The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1862-11-01
BURLINGTON WEEKLY HAWK-EYE.
words, THAT is point which may be settle by
force rather than BY reason.

words, that is point which may be settle by
force rather than by reason.
This was January /, 1861, only eleven days
after South Carolina had passed her Act Of Sc
cession, and shows that even then, Hotwithstand.
ing the professed desire of the South to depart
in peace, the attack not only upon the national
principles of union, but upon the national pro-
perry as well, was projected. Mr.. Davis, loaded
with the benefits of his country, yet occupied
seat in the Senate Chamber, under the most SOL
emn oath to uphold its Constitution, which,
even if his grievances had been we'll founded, at.
forded constitutional and peaceful remedies that
he had never attempted to use.
Presenting regards, very formal indeed. sick
at heart, indignant, aud anxious, We left the
house of the traitor. p = t
t'fs CONCLUSIONS. a5G
The conversations, therefore, Indicate
l. That the grand, fundamental, legal ground
for the rebellion was 4 view of constitutional
rights by which property in human beings claim.
ed equal protection under the General Govern
ment with the products Of free labor, and to be
admitted, therefore, at will, to al places under
simply to be protected ander local or municipal
law-rights which the South proposed to vindi-
cate, constitutionally, by secession, or in other
words, by the domination of State over National
sovereignty; an entire view of the true intent Of
the Federal compacts and powers, which, in the
great debates between Mr. Webster and Mr..
Calhoun to say nothing of calculations by pre-.
vious and subsequent jursts and statesmen, has
been again and again abundantly demonstrated
to be absurd.
2 That the immediate, comprehensive pre-
text for the rebellion was the success of legal
majority having in its platform OF principles the
doctrine of the non existence of involuntary hu-
man bondage in the territories over which the
Constitution had given to the whole people alb
solute centrol--a doctrine which the mass of
the Southern populations we're educated to be-
lieve not only deadly to their local privileges,
but distinctly unconstitutional.
8. That the leaders of the rebellion frankly
admitted that, excepting this one point Of con.
stitutional grievance, the interest of the popu.
lations which they represented would be better
subserved in the Union than out of it.
4. That the leaders Of the rebellion appear not
to have anticipated coercion; but yet, from the
earliest days Of secession, contemplated the
spoliatisn of the Southern National property,
and particularly the seizure Of the Federal cap
ital. -
g. That, even should the independence of the
South he acknowledged, peace could not resu
so long as slavery should continue; their avowed
system of reprisals for the certain escape Of
slaves precluding all force in any but piratical
International law. W
| 6. Tat the spirit of the rebellion 10 the
naughty, grasping, and, except within its own
circle, the remorseless spirit universally charac
teristic Of oligarchies, before the success Of
whose principles upon this continent the lber-
ties Of the whites could be no safer than those
of the blacke.