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594 DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. FEBRUARY, 1862. [[line]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] when the present restrictions and embarrassments are removed, as they certainly will be. Virtue, integrity, industry, economy and intelligence cannot be permanently kept down. They would rise if held down by a mountain. We saw many evidences of heart and hope among the colored people of Philadelphia, as well as something of doubt and despair.——Of the former, the school in Lombard Street, known as the Institution for Colored Youth, is chief. From the Annual Report for 1861, we learn that this Institution was chartered by the State of Pennsylvania in the year 1842; that its objects are the education and improvement of colored youth of both sexes to qualify them to act as teachers and instructors of their own people, either in the various branches of school learning, or the mechanic arts and agriculture. The building in which the schools are now taught was erected in 1851. There are four departments——one preparatory, and one high school——for which six teachers are employed, three for each sex, and all colored persons. The corporators are exclusively members of the Society of Friends. The funds were derived from bequests and contributions made to members of that Society. The text books and all the privileges of the Institute are furnished free of charge to those who are admitted under its regulations. We give here the names of the several teachers of this Institution as they stand in the catalogue, premising that the Principal, Mr. BASSETT, is one of the most amiable, unassuming and best educated colored gentlemen with whom we are acquainted, and that in addition to his mental qualifications, he seems to have the interest of our people sincerely at heart: Principal and Teacher of Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and the Classics——EBENEZER D. BASSETT. Assistant Teacher of English Branches——OCTAVIUS V. CATTO. Principal Teacher of the Female Department——GRACE MAPPS. Assistant Teacher of Female Department——MARTHA FARBEAUX. PREPARATORY SCHOOLS. Teacher of Boys——JACOB C. WHITE, JR. Teacher of Girls——SARAH M. DOUGLASS. Librarian——E.D. BASSETT. It was our privilege to address this School twice during our stay in Philadelphia, and we remember out interview there as among the most pleasant and instructive of any during our visit. we say to our dear young friends, both teachers and pupils, go on in the pursuit of knowledge. The vocation of the colored scholar on this continent is soon to be enlarged. You will not only be wanted at Fortress Monroe, at Beaufort, and other points along the slave coast of our country, but all over the South. But we took up our pen only to mention our visit to Philadelphia, and to express our grateful acknowledgments to our friends DORSEY, TURNER, BOWERS, MINTON, PRICE, VIDELL, and others through whose instrumentality we obtained a hearing for our common cause in that city. [[line]] The bill providing that persons confined in the Washington Jail prior to the last term of the Criminal Court, and against whom no indictment or indictments were found at said term, be set free, has passed the Senate by a vote of 31 to 4. Senator Powell's amendment to except fugitive slaves was rejected——Yeas, 5; Nays, 35. The Washington Republican says, "When this bill becomes a law, as it soon will, the country will no longer be disgraced by maintaining a negro pen." [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] SPEECH OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS ON THE WAR, DELIVERED IN NATIONAL HALL, PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY 14, 1862. [[short line]] LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:——My purpose to-night is not to win applause. I have no high-sounding professions of patriotism to make. He is the best friend of this country, who, at this tremendous crisis, dares tell his countrymen the truth, however disagreeable that truth may be; and such a friend I will aim to be to-night. Many things have been said against the free colored people of the North, and a strong current is turned against them; but I believe that up to this time, no man, however malignant, has been able to cast the shadow of a doubt upon the loyalty and patriotism of the free colored people in this hour of the nation's trial and danger. Without exulting, but with thankfulness, I may say it, while treason and rebellion have counted upon aid and comfort all over the North, among those who have every reason to be true and faithful to the State, no rebel or traitor has dated look at the free colored man of the North, but as an enemy. There are English rebels, Scotch rebels, Irish rebels, but I believe there are no black rebels. The black man at heart even if found in the rebel camp, is a loyal man, forced out of his place by circumstances beyond his control. I really wish we had some other expressive title for the traitors and rebels who are now striking at the heart of the country which has nursed and brought them up. REBEL and TRAITOR are epithets too good for such monsters of perfidy and ingratitude. Washington, Jefferson, John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and many other brave and good men, have worn those appellations, and I hate to see them now worn by wretches who, instead of being rebels against slavery, are actually rebelling against the principles of human liberty and progress, for the hell-black purpose of establishing slavery in its most odious form. I am to speak to you to-night of the civil war, by which this vast country——this continent is convulsed. The fate of the greatest of all modern Republics trembles in the balance. "To be, or not to be——that is the question." The lesson of the hour is written down in characters of blood and fire. We are taught, as with the emphasis of an earthquake, that nations, not less than individuals, are subjects of the moral government of the universe, and that flagrant, long continued, and persistent transgression of the laws of this Divine government will certainly bring national sorrow, shame, suffering and death. Of all the nations of the world, we seem most in need of this solemn lesson. To-day we have it brought home to out hearths, our homes, and our hearts. Hitherto, we have been content to study this lesson in the history of ancient governments and nationalities. To-day, every thoughtful American citizen is compelled to look at home. Egypt, Palestine, Greece and Rome all had their warnings. They disregarded them, and they perished. To-day we have our warning, not in comets blazing through the troubled sky, but in the terrible calamity of a wide-spread rebellion enacted before our eyes. The American Republic is not yet a single century from the date of its birth. Measuring its age by that of other [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] great nations, our great Republic——for such it truly is——great in commerce, great in numbers, great in mechanical skill, great in mental, moral and physical resources, great in all the elements of national greatness——fills but a speck on the dial plate of time, and stands within the inner circle of childhood. In the brief space of three quarters of a century, this young nation, full of promise and the hope of political liberty throughout the world, rose from three millions to thirty millions. Its mighty heart beats with the best blood of all nations. It was literally sown in weakness and raised in power. It began life in toil and poverty, and up to the present moment, it is conspicuous among the nations of the earth for opulence and ease. In the fullness of out national strength and glory, we had already begun to congratulate ourselves upon the wisdom and stability of our Governmen. [sic] When all Europe, a few years ago, was convulsed with revolution and bloodshed, America was secure, and sat as a queen among the nations of the earth, knowing no sorrow and fearing none. To-day, all is changed. The face of every loyal citizen is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought. Every pillar in the national temple is shaken. The nation itself has fallen asunder in the centre. A million of armed men confront each other. Hostile flags wave defiance in sight of the National Capital during a period of six long and anxious months. Out riches take wings. Credit is disturbed, business is interrupted, national debt——the mill-stone on the neck of nations——and heavy taxation, which breaks the back of loyalty, loom in the distance. As the war progresses, property is wantonly destroyed, the wires are broken down, bridges demolished, railroads are pulled up a barricaded by fallen trees; still more and worse, the great writ of habeas corpus is suspended from necessity, liberty of speech and of the press have ceased to exist. An order from Richmond or Washington——one stroke of the pen from Davis or Lincoln sends any citizen to prison, as in England, three centuries ago, British subjects were sent to the Tower of London. A hateful system of espionage is in the process of formation, while war and blood mantles the whole land as with the shadow of death. We speak and write now by the forbearance of our ruler, not by the sacredness of our rights. I speak this not in compliant; I admit the necessity, while I lament it. The scene need not be further portrayed. It is dismal and terrible beyond all description. We have it burnt upon our very souls. I will not mock you by further painting that scene. The spoilers of the Republic have dealt with the nation as burglars——stealing all they could carry away, and burning the residue.——They have emptied your treasury, plundered your arsenals, scattered your navy, corrupted your army, seduced your officers, seized your forts, covered the sea with pirates, "heated you enemies, cooled your friends," insulted your flag, defied your Government, converted the national defences into instruments of national destruction, and have invited hostile armies of foreign nations to unite with them in completing the national ruin. All this, and more, has been done by the very men whom you have honored, paid and trusted, and that, too, while they were solemnly sworn to protect, support and defend your Constitution [[/column 3]]
