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JUNE, 1861.     DOUGLASS MONTHLY.     477

not disintegrated nor dissolved, but firm and steadfast, moving onward and onward toward the full perfection of its glorious destiny.

Let the people of the North condemn this treason, on every occasion, and in every place; in the church, in the Court House, in the school house, in the workshop, on the farm, indoors and out of doors.  Let the people ignore all party, throw aside all custom, break through all conventional barriers, and from the rising of the sun until the going down thereof, until the last traitor expiates his crime upon the scaffold, condemn this treason!  Let us do our duty in this crisis, and we may rest assured that our Heavenly Father who in other ‘days that tried men’s souls,’ preserved and blessed our country, will not desert her now, in this her time of travail, but will, ‘constraining even the wrath of man to praise Him,’ watch, persevere and guard her in the storm, and re-baptize her in the fullness of his love.  Invoking His blessing, let us proceed to business.

FEARS OF SLAVE INSURRECTIONS.

SOUTH CAROLINA.

In the interior of South Carolina, fears of slave insurrections are exciting much alarm.— Men sleep with guns at their bedsides; women refuse to be left alone on the plantations.  In one neighborhood, forty miles from Charleston, it is certain that an attempt at insurrection was put down, recently, and ten negroes were hung.

A curious practice of the negroes in some portions of the State is related by a gentleman who left Charleston a few days ago.  In certain districts they would get permission now and then to have a funeral.  According to their custom they went in the night, and taking a monstrous big coffin would bury it in the woods.  On one occasion, the suspicions of a patrolman became aroused, and he said to the party, ‘This must have been a mighty big nigger that died to-night.’  He proceeded to make an examination, when it was found that the long, ghostly box contained arms.— The negroes belonged to one of the men of highest rank in the State.  On another occasion, a gentleman meeting a negro with a a musket in his hand, said, 'Where did you get that gun?  You lay that gun down.'  The negro replied evasively, ‘Well, I got it;’ and added in a sulky, low tone: ‘We will use guns as well as you by-and-by.’  The negro was shot dead a moment after these words fell from his lips.

A gentleman at Charleston, in a recent letter to a brother-in-law in Philadelphia, states that he was in that city, with the soldiers, during the late military operations, and while absent from home the negroes burned down four dwelling houses and eight stores in the town in which he resides, and four dwelling houses in the vicinity.  Eight negroes were hung, and the writer says he supposes they shall have to hang a dozen more before a month passes.

LOUISIANA.

The New Orleans Picayune recently complained that the up-river parishes of Louisiana were very slow in furnishing their proportion of troops for the rebel army, and for the ‘defence of the State.’  A gentleman who has just returned from a journey through that State informs the Evening Post 'that this hesitation does not arise so much from any preponderance of the Union sentiment, as from the general fear entertained by the planters and farmers, of a rising among the slaves.  Almost every plantation is doubly guarded, everywhere the slaves are watched with the utmost vigilance.  Planters refuse to let any of their white employees enlist, but arm them and keep them as private guard.  One planter, the owner of three hundred negroes, expressing his fears to our informant, said— ‘D-—n the niggers, they know more about politics than most of the white men.  They know everything that happens.’

TENNESSEE.

A letter has been received in New York, from the wife of Bishop Polk of Louisiana.  She, with her family of three daughters, was alone in their new house at Sewanee, Tenn.  On the night of the 12th of April, their house was burned over their heads by negroes.  At the same time the residence of Bishop Elliot was fired also.  The ladies escaped with some few trifling injuries, but lost almost all their clothes.  Books, jewelry, pictures, all were destroyed by the devouring flames.  Their own family servants aided in extinguishing the fire, the women bringing their Sunday clothes to dress their mistresses.  Much dissatisfaction exists among the slaves, and insurrections are likely to occur.

The Memphis Avalanche and other secession prints insist that no disaffection exists or is feared among the slaves; but this is a falsehood.  The words of John Randolph have become literally true:  ‘No mother hears the alarm-bell at night without pressing her infant closer to her bosom, and trembling at the thought of a slave insurrection.’  Incendiary fires have been frequent of late, and a friend says: ‘When the fire-bells ring, every woman in the city is terrified, and fears that the negroes are rising.  With the departure of every company of soldiers, the feeling of insecurity is increased.  Reports of insurrections from various parts of the interior are rife, though they are suppressed as far as possible, and kept out of the newspapers.— An insurrection recently occurred in Hernando, Mississippi.’

The Cincinnati Gazette, on the authority of another gentleman from Memphis, confirms the above statement:

‘The city is filled with alarms and excitements.  Hundreds of women in Memphis never lay their heads upon their pillows at night without dreaming of insurrection.  On every public alarm the fire bells are rung, and this brings the entire population into the street.  A few nights since a rumor spread that a large body of troops were coming southward from the Ohio, and a fearful scene of excitement filled Memphis for hours.  The fire bells rang furiously.  The numerous mounted patriots dashed to and fro.  Women shrieked.  Mothers clasped their children to their bosoms in frantic agony.  All was confusion, and its greatest terror lay in the doubt whether it was an insurrection on Southern soil or an invasion of Federal troops.’

MISSISSIPPI.

In Mississippi the same fears prevail, and to the same extent.  Planters dare not leave their homes, and no one thinks of staying away a night from his family.  The drafting of so many thousands of white residents into the rebel army fills those who remain with dread of the slaves.

MISSOURI.

The St. Louis Democrat says that a gentlemen from Washington county, now in that city, states that on Friday last a slave boy belonging to him entered the kitchen and carried out a shovel full of coals from the fire, without exciting his suspicion, and that his barn was soon after in flames and destroyed.  A colored girl in the house had threatened to burn the house.  The boy coolly acknowledged what he had done, saying that all the black people were free now—that Lincoln was President, and that he set them all free.

MARYLAND.

A correspondent writing from the camp at Beltsville, Md., May 14th, says:—‘The slaves here appear quite intelligent.  They expect that they were soon to be freed, and say that if it was not for that hope, they would flee at once, and gain freedom or death.  They are anxious that we should kill their masters, who, they say, are ready to kill us at the first opportunity.’

KENTUCKY.

Last week there were rumors in Louisville that a slave insurrection had been put down near Lexington, and the following is a minute of a conversation between a lady residing in an interior town of the State and her white servant made, as communicated by the lady herself to our informant:

Girl—‘What is to become of the slaves when this war is over, ma’am?’

Lady—Nothing.  They have no interest in it.’

Girl (hesitating)—‘You may think they have not; but if you could hear some of them speak as I do sometimes, you would think differently.’

Lady—‘What do they say?’

Girl—‘They are always whispering among themselves; and the other day one told me that in six months she would be as good as I am.  They say the war is going to set them free, and they are very anxious for it to come.’

Facts like the above never get into the Southern papers, but they show the state of feeling existing among the slaves throughout the entire South.

THE SOUTH AND HER NEGROES.

A Virginia Unionist, recently driven from the State for refusing to pledge his support to the Jeff. Davis treason, writes a letter to the New York Times, from which we extract the following:

HOW WILL THE NEGROES ACT?

This question is beginning to assume importance.  Southern newspapers boast of the loyalty of their slaves, of their anxiety to fight their Northern enemies, and triumphantly tell us that thousands are now throwing up defences and are otherwise engaged in the service of the Southern army, and many slaveholders confidently believe that their servants will assist them in this fight; but, in answering this question, I shall be obliged to tear off the mask.

Despite the efforts of Southern masters, large numbers of slaves and free negroes have learned to read, and many of them are far more intelligent than the ‘poor white trash’ with which the slave States abound.  During the late Presidential campaign, the most interested and eager listeners at political meetings were these people; they communicated to each other what they heard, and they all understood that the question of slavery was involved in the contest, and very many believed that the election of Mr. Lincoln would secure their emancipation, and many acted in accordance with this belief.  One out of many facts will illustrate this point.  Soon after the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, seventeen slaves, living on a plantation near Petersburg, Va., repaired to their master early one morning, and the spokesman of the party boldly told him that they had served him long enough; that they were free now, and had merely called to tell him that they were going away, and on they went.  The master had no power to stop them, but he reached Petersburg before them, where he had the whole party arrested, sold, and sent to the far South.  A prevalent opinion among them is that this war is a fulfillment of the prophecy recorded in the eleventh chapter of Daniel.— They have their revolutionary and patriotic songs, which they sing in private.  They hold secret religious meetings, the burden of their prayer being that the Lord will help the North, and hasten the day of their emancipation.  A few days ago I was traveling in the interior of Virginia.  Night overtook me in the neighborhood of a farm house, where I was entertained until the next day.

That night I chanced to hear the evening devotions of the slaves in one of their huts.  I was an unobserved spectator.  I heard them pray for the success of the North, and one old woman wept for joy when told that the Northern armies were soon coming to set them free.  ‘Oh! good massa Jesus,’ said she, ‘let the time be short.’  During this time they heard the clang of arms in their master’s house, for two of his sons were members of a troop of horse, ready to start in the morning for Richmond, and were practicing with the broadswords.  To their masters, the slaves pretend entire ignorance of the whole movement, but to white men in whom they confide, they reveal their hopes, fears, desires and plans.  They have no arms, and could not use them if they had; but they have

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