The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1861-07-06
The Real Conclusion.

It is time to expose this mad inconsistency
which paralyzes common sense on all Southern
Tongues, so soon as Slavery becomes the topic
These same negroes, who we hear claimed, at
one moment, as petted darlings whom no allure
ments can seduce, are denounced, next instant,
as iends whom whisper can madden. Nor
thern sympathzers are first ridiculed as imbeclie,
then lynched as destructive. Either position is
in itself Ineligible, but the combination is an
absurdity. We can understand why the pro.
pretor Of powder house trembles at the sight
of flint and steel and We can also understand
why some new journeyman, being mex perienced,
may regard the peril without due concern. But
we should decide either to be lunatc, if he in
one breath proclaimed his gunpowder to be ali
incombustible, and at the next moment assassi-
mated visitor dor lighting cigar on the prem
Uses. A slave population is either contented
and safe, or disconnected and unsafe it cannot
at the same time be friendly and hostile; bliss
full and desperate.
The result described is inevitable, should the
Secessionists dare to tempt the ordeal by battle
long enough. If it stop short of this, it will be
because the prestige of Southern military power
is SO easily broken down that there is no temp.
tation to declare the Adams policy. But even
this consumation must have the most momentous
results, and entirely modify the whole anti-sla-
very movement of the nation. Should the war
cease tomorrow, it has inaugurated new era
in our nations history. The folly of the Gull
States, in throwing away political condition
where the conservative sentiment stood by them
| only too well, must inevitably recoil on their
| own heads, whether the strife last day or a
| generation. No man can estimate the new
| measures and combinations to which it is des
tined to give rise. There stands the Constitu.
tion, with all its severe conditions severe or
-
| which interpretations, again, will always prove
| plastic before the popular will. The popular
will is plainly destined to change; and who
dare predict the results of its changing! The
scrupulous may still hold by the letter of the
| bond: but since the South has confessedly priced
all legal guarantees only for the sake of Slavery
the North once free to act, will long to construe
them, up to the very verge of faith, in the III
! terest Of Liberty. Was the original compro
mise Shylock bond!-the war has been GU,
Por.ia. The nation rose and conquered it with
votes. Vita desperate disloyalty, slavery STRUCK
down all political safeguards, and appealed tC
| arms. The nation has risen again, ready to NEE
it with any weapons, sure to conquer with any
| Twice conquered, what further claim will thi.
defeated desperate have? If it was a disturb
| ing element before, and so put under restriction
shall it be spared when it has openly proclaimed
itself destroying element also? Is this to b;
| the last of American civil wars, or only the frs
one? These are the questions which will haun
mems minds, when the cannon are all hushed
and the bells are pealing peace, and the sons o
our hearthstones come home. The watchwort
Irrepressible Conflict only gave the key, bu
War has flung the door wide open, and foul
million slaves stand ready to file through. 1t i:
merely question of time, circumstances, ant
method There is not statesman SO wise bat
this war has given him light nor an Abo
| litionist so selfcon6dent but must own its prom
Use better than his foresight. Henceforth, the
first duty of an American legislator must be, by
the use of all legitimate means, to weaken Sla
very. Deleada est Serpitudo. What the peace
which the South has broken was not doing, the
war which she has instituted must secure At
lantic Monthly.