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DECEMBER, 1861 D O U G L A S S ' M O N T H L Y . 567 [horiz line across page]] [[start 1/3 columns]] FREE SPEECH MAINTAINED IN SYRACUSE. [[short horiz line]] The Editor of this paper was advertised to lecture in Syracuse on Thursday and Friday evenings, Nov. 14th and 15th. On Thursday morning a flaring document in the form of a handbill was conspicuously posted about the city, which read as follows: 'NIGGER FRED COMING. 'This reviler of the Constitution, and author of "DEATH IN THE POT!" and who once in this city called George Washington a Thief! Rascal!! and Traitor!!! is advertised to lecture on "Slavery" again on Thursday and Friday evenings of this week at Wieting Hall!!! 'Shall his vile sentiments again be tolerated in this community by a constitutional-liberty-loving people? or shall we give him a warm reception at this time, for his insolence, as he deserves? Rally, then, one and all, and dvive him from our city! Down on the arch-fugitive to Europe, who is not only a coward bua traitor to his country! RALLY, FREEMEN! Admission ten cents!' The Journal of that city, on the same day of the lecture, says: Whoever the authors are, the object of the handbill is clearly to disturb the public peace, by creating a mob that shall, in abridging the right of free speech, disgrace and dishonor our city. Mr. Douglass proposes to speak at Wieting Hall this eveing on the subject of 'The Rebellion, its Cause and Remedy.' He has delivered this lectnre in many of the cities and towns of the North this season, and nowhere has he been interrupted or disturbed. Will not the community that has patiently and respectfully listened to Yancey, give Mr. Douglass a fair and manly hearing? The authorities are resolved that the peace and honor of the city shall be maintained.-- Mayor Andrews has made preparations to carry out this determination, and it is the duty, as it should be the pleasure, of all good citizens to uphold the authorities. In addition to the regular police, a force of special policemen has been appointed for the occasion. Major Brown has volunteered the services of the troops in Camp Munroe, if they should be needed, to suppress any attempt to break the peace. The Sheriff of the county joins in the preparations to preserve order and quiet, and no efforts will be wanting to accomplish this end, should there be any disposition manifested to transgress the laws. THE LECTURE. The same paper thus speaks of the lecture on Thurrday evening: An audience of about eight hundred persons listened to the lecture of Frederick Douglass, at Wieting Hall, last evening. The lecture was for the most part an examination of the bearings of the institution of slavery upon the present National troubles--the speaker holding that slavery alone was the cause, and that in the extinction of it was to be found the certain, speedy and economical suppression of the Rebellion. The slaves, it was contended, may be made the most potent power against the rebels, and that it is both wise and right to employ them. He urged as the great necessity to the successful prosecution of the war, that instant emancipation of bondmen be proclaimed wherever the United States armies may be employed. The war, in his opinion, is to be a war of abolition, and no attempt of the Government or of Generals to evade the issue could be successful--for if the people of the North have not sufficient virtue to make the issue, the villainy of the South will compel them to it. The lecture was in the characteristic style of Mr. Douglass--an hour and a half's discussion of the moral and political relations of slavery considered in connection with the war. His allusion to Fremont's proclamation, as the keynote to the suppression of the rebellion, was heartily endorsed by the audience. Mr. Douglass took occasion to deny the allegations of the authors of the incendiary [[end column]] [[start 2/3 columns]] handbill, that he was a reviler of the Constitution and a libeller of the memory of Washington. He said that he has for more than ten years been an advocate of the anti slavery character of the Constitution, and that he had never spoken of Washington except with respect. At the close, Gerrit Smith was called out, and in a few words paid a high compliment to the speaker of the evening, who twenty years ago was an ignorant bondman, and now is one of the foremost orators in the land. There was no attempt at interruption or disturbance of the evening. This was owing to the thorough precautions taken by Mayor Andrews, in conjunction with Sheriff Maynard and Chief Mulholland. The regular police were supported by about seventy special policemen. The Munroe Cadets, forty-five muskets, each man provided with twenty-four ball cartridges, in response to the Mayor's requisition, were present and guarded the hall and the entrance ways. There was one boy, about ten years old, arrested by an officer, in the hall, during the lecture, for having an egg and several stones in his possession; he stated that they were given to him by some men, and disclaiming any intention of using them offensively, he was released. From six o'clock until after the lecture began, there was a considerable gathering of people in front of the Wieting Block, but they seemed to have gone there out of curiosity alone. The authorities had positive information of the existence of an elaborate plan, having for its object the preventing of the lecture, and the breaking up of the meeting, and the carrying out of this intention was only defeated by the promptness and efficiency of the measures taken by Mayor Andrews and the officers co-operating with him to preserve the peace. To these measure alone, are our citizens indebted for the defeat of this conspiracy of the clan of rebel sympathizers in our midst, who designed to override the right of free speech and dishonor our city by another disgraceful exhibition of mob violence. We are glad that we have a Mayor who knows his duty, and dares to discharge it. He has established a precedent that shall henceforth guarantee the right of free speech to all men who desire to exercise it here. The Standards says: Mr. Douglass delivered his address at Wieting Hall last evening, according to appointment, and without being disturbed. Not even a hiss was heard during the hour he occupied the platform, but he was frequently applauded in the course of his able and eloquent remarks. But is it not disgraceful to our city, that when slavery is clutching at the throat of the nation, threatening to tear the Republic limb from limb that a man cannot speak his mind here concerning the institution without the protection of armed soldiers? Had not the city authorities taken effectual means to prevent the mobbing of Mr. Douglass, he would without doubt have been assailed by violent hands and driven from the city. The State League, edited by T.L. Carson, says: Though we rejoice at this triumph of right over lawless disorder, blasphemy and obscenity, we confess that we feel mortified and ashamed that there are beings in the shape of men who deem human slavery such a sacred and holy thing that it cannot be discussed in our city without a band of armed men to protect the speaker from personal violence and injury, and that, too, at a time when the accursed institution has as it were our nation by the throat, and threatening to tear it limb from limb. Yet such is the humiliating fact. Such efforts to abridge the freedom of speech show most clearly the necessity for such discussions; and as Mr. Douglass truly remarked, 'the proper time to speak is when the right to speak is denied. The time to assert a right is when the whip of the tyrant is cracking over our heads.' Mr. Douglass' first lecture on 'The Rebellion—its Cause and Cure,' was, we hardly [[end column]] [[start 3/3 columns]] need to say, a most able production, timely, truthful, outspoken. He was cheered by a large and highly respectable audience, composed of our most respectable citizens, and owing to the admirable and timely care of our noble Mayor, not a dog dared to move his tongue, nor was there even a hiss heard from any slinking viper throughout the large and well filled hall. His lecture on Friday evening was entitled 'Life Pictures.' It was well written, and in common language, a good lecture. But Mr. Douglass' forte is extemporaneous speaking from the inspiration of the moment. Here he is peerless. [[horiz line]] CONVICTION OF A SLAVE-TRADER. — Every good citizen has occasion for rejoicing in the fact that one Nathaniel Gordon has been convicted of Piracy in the United States District Court in the city of New York—the piracy consisting in having fitted out a slaver and shipped 900 Africans at Congo River, with a view to selling them as slaves. The same man had been tried for the same offence before; but the jury failed to agree, and he accordingly escaped punishment for the time. Now, however, he has been convicted; and it is to be hoped no technical quiddities nor maukish sympathies will save him from the extreme penalty of the law. The laws of the United States make the African slave trade piracy, and punish it with death. And if but one crime should be punished with death, surely the one under consideration ought to enjoy that bad eminence. The horrors of the African slave trade defy all powers of description, and every man who voluntarily embarks in it is a moral monster, who should be treated as an outlaw by every civilized people. We trust there is a sufficiently wholesome and active moral sense in this country to frown down any and all efforts to procure a mitigation of the sentence of death which Judge Nelson will in due time pronounce upon this great criminal. President Lincoln has utterly refused to interfere, and the sentence will, no doubt, be carried into execution. We need an example of this kin,; and if the culprit be a 'gentleman' and a man of means, the effect of his execution will be all the more salutary. Gordon will be hung on the 7th day of February next. [[horiz line]] SIGNS OF BARBARISM.—The New York Post not long since published an account of the distribution of the skin of Old John Brown's son throughout the South, to be kept by the chivalry as relics. The statement was made by one of the highest officers serving in our army in Western Virginia, in a letter to that paper, a piece of the skin being enclosed in the letter. The following from the Norfolk Day Book, under the heading 'Putting Dead Yankees to a New Use,' is in further corroboration of the fact that the slaveholding States are fast drifting into barbarism: 'We have recently seen some candles which, we were told, had been made from tallow and fat fried from dead Yankees, who had been slain in several of the battles which have taken place between them and the Southerners.' Left to themselves, the Southerners would wholly barbarize under the influences of slavery, and it is to their connection with the superior civilization of the North that they owe what moral and social progress they have made. [[horiz line]] An intelligent lady who has recently arrived at Exeter,N.H., from North Carolina, says: The slaves generally in North Carolina sympathize with the North, and improve every opportunity to run away from their masters. A slight insurrection recently occurred near Lexington, in which three negroes were shot. The masters tell their slaves that on reaching Fortress Monroe they are either sold to Cubans or have their hands cut off; but the majority disbelieve such fabrications, and 'look away' to Butler for deliverance.' [[end column]]
