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JANURY, 1863   DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.   779
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swept away, slavery has perished with them. If slavery is hereafter to exist in the revolted States, it must exist either by virtue of common law and natural justice, or by authority of national legislation.  The former will not be pretended; the responsibility of its further continuance falls directly upon the general government.  To it is left the decision of the question whether slavery is to be recognized and protected as a national institution, or whether it is to be treated, as the universal sense of humanity declares it to be, a legal nullity and usurpation.  In other words, shall slavery now be re-instituted and protected by federal arms?

When Gen. Hunter assumed military command of the southern department he declared that slavery was at an end in the three States under his jurisdiction, because the institution was incompatible with military law under a [[italics]] republican government [[/italics]].  It might not have been incompatible with military law under a despot, like Alexander or Napoleon, whose imperial will was the only rule; but under a constitutional government, founded upon principles of natural justice, the recognition of such a system was out of the question.  Gen. Hunter perceived distinctly this point of military law, and therefore took the precise course which, as a soldier, he was imperatively bound to take.  President Lincoln did not perceive it, and therefore he revoked the order of Gen. Hunter.  He did not decide that Gen. Hunter's position was wrong; he prescribed for him no line of policy; he did not tell him what he should do, but only what he should not do.  He simply prohibited him from deciding the question of questions, which met him at the very outset, whether, under military law, slavery should be regarded as a nonentity or an entity.

For want of a decision on the plainest point in the world, the whole management of this war has been a tissue of inconsistencies--Sometimes slavery has been recognized as a national institution; at other times it has been trampled upon as it deserves.  One General has allowed to slaves the freedom and protection due to human beings; another has treated them like dogs, drove them out of camp, and sent them back to their masters to be flogged to death.  The course of military governors has been equally capricious.  Stanley has given slavery all possible protection; Hunter and Saxton have done it all possible injury; Butler has kept the scales in nearly even balance, now throwing a crumb to slavery, and now again to freedom.  The President himself has exhibited the most painful example of his double-mindedness and indecision.  His proclamation, which has been lauded as the perfection of wisdom, is itself an inconsistency.  If slavery had lost its real or supposed legality, along with the lapse of State governments, then the President had no right to promise it protection for three months and, conditionally, for an indefinite period, if, on the otherh and,slavery was an institution so sacred that even rebellion could not shake it, then he has no right to proclaim abolition in January, and our northern traitors are justified in trampling down the Constitution and enthroning the principle of State Rights as supreme over all circumstances.  The price which that proclamation offers for the return of the disloyal States is neither more nor less than the re-enslavement of three millions of men.  It is the same in principle as though the President should stipulate with the slaveholders, as the price of peace, that he would permit them to bring three millions of fresh victims from the shores of Africa.  Where did the President obtain this fearful power to lay the hand of federal authority on those whom State legislation has dropped from its grasp?  Is there any provision of this kind in the Constitution?  Is there anything that can be even tortured into an authorization of the act?  President Lincoln seems to be totally unaware that he is now making us slave-holding and a slavery-protecting nation.  Congress has absolutely refused to recognize slaves or slavery, and forbids the army to do so; how is it that the President, through his military governors, gives it not only present protec- [[/column 1]]

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tion, but a guarantee of future security as the reward of a restored allegiance?  How is it that he is so oblivious to the distinction between the old theory of [[italics] letting slavery alone [[/italics]] and the new theory of giving it [[italics]] governmental support? [[/italics]]

Is there no difference between simple toleration and actual, voluntary protection and support? It has always been claimed that we had "nothing to do with slavery," but now we see that government must have something to do with it; and that if we will not strangle it, as a righteous government is bound to do by the ordinance of heaven, then we must cherish it as a viper around our neck, cringing beneath its threatening hiss and protruded fangs, pacifying its wrath, and saving our own life by acceding to all its demands. Whatever may be the good intentions of the President, the fact will go down in history, that this was the first Federal Administration which ventured to transfer the burden and responsibility of sustaining slavery from the shoulders of the State, to the shoulders of the nation. - How surprising that while this burden is being fastened upon the whole people, there seems to be scarcely a note of warning from any quarter! A few abitrary imprisonments are made, and the country rings with remonstrance, they are made the hinge on which elections turn, and for them the government receives a signal defeat; but here we have a distinct proposal to nationalize slavery, and there is no symptom of disaffection; no party fathers itself up for opposition; no showers of petitions deluge Congress with indignant remonstrances against the contemplated infamy.

Let us see how we stand, and what is the prospect that this scheme will be consummated. Gen. Shepley, Military Governor of Louisiana, has issued his order for the election of members to Congress from the western districts of that State, now assumed to be loyal. Representatives will no doubt be chosen, though the voters may not be a fourth of the people. The avowed object of Gov. Shepley in ordering this election, is that the State may receive the "benefits of the proclamation," that is, the re-establishment of lavery. We have little doubt that it will be se-established accordingly. The delegates rwill present themselves in Congress, with the certificates of the President or his officers that they have been duly elected by the inhabitants of a loyal State. What will be the action of Congress? Will it receive these irregularly chosen members, representing not the sentiments of the people of Louisiana, but only the wishes of the Federal Government under whose auspices they have obtained their election? We fear they will be admitted. This accomplished, Louisiana is once more a State of the Union, with slavery intact and more firmly rooted than ever, by the new guarantee of national recognition. There is abundance of time for carrying out a similar plan in Texas. There, too, Federal officers can have no trouble in securing the votes of a few captured towns for Congressmen.

It is stated that Florida also will have her representatives in readiness. Gov. Stanly is known to be prosecuting negotiations with ithe rebels of North Carolina for the same object. The probability that these schemes may prove successful, is heart sickening. With pro-slavery delegations from Louisiana, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and probably Virginia, in addition to the four loyal slave states, Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri, and all the sympathizing northern members, what can be expected from Congress but compromises and concessions? Humanly speaking, we believe the President is likely to succeed in his ruinous project of reconstruction on the old basis - But there is an overruling Providence which has from the beginning guided this conflict to results undesired and unexpected, and here is our only hope. We believe the cup of our iniquity is full; that God has begun to reckon with us, and that it is. His purpose to bring the suffering captives from their house of bondage with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm. We have no doubts whether slavery will live or die; that question we regard as 
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settled. Our only doubt is whether the Republic will perish with it, wearing its life out in vain attempts to preserve that of its enemy.
- Am. Baptist.

[[heading]]BRAVERY OF THE KANSAS COLORED TROOPS AND THEIR WRONGS.[[/heading]]

Richard J. Hinton: Adjutant of the 1st Regiment of Kansas Colored Volunteers publishes in the Leavenworth Conservative, a letter of which is the following is an extract, in relation to the recent engagement of a portion of said regiment an account of which appeared in our last issue.

On the 29th, we skirmished in the forenoon. In the afternoon, the venturing out of a detachment beyond the distance ordered, brought on a severe, though short, general engagement. At least one hundred and twenty of the rebel cavalry made a charge upon this detachment of twenty four men. Before we could bring up reinforcements, these fearfully disproportioned parties were engaged in a desperate hand to hand encounter. I was on the field, doing with the other officers the best we could to bring up reinforcements. There was no flinching, no hesitation, no pulling or trembling limbs, among the men, but fierce determination flashing in their eyes, and exhibiting an eager, passionate haste to aid their comrades and vindicate the manhood of their race. The air was rent with their yells, as they rushed on, and the difficulty manifested was in holding them well in rather than in faltering. Among the detachment cut off, of whom only six escaped unhurt, nothing I have ever seen, read or heard, in the annals of war, surpasses the desperate personal valor exhibited by each and every man. Bayonets came in bloody, as did the socks of guns, and the last charge was found gone from cartridge boxes.

I witnessed the scene, and know whereof I write. It was with slowness and reluctance the men retired from the field they had won and held, in obedience to the orders of Capt. Seaman, commanding, who had witnessed the movements of reinforcements from the timber along the ravines to the east of us, and was fearful of a larger force getting between us and our barricaded camp.

Our nine days' campaign proved that negroes are splendid soldiers, will march further - fight as well, and live on as hard fare without, grumbling, as any soldiers now in the service of the government. The rebels at last seem to have thought so, for outnumbering us three to one, and being mounted, they left hastily the night after the fight at Island Mounds, themselves reporting seven killed in the morning skirmish, and eighteen in the afternoon engagement.

Finding the Missouri State Militia coming back after the fight, and knowing that they do not like us very well, we returned to camp, and thence have moved to Barnesville, Bourbon county, where we are close to the border, and can easily pay our respects to any of the rebels who may think the negroes won't fight.

This is what we have done. We have demonstrated that the negro is anxious to serve his country, himself and race; that he can be drilled and made effective as a soldier; and he will fight as well as any other set of men, all things being equal as to equipments, etc. Again I repeat, these things have not been done in darkness, but with the knowledge of the military authorities of the government, and in the broad light of day. Yet we are not mustered.Four months have nearly passed. The men have done their duty faithfully. Find me six hundred white men, who with such patience and patriotism and perseverance, would have adhered to their organization through all the discouragements and disadvantages we have had to encounter. I have yet to see them.

It may be asked why the officers have continued to hold them together when the chances of recognition were so slim. I reply it is because we held it to be our duty to exhaust not only the probabilities, but the possibilities of the enterprise. We all believe that the Union needs the services of the negro;
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