Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1860-01-20
WEEKLY JOURNAL.
Local DEPARTM EMIT.


| - Market reports this week are CON.
fined to those at home. We have reason, however
to know that the foreign markets which we usually
report, have experienced no material change during
the present week. t' "
Hon. HORACE GREELEY is expected to
lecture before the Young Mems Association, Of
Davenport on the evening of the Oath or 95th inst
His lectures will relate to his recent travels At
Pixies Peak, California, &c. We think it would be
a good idea to invite Mr.. Greeley to deliver his
lectures in this city, also.
| p% Florence is hawked about the streets
for SO cents on the dollar those purchasing it hav
| ing paper to meet in Cook l. Sargents hands. No
explanation has yet been made by this firm, and no
iutimation Of when statement may be expected.
The public are becoming very anxious-Dacsapors
Democrat and Aews.
LITERARY INsrrruTE-Fifth Lecture. An
audience exceeding in numbers any that preceded
it during the course of these lectures assembled at
fremont Hall last evening The seats were crowded
principally with ladies) while eager, expectant
throng willing rather to forego the convenience Of
sitting than to be deprived of hearing the lecture
Campbell could at the outset have felt that repose
in the undivided sympathy of his hearers which in
spires confidence under circumstances otherwise
unpropitious. "John Brown'--the vexatous source
of perpexity, terror and angry controversy-now
that he slumbers his rocky couch at North Elba'
was not the most opposite theme which might
have been selected The speakers relation to his
subject was generally anticipated; nor was he
himself nsensible to the trying peculiarities of the
position he voluntarily occupied. Mr.. Campbell,
however, showed himself in every respect equal to
the emergency. Flushed with a purpose warmed
into excitement he advanced boldly in the face of
that vast assemblage, and with strong hand grasp
ed the tremulous, indecisive chords of the great
popular heart and set them in harmony with truth
and humanity. Waving the question Of right or
wrong, he inquired, simply, into the motives which
governed the acts of John Brown contending that
it they be proven honest, truthful and dsinterest
ed, it entities the actor to rank in the same line
with Hollis, Sidney, Mac Callum More, Charlotte
Corday, Robert Emmett and other rebels, renowned
in hstory-men and women who, in opposition to
a principle they deemed oppressive and wrong,
calmly and deliberately, in defiance of bristling
bayonets, took the law by the beard and grappled
with it in a death struggle which meant that the
Jaw should die they should and though for the
lime defeated, their lives ingloriously terminated
On the scafold, the shock which they administered
survived, and accomplished in due time the ire.
rievable overthrow Of the principle against which
hey arrayed.
That Mr.. Campbell succeeded in establishing
Zach of these points and indicating the motives of
John Brown, We have the conserving verdict of his
audience, duly empauueled as jury, to hear the
evidence and try the case. And here we will allow
Mr.. Campbell to make his own reflections:
"This is what we think John Brown did We
hink he made mistake in his means we think
hat there was more excellent way to accomplish
he end he aimed at but we do think that in pria-
;ipe he was right, though mistaken in Judgment,
tut lifetime OF thirty years, to the welfare Of
degraded, down trodden, stupid senseless race,
Who were too abect to make even their thanks an
object of selfish vanity; in the absence of all per-
onal feeling in the lon-like courage and fearless
andor with which he fronted his enemies and
vrung from them in their triumph expressions of
steem and admiration, and in the calm, humble
confidence with which at the last he faced death-ln
Ill these he exhibits an example Of sublime hero
SIN almost without parallel in history.
The effects of his act will be the same in this
country as in all other countries-just such as we
rave seen always followed the weakest blow for
reedom. He has flung himself with his whole
night against slavery-that is the plain English of
t He has sprinkled the steps and pillars of its
bony, coal black, magnificent temple, whose sable
,ight-like columns and shafts and walls and turretS
Use in strong, massive and magnificent proper.
ions, and cast their raven shadow over one-third
# these States, with his blood and that fatal red
pot is stamped upon it which, whenever and
wherever it has before marked any laws or institu
ions, has betokened their violent and speedy
DOWNFALL
We do not look forward to any dissolution of the
Union. We fear none; we hope for none Ii there
8 any danger to be apprehended more than another
this nature it is rather the loss of the rights of
be >tates than any weakening of that colossal
political power, the Federal Union. But the real
strength of nation is not in territory, numbers,
lnion, powerful governments, or paper constitu
IONS The real vital le's blood of nation consists
n its fidelity to the great principles of truth and
light. When people become depraved and COL
upted by an alliance with oppression and wrong.
hen comes their decline five, the free people of
America desire our national liberties and free in
ttutions to continue safe and Aourishing. we must
ZEE to it that in all laws. and institutions. and
political acts the liberties and rights OF all men are
Daily, l7M