition of exercising the elective franchise.  For this opposition it gives the following reasons:

'It is undesirable that the two races should exist in close proximity. So long as they are intermingled in the same community with us, it is our duty to promote their welfare by all rational methods; but while our laws afford them the same protection which they do to us, they must be content with the present restrictions in the exercise of the elective franchise.-- It is not philanthropy, but demagogism, that proposes anything different. Though this is a Republican measure, we hope Republicans will have the moral courage and political independence to vote it down.'

Against the hopes of [[italicized]] The World [[/italicized]], we hope that Republicans will have the 'moral courage,' and the magnanimity to vote for equal rights. We know of no injustice more needless,

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less, mean and contemptible, than that which imposes a property qualification for voting on the colored citizens of this State. We are few in numbers, exposed to peculiar insults and hardships, on account of popular prejudice skillfully kept alive by all the wealth and power of slavery, acting through all the channels of social influence. These, one would think, were quite enough to repress our upward tendency as a people, without the State saddling our right of suffrage with an odious property qualification, imposed upon no other classes of people in the State. We submit to [[italicized]] The World [[/italicized]], whether it is not mean and base in the extreme to require of a black man a higher qualification for voting than is required of a white man?  Of all the people of this State, colored people have the fewest means of acquiring property. Nearly all lucrative and respectable employments are closed against us, and in the face of this undeniable fact, the great and generous State of New York imposes on us the necessity of having and owning two hundred and fifty dollars worth of real property, more than it imposes upon any other class of its citizens. This gross injustice, this contemptible meanness does not well become a State so free and otherwise noble as the State of New York, and we hope that the year 1860 will see this feature of our State Constitution blotted out. As to the 'proximity of the two races,' [[italicized]] The World [[/italicized]] may be right or it may be wrong; we won't stay to discuss whether 'close proximity' of the two races is desirable or not. 'Close proximity' already exists, and in all the likelihood of the case will continue to exist. The question is not whether proximity is desirable, but whether it shall be distinguished by justice and magnanimity, or by unfairness, injustice and meanness.

We do not understand [[italicized]] The World [[/italicized]] as wishing to oppress us. It very kindly expresses an interest in our welfare, and even goes the length of making it the white man's duty to promote the black man's welfare. This is kind and amiable, and we like the manifestation of such kindness. Though as a colored man, while profoundly grateful for such a disposition to take care of us, we must say we should be far more grateful for something like a fair and an equal chance to take care of ourselves, and to promote our own happiness. Much trouble would be saved our dear white friends if they would once allow us this right, and we should get on quite as well besides. The World  says that the laws afford colored people the same protection that it does whites. This sounds well, and in the sense of [[italicized]] The World [[/italicized]] it is true; but the statement is a queer one, when used in an argument for the continuance of a law of the State imposing a burden on black men of two hundred and fifty dollars more than upon white men. We think it will be difficult for the world to make out a case of sameness here.

But it is a mockery to talk about protection in a Government like ours to any class in it denied the elective franchise. The very denial of that right strips them of 'protection,' and leaves them at the mercy of all that is low, vulgar, cruel and base in the community. The ballot box and the jury box both stand closed against the man of color, and open to every other man. These are the acknowledged safeguards of the people's liberty.

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The white people of this country would wade knee deep in blood before they would be deprived of either of these means of protection against power and oppression. How immeasurably hateful and mean, then, is it to mock us with this talk about same protection, while you are expressing the hope that the Republican party will vote to continue our exclusion, and to deny us equal admission to the ballot box of the State? What is [[italicized]] The World [[/italicized]] afraid of? Does it fear that with equal protection negro blood would prove more than a match for Anglo-Saxon blood in the race of improvement? Does it apprehend the departure of the reins of Government out of the hands of the white race, and for this reason is in favor of continuing extra weight and an additional disability upon the negro? [[italicized]] The World [[/italicized]] is too large for such unmanly and discreditable fears. Once for all, we only ask for our people fair play, equal and exact justice in this matter of suffrage and all others, and we hope that the people of this State, of all political parties, Republicans, Democrats, and National Union men, will yet see that this policy of justice towards us is the only wise and proper one to adopt toward the colored citizens of this great State and nation.

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THE LIBERTY PARTY NOMINATIONS.
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To all those who believe that it is the first business of the American people, acting in their collective and national capacity through the forms of the National Government, to abolish and forever put away from among them the stupendous abomination of slavery; who believe that they ought not to do evil that good may come; that they ought to make no compromise with slavery either in theory or in practice; that he who stands by pure anti-slavery principle most firmly in this day of accommodation and truckling, bearing aloft the unsullied banner of pure Abolitionism, best serves the cause of the slave, and exerts the best influence on society, will not ask us why we helped to make these nominations, and why anti-slavey men, regardless of ridicule and protest, are asked to vote for them. For all such men as are here-in described see plainly enough that to vote consistently, they must vote for just such men as have been nominated. Ten thousand votes for GERRIT SMITH at this juncture would do more, in our judgment, for the ultimate abolition of slavery in this country, than two million for ABRAHAM LINCOLN, or any other man who stands pledged before the world against all interference with slavery in the slave States, who is not pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or anywhere else where the system exists, and who is not opposed to making the free States a hunting ground for men under the Fugitive Slave Law.

Those who have put up Messrs. SMITH and MCFARLAND for President and Vice President mean at least to preserve their anti-slavery integrity, and the integrity of the Abolition movement. A man may gain the whole world and be great, but his victory is a most miserable one if in gaining it he loses his own soul, or in other words, stultifies his judgment, tramples upon his convictions, dishonors his principles, and makes himself unworthy of his own self-respect. This is what we call losing one's soul, and such a loss is the whole Abolition movement of America in danger of in the approaching election. We live not for a 
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