The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1857-12-24
For the ottumwa Courier.
A Plain Question.

In Iowa he cannot. The organic law of Iowa
forbids it. Is this provision in the law of
Iowa right?
This isa plain question and one abundantly
susceptible of direct answer. A large por-
ton of the people, of the United States have
always answered this question directly and
most alphabetically in the affirmative. More
than twelve millions out Of twenty who make
up the, free population of the United States,
live under constitutions and laws which HEY
themselves have enacted and which, no doubt.
they intend to uphold and hand downs, IL pos
sible, to tile latest posterity which make the
holding and treating of men as property a
crime! Are these millions mistaken IN their
notions Of human rights, or are they about to
change their position on this subject? q !. ,a
SO II it is right TO hold men as property, laws
which forbid the exercise of this right ought
to he atonce and forever repeated. Indeed
s.it IL mystery oSthat they shoald ever have
been enacted. We can conceive Of nothing
more absurd than for a State to forbid the hold
ing of horses, oxen, sheep, mules, dogs,or any
other animal, except man as property. What
State has ever Done so? And what laws are
ever made in reference 10 such property ey-
cept those needed 10 protect the rights and in
terests of men?arls any animal but man a
property holder? Are they ever protected as
SUCH? Such prot lection would be not ga
mystery" but a folly too great to be suffered
for a moment. si .ssg af -.ata g tIn-
Is man then both property and the only prop
erty holder, so that we may easily lose sight of
the distinctions, and when we meet man, be
compelled to inquire whether he is a man or
only some mans property, as the Greek sim
pleton asked his neighbor when he met him:
SIS II you or your brother, who died yester-
day ?'' 7a4hafN i'1qs't 1#.
The sacred rights of property are based sole
lv on the natural. the inherent, the "inaliena-
ble," the &c self-evitent . rights of manhood
They have and can have no other foundation.
Destroy the base and the superstructure inev-
itably falls with it. The person is primary,
the property secondary and subordinate. Just
in proportion as the first is held sacred so it
will be with the second Or the other hand
where persons are bought and sold in the pub
lie market, private trunks and even the public
mails are liable to be freely and fercely pill
aged, in search of property, that might possi-
bly, be of service TO some living mind.
But il is said that the Constitution Of the
United States recognizes men az property
Who says it? Not James Madison. On the
floor of the convention which framed il, he
thought :" it wrong to admit into the Constitu.
ton the idea that there could be property in
man." On motion of Mr.. Randolph, The
word servitnde' was stricken out " of the ia
nous fugitive clause" Cart. A, Sec. 81 and
service unanimously inserted, the former
being thought to express the condition of
slaves, and the latter the obligation of free
persons" ,,e
But the simple fact that slavery was soon
prohibited in seven of the thirteen original
States, and in the Northwest Territory, in
1887, being all the territory which the United
States owned at that time, is sufficient evidence
DC what the revolutionary patriots thought on
that subject, and Of what they intended to do,
whether acting in the capacity of State or
National legislators. Indeed they affirmed no
other right as the ground of that bold and
bloody struggle, which gave us birth as ma
ton. except the self-eyident fright of g all
men" to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness" They re-affirmed this right most
Eemphatically by uniting with the civilized
world in branding the slave rode as piracy,
while they freely admitted trade ia all other
animals, whether elephants or apes, from AZ
RIGA or elsewhere.
But does not the Constitution speak Of Sc per-
sons held to labor or service ?'' Certainly
But If the obligation of a person TO perform
labor makes him property, why does not his
obligation tospay debt produce the same re-
sult2 In some of the States debtor has been
liable to be thrown into prison and retained
there until his debt was paid. Does the COM
ity of States require us to do anything to up
hold such law simply because we have no
legal power to annnl II Ought we not rather
! to discuss it. and if we think it wrong show il
TO be SO, that ii may not be enacted in our own
State, or others in the confederacy? Such ever
has been our practice. We have heard Of
Rhode Island laws, Of Connecticut laws, and
Of the Maine law, the latter Of which has been
initiated in many other States. Slavery also
and Mormonism must dance on the waves of
public discussion; il they ever ou.ride the
swell, they will float on, if not, they must fol-
low in the wake of the blue laws, the alien and
sedition laws, and other things that once were,
but are no more.