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JANUARY, 1861.  DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.  395

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is in the hands of the slaves themselves. The day of peaceful emancipation has probably passed. That being the case, it is impossible to show why insurrection is not as much the right and duty of the negroes as of the Italians. And this principle carries with it the right and duty of aiding insurrection, in both cases.

In forming our judgments, it is necessary to look not merely at what is desirable, but what is practicable. I have been accustomed for years to look forward to three successive steps as the only conceivable destiny of American slavery.

1. The formation of a defensive anti-slavery party at the North, and its ultimate triumph. This has now occurred.

2. A division of the Union, through the mutual antagonism thus brought to a crisis.

3. The forcible abolition of slavery, over a large part of the present slave territory, by means of insurrection.

I believe that these three events are written in the nature of things, and that it would be useless to resist them, and impossible very greatly to precipitate them. The logic of events is far stronger than our will.


JAMES REDPATH ON THE MOB.

The following letter from Mr. Redpath shows that the breaking up of the meeting was intimated long before the Convention was held:

As most of the papers - for example, the Post, the Courier, and the Journal[[/italics]] - whose accounts of the Convention will be reprinted by the metropolitan press, are in league with the mob of State Street slaves, who, aided by Mayor Lincoln, dispersed our meeting on Monday forenoon, I ask of you the favor of publishing a personal statement - which, here, where so many persons witnessed the disgraceful proceedings, it is wholly unnecessary to make.

The mob was incited and chiefly composed of merchants, traders with the South - nearly all of whom have uncollected debts there, and many of them mortgages on slaves. A list of their names, I understand, will soon be published. The Post, of Saturday - a paper edited by a Federal officeholder - contained an editorial article, and an editorial paragraph addressed to the editor, both calculated and intended to incite a riot, while, with Antony-like hypocrisy, they deprecated a disturbance. They were chiefly directed against myself, as Secretary of the Committee, by seeking to arouse against me the fanaticism of nativism, by three plausible statements - each and equally false - that I am not a citizen of the U. S.; that I am not a citizen of Massachusetts, and that I am but a temporary sojourner here.

I had repeated intimations from reliable sources that the Convention would be broken up, and was advised by several friends to postpone it. While, however, I read daily of Northern men who are murdered by brutal mobs in the South - merely for believing that slavery is not a blessing - I did not feel inclined to submit to be awed by a party of traffickers in Southern goods and Northern principles, from discussing a Constitutional question in a peaceful manner, and with no ulterior intentions.

The Temple, therefore, was opened.

I was advised by the keeper of the Temple that, if a riot was to be prevented, the first man who tried to begin it should be arrested, and that we ought not to seize a low fellow, but one of the chiefs - one of the solid men of Boston - and hold them until the police arrived.

I determined to pursue this policy.

I introduced to the audience the Rev. Mr. Martin, who began, on behalf of the Committee, a preliminary statement.

He had not uttered three sentences before a mob of over one hundred, who were seated in a solid body near the platform, interrupted him by loudly stamping their feet. I rose and looked at the well-dressed rowdies, in order to see which one of them, within reach of the aisle, appeared to be the 'most responsi-

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ble' man -- that is, had the most Beacon-streetish and State Exchangish look. Seeing one, a solid man in flesh, stolid-looking, carefully shaved, with well-brushed hair, and clothes of unimpeachable quality--a perfect representative, in outward aspect, of the citizen of property and standing, who feels that his check is good, that his note is No. 1, and his principles conservative and national, I made up my mind to arrest him. I descended from the platform and collared him, telling him he could not be permitted to disturb the meeting. I was instantly surrounded by the entire mob, and lost my hold of solidity.--Threats and clenched fists became very common around me, but none of them dared to strike.

The solid one, who looked very much afraid when I had hold of him, came up, when I was surrounded by his friends, and asked my name. I told him. He muttered something about law, when I asked him his name ; he gave it.

The Post complained that the names of nearly one-half of the Committee did not appear in the Boston Directory ! In order that this solid disturber of our meeting may have all the advantage which this distinction confers, I copy his name and address from the Boston Directory, least edition, page 426:

Trull, John W., house 29 Beacon.

I notice that none of the papers give his name.

While the Post and the Courier admit that I seized one of the disturbers, acting as 'a policeman,' the Journal, of this evening, has the audacity to say, that --'the efforts of the Abolitionists to obtain control of the meeting resulted in some rough collisions, the first violence being offered by the Secretary of the Committee, who made a brutal assault upon an unoffending old man !'

I leave the citizens of Boston to judge between these different versions; and whether this Trull, an able-bodied disturber of the peace, aperson of nearer twice my weight than less, deserves so very gentle an appellation.

Let me advise that the Trulls and the Barclays of Boston, if they don't wish to be collared again, not to disturb another Anti-Slavery meeting; for the day has passed when the ropes cat be put around the necks of Northern men for daring to exercise the rights of free speech. Charleston is south of Mason and Dixon's line.  Respectfully,
JAMES REDPATH,
Secretary of the Committee.
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CARL SHURZ ON FREE SPEECH.

This noble German delivered the eleventh of the Fraternity lectures on Tuesday evening, at Tremont Temple. The subject announced in the papers was that of 'American Civilization,' but recent events, he said, had suggested another topic, which he had worked out in two days--that of 'Free Speech.'--We make the following extract:

A few days ago, when on my travels in the State of New York, I was reading newspapers in a railroad car, my eye lighted up on a column headed in large letters: 'The mouth of Abolitionism shut!--The Blacks smoked out!' &c., and then followed a glowing account of the ardor and enthusiasm displayed by the intelligent and conservative citizens of Boston, in breaking up a meeting of Abolitionists. At first, I thought there must be some mistake; it must be an old paper, or it must be a typographical error, substituting Boston for Baltimore, or Louisville, or some other place exposed to the Southern breeze-- but sure enough, all the particulars coincided; it was Boston, the great commercial and intellectual metropolis of the great and enlightened State of Massachusetts. I hardly add that the paper which expressed so high satisfaction at an attempt to put down freedom of speech, had in the late campaign advocated the interests of that champion of popular rights, Stephen A. Douglas, slightly mixed up with those of Mr. Bell, and of the great representative of American culture and refinement, Edward Everett. (Sensation.)
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I must confess that the reading of that account filled me with sadness; for of all countries on the globe, Massachusetts, and all  cities inhabited by civilized beings, Boston ought to be the first to understand that free speech is not only the great propeling power of progress, but also the great bulwark of peace and security. (Hearty applause.)

FREDERICK DOUGLASS AT MUSIC HALL.

Mr. Frederick Douglass, of Rochester, N.Y., (says the Boston Atlas and Bee of Monday, Dec. 10,) the well-known colored orator and editor, gave a lecture yesterday forenoon in Music Hall, before the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society. The hall was filled in every part. Among those present were many well-known gentlemen in business circles. The large attendance was probably somewhat induced by the expectation that Mr. Douglass would take occasion to allude to the recent exciting events at Tremont Temple and the West End. In this they were not disappointed.

Mr. Douglass announced that he should read a lecture on 'Self-Made Men,' which he proceeded  to do in a clear and oratorical manner. It is a carefully-written, thoughtful production, and contains several eloquent and very many common sense passages; the whole being illustrated by examples in life. The central thought of the lecture is that every man has not only latent forces of illimitable extent, but also power to develop them, if he will.

At the conclusion of his address, he spoke as follows:
Boston is a great city--and Music Hall has a fame almost extensive as that of Boston. No where more than here have the principles of human freedom been expounded. But for the circumstances to be hereafter mentioned, it would seem almost presumption for me to say anything here about those principles.--And yet, even here, in Boston, the moral atmosphere is dark and heavy. The principles of human liberty, even if correctly apprehended, find by limited support in this hour of trial. The world moves slowly, and Boston is much like the world. We thought the principle of free speech was an accomplished fact. Here, if no where else, we thought the right of the people to assemble and to express their opinion, was secure. Dr. Channing had defended the right; Mr. Garrison had practically asserted the right; and Theodore Parker had maintained it with steadiness and fidelity to the last.

But here we are to-day contending for what we thought was gained years ago. The mortifying and disgraceful fact stares us in the face, that though Faneuil Hall and Bunker Hill Monument stand, freedom of speech is struck down. No lengthy detail of facts is needed. They are already notorious; far more so than will be wished, ten years hence.

The world knows that, last Monday, a meeting assembled to discuss the question: 'How shall Slavery be Abolished?' The world also knows that that meeting was invaded, insulted, captured, but a mob of gentlemen, and thereafter broken up and dispersed by order of the Mayor, who refused to protect it, tho' called upon so to do. If this had been a mere outbreak of passion and prejudice among the baser sort, maddened by rum and hounded on by some wily politician to serve some immediate purpose--a mere exception affair--it might be allowed to rest with what has already been said. But the leaders of the mob were gentlemen. They were men who pride themselves upon their respect for law and order.

These gentlemen brought their respect for the law with them, and proclaimed it loudly while in the very act of breaking the law.--Theirs was the law of slavery. The law of free speech, and the law for the protection of public meetings they trampled under foot, while they greatly magnified the law of slavery.

The scene was an instructive one. Men seldom see such a blending of the gentlemen with the rowdy, as was shown on that occasion. It proved that human nature is very

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