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426 DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. MARCH, 1861. [[line]] [[column 1]] frequent scantiness of water and provisions, with the consequent frightful mortality among the cargo and crew -- often the 'wages of sin is death' -- and the thousand and one barbarous incidents which merely to read of must awaken the liveliest feelings of our nature, but to witness and participate in must eventually harden and degrade a man until he becomes more brutal than a beast. ARRIVAL AT CUBA. We will now suppose our ship safely arrived at the 'Key St. Philip' -- this is one of many of the secluded rendezvous abounding on the coast of Cuba. The captain drops his anchor, hoists his private signal, and the launches, which have been waiting since a certain fixed day, come off, and with them a Custom House officer, probably sent by the Governor of the district. The negroes are landed and sent off at once to some place where they are exercised, washed and fattened for the market. The company's agent pays off the crew, giving to each man his pro rata. The ship's anchor is raised -- sail is made, holes are bored in the bottom -- and the old craft, foul with crime and full of all uncleanness, is started forth upon the sea to surely sink, and thus obliterate from the records all evidence of the guilt in which she has been an innocent participator. PROFITS OF THE VOYAGE. The captain goes to Havana with one-half of his ship's register and a false bill of sale, which he forwards to the New York Custom House according to law, and in the meantime presents himself to his principal with the following balance sheet: DR. To first cost of ship - $7,000 Advance wages - 1,050 Captain's wages and venture - 10,000 Supercargo and boatswain - 5,000 Cost of negroes at $50, (750,) - 37,500 Crew, $750 per man - 7,500 Bribes, &c. - [[underlined]] 100,000 [[/underlined]] [[total]] - [[underlined]]168,500[[/underlined]] [[underlined]]168,500[[/underlined]] CR. 500 negroes at $800 a head - [[underlined]]400,000[[/underlined]] Net profit - $231,500 Net profit, two hundred and thirty-one thousand five hundred dollars! and so ends the voyage. But at another time, and in another place, another balance sheet will be struck, and it would have been better then for this captain and his owner that a mill-stone had been hanged about their necks, and they had been buried in the depth of the sea, than to have reaped the wages of this damnable sin, which is eternal death. [[line]] OUR NEW U.S. SENATOR. - Hon. Ira Harris, of Albany, who has been elected to succeed Gov. Seward in the Senate of the U.S., is according to the Tribune, a man of marked ability. He took a leading part in the Constitutional Convention of 1846, is distinguished as a lawyer, and from July, 1847, to January, 1860, occupied a seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court of the IVth Circuit. For a man who has been so long engaged in judicial labors, he is remarkably well versed in political affairs. He is a thorough Republican, has many warm friends throughout the State, and his election to this important post will be gratifying to the great body of the party. He is a man of graceful presence, is a ready an easy speaker, and will no doubt take a leading part in the deliberations of the Senate. Upon the vital issues which now divide the country, we do not question that his course will fully justify the confidence reposed in him by his great constituency. He was a Whig of rather radical tendencies, an admirer of John Quincy Adams; and though his judicial functions long withheld him from the political arena, he is a firm and uncompromising friend of the principles which triumphed in the recent Presidential contest. His chief competitors for the post were Hon. Horace Greeley and William H. Evarts, Esq. [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] THE CRISIS IN THE U.S. SENATE. [[line]] PASSAGE BETWEEN SEWARD AND MASON. The following discussion took place in the U.S. Senate, Jan. 31, on the occasion of Senator Seward's presenting a petition from 38,000 citizens of New York in favor of the Border State Resolutions: Mr. SEWARD - Mr. President: Excepting the House of Representatives, this Senate Chamber is the largest hall that is or ever has been occupied by a legislative assembly since the world began. The memorial which I am charged to present is of such length that, if extended, would cross the Senate Chamber in its extended length eighteen times. I have already presented memorials from the City of New York, signed by citizens of that place to the number of 25,000, and this memorial bears the signatures of 38,000 more, making, in the whole, 63,000 of the inhabitants of that city, who have signed this appeal to the Senate. The Committee who have charge of this memorial, are a fair representation -- I might also say an embodiment -- of citizens who direct and wield the commerce of the great emporium of our country, the commerce of a continent, and a commerce which, this present year, owing to the distractions of the times, is put for the first time in a condition of proving itself to be the controlling commerce of the world. The memorial which they present may be regarded as a fair expression of the interest which is felt by that great commercial community, and probably a fair exponent of the interest in the same great subject, which is felt by the whole commercial interest of the United States, or in any other part of the world. -- Such a communication would command obedience in England, France, Russia, Prussia, or Germany -- a demonstration of the will of the commerce of a country decides questions of war or peace. Happily, sir, that is not the case in this great Republic. The interest of commerce is but one, the interest of agriculture, manufactures, and mining, each of them is another -- each are entitled to, and each secures equal respect -- and the consideration which they obtain is due, not to their number [[?]] of Drs. [[?with]], but due to the circumstances under which they lend their advice to the Government. But I do not hesitate to say the character of these petitioners entitle them to the respectful attention and consideration of Congress, and they have asked me to support this petition. I have not yet found, though I have anxiously waited for, and hoped for, that manifestation of temper on the part of the people of the country and their Representatives, which would justify me in saying that the Seceding States, or those who sympathize with them, have made propositions which the citizens of adhering States could accept, or as I desire to speak with impartiality upon this, as on all other occasions, to put the proposition in another form, that this or any other of various propositions which have come from the citizens of adhering States, or those who desire to adhere to the Union, would not be acceptable and satisfactory to the other party. I have thought it my duty to hold myself open and ready for the best adjustment which could be practically made, and I have therefore been obliged to ask this Committee to be content with the assurance that I would express to the public and to the Senate that the spirit in which they come, is perfectly commendable and perfectly satisfactory. It is gratifying for me to see that a proper spirit -- a spirit of fraternal kindness, and of conciliation and affection -- is adopted by so large a portion of my fellow-citizens of the State in which I belong. I have asked them also, in return for performing my duty on this occasion, that when they have arrived at home, they will act in the same spirit, and manifest their devotion to the Union above all other interests, and all other sentiments for the Union, by voting for the Union, and if it should be demanded, by lending, and even giving their money for the Union, and fighting in it as the last resort for the Union, taking care always that speaking goes before voting, voting goes before giving money, and all go before a battle, which I should regard as hazardous and dangerous, and therefore the last, as it would be the most painful measure to be resorted to for the salvation of the Union. --This is the spirit in which I have determined for myself to come up to this great question, [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] to pass through it, as I sincerely believe we shall pass through it, for, although the great controversy has not been already settled, I do not therefore any the less calculate upon and expect that it will be peacefully settled, and settled for the Union. I have not been so rash as to expect that in sixty days, which have been allowed to us since the meeting of Congress, and I will be frank, sir, in saying I have not expected that in ninety days, which are the allotted term of Congress, this great controversy would certainly be adjusted, peace restored, and the Union firmly re-established. I know, sir, that sixty or ninety days was the term that was fixed with definite objects and purposes by that portion of my fellow citizens who have thought that it could consult the interests of the State to which they belonged to dissever the Union. I have not expected that reason and judgement would come back to the people and become so prevailing and universal as that they would appreciate the danger and be able to agree on the remedies. Still, I have been willing that should be tried, though unsuccessfully, but my confidence has remained sound for this simple reason, that as I have not believed that the passion and frenzy of the hour could overturn this great fabric of constitutional liberty and empire in ninety days, so I have felt sure that there would be time even after the expiration of ninety days for the restoration of all that had been lost, and for the re-establishment of all that was in danger. A great many, and various interests and elements are brought into conflict in this sudden crisis, a great many personal ambitions, and a great many sectional interests, and it would be strange if they would all be accommodated, arranged and harmonized, so as to admit and give full effect to the one profoundest and most enduring sentiment or passion of the United States, that of devotion to the Union. These -- whether you call them Secession or Revolution on the one side, or coercion or defiance on the other -- are all to subside and pass away before the Union, which is to become the grand absorbing object of interest, affection, and duty upon the part of the citizens of the United States. A great many partisan interests are to be repressed and suppressed to give peace to the partisan interests expressed by the Charleston Platform, the Baltimore Platform, the Chicago Platform, by the Popular Sovereignty Platform, if, indeed, the Union is in danger, and is to be saved. With these interests and with these platforms, everybody standing upon them or connected with them is to pass away, if the Union is in danger and is to be saved. But it will require a very short time, if this Union is in danger, and does require to be saved, for all these interests, all these platforms, and all these men to disappear. You, everybody who shall oppose, resist, or stand in the way of the preservation of this Union, will appear as moths on a Summer's eve, when the whirlwind of popular indignation arises that shall be excited at the full discovery that this Union is endangered through faction, and even impracticability on the one part I have hope and confidence that this is to come around just as I have said; and quite soon enough, because I perceive, although we may shut our eyes to it, that the country and mankind cannot shut their eyes to the true nature of this crisis. There has been a real, a vital question in this country for twelve years -- at least a question of Slavery in the Territories of the United States. It was the strongest in its development in 1850, when all the Pacific coast, and all the territory intervening between it and the Louisiana purchase was thrown upon our hands all of a sudden, for the purpose of our organizing in them free and independent Republican Governments as a basis of future States, and it has been an earnest, and, I regret to say, an angry controversy, but the admission of Kansas into the Union yesterday settled, at least, all that was vital or important in the question, leaving behind nothing but the passions which the contest had engendered. Kansas is in the Union, California and Oregon are in the Union, and now the same contest divides and distracts this Union for Freedom and Slavery in the Territories of the United States just as before. What is the extent of the Territories which remain, after the admission of Minnesota, Oregon, and of Kansas? - One million, sixty-three thousand, five hundred square miles, an area twenty-four times that of the State of New York, the largest of
