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March 1862. DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. 611 [[3 ruled columns]] [[column 1]] MORE INFAMY.--It is now reported that Jeff. Davis has sent to President Lincoln threatening to retaliate upon Col. Corcoran and other Union officers in the hands of the rebels, if Gen. Halleck carries out his intention of hanging the bridge burners in Missouri. The fact that Union bridge burners in Tennessee have been hung by the rebels authorities, and that among papers found in the camp of Gen. Zollicoffer after the battle of Mill Spring, was an order from the rebel Secretary of War to try by summary court martial, and hang such prisoners as can be identified as having been concerned in bridge burning, would seem to be an effectual reason why Jeff. Davis should not presume to forward such a message to Washington. The impudence of the rascals must be boundless.--Probably he was encouraged to take the step by the success which he achieved through a similar menace in the case of the Southern pirates in the hands of the federal authorities. Whether President Lincoln will allow himself to be intimidated a second time remains to be seen. It this last threat be allowed to accomplish its purpose, Davis' next step may be a demand for the recognition of the C.S.A., with the alternative of a wholesale massacre of Union prisoners. Would such a threat be heeded? [[line]] KENTUCKY.--An officer of the first Wisconsin regiment writing to the Providence Journal, from Mumfordsville, Kentucky, says: So far as I have seen the people, there is a lack of energy and thrift among them, alike perplexing and annoying to one brought up in New England. We are about seventy-five miles from Louisville, on the line of the Louisville and Nashville railroad, which passes through the heart of Kentucky, and the whole line of our march has been through the most populous and traveled regions of the State. yet I have not seen a single residence, either in town or country, in which any New Englander, of even moderate wealth and energy, would possible be content to live ; and by far the largest proportion of the houses are the most miserable of log huts, and inhabited not by negroes but by white men. I remember reading in "Olmstead's Back Country," of the general tendency of the people of eastern Tennessee and the hill country in that vicinity to wait for some great public work, some governmental appropriation or railroad subscription, which was to rescue them from the effects of their own idleness. It would seem that the same tendency exists here also, only in a greater degree ; for, in spite of the combined influence of railroad and turnpike, the people at large appear sunken in the last stages of poverty and shiftlessness. It may be that in peaceful times the appearance would be different ; but everything I have seen and heard thus far indicates that is the case in general. The language of the common people is vulgar and illiterate, their ideas crude and reasonless, and their whole bearing and manner is unattractive, if not decidedly repulsive. There is a certain frankness about them which does not comport with a Yankee's notion of shrewdness, and a childish inquisitiveness, indicative of a very slight acquaintance with the world and a remarkable facility in being "sold." I do not speak of these things in a spirit of harshness and fault-finding, but because they have impressed me so forcibly that I cannot forbear mentioning them. In respect to the appearance of the country, just the reverse is true. One could hardly wish to live in a more beautiful region. I do not wonder at Daniel Boone's love of the "dark and bloody ground." The Western men, I find, consider it very rocky ; but a New Englander would not bring up that objection. There is rock enough for roads and walls, and on hills for high picturesque effect in the general landscape. But farms of the very first quality can be found here, and the land only needs a mixture of Northern brains, as Turner said of the colors in his pictures, to render it in deed, as in name, the garden of the Union. [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] --Some of our contemporaries find cause for congratulation in the fact that a lecture course had been established in Washington, and that such men as W.H. Channing, Geo. B. Cheever, and others of like sentiments, are invited and can express their opinions to such persons as choose to hear them, without hindrance or personal danger. We confess we can see nothing in this on which to congratulate the nation ; it is surely a little too much to feel proud that free speech is "tolerated' in the capital city of the United States ' it is rather cause for shame to reflect that for years past it has not been permitted there, and that even now it is according to all accounts, only tolerated. It seems that Professor Henry, curator of the Smithsonian institution, has "filed a solemn protest' against the sentiments of the lecturers who have spoken in the Smithsonian Hall, and who have spoken we believe, in favor of liberty against slavery. So long as Congress and the nation suffer the capital and the District over which Congress has power to legislate to be disgraced by the curse of slavery, we shall find free speech and all liberty denied or at best only tolerated.--[[italics]] N.Y. Post [[/italics]] [[line]] BREAK THE BLOCKADE - WHAT THEN? - There is a general wish abroad that the blockade of the southern ports of America should be broken up, and it is perfectly obvious that the governments of England and France are well disposed to take action on public opinion. When thousands of individuals are in pecuniary distress, they are always of opinion that it is competent for government to relieve them. Every one knows that the dullness of trade, and its consequent privation proceed directly from the civil war in America. The effect of that civil war is to deprive us, of cotton. The hasty inference then is, that if we now got the cotton we would be relieved from the distress, and that we would get the cotton if we broke up the blockade. What, then, would we gain by the hostile interference of European governments in the present in America? Instead of gain would there not be a positive loss? Our best customers would have been destroyed--annihilated. OUr taxes would be fearfully increased; reproaches would be superinduced on approbation, and posterity would be shocked at a result so detrimental to the progress of civilization. Instead of getting more cotton, we would get less; instead of having more mills at full work we would have fewer; instead of having 37,000 people in Lancashire out of work, we would have treble the number.--The destruction of America would react on England, and our own sons would have to deplore the folly of their farthers. What, then, is to be done? The thinking portion of our community must weigh well all the circumstances of the case and of the time, [[line]] and wisely correct public opinion in reference to its action upon the administration. Government needs no stimulant in this business.--From the very beginning it has not concealed its partiality for the South--its hatred to the North. The partiality up to this moment has misled the confederates. Government, however, has imbibed the notion that something must be done in the present state of affairs in the United States. Mr. Massey, at Salford, on Tuesday evening, indicated as much, and without any disguise. The plan is, at first mediation, and, that failing, then an armed mediation. Mediation certainly ought to be tried, and we regret to say that France would be a mediator with the greatest chance of success. Perhaps, after all, a friendly mediation by individuals would be productive of the desired results.-- [[italics]] Liverpool Post. [[/italics]]. [[line]] [[bold]] THE ORATOR OF FREEDOM. [[/bold]] ----- From The Jersey (Eng.) Independent. After the wretched exhibitions of prejudice and downright ignorance on the American question made by the great majority of English members of Parliament addressing their constituents--we except Mr. Forster, [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] the member from Bradford, and two or three more--it is a relief, a pleasure and a delight, to turn to the magnificent oration of Senator Sumner, the distingushed son of Massachusetts, which we give in to-day's [[italics]] Independent. [[/italics]] As a general rule even those who like to listen to good speeches do not care to read long speeches, good or bad. But even such persons need not our recommendation to give their attention to the graceful periods and electrifying appeals of, probably, the most accomplished of American speakers; perhaps we might justly say the foremost orator speaking the Anglo-Saxon tongue; for rivalling Gladstone in genius, he more than rivals the glory of England's House of Commons by that holy earnestness which imparts to eloquence its chief effect, and which naturally is the product of circumstances rather than of individual will. Mr. Sumner is world-famed, and for himself personally the most sincere sympathy has been felt in England from the time that he was so treacherously and brutally assaulted by the ruffian Brooks, an atrocity premonitory of the treason and ferocity which commenced with the conspiracy of President Buchanan's Ministers and the subsequent rebel bombardment of Fort Sumter. The principles of the Massachusetts Senator command our thorough adhesion, as his extraordinary talents challenge our admiration, and his courageous consistency carries with it our respect. We feel confidence that, had we sat in the Worcester Convention, the orator would have commanded our vote as well as our applause. Yet his oration, exciting indescribable enthusiasm, did not carry with them the vote of the assembly. The majority shrunk from the tremendous consequences involved in the carrying out of Mr. Sumner's straightforward programme. As we have not the speeches of the opposing orators before us, we will not do them the injustice of passing judgment on the vote they influenced. Had we space at command, which we have not, we would recite and admit the force of the anxious considerations swaying the minds of those who, like the government at Washington and the majority in the Worcester Convention, shrink from the course of ultimate safety through present peril pointed out by the Massachusetts Senator. But although we can make every allowance for the President Lincoln and his Ministers, and those Massachusetts men who hesitate to invoke the sword of Spartacus, still, we repeat, all our sympathies are with Mr. Sumner, the cause of which he is the champion, and the policy of which he is the exponent. Although grammarians will not allow the comparative and superlative of "right," and know nothing of "righter" and "rightest," we must nevertheless affirm that Gen. Butler was right, Gen. Fremont [[italics]] more [[/italics]] right, and that Senator Sumner is [[italics]] most [[/italics]] right. We have not space at present to follow up this theme, but must conclude by urging all to read the brilliant speech preceding these few remarks, an oration truly worthy of "The holiest cause that tongue or sword Of mortal ever lost or gained." [[line]] [[bold]] FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES [[/bold]] --- The relations of the French Government with the United States are thus referred to in the report on the 'General situation of the Empire,' laid before the Legislative Body: The serious complications taken place in the United States have not disturbed the cordiality of our relations with that country. It was impossible however, that the conflict, the outbreak of which we beheld with pain should not interfere, when it assumed so large proportions, with our ordinary transactions with the United States, and that it should not affect to a certain extent, the security of our commerce. The Government of the Emperor has therefore, had to take into serious consideration, from the very first, these inevitable consequences of the American crisis. It could not hesitate as to the attitude which circumstances made imperative. Having, on the one hand, the duty of seeing that the interests placed under its protect- [[/column 3]]
