Tribune and telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1855-1856, 1855-07-26
The Gloverlrescue and Mayberry murde


the moon is made of green cheese, they are sure
the milky way is only q great conduit to supply
the necessary tactical waste. A body of men
were attracted around the scene of the trial OF
Mayberry, at GAINESVILLE, and were wrought and
wrought them selves into state and condition
which resulted in Mayberr: S brutal murder, and
these philosophers at once find in it evidence
of the pernicious effects of the higher law, whe-
Their manifest in the rescue of Glover or the re-
peal of the law declaring the death penalty.
1t would perhaps be very excellent thing if
neither passion nor emotion of any kind pertain
ed to humanity, for in that case the stagnant,
dead.levcl, obedient, and servie condition OF our
brethren, who think there is no God except him
who sits at Madison or Washington, would be
undisturbed, either by the generous philanthropy
which liberated Glover or the brutality which
murdered May berry. But for some wise purpose
humanity is not so made. Since the time Dan
iel was thrown to the fury of the lions, for his
adherence to the higher law, and others for the
same cause were committed to the flames of the
fiery furnace, there have always been men who
have been contemners and violatars of the laws
Stewards enuncation of the higher law doctrine,
on the contrary they are sprinkled thickly over
the worlds historic page, and have originated
from an infinite variety of causes in connection
with an infinite variety of subjects. Men are
and will be both better and worse than the stat
utes of the land, and when strong, moving acci-
dents occur they will manifest themselves in ge-
nervous or brutal deeds, as they are. What then!
If we but restore to our laws the authority to
take life, are we thereafter to have no mobs with
brutal passions? or if we all tacitly consent that
there is no God higher than that enthroned in the
fugitive law, will a generous emotion prompting
to generous deed, never thereafter stir the hui
man heart! Does any person believe it!
Ignore it as we please, it is nevertheless truth
eternal and indestructible, that human laws nei-
Their do nor can control human thought or action;
they are not and cannot be cause, but are only
a consequence of human existence, and will al
wavs be subservicnt to that higher law of the
soul which made them in the first place, and ma
king them, will change or break them as the ne
cessites of the case may require What then is
the moral of all this!
This-In the first place there arc deeper causes
than legislative enactments undertaking all hui
man action. In the second place the quality of
all human action, must be, will be, and is, deter
mined by reference to these fundamental causes.
And in the third place, the quality of human ac-
ton being thus determined, it is both false and
foolish to string the essentially good and bad on
the same string, and assign to one the cause that
produced the other. ta...-|
Thus, the editor of the Democrat feels and
knows, as indeed does every other man, that IN
giving freedom to Glover an intrinsically good
deed was performed, despite of all enactments
that ever were or ever will be made to the con-
trary. All the aspirations-all the instincts OF
the human heart so declare it, and it is within
the capacity of no man, set OF men, or Legislators
to invest it in the smallest degree with the attr-
butte of crime. The editor of the Democrat would
scorn to touch the palm of the man who had been
guilty of theft or murder, yet the man that to-day
he gave his friendship and entrusted his dearest
interests TO, he would so confde in tomorrow,
though in the mean time he had rescued forty
Glovers Aye, even more; for however he might
seek to persuade himself that wrong had been
done, the impulses of his heart would scom the
sophstry of his head and he would feel that
new act of manly heroism had given his friend
new value Argue as we may thusi is: then
by what possible process can the generous hulna-
nity of one man incite abominable brutality in
another How could the saving of Glover's lite
furnish an example or an Indictment to take the
life of another 1t is the disregard of the law
which does the mischief, we are told, Not so.
A good law never yet was violated because bad
one had been, and no criminal at the bar ever
thought of pleading exemption for the violation
of a law to which the moral sense of community
gave assent, because another law universally ac-
knowlcdged as infamous had been violated; and
if such plea were made, it would be laughed TO
scorn; for the reason we stated that this editor
himself all other men, and society in the mass,
do not estimate human conduct by any such
standard Give us then, we say, the processby
which wckedness is evolved from virtue, inhu-
mainly from humanity, dishonor from honor, and
finally, how out Of high and holy purpose to
rescue a man from bondage and save a life, can
grow blind and brute passions which riot in blood
and tramplc out life in the filth of the streets.
! Here is the true state of the case The con-
dition ofsociety depends not upon this enactment
or that, but upon the positive intrinsic qualities
of those who compose such society Where in
tclligcnce and virtue prevail, there crime of all
kinds is proportionably unknown; and where
/ these qualities are wanting, vice and crime cor
respondingly abound. Then the merit of laws,
/ of law making and law breaking, is to be est
mated solely by their effect in developing or re-
pressing these qualities in humanity. And in
this view of the case we have not a particle of
doubt, and have no hesitation in expressing our
conviction, that the Fugitive Law has been the
most effective exempar and stimulus of crime, of
anv modern event or existing institution, and
that to it in a degree compared with the rescue
Of Glover. as he'll compares with heaven, is to be