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518     DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.     SEPTEMBER, 1861

LETTER TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

ROCHESTER, AUG. 1, 1961.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN: DEAR SIR:— The Northern people of this country are aroused as they never were aroused before.  The feeling of the masses everywhere is intense.  All parties and sects, all classes and distinctions are merged, and but one sentiment pervades the country.  Men, money, and munitions of war are abundant, and only wait to be commanded.  The people approve your course in the main, so far as you have gone—only regretting that you had not called into the field a force sufficient to have overwhelmed and crushed out the rebellion on the start.  They now want to see the Executive rise to the true conception of the vast magnitude of the work before him, and of the nature and grandeur of the mission you are now called upon, in the Providence of God, to perform.  They want to see the Government march a powerful army into the traitorous States, proclaim liberty to every slave, and wipe out the last vestige of that barbarous system from the land, and enlist every freed man capable of bearing arms under the banner of Liberty and Union, and if need be, sweep the Southern despots and traitors from the continent they have disgraced, and are now combining to ruin.

They have outraged every principle contained in our immortal Declaration of Independence.  They have trampled upon the most sacred provisions of the Constitution, and set at defiance the supreme law of the land.— They have broken up the comity and destroyed all reciprocity between the States.— They have outraged, and robbed, and murdered our peaceful citizens.  They have perverted justice and liberty, and repudiated our republican form of government.  They have violated both the spirit and express letter of the Constitution, which declares that 'no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,' and reduced four millions of human beings to chattel slavery against all law.  They have required and secured the most humiliating subserviency on the part of the North to the Slave Power.  They have exposed us to shame and disgrace, both at home and abroad.  They have imposed heavy burdens upon us without mutual benefits.  They have been overbearing and insolent to our representatives, brutally assaulting them when in the faithful and constitutional discharge of their duties, both in the private walks of life, and in the pubic halls of legislation.  They have distorted the national charter of our liberties and perverted the power of the Government from its legitimate purpose of freedom, and prostituted it to the base and wicked ends of SLAVERY.  They have depraved and poisoned the religion, the politics, and the judiciary of the country, and keep the whole land in a feverish state of strife and turmoil for many years, and at last, because they could no longer rule, they have determined to ruin, and have turned open and avowed rebels and pirates, and without any just provocation on our part, have commenced an unnatural and fratricidal war upon us, the demoralizing and isolating effects of which upon the vital interests and welfare of the country, it is impossible for the human mind to estimate.  And now, is it possible our Government will suffer itself to be forced into such a horrid war—be compelled to expend millions of treasure, and oceans of blood, and not wipe out the cause which has led to these outrages, and involved us in all these horrors?  Our very existence as a nation is now threatened by the Slave Power, and the first great law of nature—self-preservation—demands the destruction of slavery.  May God in His wisdom open the eyes of the Executive, and the nation, to see that there can be no successful prosecution or termination of war--no peace in this country until slavery is abolished—that the rebellion cannot be put down until slavery is put down; in other words, that slavery is the rebellion, and the rebellion slavery.

Had slavery been abolished at the South as it was at the North, and as it was expected it would be when this Government went into operation, the South would have grown up, as have the North, a free, enlightened and a prosperous people; and there would have been no disturbing element, no apple of discord, no cause for rebellion.  And it is astonishing, that now, after slaveholders have forced this terrible war upon us, turned open and avowed traitors and rebels, trampled the Constitution and the laws under their feet, set the Government at defiance, turned pirates and gone to privateering upon the sacred rights of legitimate property, that our Government and its officers should still have such a tender regard for the tyrants' assumed, but unjust and unconstitutional, claim of property in human beings.  That the officers in our army should not know what to do with the poor panting fugitive when he flies for his God-given rights to our Northern camps!  Do with him?  What has he to do with him, but to 'let him go; to let him dwell in the gates where it liketh him best, and not oppress him.'  Again, the weakness and wickedness of the Government is seen still further on this subject, in the fact, that while the rebels are employing, rather forcing, he very slaves for whose oppressions the judgments of God are now being poured out upon the country, to fight against the North, the Administration actually refuses the aid and co-operation of free, enlightened and respectable colored men, who offer their services and long to enlist in defence of the cause of Liberty and Union!  And furthermore, our officers have gratuitously offered to crush out, with an 'iron hand,' any attempt on the part of the oppressed slaves, to rise and assert their liberty and join their Northern friends in support of the Government!  Does the Government believe the Almighty has any attributes that can take sides with such injustice?

Oh! that in this hour of the Slave Power's extremity, our Government might see its providential opportunity—an opportunity which may never again occur—to obey the voice of God, and 'proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof.'  This is due alike to the oppressed millions in slavery, to the demoralized and barbarized slave States themselves, and to the whole country.

It is demanded alike by justice, humanity and religion, and by the advancing enlightenment and conscience of the civilized world.  This alone will save our couutry from destruction, preserve its NATIONALITY, and secure for it permanent peace and enduring prosperity.

Yours, respectfully,
GEO. W. CLARK

NO TERMS WITH TRAITORS.

THE SUBMISSION OF THE REBELS THE SOLE CONDITION OF PEACE.

To the N.Y. State Democratic Committee:— I make no apology for criticising Democrats, since I am myself a Democrat.  Nay, almost can I say: 'If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in' Democracy, 'I more.'  For I have spent much of my life in inculcating it.  Moreover, my Democracy is not a half-way but an extreme one—a Democracy as broad as mankind ; and so jealous of Government as to allow its presence not only not in the Church, but not in the School—nowhere indeed save in the one legitimate Governmental office of protecting persons and property.  That mine is the genuine Democracy is manifested by the little patience, which the current and spurious Democracy has with it.  Nor need I make an apology for praising Republicans, since I have never been one of them.  And I need not fear that any thing that I shall say of Democrats or Republicans will expose me to the charge of office-seeking, since I am one of the few who, at the expense of being called very eccentric and very foolish, sternly refuse to go in the ways which lead to office.

The proposition made to you a few days ago by the N.Y. State Republican Committee was both wise and magnanimous.  It was wise in view of the wants of the country.  It was magnanimous because coming from the stronger to the weaker party.  I regret that it was declined.  Its prompt and cordial acceptance would have strengthened the hands of the Government, and brightened the prospects of patriotism.  But there is a reason given for declining it, which I much more than regret.  It merits abhorrence and denunciation intense and universal.  Republicans, ay all right-minded men, whether Republicans or Democrats, demand of the rebels immediate and unconditional submission.  But you would have 'the Federal Government hold out terms of peace and accommodation to the dissevered States.'  Is this the policy of most of the Democratic leaders in the different States?—and is their party to be rallied to espouse it?  If so, then is there more reason than ever to fear the result of the war—of the war which is waged so earnestly by our foes, and with so little and so divided heart by ourselves.  Gloomy indeed is the prospect if even this little heart is to be made less and the breach in this divided heart to be made wider by this threatened unpatriotic attitude of the Democratic party!  Gloomy indeed the prospect if the the great party, which comprises nearly half the men of the North, is to exhibit such a spectacle of meanness as in its espousal of this policy it will!—such a spectacle for our foe to feed his pride and strengthen his courage and build his hopes upon! 
 
The North would be left without spirit to continue the war after a proposed 'accommodation' or compromise in her name.  For what would the proposition imply but her admission that the rebels are at least partly right in their rebellion, and she at least partly wrong in resisting it?—what but her admission that our Government and nation are either so reduced in power as not to be able to suppress a rebellion, or so reduced in dignity and self respect as to be willing to bribe even rebels into forbearance?  What, in a word, would the proposition imply but her admission that the Government and nation are not worth preserving?  For to treat with armed rebels is manifestly to throw both away.  There is not a respectable Monarchy on earth that would consent to do so.  But far rather might it treat with armed traitors than we—we who have an open ballot box thro' which wrongs can be righted.  Do you say that crimes may be committed by Government so enormous as to justify the wronged in passing by the tardy and uncertain remedy of the ballot-box to seize their arms? But if it is by such crimes that this Rebellion has been provoked, then it should not be put down; and you ought to be ashamed of your boast

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