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634 DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. April, 1862. [[line]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] THE ANTI-RESTORATION MEETING IN NEW YORK. [[short line]] The meeting held at the Cooper Institute, in New York, on Thursday evening, to proclaim opposition to the restoration of slavery, was large and earnest. James A. Hamilton was President. Letters were read from M. Blair, Charles Sumner, Preston King, Henry Wilson and David Wilmot. We quote a paragraph from Mr. Blair's letter: "No one who knows my political career will suspect that my condemnation of this doctrine is influenced by any indisposition to put an end to slavery. I have left no opportunity unimproved to strike at it, and have never been restrained from doing so by personal considerations. But I have never believed that the abolition of slavery, or any other great reform, could or ought to be effected except by lawful and constitutional modes. The people have never sanctioned, and never will sanction, any other; and the friends of a cause will especially avoid all questionable grounds when, as in the present instances, nothing else can long postpone their success. There are two distinct interests in slavery, the political and property interests, held by distinct classes. The rebellion originated with the political class, which generally belonged to the whig organization, had lost no property in the region where the rebellion broke out, and were prosperous. It was the democratic organization, which did not represent the slaveholders as a class, which hatched the rebellion. Their defeat in the late political struggle, and in the present rebellion, extinguishes at once and forever the political interest of slavery. The election of Mr. Lincoln put an end to the hopes of Jeff. Davis, Wise et id omne genus, for the President of the Union, and hence the rebellion. It extinguished slavery as a power to control the federal government, and it was the capacity of slavery to subserve this purpose alone which has given it vitality, for morally and economically it is indefensible. With the extinction of its political power there is no motive to induce any politician to uphold it.——No man ever defended such an institution except for pay, and nothing short of the power of the government could provide sufficient gratification to ambition to pay for such service; and therefore Mr. Toombs said, with perfect truth, that the institution could only be maintained, in the Union, by the possession of the government. That has been wrested from it, and the pay is on the side of justice and truth." Preston King utters the opinions expressed as follows: "Slavery and the influence it has exerted over the minds of so many of the people among whom it has existed, is the fountain of the treason against our republican institutions, and the cause of the extended insurredction that has subverted the constitutional governments of so many States, and that is now waging war against the existence and unity of the government of the United States. "Permanent security to the existence of Republican government and to the peace of the country requires that the cause of the treason, as well as the treason itself, shall be overcome and extinguished, or placed at once under such control of law as will produce its extinction, and thus make certain that its power and influence to disturb the public peace can never be renewed. The whole power of the government should be put forth, with prompt and persistent energy, to overcome by military force and capture or disperse the armed organizations of the insurgents, and to seize the persons of the ringleaders, that the penalty for treason may be inflicted upon them." Mr. Summer's letter takes the position that the revolted States are simply territories, and that Congress should treat them as such. Mr. Wilson writes as follows: "Humanity, justice and patriotism all demand that the American people should never pardon the great criminal that has raised the [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] banner of revolt against the unity and authority of the republic. The blood of our fallen sons demands that the government for which they gave up their lives should walk up to the verge of constitutional power in inflicting condign punishment upon their murderer.——The nation imperrilled [sic] by slavery, should use every legal and constitutional power to put it in process of extinction." Mr. Wimot uses emphatic words in resepct to slavery, from which we take this paragraph: "God, in his Providence, has placed slavery within the rightful power of the nation. We must not tremble and hesitate, because of the magnitude of the labors and duties cast upon us; we must meet and discharge our duties as men in whose hands is placed the ark of human happiness and hopes. We must and will, if true to God, our country, and the race of mankind, now and foerever destroy and wipe put from this nation the accursed institution of human slavery." The following resolutions, reported by Mr. James McKaye, were unanimously adopted: Resolved, That inasmuch as our nationality and democratic institutions are founded upon the idea that "all men are created equal, endowed by the creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," whatever tends to weaken and destroy the vital force of this idea in the popular heart constitutes the most dangerous and fatal enmity to the real unity, true peace and glory of the nation. Resolved, That national unity does by no means consist alone in the conservation of territorial domain, but in the identity of idea and affection. In the heart of no people can a genuine love of liberty and the rights of human nature co-exist with a toleration of slavery. Slavery is treason to the fundamental idea of our national existence, and the war but its necessary and legitimate effect. In the present imminent crisis he who seeks to maintain slavery becomes thereby the abettor of the great treason. Resolved, That in the present extreme exigency brought upon the country by slavery, we hold the right of the national government to destroy the sole cause of all our disasters, not only to be clearly withing the constitution, but to be imperatively demanded by it: First, upon the ground that its existence is wholly incompatible with national self-preservation. Either the nation must die or slavery must. Second——Because the rights and powers conferred by the laws of war upon all sovereignties, and under our system of delegated power primarily upon the President and Congress, constitutionally require its destruction as the only effectual means of ending the conflict and re-establishing permanent national peace and prosperity. And lastly and pre-eminently, because the supreme jurisdition of the national constitution over all the territories now occupied by the rebel States must be held to the exclusive of the traitorious rebel authorities therein established, by virtue of which alone slavery now therein exists, and that wherever the Constitution has exclusive jursidiction it ordains liberty and not slavery. This is the very ground upon which the people placed the present Administration in power, and in derogation of which the rebels wage their war. Resolved, That while slavery remained upon its own ground, good citizens might deem themselves bound by a just respect for the National Constitution to refrain from dealing with it as in its own nature it deserved. But since its masters have begun a war for its triumph and the subjugation of our Nationa Government and free institutions, we deem it our supremest duty never to make peace with or cease our conflict with it until it shall be extirpated from the whole land. Resolved, That we entertain no jot of hatred or hostility towards the great body of the people of the rebel state; and, therefore, while we stand ever ready to welcome them to a loyal reunion under our glorious national [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] constitution, in the words of the Farewell Address of the Father of his Country, we desire "that the happiness of the people of these States may be made complete under the auspices of Liberty," and not utterly and forever rendered impossible by the re-institution of slavery. We repudiate, therefore, and utterly repel the idea that the property and blood of the loyal people of the free States are to be wasted without result, in the suppression of the military power of the rebels, in order that the Capital may in the end be surrendered into the hands of the conquered traitors, and the National Governement be again put under the heel of the slave barons. Resolved, Therefore, that amid the varied events which are occurring during the momentous struggle in which we are engaged, it is the duty and the interest of the government and the people to adopt and to advocate such measures as will ensure universal emancipation, and thus complete the work which the revolution began. Carl Schurz made a lenghty and eloquent speech which was received with demonstrations of the most hearty approval. Mr. Schurz closed his address with the following appeal: "People of America, I implore you for once, be true to yourselves, [great applause] and do justice to the unmistakable instinct of your minds, and the noble impulsed of your hearts. Let it not be said that the great American republic is afraid of the nineteenth century.——[Loud cheers.] And you, legislators of the country, and those who stand at the helm of government, you, I entreat, do no trifle with the blood of the people. This in no time for politely consulting our enemies' tastes, or for sparing our enemies'feelings. Be sure, whatever progressive measures you may resolve upon, however progressive it may be, the people are ready to sustain you with heart and hand. [Loud and long-continued cheering and waving of hats.] The people do not ask for anything that might seem extravagant. They do not care for empty glory; they do not want revenge, but they do want a fruitful victory and a lasting peace. [Great applause.] When pondering over the tendency of this great crisis, two pictures of our future rise up before my mental vision. Here is one: The Republic distracted by a series of revulsions and reactions, all tending toward the usurpation of power and the gradual destruction of that beautiful system of self-government to which this country owes its progress and prosperity; the nation sitting on the ruins of her glory, looking back to our days with a sorrowed eye, and saying, "Then we ought to have acted like men, and all would be well now." Too late, too late! And here is the other: A government freed from the shackles of a despotic aund usurping interest, resting safely upon the loyalty of a united people; a nation engaged in the peaceable discussion of its moral and material problems, and quietly working out its progressive development; its power growing in the same measure with its moral consistency; the esteem of mankind centering upon a purified people; a union firmly rooted in the sincere and undivided affections of all its citizens; a regenerated republic, the natural guide and beacon light of all legitimate aspirations of humanity. These are the two pictures of our future. Choose!" [[line]] An officer of a Massachusetts Regiment writes from Camp Foster, Roanoke Island Feb, 15th, that the rebels dug holes into which they threw their dead. In one hole, forty-five bodies were found, some of whom had wounds that could not have proved mortal, and it is the opinion of our surgeons that they were thrown in alive, and perished from the barbarity of their friends. A company of two hundred colored people is now organizing in Harrisburg under the style of the Industrial Regiment. The intend to embark in May next for Hayti. [[/column 3]]
