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356 DOUGLASS' MONTHLY November, 1860. [[Single line]] [[First of three columns]] impudence, we know not where to look for it. Nothing but the well known prevalence of prejudice against the race enslaved, and the long subjection of the Northern people to the insolent domination of the slaveholders of the country, can explain the presumption of this visit of Yancey to Rochester. He knows well enough that no man need be afraid, in any part of this country, to pour contempt upon the negro ; that there is always an ignorant mob, made up of all nations, who are ever mean and base enough to insult those who have no means of redress. Like slaveholders, they can flog a man when his hands are tied, and boast of their bravery. They can insult a man who is fettered by the overwhelming force of popular prejudice, when they dare not look an honest man in the face who has a chance of defence equal to themselves. It requires not courage, only baseness, to insult a negro in any part of America ; and wherever Mr. Yancey may go, he will be sure to find this quality in abundance among his democratic brethren. He evidently presumed upon its existence in large measure here in Rochester. His references to the black rate, and 'greasy' descriptions of them, disclosed his impressions at this point. For the credit of Rochester, we were glad to notice that these vulgar flings at the black race were received with approval only from a few whiskey-drinking Irishmen, who were honored with places among the officers of the meeting. The great mass of the audience, attracted by curiosity to hear what the noted 'fire-eater' would say, and how he would say it, were respectable and intelligent men, who could not be induced to stoop to the meanness and mud-scow baseness of flinging mud in the faces of a people whose only crime is that they are overpowered by numbers and subjected to slavery. Mr. Yancey added nothing to the argument for slavery. It was the same old argument (but, we admit, presented with marked ability,) that slaves are property ; that the fathers of the Republic so regarded them ; and that no citizen has any right to appeal to any law, or morality, higher than the Constitution, on the subject of slavery ; that the Declaration of Independence only declared all white men ' free and equal ;' that the Constitution o. the United States was only meant to establish justice and secure the blessings of liberty to white men ; that the men who made the Constitution were slaveholders ; that they protected the slave trade for twenty years ; that they gave a three-fifths representation in slaves, and stipulated for the recapture and return of fugitive slaves. His justification of slavery was, that the negroes are an inferior race ; that they are well fed and clothed, and are better off in slavery than they were in Africa ; that the negro is lazy, and will not work in a warm climate without a master to make him work ; that emancipation had been a failure in the West Indies ; that emancipation at the South would drive all the negroes to the North, and bring down the wages of the laboring white men here ; that this would create aversion to them, and tend to legislation, driving the negro from the free States, and counter legislation by the slave States ; and that the miserable people would be kicked to death between the two sections, each wishing to get rid of them ; - he, therefore, urged that they [[end column]] [[start column]] had better let things remain as they are - let well enough alone. There was not a point presented by Mr. Yancey which we could not have answered, and answered triumphantly on the spot. --- We should have attempted it, and might have been sustained in doing so by the audience there assembled, but for respect for the great right of the peaceable assembly. The meeting was not a meeting for free debate, but for an address from Mr. Yancey. He and his friends engaged, rented and paid for the Hall, to enable him to speak, and we to hear. We were not asked there as a speaker, but as a listener. We accepted the terms, and went to the meeting, and were bound to conform to the conditions upon which we, in common with others, were invited. No reader of ours needs to answer to any of the positions taken by Mr. Yancey. His constitutional argument has been refuted over and over again a thousand times, and negro inferiority has been shown to be like the inferiority of all enslaved and uncultivated races, [[italicized]] temporary [[/italicized]]. That the negro, like all other varieties of the human family, is subject to the great law of progress and improvement, has been demonstrated in these columns. Mr. Yancey and his slaveholding fraternity know it well. --- Hence they will not allow negroes to congregate in any number, without the presence of a slaveholder ; hence they will not allow them to listen to political discussions of any kind ; hence they are ever careful to dam up every possible avenue of knowledge whereby the slave might become intelligent ; hence they make it a crime to teach a slave to read ; and hence they repress every upward tendency of the race. They don't make laws to prevent their horses and cattle from learning to read. They know that a colt is not likely to turn school master ; and they know equally well that the negro may do so. Their laws against education of the negro is the best answer that be given to the charge of inferiority and incapacity against him. About the most bare-faced point or deception presented by Mr. Yancey, was the pretense that the slaves are protected by the laws against the cruelty and brutality of their masters. He knows that no slave can institute legal proceedings or testify against any white man in any court at the South, for any cause whatever, and that, therefore, all such laws are mockery. Laws against theft and robbery, which can be appealed to by thieves and robbers, only would be laughable protection to the property of honest men ; and laws for the protection of slaves, under which only slaveholders can prosecute, are alike efficient and useful. Yet when this point was urged, it was easy to see that it made a favorable impression for the speaker and his cause. --- After all, however, we are glad that the people of Rochester have heard Mr. Yancey. --- He has made the ablest argument for slavery ever made here ; and though it has doubtless confirmed the prejudices of the ignorant few, it has impressed the many who heard it, with the utter worthlessness of all arguments brought to sustain irresponsible power by one man over the liberty and person of another. For one thing, we have reason to be obliged to Mr. Yancey, and that is, for his most eloquent assertion of the right of an oppressed people, when under the heels of tyranny, to rise and strike down their oppressors at all hazards. This [[end column]] [[start column]] he said in regard to slaveholders as against the North ; but the principle is far stronger for slaves as against their guilty masters, and may some day be acted upon by them. His whole peroration might have properly delivered on any anti-slavery platform, and applauded for its sublime assertion of the sacred right of the weak against the strong, the few against the many, the oppressed against the oppressor, and of consequence the slave against his master. It was a complete answer to all he had said during the hour and half before. [[single line]] EQUAL SUFFRAGE. --- The movement in favor of 'Equal Suffrage' in this State is almost exclusively in the hands of the colored people themselves. Neither Republicans nor Abolitionists seem to care much for it. If we succeed in repealing the odious and unjust imposition of a property qualification upon us, we shall be more indebted, we fear, to the supineness of our enemies, than to activity and zeal of our friends. A few only of the latter appear to give any attention to the subject ; but we earnestly hope that ON THE DAY OF THE ELECTION, SOME TRUE MAN WILL BE FOUND, FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET, STANDING AT EVERY POLL IN THE STATE, WITH A FULL SUPPLY OF TICKETS IN FAVOR OF EQUAL SUFFRAGE, URGING EVERY BODY TO VOTE ON THE SIDE OF JUSTICE AND LIBERTY. It is quite time this great wrong should be blotted from the Constitution of this great and free State, too great, we trust, to oppress even the weakest of her citizens. Read the Address on this subject, which we send out in the present number, and act upon its principles and suggestions. [[single line]] THE STATE ELECTIONS.---The Republicans have made a clean sweep of all the Northern States who have up to this time voted for State officers. Pennsylvania and Indiana, heretofore the strongholds of Democracy, have gone Republican by tremendous majorities, as will be seen from the following figures: Maine --- 16,000 Rep. maj. Vermont --- 20,000 " " Pennsylvania --- 32,000 " " Indiana --- 15,000 " " Ohio --- 20,000 " " The Republicans will gain by these elections two U.S. Senators - one from Pennsylvania, and the other from Indiana. From present appearances, we should judge that Abraham Lincoln will be our next President. [[single line]] TWO FREE NEGROS KIDNAPPED. --- Mr. B. M. Lynch, slave merchant at Fifth and Elm streets, yesterday morning received a telegraphic dispatch from St. Joseph, requesting him to cause the arrest of three men and a woman who had two negroes in charge, kidnapped by them. Mr. Lynch was almost simultaneously waited upon by two of the men whom the dispatch described, and who proposed to sell him a negro lad of 21 and a girl of 17 years. After some inquiry he learned that the property was at the Great Western hotel, at Seventeenth street and Franklin avenue. Mr. Lynch's partner induced the two men to accompany him to the City Hall, and there gave them into the custody of the police. Their names are N.B. Beck and Joel Wildey. On the person of Beck was found a bill of sale --- real or ostensible of the negroes Henry and Maria Gardner, for $1,800, to Beck, Wildey, and Jacob Herd ; the bill dated 'St. Joseph, Mo., Sept. 24,' signed 'John Rose,' and witnessed by 'James Lester.' There was also a letter from Herd, stating that he would meet the others in St. Louis. The negroes were found at the hotel, and also a wagon and pair of horses belonging to the party. --- [[italicized]] St. Louis Democrat. [[/italicized]]
