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498     DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.     AUGUST, 1861
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embarrass the Government in its efforts to accomplish a speedy settlement.  The fact is, we are living in troublous times, on a mighty stream afloat, without pilot, rudder or chart, and no man knows just where the winds and the waves of events may yet carry us. 

--Since the above was written, the Federal army has met that of the rebels, under BEAUREGARD and JEFF. DAVIS, at Bull's Run, near Manassas Junction, Va.  The battle was hot and bloody, and was decided in favor of the rebels, they having repulsed the Federal army, causing it to retreat to Washington, with great losses in killed and wounded and in provisions and munitions of war.  Among the rebels were black troops, no doubt pressed into the service by their tyrant masters.  This disastrous and deeply melancholy event, which has brought sorrow and mourning to thousands of Northern hearts and homes, and covered the friends of the Government with deepest sadness, has much changed the tone of Northern sentiment as to the proper mode of prosecuting the war, in reference to slavery, the cause of the war.  Men now call not only for vengeance and righteous retribution, but for the destruction of the cause of their great national disaster.  A cry has gone forth for the abolition of slavery.  It us not merely a cry of passion, but of sound policy, the speediest method of terminating the war, and setting the Government in permanent safety from future disturbance.  The strength of the rebels, the vigor with which they prosecute the war, the deadly hate towards the North which they cherish, the strong bond of union which a common interest in slavery affords, the employment of slaves to do the drudgery of the rebel army, and to shoot down the Government troops--the fact that this is a slaveholder's rebellion and nothing else, all point out slavery as the thing to be struck down, as the best means of the successful and permanent establishment of the peace and prosperity of the nation.  If the defeat at Bull's Run shall have the effect to teach the Government this high wisdom, and to distinguish between its friends and its foes at the South, that defeat, terrible as it is, will not have been entirely disastrous.  It would, indeed, greatly mitigate the sorrow and suffering which has occasioned, if out of it shall come a policy of liberty and justice, extending its blessings impartially to all, and effectually putting down the whole class of pestiferous slaveholders, so that the nation shall know them no more, except in history, to be execrated and loathed, with all other robbers and tyrants which have cursed and ruined human society, and made the earth red with innocent blood.  Why should the people of this great nation longer hesitate?  Does not every man know the cause of all our national troubles?  Why should they spare that which is not only the crime and the shame of America, but the rot and the ruin of the Republic?  How long must rebellions rage?--How long must red-handed slaughter, fear and alarm stalk through the land, to convince the Government at Washington, and the people of the country, that their true and only method of escape from both present and future trouble, is by battering down the prison of the bondman. 

We are happy to believe--indeed, we have very good evidence of the fact--that the Administration at Washington, notwithsanding
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appearances, stand ready to inaugurate and carry out a policy towards slavery which will most certainly eventuate in breaking down slavery in all the rebel States, just so soon as the people shall require it.  By the simple process of calling upon the blacks of the South to rally under the Star Spangled Banner, and to work and fight for freedom under it--precisely as they are now working and fighting for slavery under the hateful flag of rebellion--we could in a few month emancipate the great body of the slaves, and thus break the back bone of the rebellion.  Now is the time to press this idea upon public notice.  The Government should be addressed through the press, by petitions, by letters, by personal representations, and in every way, in a manner to convince it that the people of this great Republic are ready to receive and support every measure consistent with the general welfare and the common defence, to have an end put to slavery in every State requiring Federal arms to repress and put down rebellion. 

Nor are the people quite as far from this requirement of wisdom, justice and humanity, as at first sight it might seem.  Though it is generally true that governments only move as they are moved upon by the people, they do sometimes find themselves moved by events which they cannot control, and when so moved in a just cause, they never move alone, but infallibly draw the people with them.  Let but the Administration firmly occupy the ground pointed out by JOHN QUINCY ADAMS twenty years ago, that the war power of the Government gives power to abolish slavery, and assert the necessity of acting upon it, and tardy and blind as the people have seemed, they will go for it with startling unanimity and enthusiasm.  Half the North but a few month ago denounced coercion, (i.e.,) the armed enforcement of the laws and the Constitution against slaveholding traitors and rebels.  They would probably have yet been divided, had the Government remained undecided and in doubt.  The moment the Government was resolved, the people were also resolved, and have so remained through good report and through evil report.  The people at heart are against slavery.  None other than a wolf's heart can be otherwise.  All they want is a leader, with power and authority, and they are ready to follow where he leads.  They are yet checked by supposed constitutional objections, and by practical difficulties.  President LINCOLN, Secretaries SEWARD, CHASE, CAMERON and BLAIR, have only to devise the mode of avoiding those difficulties of law and practice, and they will have the joyous support of the great heart of America, and the blessings of those ready to perish.
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ANDERSON THE FUGITIVE IN LONDON.--A meeting of the inhabitants of Marylebone was held on Wednesday evening, June 19, convened for the twofold purpose of raising funds for the benefit of ANDERSON, the fugitive slave, who had recently arrived from Canada, and for his kinsman, of Hamilton, C.W., to aid them in erecting a church and school.  The Rev. Dr. BURNS presided, and addresses were delivered by Rev. T.M. KINNAIRD, Rev. Dr. BURNS, and the Rev. Mr. HORNE.  ANDERSON himself offered a few remarks, justifying the course he had taken in securing his liberty.  He was enthusiastically received, and a large amount of money was raised for him.
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THE REBELS, THE GOVERNMENT, AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM.
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Thus far our Government has made very little progress in suppressing the slaveholding rebellion.  Aside from the movements of Gen. LYON in Missouri, and of Gen. McCLELLAN in Western Virginia, where the forces have been mainly from the slave States, the rebels have had a decided advantage, and are probably stronger than at the beginning of the war.  The defeat of the Government forces at Bull's Run on Sunday, July 21st, has inspired the rebels with new confidence, and confirmed their high hopes of ultimate success.  At Great Bethel, at Vienna, at Acquia Creek, and wherever there has been fighting aside from Western Virginia and Missouri, the rebels have been on the winning side, and to-day they send up shouts of exultation and defiance.  The Government has men, money, and munitions of war in abundance, and the complete freedom of the sea.  The rebels are poor in men, money, munitions of war, and are suffering all the hardships of a rigorous blockade.  Yet with all these, and the disadvantages of an atrociously wicked cause, they are to this hour msaters of the field.  Who shall explain to us why this is so?  Why does wrong so prosper against right?  Many answers come to us.  One alleges that it is the incompetency of our Generals; another, that it is the strong positions occupied by the rebels; and the third tells us, that it is all owing to the treachery of the late Administration.  These, and a thousand other explanations, come to us; but the real difficulty of the case remains untouched.

Our solution of the matter is this:  The South is in earnest, and the North is not.  The South is whole, and the North is half.  The South has one animus, the North another.  The contest is unequal in the spirit and purpose of the fight.  The feeling of the North towards the South is destitute of every element of malice.  It seeks to conquer as much by conciliation as by the sword.  It would commend itself more by the gentleness of its temper, than by the irresistibleness of its power.  The South fights from choice--the North from necessity.  The one is positive, and the other is merely negative.  The one strikes with all exterminating vigor of a settled and deadly hate--the other with the hesitating reluctance of a compassionating parent, careful not to wound too deeply the offending child.  So to our mind stands the matter.  The South hates the North, and the North even yet loves the South and would rather win her back to loyalty by kinds words than by hard blows.

All this is made very manifest in the conduct of both belligerents.  Witness the scenes of Bull's Run the other day, when the rebels amused themselves in sticking bayonets in the dead, and setting the wounded up against stumps, and shooting at them as targets.--Witness the deceptions, the cheats, the unscruplous lying, and the firing upon and killing their prisoners of war, to which they have resorted.  Witness their throwing shot and shell every point where they had reason to know that they were killing only the sick and wounded.  Witness their shooting down our men when they could have taken them as prisoners, and in these things learn that the South is to its finger ends filled with the fiercest and deadliest hate.
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