Viewing page 11 of 16

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

February, 1863. 
DOuglass' Monthly. 
795

[[horiz line across page]]

[[start column 1/3]]
There is not one full rigiment all told. Let the publick beware of such careless, wholesale statements. There is nearly one regiment, well officered and well disciplined, of whom every one speaks in terms of praise; and all hope that as soon as this regiment is paid for the first time, and confidence established between the colored soldiers and the government, more will come forward. 

Let N.Y.M.A. and Emancipation Leagues be up and doing. Never was their aid more needed. There is room on there islands for twice, aye thrice, the number of laborers here now. THey come escaping from rebels, bringing only their needs. 

Few of the contrabands have laid up money, and those who have, do not share it so readily with others as some may think they ought. What is the poor negro's twenty or forty dollars, laid by in hope, to do with the necessities of hundreds?
do not desert this people in their darkest trial hour between slavery and feeedom. We must not, will not, give up the work. 
F.D.G.

[[horiz line]]

THE GREAT EVENT.

[[horiz line]]

Glory to God for the New Year's Proclamation! As I read it my bosom swelled with emotion, and the tear of gratitude started in my eye. The President will be chided- and perhaps justly- for making such liberal exceptions in the South, and such important omissions on the Border, of territory that ought to feel the force of his authoritative edict. But he could hardly hope to satisfy all, even of Freedom's friends. And now, yielding our personal opinions and preferences, and forgiving the tardiness that has marked the Administration hitherto, let us unite in sounding out one loud hearty Hallelujah, that shall rend the heavens and thrill the inmates of every slave-hut in America! Let us join in anthems of our long-oppressed brethren, and proclaim with joyful lips: 'The year of Jubilee is come.'

In American life, the first day of January is henceforth to be vested with a new charm, and celebrated with a double interest. We have just passed and epoch in our national history, than which the Declaration of Independence itself was no greater. To the latest generation of time, it will be considered a privilege of no ordinary grade, to have been permitted to live in 1863! O that we may duly appreciate our privileges, and the high obligation thereby imposed, to act a noble part! It is ours to rejoice in the dawn of that day which breaks the manacles of four million slaves. It is ours to co-operate with the God of providence, who, after a terrible chapter merited judgements, begins to appear for our deliverance. It is ours to give efficiency to this document of freedom, by our sympathies, prayers, and personal efforts. It is ours to diffuse the blissful intelligence till every chattel personal shall know that he is henceforth a man; and if heaven-defying oppressors still dispute that claim, it is ours to employ something more forcible than a paper argument to convince them that the Proclamation of Lincoln is also the decree of God! And finally, it is ours to extend the fraternal hand to our practical sympathy for the wronged and the outraged, and the honesty of our abolition avowals before the world. 

A. A. Phelps.
Lyndonville, N.Y. Jan. 12 1863. 

[[horiz line]]

EMANCIPATION FOR WHITE MEN. 

[[horiz line]]

To-day- this first day of January, 1863- thanks to Abraham Lincoln, President of these United States- millions of our fellow-beings, hitherto in chains, can stand up FREE. Such a new year, such a "happy new year," has never dawned upon them before. No more shall their flesh and blood, their bone and nerves, their body and souls, be called chattels. No more shall there be "merchandise" in the "image of God," which these millions of immortals represent. To them "the last link is broken." Amen and Amen. Let these poor, despised ones rejoice to-day! Let their united voice of thanksgiving and praise, like the voice of many waters sound aloud from South to North, and from East to West, and fill all the land. 

We want now another proclamation for white men. We think, with Frederick Douglass, the "white men are as good as black men, if they behave themselves well." We think that thousands and tens of thousands of white men have been ruined by this 
[[\end column]]

[[start column 2/3]]
wicked rebellion- who are now bound and fettered into bankruptcy- should be set free. Is there to be no day of deliverance for such? Must the millstone of slavery and bondage to debt for ever hang about their necks? Is there no help? 

We appeal to you, President Lincoln, in their behalf. That voice which gladly speaks to-day for liberty, which speaks to thrill the hearts of down-trodden millions, the sound of which shall move this entire nation, shall cross the ocean, shall echo from mountain-top to mountain-top throughout this wide world- and make even angels rejoice- that same voice may, and will, once, and many times more, speak for freedom, may ask that other fetters and chains be broken, may demand that a host of loyal men of Saxon blood and of white skin shall hear from our legislative halls that the day of their emancipation has come. We appeal to you, Summer and Colfax- to you, Wilson and Lovejoy- to you, Foster and Kelly- to you, Chandler and Gurley- and to scores of others whose measure of duty to man is the golden rule of God. We ask you, plainly, now, at the present Session of COngress, to give us, what every leading commercial nation on earth has written on its statue book, a bankrupt law- a good, fair, equitable, just, and righteous bankrupt law.- N.Y. Independent. 

[[horiz line]]

HUNTING DOWN THE NEGROES-- The Democrats of Indiana are not satisfied unless the black laws of the State are enforced against the negroes. In the House at Indianapolis, a few days ago, a bill was introduced to enforce the 13th article of the State Constitution, which provides that no negro shall ever be allowed to come into the State; that all that have come since 1851 shall depart; and that if they don't get up and get out they shall be fined $500.

In Illinois, they are still more fierce against the unfortunates who are a tinge darker than the legislators. At springfield, a bill to amend an act preventing the immigration of free negroes, was presented. It makes their immigration a misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment and sale of the negro. It also provides that each negro shall receive thirty-nine lashes on the bare back. It does not except women and children. It is a barbarous nd brutal act, worthy only of the most savage condition of society. 

Let not the Democracy be troubled. Once guarantee to the slaves their freedom at the South they will not trouble the North. Extend the system of working for wages that was inaugurated by Gen. Butler, and the Southern States will witness a degree of prosperity that has never yet come to them, not even in the palmy days of the brisket slave markets. 

[[horiz line]]

THE NEGRO.

[[horiz line]] 

When Senator Sumner said, in Faneuil Hall, a short while since, that the negro was at once the humblest and the grandest figure before the country, he had a reward that Aristides would have envied- a hearty hiss. It was hard saying, who could bear it! But to-day it is confessed on all sides that under this swarthy and repulsive figure is disguised a national savior- that there is no other name given under heaven whereby we may be saved  but that of this poorest one, to whom Christ says, what you do to him you do to me. Those who are opposed to doing him justice virtually confess this, for they are found either proposing to say that the Southern States," Wayward sister, depart," or proposing men and measures who and which have been tired fully and with utter failure. They virtually admit that the nation should not or cannot be saved. those alone hold out a hope of continued nationality and unity who propose the immediate overthrow of slavery!

The Government confesses that the negro 
[[\end column]]

[[start column 3/3]]
alone can save us. It has no sympathy for him ; it insults him in every possible way ; it wishes him out the country. Liberating him, thn, purely as a military necessity, it places the nation really at the feet of the despised negro, as the King of Egypt in his sorrow was brought to the feet of his slaves' Moses and Aaron, saying, " Bless me also! 

There was stationed at Cairo, at an early period of the war, a General noted for his antipathy to, and harsh treatment of slaves. On one occasion, the soldiers of his camp gathered about the shore to witness the struggles of a negro who had been washed down the Ohio river, and was struggling toward them. Presently the negro gained the shore, and stood trembling and entirely naked before them. A white man shouted across the river, "That is my negro, send him here!" Some of the soldiers heard a voice which said " I was naked, imprisoned, sick, and ye ministered unto me;" but the General heard it not: he sent the negro over in a boat, to his owner, who whipped him with cowhide in sight of the camp. A month or so later, at the battle of Shiloh, that General was taken prisoner. In a Southern town, a lady was insulting his grossly, and he sneeringly turned his back upon her : whereupon the husband of the lady took a cowhide and inflicted it upon the defenceless Major-General about as many stripes as he had seen fall upon that defenceless negro he had returned! When that General was exchanged, he celebrated the first night of his arrival at Washington by a glowing appeal for the immediate abolition of slavery. 

This whole nation has been going through exactly the same discipline with that General. God holds the balances of the universe in a hand that never trembles, and justice never fails but to our short vision. Every stripe we have brought upon the negro, of suffered to be inflicted upon him, has been felt on our own flesh. Every groan we have wrung from a negro's heart will be sure to find its echo in some white breast. Until at last our quivering lips cry, "Justice to the negro," as the only way of stopping the drain of our own heart's blood.--Commonwealth.

[[horiz line]]

GEN. BUTLER FOR THE EXTERMINATION OF SLAVERY. 

[[horiz line]]

[The Times give the following report of remarks made by Gen. Butler to a Committee of citizens of New York, at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, on Thursday evening, Jan. 8]
 
With reference to the slavery question his views had undergone a radical change during his residence at New Orleans, and while entertaining no prejudices against his old political associates, who found fault with him on that score, he would only say to them that if they had gone there with the same sentiments that he felt [laughter] He thought he might say that the principal members of his staff, and the prominent officers of his regiments, without any exception, went out to New Orleans Hunker Democrats of the hunkerst sort, for it was but natural that he should draw around him those whose views were similar to his own, and every individual of the number had come to precisely the same belief on the question of slavery as he had put forth in his farewell address to the people of New Orleans. This change came about from seeing what all of them saw, day by day. In this war, the entire property of the South was against us, because almost the entire property of the South was bound up in the institution. This was a well-known fact, probably, but he did not become fully aware of it until he had spent some time at New Orleans. The South had $163,000,000 of taxable property in slaves, and $163,000,000 in all other kinds of property. And 
[[\end column]]