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622      DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.      MARCH, 1862
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ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF GEORGIA.
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The following address will show our readers the intense hatred that such men as Cobb & Co. bear to the north, and the desperation to which they may be driven rather than again become parties to the Union of all the States.

FELLOW CITIZENS:  In a few days the provisional government of the confederate States will live only in history.  With it we shall deliver up the trust we have endeavored to use for your benefit, to those more directly selected by yourselves.  The public record of our acts is familiar to you, and requires no further explanation at our hands.  Of those matters which policy has required to be secret, it would be improper now to speak.——This address, therefore, will have no personal reference.  We are well assured that there exists no necessity for us to arouse your patriotism, nor to inspire your confidence.  We rejoice with you in the unanmity of our State, in its resolution and its hopes.  And we are proud with you that Georgia has been "illustrated," and we doubt not will be illustrated again by her sons in our holy struggle.  The first campaign is over; each party rests in place, while the winter's snow declares an armistice from on high.  The results in the field are familiar to you, and we will not recount them.  To some important facts we call your attention:

First the moderation of our own government and the fanatical madness of our enemies have dispersed all differences of opinion among our people and united them forever in the war of independence.  In a few border states a waning opposition is giving way before the stern logic of daily developing facts.  The world's history does not give a parallel instance of a revolution based upon such unanimity among the people.  Second, Our enemy has exhibited an energy, a perseverence, and all amount of resources which we had hardly expected, and a disregard of constitution and laws which we can hardly credit.——The result of both, however, is that power which is the characteristic element of despotism, and renders it as formidable to its enemies as it is destructive to its subjects.  Third, An immense army has been organized for our destruction, which is being disciplined to the unthinking stolidity of regulars.  With the exclusive possession of the seas, our enemy is enabled to throw upon the shores of every state the nucleus of an army.  And the threat is made, and doubtless the attempt will follow in early spring, to crush us with a giant's grasp by a simultaneous movement along our entire border.  Fourth, With whatever alacrity our people may rush to arms, and with whatever energy our government may use its resources, we cannot expect to cope with our enemy either in numbers, equipments or munitions of war.  To provide against these odds we must look to desperate courage, unflinching daring and universal self-sacrifice.  Fifth, The prospect of foreign interference is at least a remote one, and should not be relied on.  If it comes, let it be only auxiliary to our own preparations for freedom.  To our God and ourselves alone we should look.

These are stern facts, perhaps some of them are unpalateable.  But we are deceived in you if you would have us to conceal them in order to deceive you.  The only question for us and you is, as a nation and individually, what have we to do?  We answer:  First, As a nation we should be united, forbearing to one another, frowning upon all factious opposition and censorious criticisms, and giving a trustful and generous confidence to those selected as our leaders in the camp and the council chamber.  Second, We should excite every nerve and strain every muscle of the body politic to maintain our financial and military healthfulness, and, by rapid, aggressive action, make our enemies feel, at their own firesides, the horrors of a war brought on by themselves.  The most important matter for you, however, is your individual duty.
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What can you do?  The foot of the oppressor is on the soil, of Georgia.  He comes with lust in his eye, poverty in his purse, and hell in his heart.  He comes a robber and a murderer.  How shall you meet him?  With the sword at the threshold!  With death for him or for yourself!  But more than this:  Let every woman have a torch, every child a firebrand.  Let the loved homes of your youth be made ashes, and the fields of our heritage be made desolate.  Let blackness and ruin mark your departing steps, if depart you must; and let a desert more terrible than Sahara welcome the Vandals.  Let every city be leveled by the flame, and every village be lost in ashes.  Let your faithful slaves share your fortune and your crust.  Trust wife and children to the sure refuge and protection of God, preferring even for these loved ones the charnel house as a home than loathsome vassalage to a nation already sunk below the contempt of the civilized world.——This may be your terrible choice; and determine at once and without dissent as honor and patriotism and duty to God require.

FELLOW CITIZENS:——Lull not yourselves into a fatal security.  Be prepared for every contingency.  This is our only hope for a sure and honorable peace.  If our enemy was today convinced that the feast herein indicated would welcome him in every quarter of this confederacy, we know his base character well enough to feel assured he would never come.  Let, then, the smoke of your homes, fired by woman's hands, tell the approaching foe that over sword and bayonet they will rush only to fire and ruin.  We have faith in God, and faith in you.  He is blind to every indication of Providence who has not seen an Almighty hand controlling the events of the past year.  The wind, the wave, the cloud, the mist, the sunshine and the storm have all ministered to our necessities, and frequently succored us in our distresses.  We deem in unnecessary to recount the numerous instances which have called forth our gratitude.  We would join you in thanksgiving and praise.  "If God be for us, who can be against us?  Nor would we condemn your confident look to your armies, when they can meet with a foe not too greatly their superior in numbers.  The year past tells a story of heroism and success, of which our nation will never be ashamed.——These considerations, however, should only stimulate us to greater deeds and nobler efforts.  An occasional reverse we must expect——such as has depressed within the last few days.  This is only temporary.  We have no fear of the result——the final issue.  You and we may have to sacrifice our lives and fortunes in the holy cause:  but our honor will be saved untarnished, and our children's children will rise up to call us "blessed."

HOWELL COBB,
R. TOOMBS,
M. J. CRAWFORD,
THOMAS R. R. COBB.
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From the London Quarterly Review.

SLAVEHOLDERS AND THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY.
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One traveler has favored us, in the pages of Blackwood, with an account of the South as he saw it in last September and October, and we have the authority of the Times that he is impartial; moreover, he (or a companion) claims to add to his narrative 'Some Account of both sides of the American War,' in which he speaks of both sides, but for one, and that with great tact, sufficient to satisfy those who know little on the subject that he looks at both.  We would warn our readers against supposing us to be impartial, as the writer professes to be.  We are not; for a cross bias against slavers and slavery runs through our very marrow; and every statement of ours must be sifted as from those who take a side, and would be ashamed not to do so.  Stealthily apologizing for slavery; alleging, against Mr. Lincoln and the North, multifarious and——in several cases——inconsistent accusations; bringing into view all the virtues of the South, and not one of its vices;
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showing, as a sample of slavery, negroes laboring with gold watches in their pockets; and, as a specimen of opinion, that the Southerners earnestly desired (what they had got before this paper appeared) a descent on the coast of South Carolina or Florida; and as once of information, that two counties in Virginia contained sufficient supplies of animal food for the Southern army for two years——this writer is, nevertheless, useful in several respects.  He first shows, as slaveowners always boast, how soon men, when well treated by them, and familiar with their mode of gaining their livelihood, warm to it as being a gentlemanly calling.  He does, indeed, admit that there are things about slavery to be abhorred by all Englishmen; but he keeps them far out of view, and paints such as are of an opposite character.  He condemns the North because, during a state of revolution, restraint is put on speaking and writing treason; but not a syllable has he to say on the fact that, in ordinary times, no editor dared to write, no minister to preach, no orator to declaim, in the South, against the dark cause of all the commotion he saw; that even the benevolent might not emancipate, nor the enlightened instruct the victims of his fair and his gallant clients, without bringing upon themselves tar and feathers, or mayhap dignified legal punishment; and that every year some peaceful friends of freedom meet with some violent death for their opinions.

He is also useful, as showing at every step, without any intention of doing so that Slavery is the ground of the quarrel; his summary of which he concludes by saying that Lincoln's election secured the triumph of a party 'pledged to the destruction of the peculiar institutions and material interests of the South.'  If this witness be 'impartial,' which we are far from saying (for he evidently bears Mr. Lincoln and the anti-slavery party, which he calls the triumphant faction, keen dislike) the Times, which vouches for it, must cancel some hundreds of columns devoted to proving that anti-slavery feeling had nothing to do with the dispute.

His undisguised testimony to the effectiveness of the blockade is, to us unexpected:——'The blockade has undoubtedly, been productive of great individual inconvenience.——All communication by letter has been cut off.  Friends are unable to correspond.  Painful instances are met with every day of the anxiety to hear tidings of relations abroad.'

His discernment is shown in the following view of the Northern army: 'It is much to be doubted whether many of the American soldiers calculated on or desire the invasion of the Southern State.'  If not Americans, who does?  The Irish?——the Germans?  Who cried on to Richmond?  Who clamored for the speedier sailing of the armada?  He calls the occupation of Maryland 'quasi Venetian;' whereas a popular vote in that State in which more electors took part than in ordinary times, has given a large majority for the Union.  If Venetia be permitted by Austria to vote, and will give a similar decision, we at least will not reproach Austria for occupying it.  It is poor work to spend one's time in noticing such trifles; but it is a work of charit to give some instances of the way in which th cause of the slavers is artfully commended toe the people of this country by men who affect candor.

We tell such men they do not know how to serve the British monarchy; they are its worst, though its unconscious foes.  Ours is a monarchy eminently graced with love of order and discouraging rebellion, except when a people oppressed have failed, after patient efforts to obtain by peaceable means natural rights from unreasonable masters.  But these men would commit it to friendship with that rebellion, which however passion and misrepresentation may now gloss it, as a crime unknown to history, and will take its place in its page as the first recorded, wherein the ruling class in a free country, when by a legal process political authority was voted away from them, rose against the nation; dismembered first, and then attacked it without 
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