The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1863-08-27


/, sing it altogether qEE
This unusual cluster Of victories. and this
newborn assurance Of success, without any
concerted plan Of human origin, seems a
sort Of Divine recognition and coronation OF
that day, in which government for man,
in this western world had been founded on
those self evident truths. which God had
Incorporated with the very existence of hu-
man nature, and which had been so often
read in the hearing Of nation on the re.
turn of this day for the last eighty seven
years. Surely no nation was ever honored
of God like this. In other times he has in
terferred by miraculous power to defend his
people, now he has seen Ht to bless man.
kind with the power to apprehend great
truths, and with the courage to defend them
if need be at the expense of their lives. Ty-
rants can read of the overthrow of Pharaoh,
and bis host in the sea, and go on in the
practice of the same wickedness which de-
stroyed him, with all the self complacency
of an unbeleving heart, and an unyielding
will, but when they hear of the success oil
. government which claims no other right to
exist, except to protect all men alike, they
tremble with rage and fear as the knees OF
Belshazzar smote together when he saw the
hand writing on the wall.
Christ, and him cruciied. presents to US
something more than an occult and mystic
theory which makes salvation possible to
man.. We behold in him one who reproved
wickedness in high places boldly & constant
ly, until those, who practiced it were so en-
ragged that they could rest satisfied with
nothing less than his execution ~ public
criminal preferring that robber and insur-
rectionist should be set at liberty instead Of
him.
Thus God has coupled the fearless rebuke
of public sins with the great work Of sa-
wing the souls of men, Had ministers of the
gospel always been careful to keep this view
Of the subject before the public mind, posi-.
bly, the terrible visitation of the past few
years might have been spared us.
As it is we may now we'll rejoice not on
ly that we have right to expect that trea-
son will be crushed, but also that the bitter
root from which it is out the natural out
growth, will be trsmpled down. and per
ism in the conflict which destroys
it.
Do ws'ask what is this root Happily We
are not left by the traitors themselves, in a
position where we are at liberty to harbor IN
honest doubt on this point. Their hardi-
hood, like that which drew Pharaoh into
themidst of the sea, ,hasled them most openly
to avow the cause and the only cause of thei-
reasonable insurrection. a f..
1t was not the form ofgovernment, under
which they had so long lived, and in which
many of them had held the highest offences,
and whose policy tn ey boasted to have con-
trolled from the beginning, and which they
re- endorsed by the solemn act Of suffrage,
as late as November Of 1860, less than six
months before they assailed its authority by
an act of open war in the bombardmsnt of
Fort Sumpter, 1t was when the great prin-
ciples of liberty on which it was founded,
and which all the provisions of its constitu-
ton was designed to carry out and apply in
practice.
The equal right Of all mankind to liberty.
was the thing that they abhorred. The
Vice President Of the so called Confederacy,
the mos philosophical and finished writer,
perhaps that it can boast, whose disernment
and foresight was so keen, that he seemed
reluctantly and at a late day drawn into the
vortex Of this horrid rebellion, in speaking
of the difference in the relation of which
slavery sustained to the United States, and
! to the new government they were attempt
| ing to established says, then the stone which
the first builders rejected. it become the
head stone of our corner. Slavery then is
the openly avowed cause Of this rebellion.
and its only cause, il we may rely on the
testimony of its authors. This is by no
means strange. Slavery and treason are
entirely kindred in their nature. Both treat
ing alike with contempt the great princi-
pies on which all security must rest. To
say that mans right to be free involves
his right to enslave another, is hardly less
absurd than to declare truth and error,
right and wrong. justice and wickedncss to
be the same thing When this is done the
founda tons of all moral distinction are
swept away, and the world 10 simply jeff to
anarchy. or to a government Of mere bru to
force. Such indeed rs all that the success
of the rebellion would leave us. Such too
are the means on which they rely for sue
cess. Look Al the exultation with which
they greet the riots in our great commercial
metropolis. THIS they say is a more potent
alliance than foreign intervention. They
are right. Internal dissolution, is more Of
fective than external force. Our Govern
ment rightly understood, is simply an allied
and organized manhood. We each agree to
defend every other, not merely for the COM
mon good Of oil, but to secure 10 each more
surely his own personal safety. Law, to ac-
quire its full force must protect ALL and tn us
be entitled to the support Of oil. This
great principle, 40 obvious and SO indisputa
bic, our fathers saw fit to lay at the founda
| ton Of our institutions. and we trust it il
| yet to bless not only our continent, but the