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802     DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.     MARCH, 1863
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of the rebels.  For a long time the antislavery judgment of the country, was confounded, and anti-slavery men and women were found hoping that the rebels would succeed.  But now the tide is turned, and every wave of the Atlantic bears from our friends a cross the sea, a hearty good speed in our endeavors to save the country.  We wish we had room to publish the proceedings of the various meetings demonstrating this change of sentiment.——They evince a whole souled sympathy for the United States Government, especially for its anti-slavery policy——and prove that the Presidents proclamation of freedom did not come one moment too soon.  These enthusiastic manifestations of British sympathy, furnish the best answer to those who clamoured against that proclamation, on the ground that England was at heart pro-slavery and would regret to see slavery abolished in the Slave States.

In the present out-look, there is nothing more encouraging on the face of the moral sky, than is this reaction in England.  Outside of the rebels States, England was the stronghold of the rebel cause.  The traitors——thought they had England bound to them hand and foot, with a Cotton cable.  Consternation may fall upon them when they see that as between a selfish interest and the great principle of liberty——England prefers the latter.  Honor to the suffering masses of Lancashire and Yorkshire.  The rebellion has fallen heavily upon them, yet they, more than all others, have stood by the cause of the Union against those who have endeavored to strike it down, although by doing so they have seemed to be prolonging their own destitution and suffering.
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FREDERICK DOUGLASS AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE.
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With a subsequent portion of the speech, we reluctantly confess that we are not in sympathy.  When Mr. Douglass exclaims that black men are ready and willing to fight——"if"——he does himself and his brethren the wrong of misconceiving and mis-stating our duty at this hour.

  "Theirs not to make reply,
   Theirs not to reason why.
   Theirs but to do or——do!"

If the "six hundred" at Balaklava, by mere force of perfection of drill won such meed of praise, should we not with two centuries of cruel wrong stirring our heart's blood, be but too willing to embrace any chance to settle accounts with the slaveholders?  What?  Place arms in our hands, give us efficient drill, and place us before the oppressors of our race in fair field, or casemented behind their guns: do we ask any more?  Why should we be alarmed at their threat of hanging us, do we intend to become their prisoners?  Such is not the record our black fathers made in the revolutionary war at Red Bank, nor at Groton, nor is such the record of those who fought under Macdonough and Jackson in the war of 1812.

Do we wish to go down South as parole warriors?  You, brethren, who have pined in bondage, you who have wives or children or parents writhing under the lash, do you, can you ask any more than a chance to drive bayonet or bullet into the slaveholders's hearts?  Are you most anxious to be captains and colonels, or to extirpate these vipers from the face of the earth?  The government has clothed you with citizenship, and has announced the freedom of all our brethren within the grasp of the rebellion, is there any higher, any nobler duty than to rush into the heart of the South, and pluck out from the grasb of the slaveholders the victims of their lust and tyranny?

We frankly confess that it seems an absurdity, if nothing worse, for men under such circumitances to put any "if" in the way   Whenever a well-drilled brigade or divission of black men shall meet alike or double their number of slaveholders, there will be little love and less courtesy to throw away.  We are perfectly willing that the slaveholder shall "hang" all the prisoners they can take: and would advise the
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tyrants to make "hurried shrift" in case matters turn out the other way; in such case it will be a higher discipline than we think our people can really be brought up to our——[Anglo African.]

To the foregoing criticism upon the speech at Cooper Institute, we have to say that our "Anglo African" Brother, would have shown his fairness and magnanimity to better advantage, had he allowed his readers to see precisely what our "if" comprehended, instead of allowing them as he does, to imagine all sorts of absurd and perhaps, dishonorable things.  Why not publish that "if" and publish it just as other New York papers published it?  Our "Anglo African" Brother, should also give us the benefit of time, and temper his criticisms accordingly.  When we made that speech at Cooper Institute, a bill was before the American Congress, to which all kinds of degrading amendments, were being offered and insisted upon, calculated, lf carried out, to leave us after enduring all the hardships and perils of war, a degraded caste, to wither under the unabated scorn of the community.  At such a time it was eminently proper for a colord man to hold some such language as "Frederick Douglass" did hold at Cooper Institute.  He could not know at that time, that the Governor of Massachusetts had commissioned his friend Dr. James McCune Smith to call for volunteers in New York for the first colored Massachusetts regiment——and of the honorable terms upon which colored soldiers are to be received into that regiment.  Regarding the terms upon which colored men could enter the army still a matter of debate, speaking for colored men, Douglass demanded for them, such terms as justice and honor would willingly grant, and colored men could honorably accept.  Is there anything absurd or "something worse" in this?  We attribute to our "Anglo African" Brother, no design to misrepresent or disparage our speech at Cooper Institute.  As a whole he generally commends it,——for which we are duly thankful and had he seen fit to publish the part of it to which he has taken exception we should have remained silent under his criticism.  We assure him that he shall not be better represented in the colored army of freedom, than ourselves——nor do more than we to increase the number of colored enlistments.
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ANOTHER LAW AGAINST COMMON SENSE.
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The Military Bill, just passed by Congress, shows that the country is making progress in the way of conquering its prejudices against men of color, in that it opens the way to colored men to enter the army of the United States, not as hewers of wood and drawers of water, but as men and soldiers.  The issue was squarely made up.  All that was slaveholding, negro hating and rebel-loving in the Senate and country, denounced in the most unsparing terms the idea of puting [[sic]] the negro in the United States uniform and making him a soldier of the union.  Their opposition has failed, and the negro now may be a soldier.  The gain is important and the victory a great one, but it is far from perfect.  The bill contains a most unjust discrimination to the prejudice of the colored soldier, calculated in some measure to damp the ardor of our young men.  It is a contemptible concession to the colour madness of the country, not the clear sighted suggestion, of true statesmanship.  It is founded in error and will be
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swept away by the onward progress of truth and the steady march of events.  Here is the provision as it stands in the law: "No person of African descent shall be considered as an officer of the United States except company officers, and in companies composed exclusively of negroes."  There is a spice of cowardly meanness about this provision which must at once strike the mind of any one looking at it.  The colored soldier is to go into the war, bear its burdens, hardships, dangers and the loss of limbs and life in common with the white soldier with this difference: the white soldier by meritorious conduct can rise to any position from a corporal to a general while the colored soldier, no matter what his deeds or acquirements, is doomed by legislation to rise no higher than a company officer, and companies exclusively of negroes.  This is a great country and abounds with great statesmen.  In some of the States they pass laws that negroes shall not learn to read and write but negroes do learn to read and write.  They pass laws that negroes shall not be considered as men; but negroes are considered as men.  They pass laws that negroes shall not settle in certain States, but negroes do settle in those very States.  They may by-and-by pass laws that negroes shall not grow taller than five feet nine inches; but some negroes will grow to six feet.  So too, the negro will in the end rise higher than is now prescribed by this new military law.  Time and talent will make their way.

But shall colored men enlist notwithstanding this unjust and ungenerous barrier raised against them?  We answer yes.  Go into the army and go with a will and a determination to blot out this and all other mean discriminations against us.  To say we wont be soldiers because we cannot be colonels is like saying, we wont go into the water till we have learned to swim.  A half a loaf is better than no bread——and to go into the army is the speediest and best way to overcome the prejudice which has dictated unjust laws against us.  To allow us in the army at all, is a great concession.  Let us take this little the better to get more.  By showing that we deserve the little i the best way to gain much.  Once in the United States uniform and the colored man has a springing board under him by which he can jump to loftier heights.
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——Col. Ernest Roumaine was officially received at the Department of State yesterday, and presented his credentials as Charge d'Affaires from Hayti.

The event recorded is worthy of more than the passing remark which we now give it.  We have recorded few more important facts in the history of the relation of this Government to the colored part of mankind.  Years ago the idea of recognizing the Independence of Haita, and holding Deplomatic [[sic]] relations with her, had only to be suggested to call forth a storm of opposition from Congress.——The thought of receiving at Washington a colored minister, from a colored Republic was not to be entertained by our leading Statesmen.  They scouted the petitions offered by Mr. Adams asking for recognition, and denounced the venerable Statesmen who offered them.  The introduction of a colored diplomatist at the Capital would be a direct insult to slavery, and an open invitation to an Insurrection of the slaves.  WISE of Virginia who was then a member of Congress, said speaking of the Haitians, "They have long
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Transcription Notes:
'grasb' for 'grasp'; circumitances for circumstances; divission for division, typesetting errors noted for searchability. The typesetting is idiosyncratic in this edition, compared to those loaded for transcription previously - see for example the speech marks in Col 2, para 2; or the setting of 'if' at "calculated, lf carried"; and