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610 DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. March, 1862. [[line]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] foe, whose hatred and wickedness is not weakened, though his present power is disabled.——Let the Government compromise with the slaveholders, as they are now likely to do.——Let them give the slaveholders the assurance of the undisturbed possession of their slaves in the slave States, and an equal right to extend slavery outside the slave States, just as they demanded at the first, and as the government seems more than willing to grant, and we shall see the slaveholding States never more politically divided, but firmly united, acting in one solid body in all the slave states, and with democratic allies in all the free states sufficient to be able to hurl from place and power the present Republican party, and-give the reins of government to a class of men from the slave States, no better than the Davises, the Floyds, the Iversons, the Toombs, the Stephenses, the Hunters, and the Breckinridges, who have traitorously endeavored to break up and ruin the Republic. Compromise with the traitors, and we may expect to see the loyalists of the south ground to powder by the haughty slave oligarchy. Every man who did not favor this rebellion, had better take up his bed and walk or run out of the slave states with more speed than Lot left Sodom. Congress will have to bid good bye to her Johnsons and Etherbridges from the south, and Sumners, and Wilsons from the north. The first will be charged with the failure of southern independence, and the latter will be made responsible for bringing on the war, and will be driven from power as dangerous politicians. The army and navy of the Republic, built up on the wealth and industry of the north, will be duly handed over bound hand and foot, to the custody of those who have sought the destruction of the nation by means of them. These powers will be used by them in furtherance of their slaveholding policy, through government just so long as they hold the reins of power. But just so soon as the north shall dare elect another Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency, just so soon we shall have to face another slaveholding rebellion. "Be not deceived, God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap." This is no dream of prophecy, but a clear reading of the philosophy of social and political forces, illustrated by no remote experience, but by the facts of the present hour. There is a strong party here at the north which will tell you even now that the war was not caused by slavery, but by the abolitionists, that the whole evil of rebellion might have been, and would have been prevented had a Democratic Administration been continued in power. It is true they only whisper this now. They will thunder it by and by. Leave slavery untouched, comply with the demands of the traitors, and this strong but unprincipled slaveholding party o the north, acting with the united south, can and will stamp this government with all the odious features which distinguish the confederate States. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of elections, and the right of petition will be gone, and the club of the dead slaveholding Brooks may again flourish over Debate in the American Senate. That this view of the prospect is far from cheering, is sadly confessed. We would gladly read the signs of the times more hopefully, but the facts are against us. The purpose of the Lincoln administration, so far as it reveals a purpose at all, is simply to restore the country [[column 1]] [[column 2]] to precisely the same condition it was in before this terrible slaveholding rebellion broke out, leaving every root and fibre of the old cancerous political and moral sore again to grow and strengthen, till better able than now to destroy the nation's life. There seems no purpose to make the luxury of revolution expensive to anybody but those who are loyal, who have to fight and pay the expense of the war. Even slavery in the District of Columbia must be kept alive as a token to all the world that America, after, as before the rebellion, is under the dominion of the slave power. It is to present to the world hereafter, as heretofore the damning inconsistency of a free country with a slave capital; making us a hissing and a by word to a mocking earth. The bill submitted a few weeks ago for the abolition of slavery, seems to sleep the sleep that knows no waking. One ground of hope along remains. It is just possible that southern hatred of the north may outweigh southern love of slavery. It may be that they will prefer to the abolition of slavery. It may be that they will prefer the abolition of slavery to submission to the old Union.——Driven to the wall by our northern bayonets, and seeing no hope of making a successful appeal to the civilized world, while clinging to the last vestige of barbarism, they may make a virtue of necessity, and wheel into line with the civilization of the age, by emancipating every slave. Such a measure on the part of the south might do much to balk and confuse the councils of the Washington government, to win the moral support of the world, gain the grateful affection of the slaves, and to greatly strengthen the crumbling Southern Confederacy. The world would not long stand an idle spectator of the conflict if the south were once to place themselves in the attitude of the Emancipators. It would be a curious chapter in the history of human nature if this should be the turn of affairs, and yet no more strange than happens elsewhere in other emergencies. Jonah was flung into the sea to save the ship, though the ship was built to carry Jonah, and many precious freights have been sent to the bottom for the same reasons which may lead the southern confederacy to fling slavery overboard. The slaveholders have already given large quantities of cotton to the devouring flame, burnt up its ships, and stores to weaken and annoy those they call oppressors. They are already learning the language of the oppressed, and talking loudly about preferring death to slavery. Cobb, and his crew, call upon southern women to fire their dwellings, burn up their furniture, desolate their towns, and villages, to to save themselves from the northern invader. They may yet say emancipate your slaves for the same purpose. Should this be said, the hands of many loyal soldier would fall to his side. The whole war would wear another aspect. Men who volunteered to fight slaveholders, would hesitate about striking down Emancipators.——The North could then well afford to submit to a dissolution of the union which could not be other than temporary. For slavery out of the South no earthly power could keep the two sections long a part. Such a solution would save the feelings of the vanquished South, and at the same time be full compensation to the North, since it would place the union on an everlasting foundation, and destroy the last possibility of any future trouble. [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] Both sections would then look at each other as friends and brothers and all cause of jealously and suspicion would be gone. [[line]] THE POPULAR HEART. [[short line]] Notwithstanding what has been said in the foregoing article upon the position of the Government, the state of public sentiment respecting slavery and the necessity of its complete abolition, is full of encouragement. Since our last issue we have spoken in Boston and Millford Mass. Providence, Rhode Island New York city, Jersey city New Jersey, Naples, N.Y. South Livonia, Hemlock Lake Fowlerville, and Conesus, travelling more than a thousand miles, and meeting with tens of thousands of people. The impression made by all we have seen and heard, at the fireside, on the way side, in church and in hall, among the many and the few, is that the people are already to sweep slavery from the country would the Government lead off or stand out of the way. We shall as soon as this paper leaves the press, immediately start out again, and do what we may by our humble speech to swell the trumpet cry for instant and universal Emancipation, as the right of the slave the necessity and duty of the nation. The popular ear is open, and the popular heart is every where sensitive to impression. A pleasing feature of the times is the readiness and heartiness with which all classes of abolitionist co-operate for the common cause. Every man who is ready to work for the overthrow of slavery whether a voter, or non voter, a Garrisonian or a Gerrit Smith man, black or white, is both clansman and kinsman of ours. We form a common league against slavery, and whatever political or personal differences, which have in other days decided and distracted us, a common object and a common emergency makes us for the time at least, forget those differences, and strike at the common foe——and to give victory to the common cause In this conection, we owe it to the truth of anti slavery history at this passing hour, to note according to our observation, that no class of men are doing more according to their numbers, to conduct this great war to the Emancipation of the slaves than Mr. Garrison and the American anti-slavery society. The Liberator and National Anti-Slavery Standard, their organs, overflow with evidence of the energetic exertions of this whole class and the howls of all that is malignant and pro-slavery in the country, show the vital effectiveness of those exertions Conventions, lectures, speeches, letters, petitions, are their weapons and they wield them with consummate skill and effect. [[line]] ——Secretary Seward has written to Marshal Lamon directing him to discontinue hereafter the practice of the last half century with reference to the use of the Washington jail for the custody of slaves. These instructions forbid him to receive slaves for safe keeping there, except committed by some competent law officer for offense against the law, or unless taken up and committed as fugitives from slavery, in which he is hereafter to comply literally with the provisions of the law regarding their discharge from custody at the end of thirty days, unless previously lawfully claimed by owners. In these instructions Mr. Seward has followed the letter of the law, and thus provided for the prompt correction of the abuses in that connection, which have existed only by a custom of fifty years. [[/column 3]]
