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902      DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.      February, 1862
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MEAN TREATMENT OF THE HUTCHINSONS.
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The Hutchinson Family having been granted a pass to cross the Potomac, with the truly patriotic object of singing for a whole month to the soldiers, were audacious enough to sing Whittier's noble song commencing, "We wait beneath the furnace blast."  Generals Kearney and Franklin declared the song to be "incendiary, and deserved to be suppressed," whereupon Gen. McClellan has forbidden them to sing within his lines at all.  The poem, which we print below, is suggested by Martin Luther's famous hymn entitled, "Ein' Feste Burg ist Unser Gott."

We wait beneath the furnace-blast
The pangs of transformation:
Not painlessly doth God recast
And mould anew the nation.
Hot burns the fire
Where wrongs expire; 
Nor spares the hand
That from the land
Uproots the ancient evil.

The hand-breadth cloud and sages feared
Its bloody rain is dropping;
The poison plant the fathers spared
All else is overtopping.
East, West, South, North,
It curses earth;
All justice dies,
And fraud and lies
Live only in its shadow.

What gives the wheat-field blades of steel?
What points the rebel cannon?
What sets the roaring rabble's heel
On the old star-spangled pennon?
What breaks the oath
Of the men of the South?
What whets the knife
For the Union's life?——
Hark to the answer: SLAVERY!
Then waste no blows on lesser foes
In strife unworthy freemen.
God lifts to-day the veil and shows
The features of the demon!
O North and South,
Its victims both,
Can ye not cry,
"Let Slavery die!"
And union find in freedom?

What though the cast-out spirit tear
The nation in his going,
We who have shared the guilt must share
The pang of his o'erthrowing!
Whate'er the loss,
Whate'er the cross,
Shall they complain
Of present pain
Who trust in God's hereafter?

For who that leans on His right arm
Was ever yet forsaken?
What righteous cause can suffer harm
If He its part has taken?
Though wild and loud
And dark the cloud,
His hand upholds
The calm sky of to-morrow!

Above the maddening cry for blood,
Above the wild war-drumming,
Let Freedom's voice be heard, with good
The evil overcoming.
Give prayer and purse
To stay the Curse
Whose wrong we share,
Whose shame we bear,
Whose end shall gladden Heaven!

In vain the bells of war shall ring
Of triumphs and revenges,
While still is spread the evil thing
That severs and estranges.
But, blest the ear
That yet shall hear
The jubilant bell
That rings the knell
Of Slavery for ever!
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Then let the selfish lip be dumb,
And hushed the breath of sighing;
Before the joy of yeace, must come
The pains of purifying.
God gave us grace
Each in his place
To bear his lot,
And murmuring not,
Endure and wait and labor!
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ANOTHER ORDER FROM GEN. HALLECK.——The following order, on negro-catching, dated Dec. 26, has been sent by Gen. Halleck to Gen. Asboth, now stationed at Rella, Mo.:

GENERAL:——It would seem from the report of Major Waring to you (referred to these headquarters) that he had, in compliance with your instructions, delivered to Capt. Holland a fugitive in his camp, claimed by Capt. H. as the property of his father-in-law.

This is contrary to the intent of General Order No.3.  The object of those orders is to prevent any person in the army from acting in the capacity of negro catcher or negro-stealer.  The relation between the slave and master is not a matter to be determined by military officers, except in the single case provided for by Congress.  This matter in all other cases must be decided by the civil authorities.  One object in keeping fugitive slaves out of our camps is to keep clear of all such questions.  Masters, or pretended masters, must establish the rights of property to the negroes as best they may, without our assistance or interference, except where the law authorizes such interference.

Order No. 3 does not apply to the authorized private servants of officers, nor to negroes employed by proper authority in camps: it applies only to "fugitive slaves."  The prohibition to admit them within our lines does not prevent the exercise of all proper offices of humanity in giving them food and clothing outside, where such offices is necessary to prevent suffering.

Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
H. W. HALLECK Major-General.
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A CHANGE IN THE CABINET.——Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, has been removed, and Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, formerly of Pittsburg, Pa., nominated and confirmed to fill his place.  Mr. Cameron has been appointed Minister to Russia to succeed C. M. Clay, recalled at his own request.

There seems to be a wide difference of opinion as to the cause of Mr. Cameron's removal.  Some think——which appear to be most probable——that it was felt to be the solemn condemnation by the Administration and the regular army, of the policy of emancipation and arming the slaves of rebels, so strongly recommended on the report of the Secretary of War, and done to appease the pro-slavery Border State men, who have thus far controlled the policy of the President.  Then again, others intimate that his relation with army contractors had something to do with it.  His removal, wholly unexpected, caused considerable excitement in Washington, and Senators saw it in an open issue with the anti-slavery feeling of the North and West.

His successor, Mr. Stanton, is a lawyer by profession, and when Buchanan remodeled his Cabinet, on the resignation of Gen. Cass, Mr Stanton became his Attorney General, and retained that position until the close of Buchanan's term of office.  He is a man of great ability, and is said to be in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war.
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The Leavenworth (Kansas) Times of Dec. 30th says:——"About fifteen or twenty of the contraband population reached this city yesterday, over the ice bridge, which has taken the place of the Underground Railroad.——They belonged——at lease some of them did——to a Morton estate, about twelve miles from Platte City.  Can any one doubt now that secession is practical and working abolitionism?  They began the war to perpetuate the institution, and in six months Missouri is negroless."
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THE GARRISON ABOLITIONISTS AND THE WAR
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Wm. Lloyd Garrison lectured in New York City, recently, to a large and respectable audience.  His address was a clear, temperate and manly statement of the position of the Garrisonian Abolitionists toward the War ——He took the common ground of patriots that the rebellion is an unholy conspiracy against freedom, and that the safety of the nation, the honor of the flag, the hopes of liberty, all depend on victory to the good cause of the Union.  He referred to his former position as a disunionist in these words:

"I adopted the language of the prophet Isaiah in regard to the Constitution, and pronounced it to be a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell.  Well, but the New York Journal of Commerce says there seems to have come a great change——I no longer place this motto at the head of my paper.——Truly, a very great change has taken place.  Benedict in the play says: 'When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I would live to get married.'  And when I said I would not sustain the Constitution because it was 'a covenant with death and an agreement with hell,' I had no idea that death and hell would secede.'

He argued that the war had grown out of long-concealed attempts (only lately unmasked) for the overthrow of the republican institutions of the North by the slave-masters of the South, and that there never can be a permanent peace between the two sections so long as slavery is left alive upon the soil.  He maintained that under the Constitution, in a time of peace, Congress would have no right to emancipate the slaves, but that in a time of war the Constitution has the power, in the general war power, and ought to exercise it for the immediate relief of the nation.  The following passage in his address was received with great enthusiasm:

"The people of this State profess to believe in the Declaration of Independence.——That is my Abolitionism.  Every man, therefore, who disclaims Abolitionism, repudiates the Declaration of Independence.  Does he not?  All men created equal, endowed by their creator with the inalienable right to liberty!  Gentlemen, that is my fanaticism.——All I ask is that the Declaration may be carried out everywhere in our country and thro'out the world.  It belongs to mankind.——Your Constitution is an Abolition Constitution.  Your laws are Abolition laws.  Your institutions are Abolition institutions.  Your free schools are Abolition free schools.  I believe in them all, and all that I ask is that institutions so good, so free, so noble, may be everywhere propagated, everywhere accepted.  And thus it is that I desire, not to curse the South; or any portion of it, but to bless her abundantly by abolishing her infamous and demoralizing slave institutions and erecting a temple of liberty on the ruins thereof."
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THE CULTIVATION OF COTTON IN ILLINOIS.

——The Chicago Tribune of December 23rd, contains an array of facts which prove that cotton can be raised in Southern Illinois with as much facility and as profitably as in the cotton regions of the Southern States.——The names and addresses are given of a large number of persons who have been raising it in that region for many years, and who have, under their careless mode of cultivating, succeeded in obtaining from 300 to 500 pounds per acre.  At ten cents per pound, this gives from $30 to $50 to the acre, and, reckoning eight acres to the field hand, which is the calculation made of the slave production in an official report to Congress in 1852, we have then $240 to $400 as the year's product of one hand and eight acres.

An agent appointed by the Illinois Central Railroad Company to travel and investigate the subject reports that there are in Illinois from eight to ten millions of acres of land which are adapted to the cotton culture.

These lands will also produce flax, castor beans, sorghum, and other semi-tropical products.

There is an immense field for profitable enterprise for the production of cotton next season in Illinois.
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