Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1858-07-16
Virginia Rebels against s.King Cot.
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Virginia Rebels against s.King Cot.
| tOn.,s E
We,take the following from the Richmond
E"qui'er' Speaking of the choice which
Virginia>would make between Northern
and Southern confederation, in the event Of
the dissolution of the Union the Enquire,
says: ea 'g
"lf the Northern States of the Union
should offer terms of confederation on the
basis Of State equality, guaranteeing to us
the independent control of our own institu-
| tions, and thus enabling us to preserve
intact the institution Vf Slavery as it now
exists in our midst, such an offer, made in
good faith, would Immediately be entitled
to a mature and deliberate consideration,
and would be accepted or rejected purely
for the sake of the best interests of Virginia,
and without reference to sectional preju
dices
This indisputable view of the matter we
found it necessary to express, in order to
administer fitting rebuke to a few lndivid
uals in the South who affect to regard Vir
cinia as a mere colonial dependency on
skiing Cotton," and the people of Virginia
as bound, soul and body, in obedience TO
any line of conduct which may be dictated
by our more Southern associates
Virginia at last rebels against ''king Cot
ton.''
Before the world comes to an end she will
learn that there is another King still nearer
home, more despotic, and more ruinous to
her interests than ever "King Cotton" has
been. That is the tyranny of slave breed
ing monopoly which bends every other in
terest to its own, and has so crippled the
energies of the State, that Western Virginia
has repeatedly been driven to the verge of
secession and the formation of new State,
in self-defence.
Virginia grows restive under the cotton
growers lash. 1t has cracked over her head
too often. Before she has grown quarter
of century older she will vince under a
sharper lash than that of the cotton grower,
and the sting of that lash will bury itself in
her limbs and lay bare the very arteries of
her life-blood. That lash is the lash of the
slave-breeding monopoly. 1t is twining
itself around the manufacturing, the COM
mercial, the laboring and the educational
interests Of that unhappy State, sapping
them Of capital and energy, and banishing
them to other States, and finally, after hav-
ing enclosed every single valuable interest
of the State in its snaky meshes, with one
blow it will level them to the ground, and
the black, barbaric, peculiar institution
will reign alone in its darkness over her
desolate fields and cities.
1t is not strange, then that Virginia rebels
against &c King Cotton:' 1t is not strange
that the Hemulous voice Of fear comes up
from her most Jealous organs, and that
they begin to look, half-hesitatingly, for
protection to the North. All this is not
strange to men who have long looked at the
facts in the premises, with the clear sober
eye of common sense. But it is strange,
marvelously strange, to those weak eyes who
have been dazzled by the pomp and glitter,
the luxury, wealth and power, that outward
ly surround the custom of slavery. 1t is
strange to those who, while their lips have
confessed the evils of slavery, have thought
in their hearts that it was comfortable
and profitable institution, and that it was
entrenched in a stronghold which no power
under Heaven could overthrow.
tits strange, to those willy and supple
politicians who have lifted their hats and
bowed so politely and so low to the cotton
lords, and gone every length, and run every
risk, and strained every nerve to gain the
smile and favor Of the cotton interest, and
have thought that to gain them was the pol
itician's heaven.
1t is strange, incredibly, ,alarmingly strange,
to these poor men, to see the foundation be-
gin to give, beneath, not them Or their party,
for then they could still cling to the great
interest that is beneath, above, and within
their party, but beneath that very, great,
omnipresent, all-powerful interest itself,
and to see the first quivering signs of its
coming fall in the outermost turrets of its
mighty fabric; to see all their schemes and
aspirations fail, all their sacrifices Of prin-
c;nal and honor made FOR naught, all their
hypocritical humility and their cringing and
fawning upon the cotton-lords, without r.
ward, and themselves become the wretchsd;
scorned Uriah Heeps of the political world.
They will see stranger things still.