The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1862-04-05
JUNE. 1889.


prompts to personal sacrifice in the defense O
the feeble. And have never yet witnessed q
crowd of frontiersmen, however rough and
uncultivatei. who could be induced to applaud
the victor in contest with an inferior. This
! principle of humanity it is thought by many
was illustrated on grand scale when the En-
| glish nation and the French people stepped in
1 between Russia and the Turks. Here was a
great and powerful nation attempting to crush
out feeble people. The contest was UNEQUAL;
| il was the athletic champion with iron muscles
in deadly strife with the child or decrepid age,
| and two powerful nations stepped in between
them and commanded peace, and took up the
glove in defense Of the weaker suppose
this element Of humanity TO be the foundation
OF that manly pride that most men experience
when they stand in defense Of their cwn fami
lies, in defense Of their wives and children and
parents. They stand between the feeble and
the strong, and peril their existence in defense
of their rights. As a nation we act from these
generous and manly impulses in our inter-
course with the children of the prairies and
forests. They are comparatively feeble peo-
pie, incapable of taking care of themselves,
and you organize bureau under the Govern
ment and appoint Commissioner and appro-
pirate millions of dollars year by year to pay
agents to stand between them and your own
citizens who might be stimulated by avarice to
become their oppressors. And this policy usu-
ally receives the applause of Christian men
1t is but another illustration of better impulses
of an enlightened humanity-a powerful nation
stretches out its strong arm to protect the
feeble.
Here is another feeble people, a race of men
that are inferior to us, not equal to US in beau
ty, not equal to US in symmetry Of body, not
equal to us possibly in original mental and
moral capacities or endowments. They are
supposed not to be as capable of taking care of
themselves as the Anglo-Saxons or others of
the Caucasian race; aud on that account you
tell me they are to be trampled under foot.
You are to trample them into the earth because
they are feeblel Do you treat your own feeble
people in this way2 l have sometimes stepped
into probate court, and l have seen Judge
sitting on the tribunal of justice appointing a
guardian for the persons and property of or
phan children, and requiring him to give bond
and security for the proper execution of the
trust. They have neither father nor mother;
these natural guardians have been called
hence; they may become the victims of avarice
or malice. The officer of the law steps in for
their protection. You sir, see this evidence of
a Christian civilization And two hundred
millions of Christians scattered up and down
III the eartn unite IN applause orators ana
statesmen chime in with the axiom, the very
object of the organization of civil society is the
protection Of the weak from the aggression of
the strong.
Now if this be so in relation to every other
people, in relation to weak members of your
race, would it not be equally humane to pro-
vide for the protection of feeble colored peo-
pie that have been born in our midst without
any fault surely of their own; who have been
cast here, you may say, as waits on society,
by an act of Providence? Are We to crush
them with the iron heel Of civilization that
brings only blessings to all others? And if
their shackles shall be stricken off, are we in
deed doomed to witness their indscriminate
murder because they are weak, because they
are less capable Of providing means of their
own defense than we? This is an illustration
of what is sometimes styled the superior civili-
cation of the slave system, and a conception of
an enlightened humanity that could not have
believed a few years since would have been
exemplified on the floor Of the American Sem
ate; because people are weak, therefore you
have right to oppress them, and if the hand
of humanity does obtrude for their protection,
then you have right to murder them, murder
them iudiscriminately, murder them en- mQsss
only because they are no longer slaves.