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DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. [[double line]] "OPEN THY MOUTH FOR THE DUMB, IN THE CAUSE OF ALL SUCH AS ARE APPOINTED TO DESTRUCTION; OPEN THY MOUTH, JUDGE RIGHTEOUSLY, AND PLEAD THE CAUSE OF THE POOR AND NEEDY." - 1st Eccl. xxxi. 8.9. [[double line]] VOLUME III. NUMBER XII ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, MAY, 1861. PRICE-ONE DOLLAR PER ANNUM [[double line]] [[start of left column]] DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. [[double line]] FREEDOM FOR ALL [[image - drawing of an eagle holding American flag, with ribbon at the bottom]] OR CHAINS FOR ALL. [[double line]] A TRIP TO HAYTI. [[short line]] A dream, fondly indulged, a desire, long cherished, and a purpose, long meditated, are now quite likely to be realized. At this writing, we are on the eve of starting for a visit of a few weeks to Hayti; and before the announcement can reach all our readers and friends, especially those in Great Britain, we shall propably be well on our ocean-way to the shores of la Republique del' Hayti. For this piece of good fortune (for such we [[page folded, 2 words obscured]] and hope it will prove to be) we are indebted for all, save the disposition to go the voyage, to the considerate kindness of the Haytian Government. That Government has removed an important obstacle out of the way, which might have delayed, though it could not have prevented our long-desired visit. Too late to apprize our readers in our April number of the fact, we were informed that a steamer was being chartered by the Haytian Bureau at Boston to carry emigrants and passengers to Hayti from the United States. This intimation was accompanied with a generous offer of a free passage to ourself and daughter to and from Hayti, by Mr. REDPATH, the Haytian Consul at Philadelphia. We are not more thankful for this generous offer from the quarter whence it comes, than sensible of the kind consideration which it implies. We gratefully appreciate both, and shall promptly avail ourselves of the double favors. The steamer secured for the voyage is to sail from New Haven, Connecticut, about the 25th of April, and will, if all be well, reach Port-au-Prince by the first of May. In making this announcement, we do not wish in any wise to conceal the fact that we are much elated by the prospect of standing once upon the soil of San Domingo, the theatre of many stirring events and heroic achievements, the work of a people, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. We began life too late to accomplish much. More than twenty one years of it were lost for all proper educational advantages. Slavery stole from us those years when study and travel should do most for a man; but the world [[end of left column/start of middle column]] is still new and beautiful to us, and we still rejoice in any opportunity to increase our knowledge of its works and ways. We have seen much of it, but mostly its sterner features. Clouds and storms, ice and snow, moral as well as physical, have been our familiar elements. We have felt the keenly cutting, frosty air, from off the desolate coast of Labrador, amid the snows of winter; but we have never felt the beams of a tropical sun, seen the luminous stars of a tropical sky, heard the sweet warblings of tropical birds, inhaled the fragrance of tropical breezes, nor beheld the endless wealth of a tropical soil. We are going to a land where nature is in full dress, and unfolds her charms in all their loveliness. But we go to Hayti not to enjoy its delightful and soothing climate, to rest in the shadow of its stately palms, nor to luxuriate in its delicious fruits, and its glorious flowers. While not insensible to these delightful attractions, we are drawn towards that sunny region at this time by other considerations than those of pleasure--considerations connected with the sacred cause to which we have gladly given twenty years of unremitting toil. A visit to Hayti at any time would be a high privilege to us. Our whole experience makes such a visit desirable. Born a slave as we were, in this boasted land of liberty, tinged with a hated color, despised by the rulers of the State, accustomed from childhood to hear the colored race disparaged and denounced, their mental and moral qualities held in contempt, treated as an inferior race, incapable of self government, and of maintaining, when left to themselves, a state of civilization, set apart by the laws of our being to a condition of slavery--we, naturally enough, desire to see, as we doubtless shall see, in the free, orderly and Independent Republic of Hayti, a refutation of the slanders and disparagements of our race. We want to experience the feeling of being under a Government which has been administered by a race denounced as mentally and morally incapable of self-government. While, however, we shall go to Hayti with strong prepossessions in its favor, we hope to go with the eyes of a truthful observer, able to see things as they really are, to consider the circumstances, and report the philosophy as well as the facts of the situation. Truth can hurt nobody, and we have no fear to tell even that which may seem to make against our cause, if truth shall require it. One thing we know in advance, of Hayti, and that is her people are 'nought but men and women;' and that men and women under a vertical sun where nature responds at the merest touch of industry to every physical want, will not tax themselves to make the same exertion as when in a colder climate and upon a sterner soil.--Another thing we know in advance, which is this: that against all disparagements from the United States against the crafty machinations of two continents to crush her, Hayti has during more than sixty years, maintained [[end of middle column/start of right column]] a free and independent system of government, and that no hostile power has been able to bend the proud necks of her people to a foreign yoke. She stands forth among the nations of the earth richly deserving respect and admiration. Both the press and the platform of the United States have long made Hayti the bug-bear and scare-crow of the cause of freedom. Ignorant of her real character in some instances; willfully blind to her obvious virtues in others, we have done her people the most marked injustice. The fact is, white Americans find it hard to tell the truth about colored people. They see us with a dollar in their eyes. Twenty hundred millions of dollars invested in the bodies and souls of the negro race in this Republic--a mountain of gold--constitutes a standing bribe, a perpetual temptation to do injustice to the colored race. Hayti has thus constantly been the victim of something like a downright conspiracy to rob her of the natural sympathy of the civilized world, and to shut her out of the fraternity of nations. No people have been compelled to meet and live down a prejudice so stubborn and so hatefully unjust. For a time it was fashionable to call them even in our Congress a nation of murderers and cutthroats, and for no better reason than that they won their freedom by their arms. It is quite time that this interesting people should be better understood. Though a city set on an hill, she has been hid; and though a light of glorious promise, she has been compelled to shine only under a bushel. A few names of her great men have been known to the world; but her real character as a whole, we are persuaded has been grossly misunderstood and perversely misrepresented. One object of our mission, therefore, will be to do justice to Hayti, to paint her as she is, and to add the testimony of an honest witness to honest worth. But besides these general motives, there are special ones growing out of the state of things at present existing in the country.--During the last few years the minds of the free colored people in all the States have been deeply exercised in relation to what may be their future in the United States. To many it has seemed that the portents of the moral sky were all against us. At the South they have been taught to believe that they must soon be forced to choose between slavery or expulsion. At the North there are, alas! too many proofs that the margin of life and liberty is becoming more narrow every year. There are many instances where the black man's places are taken by the white man, but few where, in the free States, the places of the white man are taken by the man of sable hue. The apprehension is general, that proscription, persecution and hardships are to wax more and more rigorous and more grievous with every year; and for this reason they are now, as never before, looking out into the world for a place of retreat, an asylum from [[end of right column]]
