Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1862-11-21

(Mr. Gladstone) has openly declared that
''Davis has made nation of the South, = and
such al, announcement, from such source,
cannot but be accepted us having startling
significance If the vast army, in whose
presence, as it were, q half beaten enemy is
leisurely destroying one Of the most impor-
tant railroads of the loyal States, does not do
its work speedily, European Governments
must, ere long, yield to the clamor of their
Impoverished and starving populations. and
there will come Intervention, swith its woes
Upon this will follow at once, intimate entang-
ling alliances with the South, TO be succeeded
by hostilities with us, and, in all human prob
ability, by the permanent establishment of the
Rebel Confederacy. - q iat9'g 81 ~ Ts,'n
What fate might befall our own institutions
amid the bankruptcy and decentralization and
brokenness of spirit consequent on such
ACKNOWLEDGMENT, will not trust myself to
inquire. We cannot hope to escape from
this train of events by any exploits Of our
navy, however brilliant, occupying the South
ern coast and the cities upon the sea shore
This, though well and very well, will be but
scratching the extremities Of the giant instead
Of dealing blows at his heart The heart pal
pilates defantly in the armies of Lee and
jackson, which have So recently ravaged
Maryland, and still from the banks of the Po-
tomac threaten the capital. T5%2 ~4@Tu&t rs
My faith in all this matter is simple and
briefly stated. It is this 70 For all things
that are for the Union-against all things
that are against it. I. am for the Union as
Internationally as am for protecting my own
body, at every cost and hazard, from the knife
of the assassin No human institution, no
earthly interest, shall ever by me be weighed
in the scales against the life of my country
Least of all will approach with unsandaled
feet, or permit to be thus weighed, an insti-
| tuition, the feeding fountain Of whose being
the African slave trade-the laws Of my
country have for more than forty years de-
nounced as crime worthy Of death-a crime
not against any particular code, or any par
ticular form of civilization, but crime
against the very race to which we belong
Hostis hunsani generis, is the designation
which the Christian legislation of the United
States has given to the African slave trader.
yield to no man in generation for the Con-
stitution, or in determination that its bless.
ings shall be extended to those who respect
and obey it. The door to all these blessings
is widely open to the Southern people, and
to enter in and enjoy them.
These institutions and their every interest
are in their own hands, and can be saved
not only from ruin, but from the slightest in
jury, by the utterance of single word-a
word of duty and of honor. But, if, in their
passionate pursuit of separate empire, and in
their blind resentments against brethren who
have never wronged them, they refuse to
speak that word, and prefer to perish them
selves, rather than that the loyal States shall
escape destruction-be it so. The world will
Judge Alright, and history will record its judy
ment. But is it not childish prattle to say
that the South can claim to be at the same
moment the protege and the destroyer of the
Constitution ~
Does it not require an audacity absolutely
satanic, to insist that the benefcent provis-
ions of that hallowed instrument shall be Sc
cured to States and people who are hourly
spurning and splitting upon its authority, and
who are leading forward vast armies to over
whelm it, and with it the homes and hopes of
all who are rallying in its defense? War
certainly one like this, in self-defense-is
clearly constitutional; but, if such war has
its restraints, it has also its rights and duties
prominent among which is the right and duty
of weakening the enemy by all possible means,
and thus abridging the sanguinary conflict
Never until now has it entered into the imag-
nations of men to conceive that among these
duties is that Of seeing that the enemy is
clothed and fed and armed before he is struck
In prosecuting the war, while exercising
our right to weaken the enemy, we may des-
troy not only ships upon the sea, and fortress
ses and cities upon the land, but human life
upon the battlefield. But what institution,
what material interest, is more hallowed than
human life, and what material interest is
there belonging to the enemy that we are
obliged to spare, even though by so doing we
perish ourselves? The Constitution is
charter of national life, and not of national
death. All movements which seek to tend to
the dissolution of the Government created by
it, and of which it is the soul, are in conflict
with its spirit. and with the scope and end of
its enactments, and may be resisted to the
death by its express or implied authority
Neither the keenest vision nor the most deli
cate ear can detect in any line or letter of that
glorious charter the faintest throb of sympa-
thy with treason or traitors.
Pardon these hurried words, which are
spoken in recrimination of none, but in grief
alone There is abundant cause for sorrow,
but none for despair NO man more sincerely
desires the re-establishment of the Union than
does the President himself. Let it be our
trust that while an October sun is yet shin
ing, the mind on which all depends will de-
wise ways and means to overcome every OBJ
stacle to the onward march and triumph of
our armies.
New York has already sent hundred and
seventy regiments into the field. The musk
cts they bear prove that they are uncondi-
tional Union men, God forbid that the faith
ers, and brothers, and sons, whom they have
left behind, should, through show of dis
sension at the ballot-box, do aught to weaken
their hands, or to add to the strength and
courage of the traitors whose swords are lifted
against their bosoms.
Very respectfully, your ob't servant,
g.u - - j. HOLT.