The Buchanan County guardian. (Independence, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1858-1864, 1859-05-26

In past ages, for The disenthrallment of
the minds and the bodies of the people
Are all the apostles of political and re-
ligious freedom to be understood as oppo-
sing an express command OF God, when
they rose up to combat the tyranny OF
their political and ecclesiastical rulers
and if SO, why do we wreath the laurel
about their memories, generating them
for efforts in behalf of what we term
mans natural and most sacred rights
Is there antagonism between Gods com
mands and what the worlds great heart
always instinctively acknowledged to be
the sacred rights of human nature-the
right to life, to liberty, to property-the
right to mental and moral freedom
If the position of the editor, and his pro-
slavery co-adjutors, is correct, then i,
must be so. If man is to obey his ru-
Ter, the servant his master, meekly and
uniformly, without reference to his own
rights, or the rights of others, then is
despotism, tyranny and slavery destined
to be eternal. Liberty, political and re-
ligious, has never advanced step unop-
posed. Every inch Of her pathway has
been disputed by despotism and obstruct-
ed by conservatism. Her weapon has
always been agitation, and this is the
death of the one and the terror of the
other. ,Hhus it is now. The whole eff
fort of the Southern oligarchy, and of
Northern conservatists, or doughfaces,
has been to stop agitation. The former
have no wish to hear of the natural
rights which they violate, while profess
ing to love freedom, and the latter is al
ways auttering with fear, and prolific of
doubts, in view of progressive move
ment. The latter ever wishes to try,
like the editor of the Cigiliam, the vir-
tues of patience, of meekness, of docil-
ity, and says, "wait for more strength
consider your weakness-you cannot
but ruin the cause you wish to serve
better rest in peace with error than serve
truth in battle"
Let the editor fancy himself in the
slaves position, and While writhing and
smarting under his degradation and his
bonds, or possibly bowed to the earth
with anguish at having his wife and lit
tie ones ruthlessly torn from him to be
treated and sold like beasts at the sham
bles-while in this condition, realizing
that he possesses the feelings and form,
the aspirations and affections, of man,
and yet by force, and by that only, de-
prived of every right that can raise him
above the. brute-let him know and feel
this, and what mockery he would consid-
er it to be told that his highest inter-
ests" demand that he should bear it all
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS he can serve God
as well thus as free-that he should be
obedient, faithful. honest, patient and
virtuous. Would any number of bible
declarations satisfy him that this was the
will of a God of justice and of good
ness, or that it was anything else than an
Infamous. hellish system of wrong and
Of rapine, a system of inhuman despo;-
ism, to which no power or principle HUI
man or divine, had right to exact obe-
dience, and which demanded from every
lover of humanity his energy, his efforts,
and his life, ifneed be, for its overthrow ?
This. of certainty, would be the feel
ing of the editor if he were forced to
change places with those whose emanci-
patton heteems to deprecate, and it is
poor rule of action that will not apply
equally well to ourselves as to our fell
bowman. The authority that justifes
he holding of the black man in bondage,
would equally justify the editors own en-
slayement, and that which teaches pa
Lience, faithfulness and obedience to the
southern slave, would equally exact the
same Of him in like circumstances, or
under any other system of despotism
And if, as he knows would be the case,
his whole nature would cry out against
he unnatural wrong, and demand from
humanity earnest efforts for its overthrow.
no postulates" can exempt him from a
ike obligation to present victims. or can
Justify him in his abuse of men who act
n view of that obligation.
The editor has argued this question
Upon higher than political grounds, and
therefore, we have followed him as we
nave. He has, however, as is common
with the upholders Of the Infamous sys-
EN-, much to say relative to the objects
md the character Of the active opposers
Of his favorite institution. He accuses
hem Of belief, +" that the chief work
II the creator was not men simply, but