Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1847-02-19

D u " 'aA hhAo tIutSl Il SBnU
it to you. If you think its publication will
be likely to benefit the public, | shall be gra-
tilted to see it in the Bugle-5ut if you have
other matter with which to fill your columns,
that you Judge to be of more importance, you
are at liberty to "lay it on the table"
Most respectfully,
II. YOU'VE.
Mr.. EDIToR -
Can you exercise sufficient forbearance
towards one of your patrons, to receive re-
proof, kindly given, without being offended I
If you cannot, you had better read no more
of this letter, but commit it to the flames, for
it is farthest Of anything from my design
TO procure your i'll will. The good book you
know, says, ''Thou shalt not suffer sin upon
thy neighbor, but shalt in any wise reprove
him." Now, Mr.. Editor, ! feel it TO be my
duty to admonish you and through you, the
Wing party generally, or so many of them
as take the same position that you do with
respect 10 the Mexican war. And / do it
with none other than feelings of the most pro-
found respect and good will. Twill here say
that | am not welded to any political party,
but have always voted with the Wings when
| have voted at all, therefore ] hope they will
receive what | say as coming from a friend.
While reading your structures Oh the Presi-
dents Message, l was. %forcibly struck with
what appeared to me to be, a great inconsis-
tency in your position and course, with re-
gard to this Mexican war. You say the war
done nothing to justify this nation in march,
ing an army into her territory and killing her
people, and still you encourage volunteers to
90 and join the army, when Mr.. Polk calls
for them. You censured Mr.. Giddings for
voting against the appropriations for the pur-
pose of carrying on this unjust war. Now
that you should condemn the war, and still
encourage its prosecution. If this war has
been brought on by Mr.. Polk, as you affirm,
without any just cause for it, then every
Mexican that is killed in this war is murder
ed. And who, ! ask, is accountable for these
murders? l perceive you calculate to lay all
the sin on the President. You say to the
volunteers, 90 murder the Mexicans by scores
and by hundreds. l know you are doing a
great wrong to the Mexicans, they have not
deserved TO be thus massacred; but after you
hovn EillpI oil Won y-o will p,,I.o NJ
Polk accountable for all the wrong done.-
Bnt livery much fear, Mr.. Editor, that you
will find yourself implicated in the guilt Of
numbering Mexicans by the wholesale, when
you stand before that impartial tribunal to
which we are all fastening. For if ! under
stand the nature Of moral and legal justice,
every man who encourages or rewards an
other for committing crime, is held to be his
accomplish, consequently a partaker of his
guilt. 1t follows then, that all who encour-
age volunteers 10 90 into Mexico, as well as
all who obey this call Of the President to go
there and murder the inhabitants of a neigh
boring Republic, will, by the Judge of all
the earth, be held to an account for this great
wrong.
You seem TO have some little sense of the
accountability of volunteers, for you say Mr..
Polk need not lay the fattering Junction to his
heart, that because men volunteer TO fight,
they do so only from a conviction of the JUS
tice of the cause. No, our country right or
,Uronn ic tho continent a., I;.L ,,;o,zl Al
brave volunteers; the question Of justice is
not argued" AS though you had a sort of
suspicion that if they had known, as you
know, that the war is unjust, they might not
have responded so readily to the call Of Mr..
Polk, 10 shed the blood of innocence. (By
the way, ! do not think you have lone the
volunteers any injustice in this representation
of them, for every rejecting man must come
to the conclusion that whoever would volun-
teer TO fight in such an unjust war, must have
little or no sense of personal accountability
And yet you dignity this stupidity of mind.
and recklessness of all sense of right, with
the name of patriotism, which you, and Dan
iel Webster, and Gov. Bebb, and others of
the Wing party, appear to think is sufficient
to cover and excuse their horrid deeds of car
mage and slaughter they have done, how away
off in the interior Of Mexico, they have mas
sacred the innocent inhabitants in their WI
houses, by scores and by hundreds, you are
all loud in your praises of this human butch
cry! Mr.. Webster says, alt is just cause of
national PRIDE" But if do not mistake, ii
is the very conduct that is disgracing us in
the eyes Of the whole civilized world-thai
we have waged a wal of conquest against a
~neighboring weak Republic, aud are taking
their territory from them, as you say, ste
curse it with human slavery"
That patriotism which leads my fellow
citizens to volunteer TO fight in such an un'