The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1861-06-05
Iron the London Times.1
A Sensible View Of the Subject.

1t remains to be seen what effect will be
produced upon the Secessionists by their dis
covery that the North can and will fight
Hitherto they have simply and sincerely be-
lieved that in a warfare the game would be
their own. They have throughout assumed
without misgiving,, that the Northern men
have not pluck, or endurance, or martial
spirit, or any soul of antagonism in them
If this appears too absured for belief, let it
be remembered that the Secessonists are
not without warrant for a part of their as
sumption, and that their own position &C.
counts for the rest We must remember the
political submissiveness of the free States
for a long course of years--a submissiveness
which the South has only erred in ascribing
70 the wrong sort of cowardice. We must
remember, too, that the Southern people
have all their lives seen work done only by
slaves, so that they naturally conceive that
all who work are slaves. Any miserable fel-
low who earns his bread by toll in their re-
gion is lower in their eyes than the negroes,
and he is usually as degraded in fact as he
appears to them. Their notion is that the
North is peep,ed with degraded white work,
ers like these, and they have never formed
the conception of bands of citizens like the
fishermen Of Marblehead, and the quarrymen
of Quincy, and the farmers Of New York
men of valor and patriotism, leaving their
boats on shore, and the pick in the rock,
and the pillow in the field, to save the Re-
public from receiving any harm. A little
time will show what the Secessionists
think of the unexpected enemy they have
chosen to bring down upon themselves.
The Northern men ought at the same
time to feel that this war is their retribution
for political unfaithfulness They have chosen
to be ill-represedted in the government; to
be repressed by their own leaders to sub
NIT to the disgrace of political subserviency
and to postpone their popular government to
the aristocratic assumptions ola section OF
the Union which has never been really Re
publican. They are now undergoing the
retribution Of their SIM We cannot join in
any EXPLANATIONS about the unexpected and
astonishing character of tbs CONFUSION; for,
as Lord Palmerston says, any one with COM
mon foresight must have expected it. Nor
can we join. in any cry about the horrible
ness and incredible dreadfulness of the issue
Of this long controversy.
We sympathize rather with the solemn
joy of the Free States, who feel, even at this
hour of crisis, that there is something more
precious to a self ruling people than "blood
and treasure" We congratulate them or
having at last thrown off their burden Of in
EQUITY, and found themselves free to asser
their old liberties, and recover the esteem o
the best part of the world. They will show
US now, at last, what popular selfgoyern
ment is. The crisis brings out its virtue ir
fostering love of country and a capacity fo
selfsacrifice and union of heart and hand or
great occasions. These men have country
and polity which they can fight and dir
| for
The time past in which miserable yict
in their polity demoralized and disheartenet
them, will be lesson for the future ant
this season of retributicn and emancipation
once over they may start afresh, and show thu
world what popular government may be ant
do, when freed from the curse of completely
with the grossest tyranny which man cal
exercise over man.