Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1863-04-17

COpperneaQS. Mr. moore Is CltlZen OF MA
haska county. He has no reason to b
ashamed Of having his name affixed to suct
apatriotic letter.
g.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR
-U THE WAR?
Complete vindicatlon of the Nortl
by the Vice.President of the
Rebel COnfederacy.
The subjoined extract from speech o
Alexander Fl. Stephens, in the convention
that took Georgia out of the Union in Janua
ry, 1861, silences all northern apologists fol
the rebellion. Their great argument is that
the North has invaded the rights of the
South. Stephens brands them all as liars. :
He charges the civil war, with all its horrors,
solely on the South. He leaves the traitors
not shadow of an excuse:
"That this step once taken, could never be
recalled; and all the baleful and whitening
consequences that must follow, (as they
would see,) will rest on the Convention for
all coming time. When we and our posteri-
ty shall see our lovely South desolated by the
demon of war which this act of yours will
inevitably invite and call forth; when our
green fields Of waving harvests shall be trod-
den down by the murderous soldiery and
fiery car Of war sweeping over our land !;
our temples Of justice laid in ashes; all the
horrors and desc atoms of war upon US; who
but this Convention will be held responsible
for it? and who but him who shall have given
his vote for this unwise and ill-timed meas
ure, (as honestly think and believe,) shall
be held to strict account for this suicidal act,
by the present generation, and probably
cursed and execrated by posterity for all COM
ing time, for the wide and desolating ruin
that will inevitably follow this act you now
propose to perpetrate -
Pause, entreat you, and consider for q
moment what reasons you can give that will
even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments
what reasons you can give to your fellow
sufferers in the calamity that it will bring up
on us? What reason can you give to the ma
tions of the earth to justify it? They will be
the calm and deliberate judges in the case
and to what cause or one overt act can you
name or point, on which to rest the plea of
justification? What right has the North as
sailed? What interest of the South has been
invaded? What justice has been denied |?
and what claim founded in justice and right
has been withheld? Can either Of you to-day
name one governmental act of wrong, delib-
erately and purposely done by the government
of Washington, of which the South has q
right to complain ? challenge the answer !
" hile, on the other hand, let me show the
facts, (and believe me, gentlemen, am not
here the advocate of the North; but l am
here the friend, the firm friend and lover Of
the South and her institutions, and for this
reason speak thus plainly and faithfully for
yours, mine, and every other mans interest,
the words of tpth and soberness,) of which
wish you to judge, and will only state facts
which are clesr and undeniable, and which
now stand as records authentic in the history
of our country.
When we Of the South demanded the slave
trade, or the importation of Africans for the
cultivation of our lands, did they not yield
the right for twenty years? When we asked
three-ffths representation in Congress for
our slaves, was it not granted? When we
asked and demanded thereturn of any fugi-
tive from justice, or the recovery of those
persons owing labor or allegiance, was it not
incorporated in the Constitution? and again
ratified and strengthened in the Fugitive
Slave Law of 1850? ','
But do you reply that in many instances
they have violated this compact, and have not
been faithful to their engagementsp As in
dividuals and local communities they may
have done SO but not by the sanction of gov
eminent; for that has always been true to
Southern interests. Again, gentlemen, look
at another fact; when we have asked that
more territory should be added, that we might
spread the institution of slavery, have they
not yielded to our demands in giving us
Louisiana, Florida and Texas, out of which
four States have been carved, and ample terri
tory for four more to be added in due time,
if you by this unwise and impolitic act do not
destroy this hope, and perhaps, by it lose all,
and have your last slave wrenched from you
by stern military rule, as South America and
Mexico were; or by the vindictive decred Of
universal emancipation, which may reason.
ably be expected to follow. - q. 2at',
But, again, gentlemen, what have we to
gain by this proposed change of our relation
to the general government? We have always
had the control of it, and can yet, if we re-
main in it, and are as united as we have been.
We have had majority Of the Presidents
chosen from the South, as well as the con-
troll and management of the most of those
chosen from the North. We have had sixty
wears of Southern Presidents to their twenty
four, thus controlling the Executive depart
ment. So of the Judges of the Supreme
Court, we have had eighteen from the South,
and but eleven from the North; although
nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has
arisen in the Free States, yet amajority Of
the Court has always been from the South.--
This We have required 80 as to guard against