The Smoky Hill and Republican union. [volume] (Junction City, Kan.) 1861-1864, 1862-04-10
Slavery As a 0ivilizer.

Slavery As a oivilizer.
We have always had, at the North, mum
bers of respectable gentlemen and rather
less respectable newspapers, that have
seemed to consider their special calling in
this world to be defense of and apology for
the institution which marks the South
ern States of this Union as "peculiar
among the social organisms of civilization.
We presume that some of these gentlemeni
and some of these newspapers, still consider
the slave labor system commendable one.
Will some of them be good enough to tell
US what is meant by the barbarities that
mark with h..infamy every military step of
the rebels? Will they tell us what is the
significance of our unburied dead, lying for
months near thes rebel camps-the CONFER
sion Of human bones into pipes and cups
and hideous ornaments--the poisoning of
food sold to our forces and of wells about
the places they have conquered-the bar
barous treatment accorded to prisoners
taken from the Federals-the neglect and
maltreatment of wounded who have fallen
into rebel hands-the employment as allies
Of Indians whose natural cruelty has been
inAamed by alcoholic stimulants? Why is
it that multi;udes of Southern women long
for Yankee scalps? Why is it that i" old
LINKIN's head is SO earnestly desired as an
ornament for Southern mansions? Why
is it that the " highest type Of white civil
ization which we have been told grew,
in the nature Of things, from the basis of
servile labor-aeyelops the features of an
. unmistakable and inimitable barbarism?
This question cannot be evaded by a
denial of the facts The evidence is cumu-
lative and unimpeachable. Tue Ward fam
lily, residing near Bull Run, state that the
bodies of Union soldiers, buried near their
residence, were dug up, the flesh boiled
from the bones, and the latter fashioned in-
to CHASTITY ornaments to be hawked up and
down Secessia for sale as keepsakes and
mementoes. A clergyman of this city who
is intimately acquainted with the localities
and inhabitants of that portion of Virginia,
assures US that the Ward family are per
sons of respectability, whose assertions are
implicitly to be depended upon. The rebel
surgeons who accompanied the wounded
prisoners of Forts Donelson and Henry
brutally neglected their charges-their own
defeated and suffering comrades. This fact
is sufficiently attested by General Halleck's
order, directing that the continuance of such
neglect should subject the perpctrator to
forfeiture of parole and to close confine-
ment. Corporal Merrill and Congressman
Ely are competent witnesses as to the bru-
talities showered upon prisoners held by
the rebels. 1t is notorious that prisoners
from our ranks are hooted, blackguarded,
spit upon, by the ladies of Southern cities
fair daughters Of chivalry! No Federal
prisoner in Southern town has met with
such treatment as the rebel prisoners from
Fort Donelson met in Utica, where word
Of insult was drowned by cries of Don't
strike man when he's down pa homely
disqualification Of the essence Of true
chivalry.
There is o sort of doubt as to the facts
of the barbarities perpetrated in this war
by the rebels of the South. l. there any
more doubt that system of society which
permits and inevitably introduces atrocities
af the basest sort, upon a crushed and help
less class tends directly to the growth of all
brutality and cruelty, and to the dwar6ng
Of all courage and manliness? Is there
need to look any other where than to slav-
cry for the cause of these rebel outrages,
which sicken humanity and make all civili-
zation stand aghast As slavery is an alb
normal and wicked state of society, so are
its effects abnormal and wicked. John
Stuart Mill was right when he wrote,
"Slavery is barbarous and barbarixing
power"
That slavery was the influence which has
rendered the Soutbsro soldiery capable of
the enormities they practice, is proven by
the fact that it is the only peculiar influence
to which the Sou,hrons have been exposed
that has no: equally operated upon our
Northern volunteers-who have never even
been accused Of theSe atrocities. We are
Of the same blood and lineage, have lived
under the same free and equal government.
and the Slave system is the only essential
difference that can be pointed to in the
social organizations of the loyal and dislov-
al States The Difference - AZ.