Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1860-06-22
The rirst Republican President.

8, Marc0 next, t0e SecOnO AWeIiCSn AseVVausiS
to will have been consummated. Peaceable an
r. bloodless in its action, grateful and wholeson
70 in ITS effects on the whole body polite an
l. social of the nation, and yet radical, thoroug
3, and enduring, will be the character of th'
), revolution. Like the great revolution
e England, which made the ministry responsibl
d to the country. and changed the character (
8 the government from that Of . monarchy to
r free and popular government, this revolutio
+ will work . change in the destinies Of thi
n country greater and more lasting than all tn
9 wars and violent changes which have hithert
: occurred. No great political fact is bette
: sscertaiued or more generally admitted nov
by the great and far-seeing statesmen of al
l. parties in this country than that of tn
''irrepressible conflict between opposing ant
, enduring forces, which means that the Unitet
States must and will sooner or later becom'
either entirely slaveholding nation or entirely
q free-labor nation" Mr.. Seward is not th'
only or the first man who has discerned tht
meaning and extent of this great conflict row
going on. Mr.. Iverson, of Georgia, last
Winter, in his great speech of January 7th
recognized it in these words:
Free institutions and slave institutions, rs
now understood and established in the two
sections of our Union, cannot er,st together
in peace under the same government, during
such period as usually marks the lifetime
of nation" ..
The fact has now become so plain that even
ordinary eyes like ours can see that, in the
slaveholding States themselves, the hour of a
terrible and most sanguinary contest is
approaching, which no power on earth can
prevent, between the servile and the ruling
classes. In plain words, if slavery is shut up
within its present limits, q serv,le insurrection
in the slaveholding States is fixed fact,
which only one combination of circumstances
can prevent. A voluntary emancipation by
the slaveholding classes is out of the question.
Purchase and colonization of the slaves is a
sheer impossibility. If the slaveholding
interest retains its hold on the Federal Gov
ernment, and continues to rule undisturbed
| in the Southern States, then the contest which
Jefferson foresaw is sure to come, with all its
dreadful and inconceivable horrors. There is
but one element in the country, but one class
of men in the nation, who have it in their
power to avert such catastrophe. Those
men are the non Shareholders of the South.
The remedy which they and they alone can
apply is to carry the 'irrepressible conflict"
'into Africa" and take away the cause Of
strife slavery itself-irom their own midst.
We repeat it, the action Of the non-slavehold-
ing whites of the South, in abolishing slavery,
is the sole hope Of this country for salvation
from the most terrible form of civil and
domestic war. These non shareholders, con-
sisting of six and half millions of people,
are restrained from such action only by the
overpowering influence of the slaveholding
power, and that influence is created, sustained
and increased by the sympathy, assistance
and fostering care of the Federal Government,
under the control of Shareholders. Take
away the arm of the Federal Government from
slaveholding, give the Offices and the patron
age of the government to Republicans and
anti slavery men South, and that moment the
black giant Of the slave. power becomes feeble
as q child, and shrinks into a dwarf; the
non shareholders of the South will obtain
possession of the State governments; the
work of emancipation will commence, and the
cloud of civil war, which lowers distantly over
the future, will be dispersed. These nom
shareholders of the South are only waiting for
the election of an anti-slavery President, to
commence political movement in these States
which shall transfer the power there from the
aristocracy to the masses Of the people. No
sooner will Abraham Lincoln take his seat
than an anti slavery party will spring up in
every slave State, which will be SO much the
more enthusiastic and vigorous as the oppo-
sition of the shareholders will be more arrogant
and tyrannical, which will grow surely and
rapidly, as popular and democratic parties
always grow; which will turn out of power
the arstocratic classes, and which will cut up
the practice of slavery by the roots, and
surely ard speedily eradicate it from every
State of the Union. This and this alone is
the sole method of scattering the stormy
elements now thickening in the political
atmosphere, and preserving peace and free
institutions to the undivided people of this
Union. This IS the reason that gives such
peculiar and momentous significance to the
election of Abraham Lincoln.
OREGON PoLIrIcs.-Hon. David Logan is
the Republican candidate for Congress. His
competitor is one G. X. Shiel, slave candi-
date. They are stumping the State together,
1 ~ L.