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674      DOUGLASS MONTHLY.      JULY, 1862

Hayne, McDuffee, Jeff. Davis and Toombs for teachers, have made them one in hatred of the free States, and in devotion to the slave States.  With every rebel of them all 'Great is slavery and Jeff. Davis is its Prophet.'  He who can pronounce this first and last articile [sic] of the rebel creed, of whatever complexion he may be, is hailed as a clansman and kinsman.

With us there is no such definite bond of Union.  Many of our Generals heartily adopt the first part of the rebel creed and conform their practice to it, while few reject it altogether.  The result is moral weakness.  The people and the army are divided.  The North fights with one eye on the rebels and the other on the Presidency.  McCLELLAN AND HALLECK for slavery, are the favorite Generals of the Democratic slavery men of the North, and regarded as good timber for a future President.  FREMONT and HUNTER, anti-slavery men, commend themselves to anti-slavery men North and South.  Partizanship [sic] thus lifts its distracting head in the very midst of the union camp, and becomes more intense as the war progresses, and if the nation succeeds, it will be despite of this weakness, a weakness which has its source in the national unsoundness on the vital question of slavery.  With McClellan and Halleck the effort is to save the Union and to save slavery.  With Fremont and Hunter, the effort is to save the Union, let what will, become of slavery.  Unfortunately in war, as in peace, on the side of the oppressor is power.  The great bulk of the military force of the country is under the direction and management of pro-slavery Generals, and their despotic authority over the newspaper correspondents who follow them, gives them the means of making public sentiment in their favor.  A correspondent not less than a common soldier dreads the displeasure of the commanding General and well he may, where a single word from the General drives him in disgrace from the camp.  It is not marvellous therefore, that what we read from the army of the Mississippi is loud in praise of the wisdom, and firmness of Halleck, and the same of McClellan on the Potomac.

Nevertheless the great North is essentially in earnest for the Union, and the speedy suppression of the rebellion at any cost to slavery, and in the end this spirit will diffuse itself, overcome all factions, and unify all elements now opposed to the haggard front of this slaveholding rebellion.  We are the more persuaded of this final result because of the testimony elsewhere borne of the anti-slavery feeling of the President.  CHARLES SUMNER is not likely to deceive himself, and is still less likely to wish to deceive others.  Secretary Stanton too, has earned the displeasure of all rebeldom north and south.  While Secretary Chase begins to loom out in something of his early anti-slavery proportions.  With these powers both on and behind the throne we will not yet despair that the war for the Union will at last attain a unity of form as perfect as that assumed by the rebellion.  The south says that the Union must die that slavery may live.  The north must yet be brought to say, slavery shall die that the Union may live.
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——The Confiscation act meets with the hearty approval of the soldiers at Manassas.  Democrats, as well as Republicans, are in favor of the most radical means, and all they fear is that Congress will treat the Rebels too leniently.

THE FUTURE OF AFRICA, being Addresses, sermons, etc. etc., delivered in the Republic of Liberia.  By Alexander Crummell, B. A. Queen's College, Cambridge.  Charles Scribner, 124 Grand Street New York, Publisher.

The contents of this volume of three hundred and fifty pages are ranged under the following suggestive titles.  I. The English Language in Liberia.  II. The Duty of a rising Christian State to contribute to the World's well being and Civilization.  III. The Progress of Civilization along the West Coat of Africa.  IV. The Progress and Prospects of the Republic of Liberia.  V. God and the Nations.  VI. The Fitness of the Gospel for its own work.  VII. Address on laying the corner stone of St. Mark's Hospital, Cape Palmas.  VIII. The Relation and Duty of Free Colored Men in America to Africa.——X. The Negro race not under a Curse.  This book is thoroughly in the interest of African Colonization, and well calculated to stir up a general African spirit among the colored people of America.  It is with this feature of the book, we have mainly to do.  It is not Mr. Crummell as a clergyman, but Mr. Crummel as a colonizationist, that makes him important just now.  While thoroughly detesting the motives, origin and arguments of the American Colonizationist Society, evidently designed to confuse and prostrate all attempts to put an end to slavery, and render the system more secure by removing from this country its entire free black population, we are still not to be classed with those who consider all efforts to carry civilization and Christianity to the benighted shores of Africa, as unfriendly to the peeled and down trodden black race in the United States or elsewhere on the American continent.  Hence we may claim to have read with candor, certainly without prejudice, the addresses and other papers contained in the volume before us.  Indeed as a moral and intellectual performance, and especially as it is the work of a man who almost glories in his unmixed negro blood, we have perused the volume before us with admiration.  No one can read it without respect for the talents, and sympathy for the zeal of its author.  The mental darkness, misery and desolation of Africa are described with an eloquence and pathos, which fairly storm their way to the heart, and compel our tears.——Herein is the main power of Mr. Crummell's book.  The basis of his appeal for help is, that "Darkness covereth Africa, and gross darkness the minds of her people."  Her ignorance, her superstitions, her Devil worship, her wild rank barbarism, cry aloud for the enlightened Christian teacher, the skillful artisan, the enterprising merchant, the plodding argriculturists, to come to her assistance, and the black man is urged on the score of descent and relationship, to go to the rescue.  Other considerations, such as national pride, wealth and honor, are insisted upon, but mainly our duty to Africa, is found in her destitution, and her great need of our help.  A heart all alive with the ten thousand woes and wants of Africa, has easily poured itself out in an appeal here that thrills and melts the heart, and at the moment makes one feel like abandoning home, friends, civilization, and all his accustomed pursuits, for the purpose of assisting Ethiopia in stretching out her hand unto God!  Feeling is always true to feeling.——But alas! for Mr. Crummell, and his colonization book, the materials for producing a similar effect upon the humane attributes of our nature are not entirely confined to the far off shores of Africa.  Right here in America, in the free states, in the slave states, in northern cities, in southern cities, all over the country, wheresoever the head is turned, the ear is saluted, with the same plaintive, touching, dismal wail, from people of this same African race, groping their way through darkness, misery, oppression, slavery and all manner of moral destitution, calling for the aid and intervention of just such men and women as Mr. Crummell wants for the 'St. Pau's' the 'Gambia,' the 'Cavalla,' and other great rivers of Africa.  Right here in America, there is ample space and opportunity for all the culture, all the energy, all the experience, all the knowledge, virtue, piety, and missionary zeal yet produced by our race.

While therefore we accord all honor to Mr. Crummell, and to men like him, who quit the shores of their native land, carry away their learning, zeal, and affections to Africa to lift up the standard of Christianity and civilization among the heathen, we cannot accord to him or them, the right to charge even by implication those who see fit to stay here, with a loss of natural affection for our own variety of the human race, or with indifference to our fatherland.  No intelligent born American black man, is under the necessity of crossing the ocean to prove his devotion to the people of Africa.  He can if he will, do that a little nearer home, and with as high advantage to the world, as if he were to fix his habitation in the very centre of Africa.  The young man who earnestly devotes his time to study, who cultivates his moral and spiritual nature, and presents himself heart and soul, without spot or blemish and without reserve to the work of enlightening, elevating, and defending the negro race in America, can scarcely be arraigned as ashamed of his race, or as indifferent to the welfare of Africa.——Since every success which crowns his exertions here, must quickly and favorably tell upon the welfare of the whole African race.

It is due to Mr. Crummell, to say that he wisely disclaims in his book, the old offensive assumption of colonizatsonists, [sic] that the black man is doomed to unalterable degradation in the United States.  He does not in so many words tell us that this is not, and can never be our country.  He disclaims both these offensive assumptions, and yet he has throughout his book implied their truth.  For if the colored man can rise from ignorance to intelligence here, if he can rise from degradation to respectability, from indigence to affluence, from a slave to a freeman in the land of his birth, this consideration ought to excuse his reluctance to abandon the struggle, and instead of being denounced as he is by Mr. Crummell, for his "solid inhabitativeness" he should be commended for his long suffering patience in trying to work out these desirable results.

Benevolence is a sublime and powerful motive to exertion.  We do not undervalue it.——The Philanthropist while threading his way through the scenes of sin and misery, amid foul disease and every form of human wretchedness which sin and crime can bring is sustained by the thought that he is doing good.  The same is true of the missionary who takes his life in his hand, exiles himself from the land of his birth, leaves friends and kindred, 

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