The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1861-07-27
BURLINGTON, sATU URDAY 7, JUL LYs27, 1856:

RD.AlI = JUL % 1861
1 SPEECH OF HON. JOSEPH MOL1
!i AT LOUISVILLE. ,rsoie
The UnSon WIN 1as CSndfsioaS.s ~
[Delfveredas Leuisvile, saturday evening, Juty ~
loii FELLOW CITIzENs; "a, few weeks iincl
i 10 another formy yentured freely to .ex
4 press my views upon those tragic event
which have brought sorrow to everyhearth
stone and to every heart in our destractet
country j and it IL sSeot my purpose on thil
occasion to repeat those views.For toT en-
gage in any extended discussion of til.
question then examined, It's not 1eces
sary that / should do 80, since the argu
ment is exhausted, and the popular mind
| is perfectly familiar with it in oil its bear
ings. / will, however, with your perlnis.
sion, submit few brief observations upon
the absorbing topics Of the day and il
do so with an earnestness and emphasis
due alike to the sincerity of my consic.
tions.and to the magnitude Of the interests
involved, it is trusted that none will be Of.
Tended, not even those who may most wide
ly differ from me. 81 sf-ss 8t'f sag
/, Could one, an entire stranger to our his
tory, now look down upon the South and
see there hundred or . hundred and fifty
thousand men marching in hostile array,
threatening the capture Of the Capital,
and the dismemberment of the Territory
of the Republic, and could he look again
and see that this army is marshalled and
directed by officers recently occupying
distinguished places in the civil and mill
tary service of the country, and further,
that the States from which this army has
been drawn appear to be one vast, seeth-
ing cauldron Of ferocious passion, he
would very naturally conclude that the
Government of the United States had
committed some great crime: againsts:it
people, and that this uprising wasin resist
ance to wrongs and outrages which had
been borne until their endurance was no
longer possible. And yet, no conclusion
could be further from the truth than this.
The Government Of the United States has
been faithful to all its constitutional oble-
cations. For eighty years it has main
tanned the national honor at home and
abroad, and by its prowess, its wisdom,
and its Justice, has given to the title Of
an American citizen an elevation among
the nations of the earth which the citizen
of no republic has enjoyed, since Rome
was mistress Of the world. Underi its ad-
ministration the national domain has
stretched away to the Pacific, and the con-
stellation which announced our birth as q
people had expanded from thirteen to
thirty four stars, all, until recently, NOV
ing undisturbed and undimmed in their
orbs of light and grandure. The rights
of no State have been invaded: no mans
property has been dispoiled, no mans lib
erty abridged, no mans life oppressive ly
jeopardized by the action of this Govern
ment. Under its benign influences the
rills of public and private prosperity have
swelled to rivulets, and from rivulets into
rivers ever brimming in their fullness, and
everywhere, and at all periods of its his
tory, its ministrations have fallen as gent
" on the people of the United States as
do the dews Of summers night on the
flowers and grass of the gardens and fields
Whence, then, this revolutionary out
break !? Whence the secret spring Of this
gigantic conspiracy, which, like some huge
boa, had completely coiled itself around
the limbs and body of the Republic, be-
fore single hand was lifted to resist it !?
Strange and indeed startling as the an
nouncement must appear when it falls up
on the ears of the next generation, the
national tragedy in whose shadow we stand
tonight, has come upon US because, in
November last, yohnC C. Breckinridge was
not elected President Of the United States
and Abraham Lincoln was. This is the
whole story. And I would pray now to
know on what was John G. Breckinridge
fed that he has grown so great, that a re-
public founded by Washington and ce-
mented by the best blood that has ever
coursed in human veins, is to be over
thrown because forsooth he cannot be its
President Had he been chosen, we
we'll know that we should not have heard
of this rebellion, for the lever with which
it is being moved would have been want
ing to the handsof the conspirators. Even
after his defeat, could it have been guar
anteed, beyond all peradventure, that JEFF
ferson Davis or SEINE other kindred spirit
would be the successor of Mr.. Lincoln, I
presume we hazard nothing in assuming
that this atrocious movement. against the
Government would not have been set on
foot. So much for the principle involved
in it. This great crime, then, with which
we are graphing, sprang from that " sin
by which the angels fell ian unmaster-
ed and proAigate a.nbition-an ambition
that would rather reign in hell than
serve in heaven "--tbat would ratherrule
supremely over shattered fragment Of
the Republic than to run the chances Of
sharing with others the honors Of the
whole. g sT as .as..a
The ccnspirators Of the South read in
the election of Mr.. Lincoln declaration
that the Democratic party had been pros
trated, if not finally destroyed, by the
selfish intrigues and corruptions of its
leaders; they read, too, that the vicious,
emaciated, and spawned hobby Of the
Slavery agitation, on which they had SO
often rode into power, could no longer car.
ry them beyond given geographical line
of our territory, and that in truth this
factious and otreasonable agitation, on
which SO many Of them had grown great
by debauching and denationalizing the
mind Of people naturally generous and
patriotic, had run its course, and hence,
that from the national disgust for this dem.
agoguing and from the inexorable law Of
population, the time had come when all
those who had no other political capital
than this, would have to prepare for retire.
ment to private life, SO far at least, as the
highest offices of the country were con.
cerned. Under the influence of these
grim discouragements they resolved to
consumate at once-what our political his.
tory shows to have been with them long
cherished purpose-the dismemberment
of the Government. They said to them.