Viewing page 2 of 16

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

514      DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.      SEPTEMBER, 1861

that slaves rising against the rebels for their liberty should be suppressed with an 'iron arm.'  Witness General BANKS sending back to slavery, and probably to a lingering death by torture, fifteen slaves to their so-called loyal masters.  Witness the unhanged pirates now in New York, with every probability of their being finally released as prisoners of war.  Witness the steady refusal of the Government to allow the enrollment of colored soldiers to uphold the flag of the country in this its hour of darkness and peril.  Witness the order that no more slaves be allowed within our lines, and the complete muddle which Secretary CAMERON has made of the whole subject in his reply to the questions of General BUTLER.  These facts do not pass unnoticed by the rebels, and their effect is to cheer them, while they dishearten the real friends of the Government at the North.

How do we stand before the world?  'If your war is for freedom, I am with you with twenty thousand men,' says GARIBALDI.  What answer have we made to it?  What answer can we make to it, with our hands all stained with the negro's blood, bound over and over again, with solemn pledges, to protect men-stealers in their robbery of men of all the most sacred rights of humanity?  We seem almost ready to fight any body and every body but our real enemies.  Suppose GARIBALDI should come, and the slaves should strike for their freedom, would the Liberator of Italy be called upon to become the enslaver in America?  How would GARIBALDI look hounding negroes into bondage to loyal masters, as has done Gen. BANKS!  We cut a strange figure before the civilized world.  We are quite ready to fight England or France, (if [[?]] newspapers and some of our Diplomats are to be believed,) and we are especially anxious to shoot a few negroes into obedience to loyal masters, while we strike with reluctance, in sorrow more than anger, our only real and most malignant foe.  Him we hit with one hand, and help with the other.

Who can account for this strange feature in our Northern character as thus reflected in the conduct of the Government?  The chief explanation which we can give, is found in the fact that, for long years the whole people have been demoralized by slavery and accustomed to regard slaveholders with a slavish awe akin to that felt by the slave for his master.  We do not deal with them as with other enemies.  This is one explanation, and the other is, that neither by our law, nor by our religion have we ever taught that the negro had any rights above those of a beast of burden, and our policy has been, and still is, to treat him as such.  The master as an enemy is more respected than the slave as a friend.

Very evidently herein is the weakness of the war on our part, and the strength of the enemy on their part.  Slavery is the bulwark of rebellion--the common bond that binds all slaveholding rebel hearts together.  Cut that band, and the rebellion falls asunder.  If the Government does this, it will succeed, and if it does not, it will not deserve success.

But how shall it do this?  The answer is ready: Let it cease to recognize men as anything else than persons in the slave States.  Let it know nothing, as the Constitution knows nothing, of black or white, in or out of the Southern States; and let every General proclaim a welcome to all men, irrespective of color or condition, to come forward to save the Ship of State, proffering to all such, freedom and citizenship.  Let it be known that the American flag is the flag of freedom to all who will rally under it and defend it with their blood.  Let colored troops from the North be enlisted and permitted to share the danger and honor of upholding the Government.  Such a course would revive the languishing spirit of the North, and sickly over with the pale cast of thought, the now proud and triumphant spirit of the armed slaveholding traitors of the South.  It would lift the war into the dignity of a war for progress and civilization, and save it from the reproach of being merely a war for retaining under our rule a people who think they can govern themselves.  It would bring not only GARIBALDI and his twenty thousand Italian braves to our side, but what is more important still, our own sense of right, and the sympathy of enlightened and humane men throughout the world. 

CAST OFF THE MILL STONE.

We are determined that our readers shall have line upon line and precept upon precept.  Ours is only one humble voice; but such as it is, we give it freely to our country, and to the cause of humanity.  That honesty is the best policy, we all profess to believe, though our practice may often contradict the proverb.  The present policy of our Government is evidently to put down the slaveholding rebellion, and at the same time protect and preserve slavery.  This policy hangs like a millstone about the neck of our people.  It carries disorder to the very sources of our national activities.  Weakness, faint heartedness and inefficiency is the natural result.  The mental and moral machinery of mankind cannot long withstand such disorder without serious damage.  This policy offends reason, wounds the sensibilities, and shocks the moral sentiments of men.  It forces upon us in consequent conclusions and painful contradictions, while the plain path of duty is obscured and thronged with multiplying difficulties.  Let us look this slavery-preserving policy squarely in the face, and search it thoroughly.

Can the friends of that policy tell us why this should not be an abolition war?  Is not abolition plainly forced upon the nation as a necessity of national existence?  Are not the rebels determined to make the war on their part a war for the utter destruction of liberty and the complete mastery of slavery over every other right and interest in the land?--And is not an abolition war on our part the natural and logical answer to be made to the rebels?  We all know it is.  But it is said that for the Government to adopt the abolition policy, would involve the loss of the support of the Union men of the Border Slave States.  Grant it, and what is such friendship worth?  We are stronger without than with such friendship.  It arms the enemy, while it disarms its friends.  The fact is indisputable, that so long as slavery is respected and protected by our Government, the slaveholders can carry on the rebellion, and no longer.--Slavery is the stomach of the rebellion.  The bread that feeds the rebel army, the cotton that clothes them, and the money that arms them and keeps them supplied with powder and bullets, come from the slaves, who, if consulted as to the use which should be made of their hard earnings, would say, give it to the bottom of the sea rather than do with it this mischief.  Strike here, cut off the connection between the fighting master and the working slave, and you at once put an end to this rebellion, because you destroy that which feeds, clothes and arms it.  Shall this not be done, because we shall offend the Union men in the Border States?

But we have good reasons for believing that it would not offend them.  The great mass of Union men in all those Border States are intelligently so.  They are men who set a higher value upon the Union than upon slavery.  In many instances, they recognize slavery as the thing of all others the most degrading to labor and oppressive towards them.  They dare not say so now; but let the Government say the word, and even they would unite in sending the vile thing to its grave, and rejoice at the opportunity.  Such of them as love slavery better than their country are not now, and have never been, friends of the Union.  They belong to the detestable class who do the work of enemies in the garb of friendship, and it would be a real gain to get rid of them.  Then look at slavery itself--what good thing has it done that it should be allowed to survive a rebellion of its own creation?  Why should the nation pour out its blood and lavish its treasure by the million, consent to protect and preserve the guilty cause of all its troubles?  The answer returned to these questions is, that the Constitution does not allow of the exercise of such power.  As if this were a time to talk of constitutional power!  When a man is well, it would be mayhem to cut off his arm.  It would be unconstitutional to do so.  But if the arm were shattered and mortifying, it would be quite unconstitutional and criminal not to cut it off.  The case is precisely so with Governments.  The grand object, end and aim of Government is the preservation of society, and from nothing worse than anarchy.  When Governments, through the ordinary channels of civil law, are unable to secure this end, they are thrown back upon military law, and for the time may set aside the civil law precisely to the extent which it may be necessary to do so in order to accomplish the grand object for which Governments are instituted among men.  The power, therefore, to abolish slavery is within the objects sought by the Constitution.  But if every letter and syllable of the Constitution were a prohibition of abolition, yet if the life of the nation required it, we should be bound by the Constitution to abolish it, because there can be no interest superior to existence and preservation.

A very palpable evil involved in the policy of leaving slavery untouched, is that it holds out the idea that we are, in the end, to be treated to another compromise, and the old virus left to heal over, only to fester deeper, and break out more violently again some time not far distant, perhaps, to the utter destruction of the Government for which the people are now spilling their blood and spending their money.  If we are to have a compromise and a settlement, why protract the war and prolong the bloodshed?  Is it said that no compromise is contemplated?  It may be so; but while slavery is admitted to have any

Transcription Notes:
Edited - no need for extra formatting codes; see instructions. Edited - removed them AGAIN Columns have right justified margins and are separated with vertical lines.