Weekly hawk-eye and telegraph. [volume] (Burlington, Iowa) 1855-1857, 1856-01-09

tsDewn, Down, 10 HeIf: Ana say, scns
tssag Thee ThitAerrss sisse
That is about the sentance which the ST. Louis
Democrat pronoances upon SHAxNos, SrsrxG-
YELLOW and ArcHrsoS, and We think the world
will sustain the condemnation. Most assuredly
if the aDevll does not get such men there ia no
| use for Devil" All the political and moral
crimes boiled down, could not make mass Of
guilt double distilled, 50 refined, As the weight
Of sin which hangs about the necksof these ldes-
peratemen. As to ArcHIsoS and SrR,saS rIlow,
they stand without a palliating circumstance to
temper down their guilt, and no charity can ex-
cnse SHANNON, unless his friends write him down
| an ass. 8 We confess, his conduct before and at
| his surrender to the Free State men, almost
| proves that he does not know enough to keep
out Of the fire. but such wilful Ignorance, such
desperate stupidity, as he has Displayed, is too
criminal to admit of any excuse. But we keep
our readers from what the Democrat says In
an elaborate review Of the whole outbreak in
Kansas, the Democrat thus handles ArcHIsoNt the
master, and SHANNON the toolaa 1t says: tqoft'i
| A retribution is coming for all this It win
come upon Gov. Shannon witha vengeance. The
sober second thought of the people of Kansas Of
| all parties, andthe voice of an indignant public
reprobation resounding throughout the country,
| will cover him with an infamy as deep and inef-
faceable as was the blood-spot upon the murder
Gus hand of Lady Macbeth. If there Is in that
lowest hell of desperate politicians lower deep,
such as Milton saw with the eye of Imagination,
that abyss which human plumb.line never sound
ed is reserved for Dayy Atchison and those OF his
;do RI
| foul wrong and disgrace. 81 Now that peace has
taken the place Of turbulence and imminent
bloodshed for the present. one might think that
| the whole was wisely ordered to confound, put to
! fight and pulverize an influence which has long
| been an incumbus upon the rising greatness of
Missouri and which, should it ever rise to COM
handing position-which God forbid--would
make her cover her face for very shamea g5s5s
We have shown that there was no cause for the
proclamation of war issued by Gov. Shannon. -
| So far from the Free Sellers Of Lawrence making
any armed insurrection, the whole affair arose
| from the murder of Free State man, Dow, by q
| pro-slavery man, Coleman. No attempt was made
to punish Coleman by the Free State men, but the
1 Pro-slayery men were determined to put to death
another Free State man, Branson This was re-
sisted, and this resistance was the pretext for
/ Shannon's war proclamation; and because the
/ people of Lawrence prepared for the war which
was proclaimed against them, Atchison and his
banditti avaed themselves of the pretext to rush
| over into Kansas to massacre the damned Yam
KEGS They would doubtless have put their in
tention into execution, if they had found the peo-
| pie of Lawrence unprepared. If they had found
Lawrence undcfended, they would have, left it a
smoking ruin, quenched its fires with the blood
of men unresisting, and perhaps of women and
I children. But they found the men of Lawrence
| in arms, and a, matter of course such braggado-
clos as Atchison and Strngfelow, ga and such
| doughfaces as Shannon, backed square out, and
| came back to Missouri with a lie to cover their
4 cowardice, that the people of Lawrence had sur
| rendered, just as the same men had covered their
invasion and intention, to commit murder, with
the lie that the people Of Lawrence We're in a
state of insurection, when the only outrage
committed was the killing of Free Soiler BY a
pro-slayery man. In proof that we have exagg-
Grated nothing, we give extracts from the pa
pers in the interest of Atchison and his banditti
we give their own account of the difficulty, and
| the different dispatches sent from one Missouri
town to another, calling upon the people of Mis-
souri, to invade neighboring Territory, for the
purpose of interfering with its, concerns, with
which our people had no business to interfere
1t is clear that Shannons force consisted entirely
! of Missourians; that he had made pretext when
no cause of disturbance really existed; that the
pretext was seized upon by Atchison and his ban
ditti with an avidity which showed it to be pre-
concerted; that the whole affair was intended to
arouse feeling in the Missouri Legislature, which
| was to carry Atchison into the Senate of the
United States and that as soon as Atchison found
he had armed men, and not unresisting men and
defenceless women, to contend with, he showed
more alaerity to retire than he had done to ad-
vance upon the.town of Lawrence. The Legisla-
ture of Missouri have shown>their appreciation
of Atchison's attempt to enlist them in his favor
| 1t has passed him and his Kansas-S ebraska bill
| by in silent contempt. Those who were elected
| as his friends became ashamed of him, and would
not have voted for him again as Senator. And
we wish now to mark the fimsy pretext upon
| which this wholesale murder was meditated, and
| the still more fimsy pretext by which Shannon
and Atchison seekto cover their cowardly re-
| treat, when they found lion where they had
| sought a hare-n order to repudiate it in the
name of the high-hearted and brave people of
Missouri, who have shown that they neither coun-
tenanced or approved their intended murder,
or are responsible for the dsgraceful fight.
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