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530      DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.      OCTOBER, 1861

destitution nowhere more than in respect to these virtues.  It has not been wise, because it has blindly refused to cultivate the friendship and welcome the co-operation of the four million slaves, the main dependence of the rebels for the money and the means for overthrowing the Government.  It has not been just in that it has doggedly refused to give liberty to these bondmen, when it has clearly the right and the power to do so, and when it was plainly its duty to do so.

Herein is the weakness of the Government, and if it fails, the failure will be terribly aggravated by this reflection.  If the Government could fall in a manly struggle to advance the cause of freedom and justice towards a long enslaved people, it would be glorious even in its fall.  But we are fighting no such battle, and hence are trammeled and weakened both from within and from without.--We are still fighting the enemy with only one hand, leaving the other not free, but fettered.  We not only refuse to strike the slaveholders with both hands, but so completely disable ourselves by slavery as to give them decided advantages in striking us with both theirs.--The old folly is still upon us, and doing us the utmost damage--the delusive and neither-hot-nor-cold spirit of compromise.  Our Government is still in bondage to fear, not that which the battle field inspires, but of the political power of slavery.  It is regarded the rock which breaks in pieces all who fall upon it, and grinds into powder all upon whom it falls.  Hence we are endeavoring to whip the slaveholders without seriously hurting them.  In other words, we are allowing our contempt for the rights of man, and our old scrupulous regard for the interests of slaveholders to control our movements towards the rebels, hoping to gain by conciliation instead of conquering by arms.  Does a poor slave escape from his bondage and seek refuge without our lines on the Potomac — GEN. BANKS promptly permits his recapture and rendition to bondage.  Does a man of color offer his services to the Government to aid in suppressing the slaveholding rebellion--his application is contemptuously rejected.  Does a Massachusetts regiment allow a few of the colored servants of the officers to appear in uniform--the Secretary of War, Mr. CAMERON, at once orders them to be disrobed.  Does Major-General FREMONT proclaim that the slaves of traitors and rebels shall be hereafter treated as freemen--the President of the United States comes promptly forward to shield the rebels from such extreme punishment. 

The future historian will look at the facts of this war for the suppression of rebellion with astonishment.  He will marvel at the conduct of the Government, and if he writes truly, he will write that while the people had heroism in the field, they had cowardice in the Cabinet, and that the latter counteracted the good effected by the former; that while the brave Northern troops thought they were pouring out their warm hearts' blood for universal liberty, the Cabinet was plotting that no harm should come to slavery; that while a faithful General was levelling his heaviest bolt at the head of the rebellion in Missouri, the President was interposing a statute book to soften the blow.

But we are told that this is but the antislavery view of the action of the Government towards the war.  We admit it, and plead



that it is exceedingly difficult for us, or for anybody else, to contemplate the action of the Federal Government in reference to the present slaveholding rebellion, without making slavery our base line of observation.  Every doctrine, principle and measure of the rebels has reference to that system.  All that they say of the right of self-government, the defence of their institutions, their homes and their firesides, has no other meaning than the security, safety, prosperity and ascendency of slavery.  The war on their part is a war for slavery, and only for slavery.  This is at once the motive, the object, and the means of prosecuting the war.  For slavery they brave all danger, endure all hardships, and perpetrate all crimes.  This is the unconcealed and everywhere apparent purpose of the rebels.  We repeat this, not because it is unknown, but because the fact is sought to be ignored, or is but imperfectly recognized by the Government at Washington.

Up to the present moment it deals only with the fact of rebellion.  It sees two or three hundred thousand armed rebels marshaled for the overthrow of the Government, for the dissolution of the Union, and for the erection of a new Government and a new Union on the ruins of the old Government and the old Union; but it does not trouble itself with any other fact.

Herein is the secret of the disapproval of General FREMONT'S Proclamation.  That document strikes the rebellion at its source.  It looks beyond the effect to the cause, and dares to grapple with that cause.  It has in it not only the vigor of the warrior, but the wisdom of the statesman.  Until the Government shall take similar ground to that proclaimed at St. Louis, it will have failed to have returned the only true and logical answer to the rebels and traitors, and to secure for itself the respect and sympathy of the friends of freedom the world over, and what is better still, the consciousness of having conformed to the highest dictates of justice and wisdom.


BARCLAY COPPIC KILLED.--Our readers will be pained to hear that this noble young man was one of the victims of the unparalleled atrocity on the Hannibal and St. Joseph RR., two weeks ago, whereby some fifty or sixty of our soldiers were killed, caused by the burning of the timbers of a bridge by the rebels in Missouri.  Coppic, recently from Iowa, was a young man of noble soul and undaunted courage, and held the position of Lieutenant in a company in Col. Montgomery's Kansas regiment.  It will be remembered that Barclay was with the old martyr John Brown at Harper's Ferry; his brother Edwin was captured and hung, but Barclay escaped.  He fled in company with Capt. Cook, and succeeded in eluding pursuit when his companion was taken.  There was nothing of the bravado about him.  Religiously anti-slavery, he endeavored solely to do what he considered his duty.  After his escape from Virginia he spent several days in this city, and paid us a visit at our office.  He had then in his possession Gen. Washington's pistol, taken by Capt. Brown from the house of Col. John A. Washington.  This Col. Washington has since been shot by our troops while acting as a spy for the rebels.  The remains of young Coppic were taken to Leavenworth, and there interred in the cemetery on Pilot Knob.  Several military companies were in the procession, and at the conclusion of the religious exercises a military salute was fired over the grave.



GENERAL FREMONT'S PROCLAMATION TO THE REBELS OF MISSOURI.

Considering the position of the State of Missouri, the divided state of its people between loyalty and treason, the geographical relation of the State to its sisters of the free North and the slave South, and the persistent and desperate efforts of the rebels to drive the State out of the Union, and the necessity for prompt and energetic action on the part of the Government, the public have generally concurred in the judgement that General FREMONT is the right man in the right place, and that his now celebrated Proclamation is by far the most important and salutary measure which has thus far emanated from any General during the whole tedious progress of the war.  It impressed the country with the idea that the hour, the place and the man were equally well filled.  The Proclamation, which we publish elsewhere in our present number, will be seen to be singular only in one of its features; but that particular one happens to be the radical and distinctive feature of the rebellion itself.  It takes the bull by the horns at once, and declares the slaves of all duly convicted traitors in the State of Missouri, "FREE MEN."  They are not only confiscated property, but liberated men.

The paragraph devoted to this subject is remarkably short and simple, but, we think, strong enough to convulse a continent.  It caused a shout of joy to burst from the hearts of the genuine lovers of the Union and the rights of mankind, while it carried terror and dismay into the ranks of rebellion.  The admission was general and hearty, that the celebrated pathfinder, in this simple document, had successfully marked out, to a bewildered and distracted nation, the true and only wise path out of its troubles and difficulties.

For many days after the publication of FREMONT'S Proclamation, the deepest anxiety existed throughout the country to learn whether that remarkable and startling document was the utterance of the Major-General, or that of the Cabinet at Washington--whether, if only from the former, the President would approve it or condemn it?  Those who had confidence in the anti-slavery character and disposition of the Administration, unhesitatingly ascribed it to the wisdom, earnestness and courage that controls at Washington.  While others, entertaining opposite impressions, openly predicted, what has since transpired, a pointed disapproval by the President of the main feature of FREMONT's Proclamation.  The suspense was truly painful, and attested the vast importance attached by the public to the measure.  The action of FREMONT was the hinge, the pivot upon which the character of the war was to turn.  It was whether the war should be waged against traitors only by the cunning technicalities of the crafty lawyer, or by the cannon and courage of the determined warrior.

Unhappily, as we think, for the country and for humanity, the lawyer has prevailed over the warrior.  The President, of whom we would gladly speak naught but good, has interposed, most unseasonably, by his Presidential authority, and placed a tame and worthless statute between the rebels and the merited chastisement which a brave and generous General had wisely prepared himself to inflict upon them.  Many blunders have been com-

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