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^[[B. K. Ross]] DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. [[double line across page]] "OPEN THY MOUTH FOR THE DUMB, IN THE CAUSE 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 across page]] VOLUME V. NUMBER VI. ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, JUNE 1863. PRICE——ONE DOLLAR PER ANNUM [[line across page]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] CONTENTS OF THE PRESENT NUMBER. [[short line]] The present and the future... 833 Obituary... 836 Letter from the old world... 836 Letter from San Francisco... 837 54th Massachusetts Regiment... 837 The meeting of colored loyalists... 838 Speech of Gen. Butler... 839 Great meeting at Shiloh Church... 839 Enthusiastic Gathering... 840 Meeting at Shiloh Church... 840 Congressional report on the conduct of the war... 841 The arming of negroes... 842 Thomas Sims' return to Boston... 843 Dr. Agusse... 843 Arming the negroes...843 Mechanical skill... 844 An important letter... 844 Negro troops in Florida... 844 Irishmen assaulting negroes... 844 The monitors at Charleston... 844 Denying suffrage even to the soldiers... 845 Miscellaneous... 846 [[double line]] DOUGLASS' MONTHLY [[double line]] THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. [[short line]] A speech delivered by Frederick Douglass, in the Church of the Puritans——New York, in May. LADIES AND GENTLEMAN:——I think that most of you will agree with me in respect to the surpassing importance of the subject we are here to consider this evening though you may differ from me in other respects. It seems to me that the relation subsisting between the white and colored people of this country, is of all other questions, the great, paramount, imperative and all commanding question for this age and nation to solve. All the circumstances of the hour plead with an eloquence, equaled by no human tongue, for the immediate solution of this vital problem. 200,000 graves.——A distracted and bleeding country plead for this solution. It cannot be denied, nobody now even attempts to deny that, the question, what shall be done with the negro, is the one grand cause of the tremendous war now upon us, and likely to continue upon us, until the country is united upon some wise policy concerning it. When the country was at peace and all appeared prosperous, there was something like a plausable argument in favor of leaving things to their own course. No such policy avails now. The question now stands before us as one of life and death. We are encompassed by it as by a wall of fire. The flames singe and burn us on all sides, becoming hotter every hour. Men sneer at it as the "nigger question," endeavoring to degrade it by misspelling it. But they degrade nothing but themselves. They would much rather talk about the Constitution as it is, and the Union as it was, or about the Crittenden, or some other impossible compromise, but the negro peeps out at every flash of their rhetorical pyrotechnecs and utterly refuses to be hid by either fire, dust or smoke. The term negro, is at this hour the most pregnant word in the English language. The destiny of the nation has the negro for its pivot, and turns upon the question as to what shall be done with him. Peace and war, union and disunion, salvation and ruin, glory [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] and shame all crowd upon our thoughts the moment this vital word is pronounced. You and I have witnessed many attempts to put this negro question out of the pale of popular thought and discussion, and have seen the utter vanity of all such attempts.——It has baffled all the subtle contrivances of an ease loving and selfish priesthood, and has constantly refused to be smothered under the soft cushions of a canting and heartless religion. It has mocked and defied the compromising cunning of so called statesmen, who would have gladly postponed our present troubles beyond our allotted space of life and bequeath them as a legacy of sorrow to our children. But this wisdom of the crafty is confounded and their counsels brought to naught. A divine energy, omniscient and omnipotent, acting through the silent, solemn and all pervading laws of the universe, irresistable, unalterable and eternal, has ever more forced this might question of the negro upon the attention of the country and the world. What shall be done with the negro? meets us not only in the street, in the Church, in the Senate, and in our State Legislatures; but in our [[?torn page?]] our brave sons [[?torn page?]] are striking for Liberty and country, or for honored graves. This question met us before the war; it meets us during the war, and will certainly meet us after the war, unless we shall have the wisdom the courage, and the nobleness of soul to settle the status of the negro, on the solid and immovable bases of Eternal justice. I stand here tonight therefore, to advocate what I conceive to be such a solid bases, one that shall fix our peace upon a rock. Putting aside all the hay, wood and stubble of expediency. I shall advocate for the negro, his most full and complete adoption into the great national family of America. I shall demand for him the most perfect civil and political equality, and that he shall enjoy all the rights, privileges and immunites enjoyed by any other members of the body politic. I weigh my words and I mean all I say, when I contend as I do contend, that this is the ONLY SOLID, AND FINAL SOLUTION of the problem before us. It is demanded not less by the terrible exigencies of the nation, than by the negro himself for the negro and the nation, are to rise or fall, be killed or cured, saved or lost together. Save the negro and you save the nation, destroy the negro and you destroy the nation, and to save both you must have but one great law of Liberty, Equality and fraternity for all Americans without respect to color. Already I am charged with treating this question, in the light of abstract ideas. I admit the charge, and would to heaven that this whole nation could now be brought to view in the same calm, clear light. The failure so to view it is the one great national mistake. Our wise men and statesmen, have insisted upon [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] viewing the whole subject of the negro upon what they are pleased to call practical and common sense principles, and behold the results of their so called practical wisdom and common sense! Behold, how all to the mocker has gone. Under this so called practical wisdom and statesmanship, we have had sixty years of compromising servility on the part of the North to the slave power of the South. We have dishonored our manhood and lied in our throats to defend the monstrous abomination. Yet this, greedy slave power, with every day of this shameless truckling on our part became more and more exacting, unreasonable, arrogant and domineering, until it has plunged the country into a war such as the world never saw before, and I hope never will see again. Having now tried, with fearful results the wisdom of reputed wise men, it is now quite time that the American people began to view this question in the light of other ideas than the cold and selfish ones which have hitherto enjoyed the reputation of being wise and practicable, but which are now proved to be entirely and absolutely impracticable. The progress of the nation downward has been rapid as all steps downward are apt to be. 1st. We found the Golden rule impracticable. 2nd. We found the Declaration of Independence very broadly impracticable. 3d. We found the Constitution of the United States, requiring that the majority shall rule, is impracticable. 4th. We found the the union was impracticable. The golden rule did not hold the slave tight enough. The Constitution did not hold the slave tight enough. The Declaration of Independence did not hold the slave at all; and the union was a loose affair and altogether impracticable. Even the Democratic party bowed and squatted lower than all other parties, became at last weak and impracticable, and the slaveholders broke it up as they would an abolition meeting. Nevertheless: I am aware that there are such things as practicable and impracticable, and I will not ignore the objections, which may be raised against the policy which I would have the nation adopt and carry out toward my enslaved and oppressed fellow countrymen. There are at least four answers, other than mine, floating about in the public mind, to the question what shall be done with the negro. 1st. It is said that the white race, can if they will, reduce the whole colored population to slavery, and at once make all the laws and Institutions of the country harmonize with that state of facts and thus abolish at a blow, all distinctions, and antagonisms. But this mode of settling the question, simple as it is, would not work well. It would create a class of tyrants in whose presence no man's Liberty, not even the white man's Liberty [[/column 3]]
