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680 DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. JULY, 1862 FROM THE SOUTH. A gentleman who has just arrived in the North, from Alabama, states that the most despondent feelings prevail throughout the South, and that the people are all but ready to rebel against the incompetent leaders who have involved them in such overwhelming disaster. The following article from The Montgomery Advertiser of the 15th ult., will be read with interest. Its tone is getting to be a not unusual one in the Southern journals: A LEADER. Since our affairs have become so complicated by the inefficiency of those who were unfortunately vested with authority to conduct the war, it is no unfrequent thing to hear the lamentations of the country, for the want of a greater leader to upturn the existing state of things, and take us safely through the revolution. It will be well to consider why the prerequisites for a man for the times have not been complied with. In the first place, it may be asserted as a humiliating fact in our history, that the whole tendency has been to repress leading merit, and give commanding positions to mediocrity. If a man exhibited those high traits of ability, courage and energy which distinguished him as a representative of a great republican movement, he at once became a mark for the envy of timid place-hunters, and the cry went through the land that he was a fire-brand and a factionist, attempting to undermine everything that was pure and good in society, to gratify his own ambition. The people—hones, confiding and unsuspecting as they always are—hearing these representations from their neighboring oracles, took counsel of their fears—and came to regard the foremost advocate of their cause, as a very dangerous man. Time rolled on, and events vindicated the principles of our much abused statesman, but true to the weakness of human nature, the prejudice to the man had festered until it would take years to heal the wound. In this lamentable condition did this revolution find us. The illustration above made is only a specimen of a large class of men throughout the Confederacy, who comprehended the necessity for secession far ahead of their compeers, and who were, therefore, the fittest persons to preside over the destinies of the new Government, which their superior sagacity and will had conceived, but who, forsooth, were set aside, as rash and impracticable schemers, while others were installed into power who had remained at Washington until actually driven away with tears in their eyes by force of a virtuous Southern sentiment!– Thus it was that not satisfied with seceding from Washington, we must needs form a Government of those who have not yet rid themselves of the stench of its corruption. Our great men who had fought and won the battles of Secession against Northern aggression and Southern submission, were thus, in the hour of our triumph, crushed and humiliated as martyrs to the liberties of their own countrymen. And now, when it is manifest that through the evil influences which our people themselves have inaugurated, their strength has been wasted and their patriotism misapplied, they call aloud for a leader to rescue them from their misfortunes. Would to God that some one would rise up powerful enough to unite the whole energies of such a people for the defense of their country against all opposers; but who can be that man under the difficulties, which surround the position? Do you call upon those whom you sacrificed at the formation of your government, because they had led you triumphantly out of the old Union? Is it likely that they will voluntarily undergo another martyrdom for your sake, when those to whom you have committed the keys, have locked the door to popular opinion? When your President sits with his ears closed to the advice of the wise men of his country, and summarily disposes of every man as a fool or a liar, who ventures to suggest a doubt as to his policy? When your Congress sits with closed doors, and tells you that 'military necessity' requires that you should know nothing of its proceedings, and, therefore, have no right to pass judgement on what it should not do? When all this and more has been done, denying you a right to a voice in your Government, except through the whispers of your representatives, are you going to sit still and ask for a leader to remedy things? We tell you, fellow-citizens, the time has come when the people must prove their right to a free government, by demanding to have it represent their will. Confidence has well nigh ruined you. A few months ago, a man was liable to the charge of treason who dared to question the infallibility of your President and Congress. When it was said that the doors of the Government should be opened, so that the public might be heard in the decision of questions of general policy, in which all were equally interested, you gave ear to the timid plea that the enemy would know what we were doing, and believed all was going on right. No one asked to know the military secrets of the Government, and if they were worth keeping, Congress had as little right to know many of them as the rest of you. But what if the enemy did know some of our differences? Would that take any of our strength from us? Are we so weak that we must sacrifice internal vigor and purity to a foolish sensibility as to what others may think of us? We are sure all will now agree that the war upon us has been managed with the utmost energy, as contradistinguished from our do nothing policy; and it is because the Northern people have been heard and felt in their own Government. When they found their authorities were going wrong, they took hold of them with all the power of the press and public opinion. Their Congress discussed its measure in public, and the people knew and dictated what they did. Their President, although having credit among us for being a clown, had sense enough to know that he did not know everything. He took counsel, and divided responsibility with those who were versed in their own departments; and when men were found incompetent, he had respect enough for an enlightened public opinion to remove those who were obnoxious. While, therefore, our people have greater reason for hating Northern principles, since they become more aggressive, they have also good ground for emulating the spirit of the Yankees in the management of their own Government. We are yet strong to be free, if we maintain the freedom of speech and of the press. Our Government must be made to feel that we are the principal and it the agent. But this cannot be cone while Congress sits with closed doors, and the President continues to have no respect for the opinions of the people. Our men will of course all refuse to lead, as long as they are closeted, so as to be able to get no response from their constituents. Secresy is the vitalizing element of little minds; it dwarfs great men to the smallest standard. Perhaps if the Provisional Congress had condescended to expose the inefficiency of Mr. Davis by public sessions, we would to-day have a vigorous and far-seeing Executive. As it is, we are committed for six years and any effort to build up an opposition in the lead of any man, might result in two partisan organizations, which would so divide our strength as to make us a prey to the enemy. There is, however, a wide-spread indication that the people are becoming throughly united in the opposition, without the aid of a leader, and whenever this feeling reaches a crisis, the present Administration may find it wise to give way to men who have the mind and nerve for the times. SOUTHERN CAVALIERS VS. NORTHERN PURITANS.– The following article appeared in the Louisville Bowling Green Nashville Courier during its publication in the last named place. It is worthy of republication just now: This has been called a fratricidal war by some, by others an irrepressible conflict between Freedom and Slavery. We respectfully take issue with the authors of both these ideas. We are not the brothers of the Yankees, and the Slavery question is merely the pretext, not the cause of the war The true irrepressible conflict lies fundamentally in the hereditary hostility, the sacred animosity, the eternal antagonism between the two races engaged. The Norman cavalier cannot brook the vulgar familiarity of the Saxon Yankee, whilst the latter is continually devising some plan to bring down his aristocratic neighbor to his own detested level. Thus was the contest waged in the old United States. So long as Dickinson doughfaces were to be bought, and Cochrane cowards to be frightened, so long was the Union tolerable to the Southern men; but when, owing to divisions of our ranks, the Yankee hirelings placed one of their own spawn over us, political connection became unendurable, and separation necessary to preserve our self-respect. As our Norman kinsman in England, always a minority, have ruled their Saxon countrymen in political vassalage up to the present day, so have we, the 'slave oligarchs' governed the Yankees, till within a twelve month. We framed the Constitution, for seventy years moulded the policy of the Government, and placed own men, or 'Northern men with Southern principles,' in power. On the 6th of November, 1860, the Puritans emancipated themselves, and are now in violent insurrection against their former owners. This insane holiday freak will not last long, however, for dastards in fight, and incapable of self-government, they will inevitably again fall under control of the superior race. A few more Bull Run thrashings will bring them once more under the yoke as docile as the most loyal of our Ethiopian 'chattels.' RESOLUTIONS, ADOPTED AT THE YEARLY MEETING OF THE FRIENDS OF HUMAN PROGRESS, AT JUNIUS, N. Y. 1. Resolved, That the principles which, as Friends of Progress, we inscribe on our banner,—the peerless worth, transcendent majestys and vital, all-sovereign authority of the truth of the Soul, the laws of Reason, the ordinances of Verity and Justice, the requirements of Virtue, the superlative claims of Character,—far enough from being cold, lifeless, or barren abstractions, recondite and well-nigh inaccessible, buried away in abysses of dim and dubious speculation, are warm and living realities, all fruitful, radiant with light, patent to the earliest thought of man, more evident and certain than all else beside, the primal scripture, oldest and completest bible, lamp for the feet through all the labyrinths of time, succor and solace to the soul, talisman of accomplishment, and standard evermore of all effective doing and success. 2 Resolved, That these truths, always pertinent and opposite, always full of vital bearings, and charged with most benign guidance and blessing for men under whatever circumstances and in every age, are specially pertinent and vital and pregnant here and now, in the circumstances of this hour, and the exigencies upon which our nation is to-day cast, and require, therefore, to be proclaimed and urged home upon the attention of the people with an emphasis, directness, and force of application correspondent to the formidable and felt perils of the position. 3. Resolved, That the importance of these truths, the fatally ruinous consequence, amid whatever attention to other matters, of their neglect or denial, has very signal and painfully near illustration in the attitude of our nation at this hour—a nation and government murderously assailed by rebellion, involved in perils the most direct and fearful, compelled to struggle at the immense expenditure of blood and treasure for the maintenance of its existence, held
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