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^[[B. K. Ross]] DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. [[double line]] "OPEN THY MOUTH FOR THE DUMB, IN THE CASE OF ALL SUCH AS ARE APPOINTED TO DESTRUCTION; OPEN THY MOUTH, JUDGE RIGHTEOUSLY, AND PLEAD THE CAUSE OF THE POOR AND NEEDY."——Proverbs xxxi. 8, 9. [[double line]] VOLUMN V. NUMBER III ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 1862. PRICE——ONE DOLLAR PER ANNUM [[double line]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] CONTENTS OF THE PRESENT NUMBER. [[short line]] The Spirit of Colonization - 705 Anti Slavery Progress - 706 The President and his Speeches - 707 The Peninsula Abandoned - 708 Brutal Assaults upon Colored People - 709 Affairs in New Bedford - 709 Words of a True Democrat - 710 Letter to Gen. Hunter - 711 Persecution of Negroes - 711 The President in Conference with Colored Men - 712 Cause and Effect - 712 First of August at Myricks - 713 Disgraceful Riot at Brooklyn - 714 Disposal of Recaptured Africans - 714 Gen. T. P. Thompson - 715 Correspondence between Lee and Halleck - 716 Letter from Gen. Hunter to Dr. Tyng - 717 The Fight on the Rappahannock - 718 An Appeal in behalf of Colored Citizens - 718 Letter from M. R. Delany - 719 [[double line]] DOUGLASS' MONTHLY [[double line]] THE SPIRIT OF COLONIZATION. [[short line]] We have been favored with two copies of the August number of the Colonization Herald. What we have said or done of late to merit this favor we do not know. Certainly the whole colonization scheme never appeared to us more detestable and wicked than at this moment. At a time when Emancipation seems to be a national necessity, and when the wisest and best statesmen in the national councils are lifting up their voices in favor of employing the sable arm of the nation for the salvation of the country, when the black man is on the point of attaining a position in the land of his birth, the satanic spirit of colonization, craftily veiling itself in the livery of Heaven, and speaking in the name of Divine Providence, proceeds with more than usual vigor to unchain, and let loose upon us, all the malignant and satanic influences of the country. The Colonization Herald, whether intentionally or otherwise, is co-operating with the infernal spirit of persecution which has of late sought to exterminate the free colored people in Brooklyn, Cincinnati, and other cities at the North. If the writers for that paper were called upon to set fire to a tobacco house, and roast alive thirty or forty black persons guilty of no crime, their hearts would probably sicken at the deed. Nevertheless, these same writers do not fail to see in this atrocity when performed, or attempted by others, a purpose of Divine Providence to compel the colored race in America to emigrate to Africa; and it is just this sort of sanctimonious endorsement of the bloodthirsty proceedings of negro hating mobocrats, which keeps them in countenance and spurs them on to their fiendish work. The colonization agents, and the persecuting mob co-operate. Colonization gives life and vigor to popular prejudice, gives it an air of philosophy, piety and respectability, and the violence of the mob, gives the facts to sustain their pious negro-hating theories. Thus they act and react, to one common end: the mob furnishing brickbats and pistols, [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] and the colonization agents and papers, furnishing arguments and piety. Does a drunken, ignorant, negro-hating crowd, in Southern Illinois, under the lead of some pro-slavery politician vote against negro suffrage, and claim that this is exclusively the white man's country, the colonization class of theologians see at once the hand of God in the transaction pointing the negro to Africa, the land of his ancestors. No attempt is made to correct the injustice and wrong done the black man here; no attempt is made to remove the unholy feeling of caste. On the contrary this malignant feeling, is the grand ally of the whole colonization scheme, without which its very foundation would be utterly swept away. When a Western State in a spirit of selfishness, revolting to every impulse of humanity, passes a law forbidding colored men to settle within its geographical boundaries, these colonizationists with bland and saintly serenity, see in such horrible cruelty, nothing to denounce, but rather an important social fact, indicating the purpose of the Almighty, to remove the negroes from America to Africa! Deeds that would start a cry of shame from the ribs of death, ruffle not the pious equanimity of this sect. The priests who witnessed the burning of the glorious martyr JOHN HUSS looked unmoved upon his terrible agony, and colonizationists in this country look upon the sufferings of the colored race with equal composure. Like the saintly murderers of old our modern persecutors shield themselves under the wings of the Almighty. They deal in history, philosophy, theology and treat all the base passions of one race, towards another as the inevitable ordinations of Divine Providence, not to be overcome by reason, justice, and humanity, but made the basis of political action for the separation of such races. All this and more, as to the moral disposition and tendency of colonization may be seen in this August number of the Colonization Herald. The essence of its teachings respecting the negro, is summed up in the following brief extract from its columns: 'Two centuries of servility have not changed his nature. Modified as he has been by surrounding influences, he is still an African albeit an Americo African. His relation to his fatherland is clear and specific; for though he is an American, he is always and everywhere in this country and on this continent an Africo American. Other races may lose their characteristics and identity by intermarriage; they may be absorbed and wholly disappear; but it is not so with the negro.——The ban of nature ordinarily prevents intermarriage with the whites. The mingling of his blood with that of the Caucasian is followed by physical results which admit no doubt of a natural interdiction. Centuries of contact have not sufficed for the extinction of the peculiarities of African parentage. The Moors of Northern Africa, are still Moors and nothing more. A similar progeny in this country must, for generations, if not forever, [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] retain the characteristics of the birth. The mongrel races of Mexico afford little reason to expect elevation by amalgamation. * * * If his destiny be not that of some kind of servile inferiority to the white man, separation from him is necessary to the negro's highest elevation and happiness. For it is an established truth of history, that two free races between whom amalgamation by intermarriage is impossible, can never occupy the same land in peace on terms of social and political equality. The repulsive force of America herein arises to an ultimate necessity. The colored man must leave this country to better his condition. And if he leaves this land, he will finally go to the home of his forefathers, since the same conditions will attend him wherever he stops on this continent or its adjucent Isles!' Such is the essence of colonization in the year of Grace one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two. Such is the miserable philosophy, to which we are called upon to assent. To all this we have,as a colored man and an American, a few words to say. We will make it a text for a few reflections. The first complaint against the negro by this colonizationist, is, that 'two hundred years of servility have not changed his nature.' There is obvious malice in the manner of stating this allegation. Why, in the name of common honesty, if the writer must lay down any such a proposition to sustain his theory, did he not use the word 'slavery' rather that 'servility?' Slavery is the crime of the slaveholder. 'servility' is the baseness of the willing slave, and it is this baseness which this soft colonizationist aims to fix indelibly upon the nature of the negro and thus under the garb of friendship for the negro, he deals highs deadliest stabs. The nature of the negro is very much like human nature generally, and we do not know that two hundred years of slavery was ever expected by any sensible man, to make any favorable 'change' in it.——Slavery has been tried we believe, upon all nations, and we think, thus far, it has never been known to produce such a change in the nature of its victims white or black. Ethnology has cast doubt upon the old doctrine that mankind descended from one original pair, but we believe that even that science affirms a common human nature for all men. But after all it is most evidently not the negro's nature but the negro's color, which is the real trouble the Colonization Herald. He does not lose his color by 'servility.'——His hated color clings to him despite of everything. This is the trouble, and the fact is another proof of man's perverse proclivity to create the causes of his own misery.——When there is so many real causes to vex and disturb the human mind and heart, is it not strange that men will contrive artificial ones for their own special torment? A man who should make himself miserable b [[/column 3]]
Transcription Notes:
I cannot tell what the handwriting says in the top right-hand corner yet.
