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^[[B K. Ross]]
^[[811-]]

DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. 
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"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.
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VOLUME IV. NUMBER I.
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, JUNE, 1861.
PRICE--ONE DOLLAR PER ANNUM
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DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.
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FREEDOM FOR ALL,
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OR CHAINS FOR ALL.
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POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT TOWARD SLAVERY.
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Few things could better illustrate the extent to which the national conscience has been perverted, blinded and depraved by slavery, than the attitude of favor which the American Government has assumed toward it in the present conflict with the slaveholding traitors and rebels.  Slavery has drawn the nation to the very verge of destruction.  It has turned loose upon the Government an hundred thousand armed men, eager to embrue their rebel hands in the warm blood of loyal citizens.  It has inaugurated piracy and murder on the sea, and theft and robbery on the land.  It has destroyed credit, repudiated just debts, driven loyal citizens from their homes, ruined business, arrested the majestic wheels of progress, and converted a land of peace and plenty into a land of blood and famine.  It has diverted capital, industry and invention from the channels of peace, and filled the land with war and rumors of war, so that the whole people are under a cloud of terror and alarm. It has attempted to supplant Government with anarchy, and the fury of a brutal mob for the beneficent operation of law, and the legally appointed law-makers.--It has blasted our peace and prosperity at home, and brought shame and disgrace upon us abroad.  It has robbed our treasury, plundered our forts and arsenals, trampled on our Constitution and laws, threatened Washington, and insulted the national flag--and yet how has the Government treated this foul and red-mouthed dragon?  Why, thus far, with the utmost deference, tenderness and respect.  The President is careful to proclaim his pacific intentions towards it; generals acting under him offer themselves and their men, unasked, to uphold it, and are at the pains of sending back to its blood-thirsty dominion those who have fled from it.

1.  It is said the slaves are property and ought to be respected.  Let us look at the matter in this its most favorable light.  The whole title of slavery to respect, is based upon the idea that the slave is property.  Beyond this, slavery imposes no obligation, and discharges none.  Its one, single, sole, and only merit is that its victims are (so called) property.--
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The slaves are property, just as horses, sheep and swine are property--just as houses, lands, agricultural and mechanical implements are property.  The right to a slave is no more sacred than the right to a horse or cow, or a barrel of flour.  In law they are chattels, things, merchandize, and subject to all the conditions and liabilities of sale, transfer and  barter, in time of peace, and of seizure and confiscation, like any other property, in time of war.  If our Government is bound to respect the rights of property in a slave, it can only be to the extent to which it is bound to respect all other property.  It clearly has no right to discriminate in favor of slave property as against any other species of property.  If it does so discriminate, special and powerful reasons are demanded for such a policy.-- Why should the flour and iron of the non-slaveholding merchant of Richmond be seized and appropriated by the Government, while the slave of the slaveholder, which slaveholder has helped foment this rebellion, is carefully returned to his master, as a piece of property too sacred to lose its character as property, even though its owner is an open traitor to the Government?  What is this but punishing the possibly innocent, and rewarding the certainly guilty?  What is it but an uncalled for, gratuitous and humiliating concession to the very heart and core of the treason which has placed itself above and opposed to the laws under which those engaged in it might otherwise claim to have this very species of property respected?  Viewed, therefore, solely as property, and granting all its sacredness as such, it stands precisely on a footing with all other property recognized as such by the laws of the land.  From this clear and incontestable position, it is plain that any plausible argument or rule of action, upon which the present American Government admits special favor to this species of property, must be based upon considerations other than the mere claim of property.

2.  If the policy of our Government, in putting down slave insurrections and returning fugitive slaves who escape to our army and our forts, during this war, cannot be defended upon the plea that slaves are property, it certainly cannot be defended on the ground of natural justice.  By that law, universal, 'unchangeable and eternal,' every man is the rightful owner of his own body, and to dispossess him of this right, is, and can only be, among the highest crimes which can be committed against human nature.  The only foundation for slavery is positive law against natural law, and the only positive law that binds the national Government in any way to do ought towards supporting slavery, is now cast off, and set at open defiance by the slaveholding traitors and rebels.  The Confederate Slave States have flung away the law, and resorted to rebellion for the protection of slave property.  Should they not be allowed--nay, should they not be made to feel all the disadvantages of their choice?  Why should 
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the strong and swift-sailing ship Union follow in the wake of the rotten and rickety slave ship of the Confederate States, to save passengers, property or crew, when dashed to pieces by the storm?  Should the not be made to suffer all the consequences of their deliberate folly?  They have appealed to Caesar--should they not be compelled to abide by Caesar's judgment?  They have forsaken the law--why should the law seek after them?  The common sense, we say nothing of the humanity of the people, who bear the expense of blood and treasure in putting down this slaveholding rebellion, can and will come to but one, and only one conclusion, namely--that if there ever was any legal obligation resting upon them to assist in putting down a slave insurrection, or to restore fugitive slaves to their masters, that obligation is inoperative, suspended and void while the rebellion is still in progress, and that to do any such thing as to suppress a rising of slaves, or to return fugitives to their so called masters, is a work of supererogatory servility and wickedness.

3.  But the policy of the Government, viewed only in the light of military wisdom, is most wretched.  The slaves are not only property, but they are men, capable of love and hate, of gratitude and revenge, of making sacrifices to serve a friend, or to chastise an enemy.  It is, therefore, in the circumstances of our Government, the wildest and most wanton folly to teach this element of power, for good or for evil, to hate the American flag.  They are the natural friends of all who would check and subdue the malign powers of their masters.  But when the Government shall thoroughly convince the slave population that their friendship is to be repaid with enmity--that they have nothing more to expect from the Star-Spangled Banner than from the Confederate flag--they will curse the very earth shaded by the presence of a United States soldier, and welcome any means to rid the South of their unnatural enemies.  What they have done already, in building forts, entrenchments, and other drudgery for their Southern masters, under compulsion, they will do as patriotic duty, as a means of escaping evils unseen and mitigating those they already endure.  The slave will mingle his curses with those of his master upon the head of the Northern invader and destroyer, and be among the foremost of those to fight for his expulsion.  The evils of the war is not to be confined to the master.  The slave will suffer in his food and raiment.  He will have to make bricks without straw, and perform his task without the incentive of a possible holiday, and a few hours of seeming liberty, for he will be kept under a more rigorous surveillance than ever before.  The crafty slaveholders will know well how to excuse this increased rigor.  It will be cunningly set to the account of these Northern hordes who are come to plunder, destroy and ruin the South.  The very best way, therefore for the Government
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