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476 DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. June, 1861 [[line across page]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] enough that it has within the last year lynched, tarred and feathered, or hung hundreds of our innocent people. It is quite enough that it has now involved us in a war by which we shall lose hundreds of millions of dollars, and an incomputable wealth of lives. If we suffer it to live, it may return to torment us. Let no Northern man henceforth propose, for any reasons whatever, the sparing of Slavery.--Such nonsense, such insult, such contempt of her interests, and rights, and honor, the North will stand no longer. A traitor to her will she regard every man who shall be guilty of it. Thank God ! the spirit of the North is at last aroused at this point. She is determined to kill Slavery, and she will be patient with no man who shall thrust himself between her and her victim. The sword she has drawn to defend herself against the sword of Slavery will never be sheathed until she has annihilated the one cause of her calamities. If, after all she has suffered and is now suffering from Slavery, she shall still be so spiritless, and servile, and compromising as still to let it live, then is she herself unworthy to live. The world would be infinitely better without than with her. It will not however, be strange, should this war continue so long, if the Slave States shall themselves ask Congress, at the approaching session, to exercise its war-power in abolishing the whole system of American Slavery. They may be driven to ask this as the only escape from the servile insurrections which shall then be upon them. That the North will yet, and speedily too, have to save the South from her own slaves, I have no doubt. Would that the President's Anti-Slavery training had been so thorough that he could now see Slavery to be the pre-eminent piracy, and therefore the pre-eminent outlaw! Would that he could now see it to have but just one right--the right of the wolf caught in the sheep-fold--the right to be killed. Then he would not delay to set all the slaves free by Proclamation. But it may be said that although we should require the Slave States to abolish Slavery, yet, if we should let them set up an independent nation they would re-establish Slavery.--Have no fear of that. They would not be disposed to do it. All their interests, as well as their recent horrors, would forbid it. The cotton manufacturers of Europe will no longer rely on our country for cotton. This mad outbreak of the South makes it indispensable for them to discontinue this precarious and odious dependence as soon as possible. In a very few years they will be abundantly supplied from other sources, where labor is much cheaper than is slave labor, and where nature is much more favorable than in any part of our land to the growth of cotton. Indeed it is not probable that either cotton or cane sugar will after a little time, be produced extensively in our country--so much better adapted to both are other regions. But for the high tariff protection it has enjoyed, very little cane-sugar would ever have been produced in it. I scarcely need add that Slavery will be of short duration in the Border Slave States after there shall be no further call on them to breed slaves for the Gulf States. Again, Slavery in Christendom has outlived its day. Its prolonged existence in it has for many years been an exceedingly forced one. It is dying out of it very rapidly. The dark thing cannot live in the strong light of this age. The foolish thing is shamed by the wisdom of this age. The wicked thing is condemned by the better ethics which are coming to prevail in this age. In our time, one nation after another has come forth against Slavery. Few of the nations of Christendom are any longer in guilty connection with it. Russia has declared the liberty of her twenty millions of slaves; and America must now give up her four millions. The organizing of a nation at such a time as this on the basis of Slavery is an unendurable defiance of the moral sense of the civilized world. I do not deny that American Slavery, if now suffered to live, might live many years. But if killed now, it will never live again. I rejoice to see the North so united against [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] this Southern rebellion. But to make the union more perfect and cordial and effective, by bringing into it with their whole heart all the wisest and best, the men of prayer and the women of prayer, and by bringing into it the Great God, the North must clear herself of all guilty relations to Slavery. IT IS NOT ENOUGH THAT WE HAVE A SOUTH WICKED ENOUGH TO GO AGAINST. WE MUST HAVE A NORTH RIGHTEOUS ENOUGH TO GO FOR. A slave-catching North is no better, but is immeasurably worse, than a slave-owning South. The North cannot at the same time go against and for Slavery. [[line]] JUDGE CHUMASERO'S REMARKS TO THE GRAND JURY. [[short line]] Monday morning, May 6th, the May term of the County Court and Sessions opened at the County Court Room in this city. Judge CHUMASERO, after submitting to the Jury some observations and instructions as to the performance of their duties, and the business of the term, continued as follows: The Sessions of the Courts in this County have heretofore been marked by no other demonstration than the attendance of witnesses and suitors, and the assembling together of those entrusted with the administration of justice and the laws. We meet today under circumstances at once peculiar and extraordinary: for the first time in our lives, we see our country convulsed with a rebellion most unholy and unnatural, and find the red hand of civil war stretched forth, to clutch in its remorseless grasp, our liberties and our domestic peace. A crisis like the present warrants a departure from all ordinary custom, and while it does not absolve us from the performance of our several duties, it emphatically demands that these duties be performed in the spirit of patriotism and true devotion, that the enthusiasm of our souls be not chilled by the cold formalities of judicial action, that Judge and Jurors alike appreciate their position, not only as administrators of the law, but as united citizens of a common country, whose cherished institutions are now imperilled by the base designs of traitors and rebellious men. Strange and stirring scenes have been enacted within the last few days. At the South, the dark cloud of treason--treason against the best and noblest government ever instituted among men--treason against the dearest interests of our race--treason against God and man, broods in impenetrable gloom. Traitors, upon whom have been lavished for many years the nation's proudest gifts and honors, are now banded together to drag down our glorious Republic in one common ruin, and to imbrue their wicked hands in the blood of their brethren. At the North, all are united in one determined effort to sustain the rights of man and to preserve intact the blessed heritage we now enjoy. All men are as brothers; our churches (strange spectacle to this generation) are, on the Sabbath, decorated with flags and banners, our national emblem waves from the sacred desk, and the preacher is stopped in his patriotic utterances by the irrepressible plaudits of his staid and sober auditory. And this is right, the basis of religion is true liberty. Freedom's temple is God's temple, and that same Almighty Father who caused our banner to wave victorious amid the serried troops of foreign mercenaries, is not offended by the ardor of his children when they attempt its rescue from the desecration threatened by traitors at home. It is best in the Divine ordainings that this crisis should come, and that it should come NOW. This rebellion is as causeless as it is unnatural. For many years the arrogance and domination of the South, and the almost uncomplaining forbearance of the North have been the wonder and amazement of the civilized world. During the greater portion of our national existence, the South has enjoyed almost all the offices of honor and emolument, drained our resources for her support, and been dictator of the North; while at the [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] same time she has contributed little to our glory, less to our treasury, and nothing to our national honor. Nay, in lieu thereof, we have been forced to become partakers in her shame and partners in her disgrace in the eyes of all civilized people. As a recompense for all this, she has lately robbed our treasury, stolen our arms, insulted our citizens, and now, as a last crowning act of damning infamy, seeks to apply the incendiary torch to the sacred temple of liberty itself! Of such traitors the doom is death--disgraceful death--and then, not oblivion, but eternal, never-ending, all-enduring execration and abhorrence. --Truly may it be said of them: 'Unprized are their sons till they learn to betray; Undistinguished they live if they shame not their sires; And the torch that would lead them to victory's way Must be caught from the pile where their country expires.' This rebellion must be, as it will be, crushed, and its leaders brought to justice. There should not be--there must not be--any compromise, except upon our terms. Those terms ought to be unconditional surrender and submission; a quick and immediate delivery of the leaders into the hands of justice; restoration of the property they have seized and stolen; indemnity against the expenses we have incurred; and a total deprivation of all arms and implements of war for the period of at least one generation. If they are determined to persist in their rebellious treason, then 'cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.' And let it be and aggressive war; a war of conquest and subjugation, though it need for half a century a standing army to compel their obedience after having been whipped into submission. Our government must know and feel that diplomacy and crafty statesmanship are out of place on that occasion, that unflinching retribution and atonement, deep and thorough, are all we can, are all we will, are all we dare accept, and nothing less will answer. Better is it to wade knee deep in blood to conquer an enduring peace, than to be parties to a hollow and unmeaning truce. Better, if need be, that the South be desolated, and the wolf return to howl in her domains, that her cities be destroyed, her plains remain untilled, and her 'peculiar institution,' that shibboleth of devils, and detestation of the civilized world, be botted out forever! Treason is insubordination to law. The laws must be upheld, enforced, maintained. If the civil power is inadequate, then by the arm of military strength. If blood must flow, let it flow; if property must be destroyed, let destruction come; if desolation be necessary, desolate. Under any and all circumstances, the Government and the laws must be sustained, and you, and I, and all of us, must help sustain them. Have we traitors among us at the North? Ferret them out and mark them; present them to the authorities for punishment, and let them not escape. This is your duty. Be liberal with your means; devote your energies, and your whole energies, to crushing out this hostile rebellion.--Your country, your religion, your children, all call on you to do it, and to do it once, forever! Let the retribution be so terrible that posterity shall shudder when, in after times, Secession and Rebellion are even whispered among men. No ordinary fate awaits the leaders of this treason. They must either expatriate themselves or die, wandering as vagabonds upon the earth, or sleeping in the traitor's grave, their memories execrated and their names accursed. We shall emerge from this contest, purified by its fires, the brighter and more glorious for the terrible ordeal.--Peace will again be within our walls, and prosperity within our palaces. Our flag will be more than ever respected abroad, and more than ever beloved at home. We shall show the world that instead of the weakest we have the STRONGEST Government on earth, for it is anchored in the virtue, the patriotism, the intelligence of the people--thier hearts its standing army, their strong arms its bulwark and defence. Peace will again smile upon our borders, and we shall see our Union [[/column 3]]
