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468 DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. JUNE, 1861 [[line]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] THE COURSE OF MARYLAND. [[short line]] All that cunning treachery and violence could do, have thus far failed to drive Maryland into the howling wilderness of disunion and open rebellion against the Federal Government. Her sympathies and her habits of thought, produced by the existence of slavery within her borders, have been all with the rebels. No state in the Union has a more barbarous slave code, and in her remote districts, a more rigorous bondage. A conflict has long been going on in that State, and especially in Baltimore, her chief city between the civilization of the free States, and the barbarism of the slave States. Twenty-five years have scarcely passed away since, in the public market places of that city of monuments and churches, naked slaves were chained to whipping posts, suffering all the tortures of the bloody lash, under the gaze of women and children, congregated there to buy their daily bread. That city has long been one of the chief slave markets of the country. The WOODFOLKS of thirty years ago, and the SLATERS of a later period, drove the infernal business with satanic energy and obduracy, filling their purses with the guilty price of innocence, tears and blood. We have seen their chain gangs of young men and women driven like cattle to the market, through the same Pratt street now stained with the blood of Massachusetts men. Accustomed to such scenes from early childhood, it is no wonder that violence and brutality, and all other crimes, should flourish there in profusion. The laws of mind are such that a man must either become indifferent to wrong, or more deeply roused against it by witnessing the barbarism of slavery. He must drink in the stream of cruelty, or turn with disgust and loathing from it. The tide of corruption and cruelty has been strong in that city, and yet since the days of good old ELISHA TYSON, there has been there a still, small voice which has been at work upon the better elements of human nature, occasionally revealing itself in the removal of some gross form of abuse, such as the abolition of the public whipping post, or the amelioration of the condition of the free colored people. The conflict has been noiseless, but none the less effective in its operation, and certain in its results. When, twenty-five year ago, we saw the old whipping post, opposite the County Wharf, removed, and naked slaves, no longer cruelly and shamefully whipped in the public market place; and when, still later, we saw the trade in human flesh seeking the wharves at midnight, rather than in the daylight, it became evident that slavery was on the retreat, and that it would finally disappear from the borders of the State. It has lingered longer than we hoped it would do; but its death is certain, and the very efforts now being made to perpetuate it, will only hasten its doom. Disunion has done its best and failed; and the natural consequence of the failure will be to bring odium and weakness upon the Slave Power which made the treasonable and rebellious attempt. They began their work too late. They should not have waited to destroy railroad bridges.--If they wanted slavery to continue in peace, they should have long ago rebelled against the building of railroads within the border of the State. The wild scream of the locomotive is the death knell of slavery. When [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] honey bees make their appearance on the outer border of western civilization, the Indians beat a retreat deeper into the far west. What bees are to the Indians, railroads are to slavery. Where men travel, commerce flourish, arts multiply, knowledge increases, slavery stands but a poor chance of permanence.--Maryland has moved on in the career of improvement too rapidly and steadily to permit the idea of the permanence of slavery in that State. While watching the course of events in all other slave States, those now transpiring in the State of Maryland have for us a peculiar interest. It is the State of our birth and our bondage, and that of our kith and kin; and though many years have passed away since out first hopes of freedom were kindled on the banks of its Chesapeake, we still hope to live to see the soil of our birth free from the stain of slavery, and walk over the road in freedom where we once walked in chains. The landed estates of Old England once shaped and controlled the policy of that noble country; but manufactures and commerce have dislodged and modified that power, and changes, marked and great, have been the result. The planters of Maryland, with their large corn and tobacco estates, once gave the law to Baltimore. Their influence is still great there; but its power is now broken.--The material out of which it used to coin its mobs will by-and-bye be turned against it, and work its overthrow. The instinct of the mob is on the side of power; and since the power of the slave holders is broken, and the power of the Federal Government comes to the relief of the long subordinate interest of the white mechanic and laborer, it is plain where the mob will be found hereafter. We look for a grand stampede of slaveholders from Maryland, with their slaves, to Southern or Gulf States, at the close of the present war, and for the speedy emancipation of the slaves that may remain. God speed the year of jubilee in our native State, and the wide world over! [[line]] EMIGRATION TO HAYTI.--The N.Y. Tribune notices the departure of thirty-eight emigrants from that port, for Hayti, on the 18th ult. The emigrants, comprising twenty-six adults, and twelve children, were chiefly from this city. They go out under the auspices of the Haytian Government, whose commissioner, JAMES REDPATH, Esq., has been indefatigable in his efforts to promote the benevolent views and wise policy of President GEFFRARD and his Government. Within the year, nearly three hundred have embarked for that Island, with the intention of accepting land for the purpose of cultivation. Their attention will be directed mainly to the growing of cotton, in the culture of which many of them are skilled. It would be desirable if the United States Government, in view of the important commercial relations already subsisting between Hayti and the United States, should look favorably on this movement, and the beneficial results to which it is auxiliary.--The 'Joseph Grice' is the name of the vessel in which our Rochester friends embarked, and we hope they will have a safe and speedy passage. [[line]] --At Marshfield, where the remains of Webster repose, a war fund of $5,000 has been raised, and a bounty of $11 is offered to each man who has enlisted or shall enlist. [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] ANTI-SLAVERY IN ROCHESTER. [[short line]] Nothwithstanding the marvelous change that has taken place in the tone of public sentiment in Rochester, as well as elsewhere, on the subject of slavery, we have not felt at liberty to cease to 'cry aloud and spare not," and to hold up the standard of immediate and unconditional emancipation, as the first great duty of the American people. The opposition to slavery, now manifesting itself every where at the North, seems less based upon principle and a love of humanity, than upon irritation caused by the extravagance of the demands and pretensions of the slaveholders This feeling may do something for the abolition of slavery, and we, therefore, rejoice in it; but we cannot forget that it has come upon us with the suddenness of the whirlwind, and that it may as suddenly subside, leaving the slave still in his chains, and the work of emancipation still to be done by the same agents and instrumentalities hitherto employed to that end. If the slaveholders would just confess that secession is a mistake, an absurdity, and an impossibility, as it clearly is, and return to their allegiance to the Federal Government, we fear that many voices, now loudly raised against it both in the pulpit, and on the platform, would die away in silence.--The spirit of compromise is still abroad here, and the feeling that the slave is a man and a brother, is still confined to the few. The mass of the people are yet under the dominion of prejudice against the enslaved, and cherish no deeper feeling against slavery than that which arises from a sense of the mischief it does to the white race, and the troubles and dangers it brings upon the country. We need still the hammer and the fire of the anti-slavery gospel applied without fear and without favor to the hearts of the people, and shall do so as long as the giant evil continues to rain down curses upon the land. We have, therefore, with others, been holding public anti-slavery meetings here every Sunday afternoon during the last six weeks, speaking to crowded houses, sowing the seed of sound Abolitionism, which, whether in peace or in war, will never rest until the slave is redeemed from his chains, and made to rejoice in the possession of his liberty. In addition to these Sunday meetings we have recently been favored with a visit from WILLIAM WELLS BROWN, who, though he only gave us a lecture on Hayti, he so handled the subject that slavery after all was revealed in all its hideousness. The history of the struggles for liberty in San Domingo by the despised men of color, the hardships, dangers and horrors through which they hewed their way to freedom, could not fail to suggest thrilling analogies, both to speaker and hearers. WM. WELLS BROWN is a striking evidence of what a man can do in the way of self-culture in the course of a few years. His lecture was replete with instruction, and quite eloquently delivered. Comparing this with his earlier efforts of a dozen years ago, and the growth of the man is quite amazing. We have had a visit from our old and esteemed friend J. W. LOGUEN, our General Agent of the Underground Railroad. He gave us, on Sunday, a discourse on slavery generally; but his works, rather than his speech commended him to the minds and hearts of his hearers. Miss HOLLEY was to have lectured for us last Sunday, but for some [[/column 3]]
