The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1860-04-05

us see. Our political principles are either
true or false. If they are false, certainly you
have the talent and the disposition to refute
them. If you could refute them, would you
not undertake it directly, anil not try to
score people by conjecturing some direful
ultimate result. The very fact that you
avoid meeting us the principles, and busy
yourselves by conjecturing awful things,
shows that our foundation is solid, and that
you cannot attack us honorably.
II our political principles are true, then I
say boldly, that we are not responsible for
for results. You certainly will not deny us
the right to hare political principles. five
have such a right, then we have the right TO
cypress them, and if your rotten doctrines
topp!e to the earth in consequence ofsuch an
expression, you, the representatives of error
the supporters Of false principles, are re-
sponsible for results. Any other view OF
political rights would be despotism--would
sap American liberty, by sitting freedom
Of thought, destroying freedom of the press,
and prohibiting freedom of discussion. 1t
would in this instance give you, and your
southern masters, the right to violate their
compromises-to deceive the people with the
show of Popular Sovereignty, to extend
Slavery into free terrItory-to convey the
"nigger" and hug him to sur boSoms every
where in the United States and deprive us
of the poor privilege ofasserting the rights
Of free labor and free men, for fear that some
crazy fanatic produced by your own oppres-
sion might attempt to free your negroes.
| But rs matter Of fact, I deny that the
John Brown raid was the result Of Repuh'i.
can principles. Brown aoas not Republi-
crn. He appears to have been a Paaicnl
! Abo1iti0nist-a believer in the doctrines OF
! Gerrt Smith and Lgsanaer Spooner, and
consequently differed as widely from the
! Republicans, as It is possible for two parties
! to differ. He did not get his belief from the
| Republicans. hut he went back to- and con-
suited Holt, Hale, Littleton, Brocton, Fortes-
que, Coke, Blackstone and others, and be-
lieved their teachings, that slavery can have
no law to support it-that the master has
no property in his slaves-and that they are
by right free. He then applied to these
principles, the teachings of the Bible ere
member them that are in bonds as bound
with them" "Deliver the prey out of the
hands of the spoiler." "Whatsoever We
would that men should do unto you, do We
even so to them'-and when outraged in
Kansas by the slave power, when maddened
by its murder and rapine, the settled object
of his life become what he deemed his relig-
! ious duty-the emancipation of the slaves
| of the south If the John Brown raid was
the result of doctrines taught him, and not
the direct result Of his treatment by the
Democratic purity in Kansas, then you
must level your artillery against the great
! law writers | have mentioned, and against
the bible, for it was by them he justified
| himself
You must 90 still further, and blow up the
/ Declaration of Independence, and the Con-
stitu;ion of the United States, and Wash
iugton and jefferson, and Madison and The
/ founders Of our government generally, for
john Browns will point you to them in JUS
1 LITIGATION, far sooner than to the Repub jean
party.