Viewing page 15 of 16
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
MARCH, 1862. DOUGLASS MONTHLY. 623. alleging that one liberty had been curtailed, much less destroyed, or one right endangered but that of rendering slavery 'eternal,' and extending it far and wide. The English monarchy is not more the stay of order than the shield of liberty; yet these men would make it the nursing mother of the first conspiracy ever originated, with a few of forming a nation, the 'corner stone' of which, not according to our representation, but according to the words of Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States, and the most eloquent of their orators, the 'corner stone' of which – the 'stone rejected by the builders' of the United States – is slavery! They would moreover, accept for our aristocracy what we take to be the blackest insult ever cast upon it, viz: that the natural allies of the aristocracy in England are the 'gentlemen of the South.' Aristocracy of England – gentleman of the South! It is hard to write the two on the same line. Mr. Bright or Ernest Jones might be indignant, if accused of saying anything so monstrous; yet men professing not hatred, but respect, for our aristocracy, are found to say it. Two classes more dissimilar, or with traditions and tastes more repugnant cannot be named in the world. The English aristocracy, are above all men noted in private life for love of law. The 'gentlemen' of the South imitate them in mansions, sports, wine, in free expenditure, and easy manners; but will shoot men in the streets, brutally attack them in the Senate, shake their fists in their faces in Congress, as these eyes have seen them do; egg on and head lawless mobs to murder any suspected disseminator of anti-slavery opinions; and run riot over all law that crosses their passion or checks their notions of propriety. The English aristocracy are a pattern and admiration to the world for that patriotic sagacity which has led them to sacrifice their cherished prejudices – and, as in the case of the corn-laws, their supposed material interests – rather than break with the nation or push political differences to violent collisions; and they now justly enjoy, and their country, too, enjoys the fruit of this their loyalty and large mindedness.– The 'Southern gentlemen,' on the other hand, the moment they find themselves out-voted by their nation, fly to arms tear down the flag under which they had fought, destroy the government to which they had sworn allegiance, bombard the first officer they find standing by his oath, march upon the Capital, rush to the shores of its protecting stream where the arm of a scarcely awakened people were thrown up spasmodically only in time to arrest, and be desperately wounded in arresting the blow. No; the British aristocracy are no fit allies for men whose passions are their law in private life, whose property is their character to tear their country to pieces and they are o fit allies for the English aristocracy, who have on their library tables papers advertising bloodhounds to hunt human beings, who sell the daughters of their own nurses, the sons of their own father; who divide child and mother on the auction-block; who live in splendor on the gains of trade – not honest industry, but the meanest trade – trade carried on with unpaid labor. They have poor faith in the monarchy and aristocracy of England who would hope that any greater lustre would be shed upon them by friendship with a slaveholding community, or by the destruction of the great Republic. Our faith in them is on this wise; we believe that were the two best and most prosperous Republics possible established – one on the east of us, in France, and one on the west, in America – that our own throne, standing in the midst, would, by the natural teaching of events, sensibly gain upon them during every period of ten years gain not only in the convictions and attachment of the British people but in the envy of the jealous, in the admiration of the wise, in the other two nations.– The British monarchy has everything to gain by the existence of favorable specimens of a Republic to compare it with. It received fresh strength from its glorious contrast with the French Republic of 1848, as some foretold that it would, do, when men who fancy that they have faith in it were trembling for the consequences. It has also gained immensely by comparison with America, and by Mr. Bright's anxiety to make us look thither for an elysium. The true policy of that peerless throne, and the peerless aristocracy which adorns its approaches, is, to stand by every free nation in trouble, and to frown on every slave owner and oppressor. Young English gentlemen who find in the large plantations the nearest approach to the country seats of England, and in the planters' style and manners the best copy of those of our country gentlemen, who are sedulously well treated, and shown, with the easiest air, yet the most artistic combination, all that can please, and kept away from all that can offend, and who leave the Slave States without having witnessed one horror – may easily be forgiven for reversing their boyish ideas, and jumping to the opposite extreme. It is like the impression of a virtuous youth visiting a continental city, and seeing nothing to offend him, and much to satisfy him that things are much better at home. But once let a corner of the veil be lifted, then let the discovery go on; and what realities come to view under that fair exterior! So in the Slave States: once the covering is disturbed, horror after horror comes to light – horrors of the market, the field, the bed, the church, till the stranger either loathes human nature, or sinks down into callous familiarity with accredited abominations. Natural allies of the English aristocracy! Modest creatures to set up such a claim. Mr. Jefferson Davis, the man whom the South has delighted to honor, ever since his heroic denunciation of "crocodile tears;" whom, while able, it forced on the North as a great officer of state, and when it could do so no longer elected him to guide its own destinies – this chosen leader of the chivalry of the South, this prophet and high priest of repudiation, is a natural ally of our Palmerstons, Somersets, and Argylls! And Mr. Vice-President Stephens, the historico-philosophical orator, who boasts that "our new government is the first in history of the world basedupon this great physical and moral truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and moral condition, that this stone which was rejected by the first builders, is become the chief stone of the corner of our new edifice," – a natural ally of our Russell, Lewis and Gladstone! Mr. Secetary of State, "Bob Toombs," a rough-mouthed reviler of England, whose ambition has been first to "cover the Atlantic with first class steamers to pull down Great Britain," the deadly foe of "institution;" and, secondly, to call over the muster-roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill, as the knell of freedom in New England, he is the natural ally! – well, perhaps he is really so of a certain namesake of his, who, if not of our aristocracy, is, unhappily of our government; and, if rumor be right, the best helper Mr. Toombs has had, a writer of the malevolent articles against the Free States in our leading journals. Mr. Yancey, now Southern Commissioner in England, lately a speaker in Fishmongers' Hall, an advocate for renewing the African slave trade, who complained in Congress that the South was prohibited from importing negroes from Africa, while the North was allowed to import jackasses from Malta, is a natural ally for Lord Brougham! and Mr. Mason, the author of the Fugitive Slave law, of Lord Shaftesbury! and the judge who pronounced the Dred Scott decision, and his confreres, who, in varied forms of barbarous language, have ruled the negro to be a thing with a soul and body, but without rights, of our Lyndhurst, Chelmsford and Westury! Gens. Walker and Quitman, the prince of Southern colonial enterprise, are natural allies of Lord Elgin and Sir John Lawrence, and Mr. Brooks, who made war on Charles Sumner in his Senator's chair, and was idolized by the Carolinian chivalry as a great conqueror, is a natural ally of the Duke of Cambridge! And the Right Reverend Father in God, Leonidas Polk, Bishop of Louisiana, and General Commanding in the Southern army, is surly a natural, as well as a spiritual, ally of our Archbishop of Canterbury! No, no, no! The natural allies of the British aristocracy are the British people. And should the labor too effectually expended by the Times to deceive these as to the character of the present struggle, and the relative motives of South and North lead to a war, add that to more misery in England and France – and this to the latter country joining in the fray to keep her cities from revolution – then, though the people will soonest feel the pinch of want, the ultimate dangers will fall on those who favored the slaveholders' insurrection, and fathered this offence against freedom in the aristocratic sentiment; as if nobility drew closer to traders who live by cotton growing, without paying their work people, than to those who live by cotton-spinning, and pay every man honest. As to the resemblance, dear to the pride of the slaveholder, between the mansions of England and those of the planters, we, who are neither owners nor heirs of one of those lordly seats which glisten on the landscapes of our fatherland, like stars on the breast of a king, nevertheless can feel our hearts fire at the insult of such a comparison. Trees and sward, halls and chambers, furniture and appointments, may be made to look somewhat alike; entertainments and manners may be assimilated; but what a difference in all human relations. The one is a home, a free home of free men, where every servant dwells because it suits him, and seeks a happier abode when his hope, his anger or his whim inclines him; and the other is a whited sepulchre, fair on the outer side, but inwardly full of corruption and rottenness. In the one, no man goes to labor but on terms to which he has agreed, and which he can revoke; in the other, men and dogs within doors, men and horses without, stand on one footing; they are bred for the house, farm, or market, as the case may be, they are trained, petted, and kicked; they are worked and driven, fed, housed, covered; if sick, doctored, idle, whipped, and, if it suits the master, sold. In the one, if the master values his servant, he says, "I would not that man should take it into his head to leave me for a hundred pounds;" in the other, "I would not take a thousand dollars for that servant." In the one, if the master is displeased, he says, "I shall give you notice to find another place;" in the other, "I shall sell you down South." In the one, if the servant fears his master, he says, "Sir, I must change;" in the other, he asks himself, "Will he whip me, or put me in irons, or sell me?" In the one, the servant, when the bloodhound bays, thinks only of thieves and robbers; in the other, of the horrors of such a sound behind his own heels should he attempt to flee for freedom. In the one, the servant admires the young master's neat rifle and steady aim, thinking only of game, or perhaps of invaders; in the other, he thinks, "That would soon overtake dis nigger." The English mansion has no lock up for recusant, no cowhide for lazy, no branding iron or fetters for runaway men. * See the Savannah Republican, quoted at the time in all our papers, and reprinted in Gasparin's Uprising of a Great People. WILLINGNESS OF THE CONTRABANDS TO LABOR. Correspondence of The New York Times. HILTON HEAD, S. C., Jan. 19. The negroes here had to be found and organized into gangs for working. To their credit I can say, without qualification, that they labor willingly and satisfactorily – far better than any reasonable man could have supposed, when the fact of their having been just released from a driver's lash is taken into consideration. There are as many as 3,000 of them – women as well as men – now
Transcription Notes:
last hyphenated word taken to next page
