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October, 1861.   DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.   541

commend to the support of British Christians the efforts to give education and religious instruction to the rapidly-increasing colored population in British North America.

He denied that the slaves were contented with their condition; that their masters were so kind to them that they would not run away; or that they were too idle to work.  He mentioned several facts proving the contrary, and then gave a touching description of the escape of 'Eliza,' mentioned in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' in which he himself assisted.  He had aided the escape to Canada of 1,700 fugitive slaves, and he expressed a fervent hope that the time would soon arrive when every slave should be free and possess his inalienable right to liberty.  (Applause.)

The Rev. W. TROY, of Windsor, C. W., in seconding the resolution, explained that his object in visiting this country was to obtain funds for the erection of a chapel for the fugitive slaves.  He had been able to send £600, with which a chapel had been erected, a photograph of which he exhibited.  In an earnest speech he exposed the evils and wickedness of slavery, and having asked if there was anyone in the meeting prepared to defend that system, a person in the centre of the hall, dressed in the garb of a mechanic, and whose name was Henry Conyers, expressed his readiness to do so.  The announcement was received with hisses and other unmistakable signs of dissatisfaction, but the Chairman appealed to the audience to allow an opportunity for all to be heard. 

CONYERS having ascended the platform, amidst considerable impatience offered a few remarks.  He said he had lived fourteen years in America, and he believed that in the movement now going on, there was not sufficient sympathy exhibited by England with the object of the North.  There were not better men than those in the North, nor men more opposed to slavery. (Ironical laughter.)— They were risking their lives by going to fight against slavery in the South.  (No, no, and sensation)

THE CHAIRMAN here interposed, observing that it was evident the metting were disinclined further to listen to the remarks of the speaker. (Hear, hear.)

The resolution was then adopted, and thanks having been voted to the Chairman, the meeting concluded about half-past ten o'clock. 


LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT FROM GERRIT SMITH.

PETERBORO, Aug. 31st, 1861.
PRESIDENT LINCOLN: SIR: — The much speaking and writing of Abolitionists on the War should not be set down to their conceit and folly.  Were it a War about maritime rights or tariffs or diplomatic civilities, or anything else on which they are not specially informed, others would be at least as competent as themselves to discuss it.  But as it is a slavery begotten War, they have a peculiar claim to be heard upon it, who have given up their lives to the study of slavery.— The conceit and folly are not on the part of the Abolitionists who, at such a time as this, offer advice, but on the part of those who turn contemptuously away from it.  Prosperous and happy beyond all other nations would ours now be had she consented to profit by the foresight of the Garrisons and Goodells, Phillipses and Cheevers.  But she contemned it: and the penalty of her contempt she is suffering to-day amidst the horrors of civil war.  Not more obviously was the entire destruction of the Jewish nation the consequence of refusing to listen to our Prophets. 

I said that the War is slavery begotten.— I do not forget that there are persons who look (wholly in vain, I think) for other causes of it.  But even they must admit that if the extension and perpetuation of slavery were not its sole object, nevertheless nothing short of the maddening power of the pro-slavery spirit could have sufficed to impel the South to begin a War, which to all sane minds was so full of peril, if not indeed of certain destruction, to her most cherished interests.— This much is certain—that whatever her objects, the South would never have made the War had not slavery first made her mad.

The War should by this time have been near or quite to its end.  Pardon me for saying that it is owing to the errors of yourself and your advisers that it is not.  I say so, not because I doubt your or their patriotism —for I do not.  I say so, not because you or they are not intent on bringing the War to the speediest close —for I believe both are.— I say so, not because I believe you or they would encourage the rebels to protract it by offering them bribes to end it—for I believe that neither you nor they would be guilty of such folly.  I am not of those, who find pleasure in defaming the Cabinet.  If there was ever a Cabinet which should be judged not only justly but generously, it is the one to whose hands was committed a country already betrayed—a country, moreover, large portions of whose people were already in open War against her, and large portions of the remainder in craven and corrupt sympathy with them.  It is true, that I wish there were a couple of Democrats in the Cabinet—such for instance of Dickinson and Holt.  But I say so not because of any fault in any of its Members, but solely because I would have it enjoy a more undivided public confidence than it possibly can whilst its Members are all of the same political complexion. 

What are these errors to which I refer?— They are but two.  If there are others, they are included in them because growing out of them.  One of these errors is—Overrating the importance of Constitutional action in time of War.  The other—Overrating the importance of conciliating loyal slaveholders. 

The importance of adhering to the Constitution in time of Peace can hardly be overrated—in time of War hardly be underrated.  The popular reverence for the instrument will insure far more than all necessary adherence to it in time of War.  Indeed at such a time this reverence is amongst our greatest perils.  The Constitutuion was made far more for Peace than for War.  Or, in other words, it was made to serve the nation rather than its enemies.  I add, that it is far better for us to have no Constitutional scruples at all than to have them at such a time and to such an extent, as shall enable our enemies to take advantage of them.  Suspicious strangers enter a dwelling.  The excited sons do not govern their speech.  Their aged father is right in reminding them that the family rules require civility to strangers.  But he is a fool if after the strangers have drawn weapons, he keeps on talking of 'the family rules.'  So is it folly to trammel the freedom of the national family in time of War with punctilious observance of rules, which were made to be used by it chiefly in time of Peace.

I complain not that whilst the Rebellion had as yet not grown upon your view into dimensions and character of War you thought it your office to hold up the Constitutuion before its violators.  I complain not of your doing so at that stage of our troubles, which seemed to you but little if any more than a riot or temporary obstruction of the laws — But I do complain that, after the flames of War had burst out, you still continued to busy yourself in a way which, when that appalling time had come, was so infinitely below the demands that your imperilled and distressed country had upon you.  Nay, I must insist, that it had then become too late to care greatly for the Constitution—too late, I had almost said even to make mention of it.  My speeches, writings, life prove my regard for it.  But since the bombarding of Sumter intense concern for the Country has shut out from my heart all concern for the Constitution.  It will be time enough for me to renew my interest in the Constitution when it shall be settled that I have a country left for it to govern.  When my dwelling is on fire, I have something else to thing of than its eating and sleeping arrangements.  Will you bear with me in saying that your stress on observing the Constitution whilst in a War with traitors who defy it, spit upon it, and trample it under foot, is not only very untimely, but very farcical. 

I complain that you have made a false and petty issue when you should have accepted and proclaimed the true and grand one.  When you saw the Nation falling to pieces under the blow of traitors, you should, instead of contracting your soul and the public soul to the narrow purposes of saving a Paper, have expanded both into the sublime purpose of saving the Nation at whatever cost to the Paper.  All the way you have been hampered by this mistaken policy.  You summons to the people to save their Nation—to save it whatever else might be lost in saving it—was the one thing needed to electrify them.  Alas that this object, so spirit stirring and soul-absorbing had it been left uncombined with any other, should have been degraded to an identity with the scrupulous observance of a Paper!  You thus hampered, and the people thus hampered, how could it be expected that all would be done which could be done to save the Nation?  Your demand upon your countrymen should have been to save their country—to save it absolutely:— and to that their bounding blood would have responded gloriously. You should never have come down to crave them to save it conditionally—to save it if they could Constitutionally. 

An immense advantage has this mistaken policy given our enemies.  Since you led the way in this untimely inculcation of regard for every line and letter of the Constitutuion, it is not strange that our enemies followed.  And as they followed dishonestly and artfully where you led honestly and artlessly, it is not strange that they did so with deeply injurious effects to our Cause.  Under cover of the paramount importance which you were according to that Paper, Senator Breckinridge and his sort could labor to divert Congress from the perishing Nation to the War-suspended Constitution.  Our enemies know that idolatry of the Constitution is not only your weakness and that of Congress, but that of the Nation also.  Very cunningly therefore do they seize upon his weakness, and make it the line of their most effective tactics against us.— They well know that so long as they can keep us caring more for the Constitution than for the country, or in other words, keep us confounding the Constitution with the Country, and making conformity to its requirements the supreme purpose in the camp and on the battle-field, as well as elsewhere, so long they will have but little to fear from us.  They feel sure that however skillful the Generals, and vast the armies, and boundless the resources on which the North relies, nevertheless the free, dashing, reckless enthusiasm of the South will easily prevail against all these so long as all these are under the constraining and taming power of this Constitutional straight jacket.  That the traitors are all aware of this national weakness of blind reverence for the Constitution, and know how to turn it to their account, is manifest not only from the criticisms, which the matchlessly impudent hypocrites of the South make upon the Constitutionality of your measures, but from the similar criticisms in the Secession Prints of the North, and in the writings and speeches of such misguided men as are endeavoring (I trust in vain) to rally the Democratic party against the Government and the Country.— Your unseasonable and excessive emphasis on the Constitution has gone far to help these traitors and hypocrites get the ear of the people.   Whereas, had you called the people to the Country, and nothing but the Country, you would have so awakened their patriotism and so fired them with high purposes, as to shut their ear to this cant about the Constitution.

Even in time of Peace we sometimes see an excessive devotion to the Constitution.  Such devotion was Daniel Webster's, when all he would have recorded on his tomb was that he had rendered some service to the Constitution.  By such devotion was Daniel S. Dickinson's

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