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November, 1860.   DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.   355
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the proceedings of the recent Political Abolition Convention held in Worcester. Neither Mr. Foster, nor I, undertook the formidable work which your correspondent, in his letter, ascribed to us. I beg to assure you, that the 'annihilation of the American Anti-Slavery Society' was no part of the business of the Convention. The language of your correspondent is much too strong. It conveys an exaggerated idea of what took place on the occasion which it purports to describe. Every body knows that to criticise the position of an association in respect to a single point in its plan of operation, is a very different thing from discrediting an association altogether, and working for its destruction. I plead guilty to the first, but not the last impeachment. There is no good reason for misrepresenting even an enemy, if I must be deemed such. I did freely dissent from one of your leading doctrines, and did my best to prove it unsound, but in no such spirit as would be inferred from the language of your Worcester correspondent. My objection to the American A.S. Society respected its PLAN-not its life. So far from working for the annihilation of that Society, I have never failed in the worst times of my controversy with it, to recognize that organization as the most efficient generator of anti-slavery sentiment in the country; and this I did, repeatedly, at Worcester.-The compliment which J.A.H. pays Mr. Howland for the part he took in the Convention, is natural, perhaps - but it is scarcely modest- since the complimenter and the complimented is one and the same person. If 'manliness' consists in calling a man a LIAR to his face, or what is about the same thing, telling him he knows he tells a falsehood, I must prefer manners to 'manliness.' To me, Mr. Howland's manner and language on that occasion, and of which he now boasts in the 'Liberator,' was better becoming a slave plantation among slaves, than an anti-slavery Convention among equals. 

What had I said to call forth this ill-mannered charge from Mr. Howland? Why, in substance this: that the plan of operation adopted by the American Anti-Slavery Society did not embrace the abolition of slavery by means of the Government, and that the Radical Abolition party was the only organization which proposed such abolition. This is what I said, and what I meant to say. Mr. Howland, by suppressing a part of what I did say, and adding a little that I did not say, makes out to his own satisfaction a case of falsehood against me. His zeal has, in this instance, outrun his discretion, and I leave him to retrace his steps, as I am happy to see he has had to do in the case of Mr. Higginson. 
Respectfully yours, 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

We should have been better pleased to have seen this temperate (perhaps too temperate) reply to the statements of Mr. HOWLAND in the same columns in which those statements appeared; but since Mr. GARRISON has neither published nor acknowledged the receipt of our letter, we are glad to have retained a copy, which we could thus place on record. The ranks of genuine Abolitionists-men who really desire to effect the abolition of slavery -are quite too [[italics]] few [[/italics]] and [[italics]] thin [[/italics]] to court strife or division among themselves; and this sentiment was never absent from us, but manifest in all we said at Worcester -Mr. HOWLAND to the contrary notwithstanding. 
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[[bold]] JERRY CELEBRATION FOR 1860. [[/bold]]
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This anniversary was better celebrated this year than for several years previously, and must have cheered the hearts of the friends of the slave who attended it. The resolutions adopted on the occasion are published in our present number. They were drawn up by Mr. C.D. MILLS, of Syracuse. They speak for themselves. The Annual Address, for any part of which we regret that we are unable to find room in our present number, was prepared and read by Rev. SAMUEL J. MAY. It is the amplest vindication of the Jerry Rescue, and of the principles involved in that memorable uprising against the fiendish and
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brutal conduct of our slaveholding and slavehunting Government, ever yet presented and adopted in one paper. In listening to it we were rather surpriseed that so much could be said in vindication of that praiseworthy transaction. A long argument to show that to give a crust of bread to a starving man, a cup of cold water to a thirsty man, to extinguish the flames of our neighbor's dwelling, or to rescue a babe from the jaws of a bull dog, who was tearing its living flesh to pieces with his terrible teeth, an innocent and praiseworthy deed, would be a literary curiosity. Yet no more innocent, no more praiseworthy are any of these, than was the act of snatching Jerry out of the teeth of the human hounds, in Syracuse, nine years ago. -So, too, it would be viewed throughout the country, if slavery had not eaten out the hearts, and blinded the minds of the American people, to an extent at which future generations will be astonished and incredulous. -Some such remark as this we ventured to make, concerning the address of Mr. MAY, at the time, but with no purpose to disparage the Address. The paper is wisely adapted to answer the popular objections to the rescue of Jerry, and is therefore worthy of all commendation. Among the speakers on the occasion, were Rev. S.J. MAY, Rev. Mr. THOME, of early anti-slavery fame, the veteran BERIAH GREEN, and FREDERICK DOUGLASS. Mr. GREEN was more than ever alive on this occasion. -He seemed to be rejuvenated, and loomed out with amazing eloquence and power. The whole moral or immoral structure of the Republican party was exhibited with a master hand, and the duty of occuping Radical Abolition ground was made plain the the blindest. The meeting took care to provide for the tenth anniversary, and we doubt not that these anniversaries will grow in interest and in favor with Abolitionists from year to year, so long as the existence of slavery in the country shall make such demonstrations necessary. 
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THE AMERICAN CHURCH AND CLERGY THE BULWARK OF AMERICAN SLAVERY. -Experience continues to demonstrate the entire emptiness and worthlessness of American religion. -Among the latest proofs of its hollowness, are the proceedings of the Episcopal Convention, recently held in the city of New York, and the very similar proceedings of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, held at Boston. Both these mighty representatives of American Christianity have utterly refused to commit their members against even the African slave trade, although formally pressed to do so by an eminent member of each body. We had intended to lay the proceedings of both these important religious bodies before our readers in the present number, with much other interesting matter, respecting the recent conviction and imprisonment, at Chicago, of JOHN HOSSACK, for the crime of rescuing a slave out of the hands of an official kidnapper; but we are prevented by the pressure of other matter upon our columns. 

That wickedly pious journal, the New York Observer, the editor of which has recently been enlightening the evangelical public respecting the 'POWER OF PRAYER,' thus exults over the prompt and emphatic manner in which the subject of slavery was suppressed and given the go-by in these two grand evangelical Conventions. It flings a strong light on the pro-slavery spirit of the American churches generally. We beg especially our British readers to note these brief paragraphs:  [[/column 2]]

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'Place was not given, even for an hour, [at the last meeting of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,] to the exciting subject of slavery. It is many years since the Board has been allowed to attend to its appropriate work with so little interruption from this source. An effort was made by a single individual, in two or three different forms, to obtain some action on the subject of the slave trade, but it was promptly put down, and that, too, at the insistence of the same persons who, for two or three years past, have sought to introduce the subject into the American Tract Society, when it has met to attend to the business of its anniversaries. We regard this as ominous for good, not only to the American Board, but to our other religious institutions. May they all be permitted to prosecute their work with as little interruption.'
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'John Jay, Esq., made the usual annual and futile effort to force the subject of slavery into the [Diocesan] Convention. The summary manner in which he was disposed of, while it rebuked his folly, was a prompt vindication of the dignity and high conservative and religious character of this body of Christian laymen and clergymen.'
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[[bold]] WM. L. YANCEY AT CORINTHIAN HALL. [[/bold]] 
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The first thought that struck us on the appearance of this eloquent defender of slavery, in Rochester, was the superlative impudence which could prompt such a man to come here on such a mission. The right of speech is a most sacred right, and one which we hope never to see cloven down in Rochester, or in any free State of the American Union. Yet, he who claims and exercises that righ in Rochester, and at the same time tramples upon that right elsewhere, and glories in the tyranny, adds impudence to oppression. -Every body knows that a Rochester man, who should dare to call slavery in question, expose its evils, and lecture the people of Alabama on their duty to abolish the system, could not live on the soil of that State a single hour. The doctrine and practice of that State is death, instant death, or expatriation to any and all who dare to question the right of slavery. Tar and feathers, rail and rope, committee and mob, stake and fire are all ready for such intruders on the domains of Alabama, and those of all the cotton States of the Union. Neither law nor gospel can protect from the savage ferocity of the mob. Scarcely a paper comes to us from the South but contains accounts of brutal, bloody and lawless proceedings against some American citizen, suspected of entertaining opinions or prejudices against slavery. Yet in the face of these violent and every where approved violations of the Constitution, these high-handed proceedings against the just and acknowledged constitutional rights of American citizens in that quarter of the country, such men as YANCEY, who, when at home, are [[italics]] 'head devils' [[/italics]] in these lawless proceedings - come to Rochester, mount the rostrum in Corinthian Hall, exhibit the beauties of working men without wages, degrading persons to property, and selling men in the market. YANCEY does this, and worse. He lectures the citizens upon their duty to help hold and catch the slave - boasts of the superior guaranties given to slave property over all other property, and brands the Northern people with treason to the Constitution and the laws, if they refuse to respect, extend and protect the slave system. He puts slavery above all law, human and divine, tramples upon the right of speech at home, and then comes to Rochester to ridicule the 'Higher Law', and to make mouths at the morals of the Northern people! If this be not superlative [[/column 3]]