Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1860-04-06

CLOSE QUESTIoNS.-There IS nothing that
the defenders of slavery, whether North or
South, SO quickly shrink from as a close
question, to be answered by yes or no. So
long as you will give them plenty of sea-room
to beat about in, with loud swelling words
and long drawn arguments, ending nowhere,
they are at home. An instance of this is seen
in discussion between The Independent and
the New York Observer. The Observer has
abounded in windy arguments against aboli,
tionists, whereupon The Independent pro,
pounds series of questions, and repeats them
from week to week, as follows:
1. Is it wrong to sell human beings, guiltless
of crime?
Q. Is it wrong to hold human beings as
property, subject to be bought and sold?.
8. Is it wrong to separate by force or law
husbands and wives, parents and children,
when neither crime, nor vice, nor insanity, Ia
either of the parties calls for such separation
4. Have slaves an equal right with other
persons to marry according to their own
choice, and should such marriage, when
contracted be held sacred and inviolable?
5. Has slave.woman an absolute right to
her chastity, and is the master who violates
that chastity guilty of a crime?
g. Have slaves right to read the Bible,
and is it a crime to forbid them to be taught
to read?
Z. Is the system Of slavery, as it exists in
the Southern States, a blessing to the country,
which should be cherished and perpetuated
bv national LEGISLATION?
8. Is the system of slavery, as by law
established in the Southern States, morally
right?
The Independent adds: each of these
questions admits of direct categorical
answer. If the Observer will transfer
these questions to its columns, and answer
each of them by simple yes or no, then for
each and every such explicit ans~sr we will
pay over to A. Merwln, Esq, for the American
Board, twenty-five dollars"
These questions first appeared in The
Independent six or seven weeks ago; but the
Observer remains doggedly silent. Even that
conservative journal, the New York Ecangel-
is,, has begged the Observer to speak; but,
no-its tongue will not move.
<>>
DEMOCRACY NORTH AND SoUTH-Now AND
THEN.-The Democratic Convention which
met at Indianapolis CInd.) in January last
passed the following resolution, which is one
of the cardinal principles in the platform:
Resolued, That we are in favor of home
steads to actual settlers upon the public lands
of the United States.
The North Carolina Democrats, in their
Convention, which very recently met, passed
the following resolution:
Resolved, That we regard the distribution of
the public lands or their proceeds, or the
enactment of homestead bills, or any other
mode of disposing of the public domain without
any equivalent, as unconstitutional, and anti
Democratic, and impolitic.
Gen. 10. Lane, in speech at Concord, N.
a., during the Presidential canvass of 1856,
said:
1.-THE question of slavery is most perplex-
ing one, and ought not to be agitated. We
should leave it with the States where it con-
stitutionally exists, and the people of the
Territories to prohibit or establish, as to them
may seem right and proper"
Gen. 10. Lane, in his late speech in the
Senate of the United States, said,
81 do not believe the people of Territory
have right to exclude, or establish, or abolish
slavery. No such right is conferred on them
by the Constitution"