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April, 1861. DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. 443 [[line]] [[three columns]] [[column 1]] ernment more than they conttribute to it. So far, their place will be more profitable than their company. The whole matter of Southern trade has been grossly exaggerated, as well as the importance of the Mississippi river. Freedom carves her own lines of iron. Facts show that for one dollar the West sends or brings by the river, she sends and brings four to and from the East by wagon and rail. It, then Mississippi and Louisiana bar the river with forts, they will grasciously be allowed to pay for them, while Northern railroads grow rich carrying behind steam tea small portion of wheat, bacon, silk or tea which would otherwise float lazily up and down that yellow stream. The Cincinnati Press, which has treated this subject with rare ability, asserte that, excepting provicions which the South must, in any event, buy of the West, the trade of Cincinnati with Southern Indiana alone is thrice her trade with the whole South. As our benevolent societies get about one dollar in seven south of Mason and Dixon's line, so our traders sell there only about one dollar in five.-- Such trade, if cut off, would ruin nobody. In fact, the South buys little of us, and pays only for about half she buys. Now we build Southern roads, pay Southern patrol, carry Southern letters, suppport, out of the nation's treasures, an army of Southern office holders, waste more money at Norfolk in building ships that will not float, than is spent in protecting the five great lakes, which bear up millions of commerce. These vast pensions come back to us in shape of Southern traders, paying, on the average, one half their debts. Dissolve the Union, and we shall save this outgo, and probably not sell without a prospect of being paid. Southern trade is a lottery, to which the Union gives all the prizes. Put it on a sound basis by disunion, and the North gains. If we part without anger, the South buys, as every one does, of the cheapest seller. We get her honest business, without being called to fill up the gap of bankruptcy which the wasteful system of slave labor must occasion. In this generation, no slave State in the Union has made the year's ends meet. In counting the wealth of the Union, such States are a minus quantity. Should the Gulf States, however, return, I have no doubt the United States treasury will be called on to pay all these secession debts. [[line]] OUR NEW TERRITORIES-- Three new territories have been lately created by a vote of Congress, and the approval of the President. Of these Colorado is made from part of Kansas, Nebraska and Eastern Utah. It has been know as Pike's Peak, and was called, at first, in the Organic Act, Idaho. It extends from the 37th degree of North Latitude to the 41st and lies between the 102nd and 109th paral els of West Longitude. It contains 100 000 square miles, with a population of 25,000. It is chiefly valuable at present for its mines of gold. The Rocky Mountains divided the Territory, and furnish the water shed for branches of the Southern Colorado on one side, and those of the Arkansas and Platt on the other. Its capital is Denver City. Nevada includes parts of Utah and California. Its boundaries are irregular, and it extends South to New Mexico. It includes Carson's Valley, and the newly discovered silver mines of Washoe, and reaches north to Oregon. Its capital is Virginia City. It is admirably fitted for agricultural purposes, besides being rich in miracles. Dacotah lies between the parallels of 42 1/2 and 49. It reaches British America on the north, and is surrounded by Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska. It contains 70,000 square miles. It has many valuable rivers, but the land is mostly prairie. It is now mostly valuable for its furs. It is very sparsely settled. [[line]] -- Hon. David Wilmot has been elected U.S. Senator by the Pennsylvania Legislature, to fill the vacancy occasioned by Senator Cameron, who has been appointed Secretary of War by President Lincoln. [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] AMENDMENT TO THE FUGITIVE SLAVE. [[short line]] The following amendment to the Fugitive Slave Law passed the House of Representatives a day or two before its adjournment, by a vote of 92 to 82: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled. That every person arrested under the laws of Congress for the delivery up of fugitives from labor, shall be produced before a court, judge or commissioner, mentioned in the law approved 18th of September, 1850, for the State or Territory wherein the arrest may be made, and upon such production of the person, together with the proofs mentioned in the sixth or the tenth section of said act, such court, judge, or commissioner shall proceed to hear and consider the same publicly, and if such court, judge, or commissioner, is of opinion that the person arrested owes labor or service to the claimant according to the laws of any other State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, and escaped therefrom,the court, judge, or commissioner, shall make out and deliver to the claimant or his agent, a certificate stating these facts; and if the said fugitive shall, upon the decision of the court, judge, or commissioner, being made known to him, or commissioner, being made known to him, aver that he is free and does not owe service or labor according to the law of the State or Territory to which he is to be returned, such averment shall be entered upon the certificate, and the fugitive shall be delivered by the court, judge, or commissioner, to the marshal, to be by him taken and delivered to the marshal of the United States for the State or district from which the fugitive is ascertained to have fled, who shall produce said fugitive before one of the judges of the Circuit Court of the United States for the last mentioned State of District, whose duty it shall be, if said alleged fugitive shall persist in his averment, forthwith, or at the next term of the Circuit Court, to cause a jury to be empannelled and sworn to try the issue whether such fugitive owes labor or service to the person by or on behalf of whom he is claimed, and a true verdict to give according to the evidence; on such trial the fugitive shall be entitled to the aid of counsel and to process for procuring evidence at the cost of the United States; and upon such finding, the judge shall render judgment, and cause said fugitive to be delivered to the claimant, or returned to the place where he was arrested, at the expense of the United States, according to the finding of the jury; and if the judge or court be not satisfied with the verdict, he may cause another jury to be empannelled forthwith, whose verdict shall be final. And it shall be the duty of said marshal so delivering said alleged fugitive, to take from the marshal of the State from which said fugitive is alleged to have escaped, a certificate acknowledging that said allege fugitive had been delivered to him, giving a minute description of said alleged fugitive, which certificate shall be authenticated by the U. S. District Judge, or a Commissioner of a U. S. Court for said State from which said fugitive was alleged to have escaped, which certificate shall be filed in the office of the Clerk of the U. S. District Court for the State or District in which said alleged fugitive was seized, within sixty days from the date of the arrest of said fugitive ; and should said marshal fail to comply with the provisions of this act, he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be punished by a fine of $1000, and imprisonment for six months, and until his said fine is paid. Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That no citizen of any State shall be compelled to aid the marshal or owner of any fugitive, unless when force is employed or reasonably apprehended to prevent such capture or detention too powerful to be resisted by the marshal or owner, and the fees of the commissioners appointed under the act of 18th September, 1850, shall be $10 for every case heard and determined by such commissioner. [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] STAND FAST! [[short line]] AN ENGLISH APPEAL TO FREEDOM'S FRIENDS IN AMERICA. O Brother Freemen o'er the sea, Our English pride--our boast, You whom, when here we name the free, We love and honor most. To day with eager ears and hearts, With natures strangle stirred, We blush to hear what from your marts, Your homesteads, shall be heard. To-day the war of hell and heaven Is waged by each of you; To-day to each of you 'tis given, To either to be true; Our English hearts well may we still, While we this issue bide; God's hopes and ours will you fulfill, Or blench from Freedom's side? In many a cause it well may be Good men their way may miss; But right and justice now can see No way but one in this; Here is no room for paltering doubts; Each soul must, to its cost, Weigh well the doom that conscience shouts, Who wavers here, is lost. Guides of the present--hopes of earth, The nations look to you, Even as their freedom springs to birth, To learn what freemen do. Show them, by all that is your fame, By your free fathers' graves, Their sons this hour dare not the shame Of faster fettering slaves. Those fathers left their homes--their land, The sea and desert trod, Because for Conscience they must stand, Must live or die with God. And you--of you shall it be said, When of you men shall tell, 'We name them not--they basely flee From heaven to side with hell.' Draw not one foot back in this strife; To you is God's voice dumb? On you depends the more than life Or death of all to come. Let the South rage--the Devil plead For mercy; Men be ye! But God--but Right--the Conscience heed, And stamp the future Free! GREENWICH, Jan., 1861. W. C. BENNETT. [[line]] PROCEEDING AT DR. CHEEVER'S CHURCH.-- Last evening special meeting of the church of the Puritans was held in the lecture-room of the church, the Rev. S. R. Davis in the chair. The meeting had been called at the request of a few members of the church who were opposed to the continuance of Dr. Cheever's relations with that church. Mr. E. W. Chester presented a request to the church, setting forth a number of difficulties, which were made up of decisions at meetings of the church on previous occasions, and asking for a Mutual Council to settle the existing differences, and to consider the propriety of dissolving the relations between Dr. George B. Cheever and the Church of the Puritans. The request was rejected by an overwhelming majority. The Committee appointed some time since to arrange an amicable settlement of all differences between members in the church, was then read. It set forth that every effort on the part of the said Committee had failed with certain factious individuals, and that their efforts had been rendered ineffectual by the proposition which said parties had made for a mutual council. A resolution accepting and adopting the report, and suspending from church fellowship until such time as they shall give evidence of penitence, Messrs. E. W. Chester, C. R. Harvey, Charles Abernethy, Thomas Rigney, G. H. White, and the Rev. Joel Blackmer, was passed, also, by an overwhelming majority.-- N.Y. Tribune, March 23d. [[line]] -- A colored woman named Betts has been missing for several weeks in Chicago. She is supposed to have been kidnapped, and the colored people of that city are greatly excited. A Mr Pinkerton is accused of knowing something of her whereabouts, but he denies it. [[/column 3]]
