The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1862-04-19

tne senators from DeleWare 1S purely partisan
in its character and motives; they rely on Slave
ry to restore the Democratic party to power
in the Union while perpetuatingits ascendency
in their own State, and they Of course uphold
the influence to which they owe so much, ye
desire and hope to be still further indebted.
So of Mr.. Powell of Kentucky and of seveia
Members Of the House. On the other hand the
willingness Of the Republicans to pass this bill
by their own unaided votes argues scope Of
vision and q faith in the might Of abstract
justice which has been quite too rare in the
| acts of parties and partisans. Slavery is
| doomed to vanish from the District of Columbia
before the next Fourth Of July, and the Re-
| publican party assumes the undivided respon-
sibility and will receive the full credit of its
exile. Should that party be doomed to an
| early dissolution, its tombstone will be well
garnished with few bold and noble acts OF
| this character.
III. The vote on the Cd inst. of the people
of Northwestern Virginia, whereby they ex.
pressd their decided desire to constitute new
| and independent State, to be recognized and
admitted into the Union as WESTERN VIRGINIA,
| and to be gradually relieved of the incubus of
Slavery. is most cheering sign of the times.
The proposed new State consists of thirty nine
Counties, or nearly one.thrd Of the area of the
Virginia that lately was. 1t contained, by the
census of 1860, a population Of 28O, GAL, which
was rapidly increasing by immigration up to
the outbreak of the rebellion-the chief i'm
pulse to this increase being the recent discov-
cry Of Petroleum or Rock Oil in some of its val.
leys. Being considerably larger in area than
New Jersey or any New England State but
Maine with vast though as yet undeveloped
Mineral resources-Coal, Salt, Iron, Petroleum
| etc.-and supera5undance Of excellent Tim.
Der, there is no reason why West Virginia, with
Peace and impartial Liberty, may not have
Half a Million Of inhabitants within ten years
and more than One Million within thirty
Traversed by Railroads whereon her products
| may readily find markets in the East or in the
West, threaded by Rivers whereon her Timber
and other bulky staples may be cheaply hoated
down to the Ohio and the ever-crowinp cities
on its banks, West Virginia needs but Freedom
for All to assure her rapid growth and a
glorious destiny. She had but 6, S84 slaves in
1850; she has probably less than 5000 now
many having been hurried off to places Of great
er security before the advance of the Union
armies, while others have hurried themselves
away to the Free West to escape the unappre-
ciated blessings of servitude. And these 5000
slaves, the White freeman of West Virginia
have voted, shall no longer chain her to a
doomed and desperate cause. to which her ev-
cry interest is irreconcilably hostile. The del
egated Convention which lately assembled at
Wheeling and framed there a Constitution for
the embryo State, left Slavery undisturbed; but
decreed that the People, in voting to ratify or
reject 1t, should vote also For or Against a pol
icy of Gradual Emancipation. They did SO last
Thursday; and the aggregate result is great
majority for the Constitution and one barely
less for Emancipation And though the vote
was necessarily light, the whole region being
convulsed and distracted by the perils and
apprehensons which accompany civil wal. there
can be no doubt that it expresses the deliberate
and Interchangeable judgment of the People.
This is one of the most palpable and auspic-
ious results yet realized from the War inaugu-
rated by Slavery for the overthrow of the I'm
lion. That West Virginia was thoroughly loyal
has at no time been doubtful. Her delegates
so voted at Richmond when their lives were in
danger from an infuriated mob of s,ave-traders
and their tools during the week of madness
that followed the fall of Fort Sumter A hand.
ful OF her aristocracy and larger number of
their Ignorant idle and profigate satellites,
were rebels on instinct;but the great mass were
infexibly loyal from the start But no Abo-
lition lecturer was ever allowed to climb their
steep ridges and penetrate their narrsw val
ieys preaching the gospel Of Wages for the
been uniformly cast into the scale of Slavery.
Gag Rules; Texas Annexation resistance to
the unbalanced Admission of California as a
Free State; the reputation of the Missouri
compromise; the years of outrage and ndigni-
ty to which the Free-State settlers of Kansas
were subjected at the hands of the Border Ruff.
hans-ln short, every crime of the Slave Power
throughout the last twenty years-has com
manded the thoronghgoing support of the Rep
resentatives in Congress of Western Virginia,
wherein Pierce, Buchanan, and the two rival
Democratic candidates in 1860, received large
majorities over Scott Fillmore and Bell, while
Fremont and Lincoln had but handful of votes
all told, and these mainly cast in the Yankee
peopled city of Wheeling No voice from the
Free States being allowed to reach them, it
seemed at least probable that majority of the
West Virginians might blindlyplod onin the old
rut, eager to show that, while they cling to the
Union, they had not ceased to be Democrats
and Virginians.
Such apprehensions did them gross injustice
Rude and illiterate as many of them are, they
yet have eyes, which the events of the past
year have opened to their full dimensions.
Reading little and hearing no speeches, they
needed but their own observation to convince
them that the origin and mainspriHe of the
rebellion are to be found in Human Slavery
that on Slavery it feeds and with Slavery if
must die. Had they favored Secession. thew
would have clung to Slavery; loving the Union.
they resolved and voted that Slavery must die,
And that vote is our conclusive answer to those
VINO are eternally menacing us with the hostili-
ty OF the Border States if we do not cease war
ring upon Slavery Whosoever loves Slavery
more than the Union is to day in heart sub
Ject OF Jefferson Davis and hopes to see his
sway established and perpetuated; while he
VINO loves the country more than Slavery will
hnd IN this vote of the West Virginians an as
surance that the Union Is to live though Sla-
very be doomed. The real wishes and iude
ment Of the hearty Unionists of Delaware.
Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee.
are expressed In this vote of their compatriots
in West Virginia.
w. The Election this week in Connecticut is
more than sight is realization. Parties
are virtually suppressed in that State of bitter
partlsanship, and the People rally in mass
around the Government of their country, and in
the expression of their stern resolve that Trea-
son shall not divide and destroy the American
Republic. Gov Buckingham has pobly de.
served this testimonial; but President Lincoln
must also feel cheered and strengthened by it
1t is an emphatic approval of his policy and
attitude by an enlightened and practical peo.
pie, whose children and grandchildren people
every State, and will hear and repeat with fila
pride and joy that the Old Folks at Home are
true to Liberty and the Country
V. Finally, the echo from Europe of Presi
dent Lincoln's Emancipation Message prove:
that document to be wiser and more masterl,
blow at the vitals of the Rebellion than even
| its warmest eulogists on this side had esteemed
1t. There is no European journal of decided
| ability and character, however hostile to tn,
National cause, which does not treat that caus,
with greater Difference since the reception O.
that Message; while there is no Secession ennis
sary still cooling his heela in the antechamber.
OF Foreign Ministers who does not at lengtl
| despair of European Intervention and aid
The falsehoods anu sophistries whereby tn,
Ysnceys and Sldells SO lately hoped to max,
Europe believe Unionists and Rebels united il
the unfiinching support of Slavery and at log
gerheads on some question of Protection or In
ternal Improvement, are swept away at breath
the great underlying issue stands revealed t,
| all eyes, and no Christian State, however fam
| ished for Cotton and surfeited with its own fab
| rics, dare entertain the proposals of the Rebe