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500     DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.     AUGUST, 1861
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bility of a return to peace without any disturbance of the relation of master and slave.  When our statesmen get out of this moral fog about Southern rights, this political falacy about sovereign States, and endeavor to make this Government pure and blameless at the bar of Eternal Justice, then, and not till then, can we rationally hope for peace, and a united and happy people.
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[[bold]] AMERICAN DIPLOMACY. [[/bold]]
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The American Government has been remarkably unfortunate in the management of many of its interests; but we know of no particular in which it has been more unfortunate, than that which pertains to its character and standing among foreign nations.--When we have not been represented at foreign courts by stupidity and folly, we have never failed of late years to have our interests looked after by base and cunning plotters against the rights of our weaker neighbors.  We have seemed to covet for ourselves the reputation of being a nation composed of either knaves or fools.  We have made it something like a rule, to send no Minister abroad which can write and speak the language of the country to which he is sent, except England, which is a necessary exception.  This, perhaps, is not so unwise as upon first blush it would seem, for Americans are so loose of soul, that did they know the languages of the different countries to which they are deputed, they would doubtless communicate precisely those things which it would be least for the credit of their Government to have known.  That they may say nothing wrong, they are really qualified to say nothing at all except in the English tongue.  They are not selected for future services, but for past services to the party.  The result is, we have cut a very ridiculous figure before the world.  Our BUCHANANS and SOULES, with their Ostend fillibustering manifestoes, succeeded in making Europe regard us as a nation of restless freebooters, ready to invade any country which offered the slightest prospect of success.

Mostly, however, we have suffered in the picture presented of our relation to the system of slavery.  From the time that Virginia STEPHENSON wanted to shoot O'CONNELL for calling Virginia a slave-breeding State, to this hour, we have been placed before the world in the revolting light of a nation wedded to the crime of human slavery.  We hoped (perhaps on the slenderest foundation upon which even hope can build) that Mr. LINCOLN'S Administration would bring about a change in this respect, and we have not been altogether disappointed.  But there is one man now abroad who ought to be got home immediately, and that is our Minister to Russia.  CASSIUS M. CLAY should not be trusted out of the country.  Serviceable as he has been as a stump orator at the West, where lungs often pass as a good substitute for brains, he is obviously out of his place as a foreign Minister.  CASSIUS is, or was, a good fighter, and a passable stump orator, but he is plainly wanting in the accomplishments (one of which is common sense) of a diplomatist.

Mr. CLAY has had the reputation of being an Abolitionist in this country, and is supposed to have given proof of it--some say by emancipating his slaves--others say by putting them out of his power, and in the power of his wife, who, it seems, has no scruples against
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having her washing and cooking done without wages.  However this may be, Mr. CLAY has the reputation of being an Abolitionist.  He has established this reputation for himself by innumerable words, and some blows.  To us he has ever seemed what he has recently shown himself to be--an [[italics]] iron-eating bug [[/italics]]--one which DANIEL O'CONNELL used to call a [[italics]] humbug [[/italics]].  In a speech of his recently made in Paris, he taunts England for her anti-slavery inconsistency in not promptly taking sides with the North against the South in the present war.  In the same speech, and almost in the same breath, he tells England that her interference on the side of the South would inevitably lead to emancipation--a result which he says would be a '[[italics]] calamity [[/italics]]' to both countries!  This is enough, CASSIUS!  Your logic is about as good as your philanthropy, and both are of the seediest kind.  Why such a man should be sent abroad to represent us, is truly astonishing; for though Mr. CLAY does very well to represent the anti-slavery sentiment of the country, which still regards emancipation as a 'calamity,' and marvels that England does not sympathize with us as against the South, he does our people great injustice on the score of mental ability.
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[[bold]] WEST INDIA EMANCIPATION. [[/bold]]
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This sublime event of the nineteenth century, and the one of all others most creditable to the age, will not this first of August be extensively celebrated as in former years.--The war now swallows up everything.  Men are thinking and hoping for an event which shall be for us, and the world, more than West India Emancipation; and that would be the emancipation of every slave in America.--Nevertheless, the First of August will be duly celebrated in many places, east and west.  We, on that day, shall be with our friends in Watkins, at the head of Seneca Lake.--Preparations have been made for a large assemblage, and for making the occasion worthy of the great triumph of Justice and Humanity which it is designed to celebrate.  Our old friends in New Bedford, Mass., who formerly lead in such movements, do not now display as much spirit in the observance of this festival as formerly.  They have lately lost a man from among them.  HENRY O. REMINGTON'S death has made a void which remains unfulfilled, and which seems, we are sorry ty [sic] say, likely to remain so.  A recent visit to New Bedford made this impression painfully present during our sojourn there.  The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society hold their celebration, as usual, at Framingham; but we hear of no others in the Old Bay State.

There have been many mistakes and blunders made by the Government during the war, but none greater than those which have been made by Abolitionists who have taken this war as a trump of jubilee, and a release of themselves from the toil of anti-slavery agitation.  It seems to us that this of all other times is just when we should be most active and earnest in making known, in all their fullness and completeness, the great truths of Liberty, Justice and Humanity.--The Government has need of them, and we believe from what we have been recently informed by a gentleman fully initiated, the Government is wiling to do all that shall be demanded by the people.  Let the people speak, on the coming first of August, and ask
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our Government to seize the occasion which, through the operations of a natural Providence, is forced upon them, for breaking the chains of every American slave, and placing America side by side with noble old England in the glorious career of Liberty and Civilization.
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[[bold]] SUBSTANCE OF A LECTURE [[/bold]]
DELIVERED BY FEREDERICK DOUGLASS, AT ZION CHURCH, SUNDAY, JUNE 30.
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My friends have insisted upon my coming again before you, to speak upon the lessons and events of the hour.  The present difficulties of our country have brought into notice, far more vividly than ever before, the fact that no nation is absolutely independent of all others.  We are not only ruled by national laws, and international laws, but upon all great questions we have to appeal to the great law of the world's public opinion, or the world's judgement.  Both the North and the South have been anxious to secure a favorable judgment for themselves in the present contest.  We have watched eagerly to see what the London [[italics]] Times [[/italics]] had to say--and what LOUIS NAPOLEON had to say.  No civilized nation can be totally indifferent to the opinion of the rest of mankind.  It is an attribute of man's nature to wish to stand approved in the eyes of his fellows; and as of individual men, so of nations.  It is impossible to over estimate the self-executing power of this unwritten, but all-pervading law.  The settled judgment of mankind, in respect to the right or wrong of any given case, almost shuts the door to argument and doubt.  The mightiest monarchs and the greatest generals have trembled before the verdict of the world.  The printing press and the lightning are the most potent rulers of our times.  Regiments, battalions, and vast accumulations of munitions of war, are often rendered powerless in the face of the silent moral influence of the world's public opinion.

No people on the globe have ever appealed more emphatically to this tribunal, than have the American people; and yet few people could do so with less success in attaining a desirable verdict.  How do we stand now before the bar of the world's opinion?  It certainly is a very remarkable fact, and suggestive of the very small influence exerted by particular forms of government, that while Russia, an autocratic Government, is emancipating its serfs, the United States, a democratic Government, is the scene of a bloody civil war for the extension of slavery.  The haughty pride of our American civilization may well hang its head and blush at the contrast.  It would be a relief to our national self-complacency if the war now going on were really a war between liberty and slavery--if it were abolition on the one hand, and preservation on the other.  Such a contest, waged with spirit and determination by the Government against the slaveholding traitors and rebels, would instantly command the respect and sympathy of the civilized world; but, unfortunately, up to the present hour we are entangled with relatives.  The South only is positive and absolute.  The North is comparative, and, therefore, it is firm in nothing.

Our newspapers and public men express surprise and indignation that European governments have manifested so little sympathy
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