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OCTOBER, 1861.    DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.    543


the South: all for nothing that it suffers tens of thousands of black men to work upon Southern fortifications, instead of their building ours, and thus saving the strength of our troops for the battle-field, as the enemy does hers: all for nothing that it suffers the traitors to compel black men to produce the immense quantities of grain, cotton, tobacco and sugar which these traitors are putting into the hands of their Government for the sole purpose of enabling it to make the Rebellion successful: all for nothing that it is draining the country of men and money, and drenching it in tears and blood, instead of letting black men become its chief and inexpensive saviors: all for nothing that it is protracting the War until the impatience and interests of other nations, combined with their contempt of a nation too foolish and fastidious to use whatever means for its salvation, shall impel them to throw their weight in the scale against us: all for nothing that it prefers years of civil war, when by a word from your lips it could suddenly block every war-weel in the South, assure the land of a speedy peace and of a united, prosperous and happy people.

It is true that I am an Abolitionist——and that as such I may be fairly supposed to have some knowledge of some of the ways for meeting a pro-slavery War.  Nevertheless though in writing you I have used the knowledge of an Abolitionist, it is not as an Abolitionist that I have written you.  To tell you the truth, I have as a mere Abolitionist felt no anxieties since the news of the bombardment of Sumter reached me.  I believed it to be the bombardment of slavery as well as of Sumter; and that a little time would show it to be as effectual in the one case as it was in the other.  Slavery will be as completely broken up by the convulsions of this War as was ever a city by the convulsions of an earthquake.  As Southern cotton has now become quite too precarious a dependence for the manufacturers, they will supply themselves elsewhere, and thus leave but little motive for continuing slave labor in the South.——Moreover, after the present repulsive exhibition of slavery, Civilization will recoil further than ever from it.  Religion always abhorred it.  An advancing Civilization will not spare it.

I said it is not as an Abolitionist that I have addressed you.  Had I done so, I should have dwelt upon your duty to know no law for slavery, and to declare that no piracy, much less the superlative piracy, is, ever was, ever will be, or ever can be embodied in LAW.  Had I as an Abolitionist written to you, I should have asked you to 'proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.'  I should have said that no Proclamation for Prayer can save the Nation: that whilst Prayer with Justice is the mightiest of all combinations, Prayer without Justice is but mockery and emptiness.  But I knew that you were not prepared for such words; and therefore I took lower ground and spoke to you as even a pro-slavery politician might speak to you——as I might speak to you were I an anti-Abolitionist.  Perhaps the country may be saved even on this lower ground.  Perhaps it may be saved if you will but consent to use the War-Power as faithfully as you can, without using it in the spirit of an Abolitionist.  I have not asked you to abolish slavery.  I have gone no farther than to ask you not to lose the Country for the sake of saving slavery.

In one of my unpublished letters from that far-seeing statesman John Quincy Adams, he says of a pro-slavery War which he predicts will in a certain event take place between the North and the South: 'It would be more terrible than the thirty years War which followed the Wittemberg Theses of Martin Luther, and I shrink from it with horror.'  This letter was written as far back as the year 1839.  I had myself, with even my little foresight, been predicting for more than twenty years a War in this country on slavery, and that it would be the bloodiest chapter in all the Book of Time.  But I confess that when I saw the shape which the present War was taking, and that there was not one redeeming nor in the least degree mitigating feature in the entirely unprovoked outrage of the South upon the North, I did suppose that there could be no considerable division at the North, and that the Administration would soon be willing to bring the War to a speedy end by calling to its help the black race.  I believed that the close of the War would come before the close of the year.  But Mr. Adams was as wise as I was ignorant.  He probably judged that an American War on slavery would be a very protracted one, because he foresaw that a people so cowed and corrupted by slavery as we Northerners are would not have the courage to face it so far as to ask its victims to help us.  Slavery has made the whole North servile.  I doubt whether even a single Abolitionist has entirely recovered from the servility to slavery in which we were all educated.  Alas that there should be this slavery-sparing, slavery-honoring and therefore War-prolonging policy of the Administration to be added to the many proofs that Mr. Adams was a Prophet!

In the same letter Mr. Adams says: 'That the slaveholders of the South should flatter themselves that by seceding from this Union they could establish their peculiar institutions in perpetuity, is in my judgment one of those absurd self-delusions which would be surprising if they did not compose the first chapter in the history of human nature.  THE SLAVEHOLDERS DO SO FLATTER THEMSELVES, AND WILL ACT ACCORDINGLY.'  How wonderfully prophetic is this language!  Never until a few months before actual Secession began, could I believe it would ever begin.  But I had never studied, as Mr. Adams had, the infatuating power of slavery upon its worshipers.——His confidence that Secession will not avail to perpetuate slavery cannot exceed my own.  Secession is its death.  They, who have appointed themselves to save slavery, will find that God had appointed them to destroy it.  'A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps.'  'He made a pit and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.'  'His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.'


I had written thus far when the news of General Fremont's Proclamation of immediate and unconditional freedom to the slaves of the rebels of Missouri reached me.  'ARE HEREBY DECLARED FREE,' it says: I need write no farther.  I lay down my pen to rejoice——not to rejoice in this indication that the whole system of American slavery is soon to pass away——for that it is to do so was my conviction and my joy, as long ago as when I heard of the bombardment of Sumter.  But I lay it down to rejoice in the now greatly brightened prospect of the speedy suppression of the Rebellion.  I assume that the General has acted upon an at last settled policy of the Administration——the policy of weakening and confounding the enemy whenever, wherever, however we can.  All the same though will be my rejoicing whether it shall turn out that the General acted simply upon his own responsibility, (as in every such case the commander has the clear right to do,) or whether he acted upon the advice of the Administration.  For the Administration will be with him if he was not with it.  The North too, although lacking the courage to propose the measure, will nevertheless sanction it.  Oftentimes the veriest cowardice is glad to follow where true courage leads.  The North will perceive that Fremont has done the right thing, and will demand that it be done elsewhere. The Slave Power will of course cry out againt it——only faintly however.  For by this noble deed of a noble man a breach has been made in it, which can never be healed: its ranks are fatally broken: its prestige clean gone forever.  Remonstrate against this measure it doubtless will.  Nevertheless the tones of its remonstrance, always excepting those of mere bluster, will be reduced from their former boldness and defiance to but whining and deprecation.

This step of General Fremont is the first unqualifiedly and purely right one in regard to our colored population, which has taken place during the War.  The like step will soon be taken in other slave States.  Then the second step regarding the population will be to accept the help of these freed slaves as guides, spies, builders, soldiers, sailors.  It is not enough that we take them from the service of our foe.  We must go farther and take them into our own.  And the third and last step will be to proclaim the right and obligation of the slaves of the loyal also, to afford us such help.  Thanks to Fremont, and I trust to the Administration also, a common sense way (I do not say the very best way) of carrying on this War is at last fairly entered up.  Perserverance in it for only a few months, or if with rapid steps for only a few weeks, will bring us to victory.  May 'the wisdom that is from above' be vouchsafed to you and your Cabinet and to all who are working with you and them for the salvation of our beloved country.

Respectfully yours,
GERRIT SMITH.


STEALING SLAVES TO SELL SOUTH.——Negroes who have recently sought refuge within the Federal lines at Fortress Monroe agree in representing that there are bands of kidnappers scouring the country for many miles around that region.  These land-pirates systematically steal all the able-bodied, salable negroes they can, and run them off to the Southern markets and pocket the proceeds.  This system of land-piracy has, according to representation, been carried on to a considerable extent. So that, between the flight of negroes and the stealing by the land pirates, the owners of this species of property in that region are likely to fare badly.  This fact illustrates the morals of the rebels, and their proclivity for the slave trade.  In this section property in slaves some time since ceased to have any real value.  The standard of valuation is completely broken down, and sales of slaves are not heard of.  The relation of master and slave does not exist, and it involves no one in the charge of Abolitionism to predict that there is hardly any likelihood of its ever being revived.  This state of things must necessarily have a radical effect in landed and every other species of property related to labor.  Indeed, every other kind of property has but little more real value than that in negroes.  If the lands in that part of the State are ever again cultivated, it must be by free labor.  Some of the finest estates in Virginia were in that part of the State.  Nearly all of them are now abandoned.

THE NATIONAL LOAN.——The amount of subscriptions for the past week in New York city was about three millions seven hundred thousand dollars, or an average per day of more than half a million.  The present week opened with an increase on the above average.

LOYAL SOUTHERN OFFICERS OF THE NAVY.——There are now in the United States Navy 9 captains, 14 commanders, and 37 lieutenants from the seceded States.  They are loyal to the core.  Eleven captains, 30 commanders, and 81 lieutenants have gone over to the traitors since the rebellion began.


TERMS OF DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.

Single Copies, to American subscribers, $1 per year.
  "      "     to British      "        5s. sterling.

Subscriptions must be paid for invariably in advance.

All communications, whether on business or for publication, should be addressed to

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ROCHESTER, N. Y.


AGENTS IN GREAT BRITAIN.

We take the liberty of using the names of the following gentlemen who will receive names and subscriptions for Douglass' Monthly in Great Britain:

Halifax——Rev. RUSSELL LANT CARPENTER, Milton Place; Rev. Dr. CROFTS, North Parade.

London——Mr. L. A. CAMEROVZOW, Anti-Slavery Office, 27 New Broad Street, E. C.

Dublin——Mr. WM. WEBB, 52, High Street, and 8, Dunville Avenue, Rathmines.

Derby——Dr. SPENCER T. HALL, Burton Road.

Glasgow——Mr. JOHN SMITH, 173, Trongate.

Leeds——Mr. ARTHUR HOLLAND, 4, Park Row.

Newcastle-on-Tyne——Mr WALTER S. PRINGLE.

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