The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-04-18
BURLINGTON WEEKLY HAWK-EYE.

eminent; nothing even, he might have add
ed, which has interfered with amicable So
cial intercourse, North and South; nothing
which prevented Mr.. Davis himself, prior
to the last Presidential election, and when
he himself was an aspirant to the Presiden-
reviled and hated New England, much ap-
parently, to the mutual satisfaction of him
self and friends, everywhere received with
cordial hospitality, and repaying, with
glowing phrases of compliment, the Ova-
tons which everywhere attended his pro-
gress.
). In one year afterward and in less than
three months after prOnOuncing the eulo-
GUM just cited on the Constitution of the
United States, and without having resigned
his seat as q Senator, we find him at the
head Of q revolution organized to overturn
it, and shedding the best blood ofthe coun-
try, North and South, to compass this cruel,
this nefarious end. Perhaps if he had sue
ceededin his canvass for the Presidency, he
might have been willing that the people
should live four years longer under ''the
best Government ever Instituted by man."
If he had himself reached the White House,
he might have consented that his fellow cit
liens should continue ''to prosper beyond
comparison with any other people in his
tory Well did Mr. Vice-President
Stephens observe, ON the 14th of November,
1860, that the disappointment of ambitious
aspirants to Office had had much to do with
bringing on the deplorable state of affairs"
Such is his declaration, and if this asser-
ton of the second officer in the Confederacy
is well founded: if this tremendous war
has, indeed, in no small degree, been
brought upon us for the reason stated by
him; if the country has been called to stag
ger beneath this daily increasing mountain
load of debt; if our lawful commerce has
been surrendered to the rovers of the sea,
fitted out. with shameless cupidity to prey
upon it; If the influence of a country, which
so lately held high its head in the front
rank of the family Of nations, has for the
time being been annihilated, and foreign
powers are already treating us with cold
ness and indifference, watching and wait
ing to see the noble ship of state so to pie
ces on the breakers; if the bones Of hun
dreds of thousands of our brethren are
on the battle field; if other hum
hundreds and other thousands are Ian
gushing with cruel wounds and the disea-
SEES OF the camp, mutilated, broken down,
prematurely old, creeping from the wards,
of the hospital to their last bed in the
church-yard; if the flower of our young
men North and South has been cut down;
if the bereaved and desolate parent, the
heart broken widow, the mourning sister,
the orphan child, have been called to swell
this frightful sum of human calamity; if all
these numberless and nameless woes have
been brought upon the land because Mr..
Jefferson Davis was not nominated. nor
Mr.. John c. Breckenridge chosen Presi-
dent, then, so sure rs Heaven is just, the
tears Of the bereaved, the pangs of the
wounded, the agonies Of the dying, will be
heavy on the souls Of the authors of these
crimes and woes; their memories will go
down to the execration of the latest poster
ity, and their names stand recorded on the
page of history by the side of the Benedict
Arnolds, the Catalines, the Judas Iscariots
of modern and of ancient times?
We often hear it said that measures of
and especially, the adoption
of the Crittenden resolutions, would, in the
winter of 1S60-6l, have been accepted by
the South and would have prevented the
war, and that similar measures, if now ten
dered, would restore the Union. / have no
belief of either. Never since the war broke
out has there been the slightest intimatiOn
that the South would treat with the United
States, on any other basis than the recogni-
ton of the Confederacy and the dismem-
berment of the Union-the object which for
thirty years has been steadily pursued by
the cotton States. To draw the border
States, and especially Virginia, into the
same policy. was the great problem to be
solved in the winter of 1S6O-6l and with
what lamentable success the present state
of the country but to plainly attests.
The Crittenden resolutions, as we all
know were brought forward in the Senate
at the commencement of the session of
1860 81. They were intended by their ven
cradle and patriotic mover, to afford a
ground on which the border slave States
could stand, solid enough to resist the tor
rent of secession. must confess was in
favor of their adoption or of something re-
sembling them. They were opposed at the
North by those who deemed no further
COZ cy,f fc1o
cssary or expedient; and they were oppo-
sed by the Senators of the cotton growing
States, who were not only determined to
accept for themselves no terms of compro-
mise, but to prevent, if possible, the adop-
ton of any measures which would satisfy
the border slave States. These facts form
the key to the course pursued in the Senate
on the Crittenden resolutions. When they
came up for consideration, Mr.. Clark, of
New Hampshire, moved as substitute for
the entire series, a short resolution to the
effect, that the provisions of the Constitu-
ton itself We're adequate to the preserva-
ton ofthe Union, which Mr.. Jefferson Da-
mitted to be the case. The test question
was on the adoption of this substitute, and
this question was taken on the 10th of jan
uary. The Senators from South Carolina
had not occupied their seats, for any part
of the session. Mississippi seeded on the
9TH OF January, and Florida and Alabama
on the 18th; after which the Senators from
those States, though remaining in Washing
ton, were ;.bsent from their place. Eight
votes, which might have been given from
the cotton growing States, in favor of the
Crittenden resolutions, were lost in this
way. ~ atf 10
Nor was this the only nor the most sig
niticant indication Of the wish of those
States to defeat a compromise. When the
question on the adoption of the resolutions
was about to be put, q motion was made to
postpone their consideration. 1t was de-
cided in the negative by vote of % ayes
and 30 nays, all the Senators present from
tho cotton States voting with the Senators
from the border States against the postpone
ment. The test question Immediately fol-
lowed on Mr.. Clark's substitute for the
Crittenden resolutions; no other business
interviewed not word was uttered by any
member of the Senate, and yet to the aston
ishment of all not in the secret, As votes
only were given, instead of SIS, as on the
question Immediately preceding. Twenty
five votes were cast in favor of the substi-
tute Of Mr.. Clark, (being the same votes
which had been given for the postponement)
and Onlv twenty-three in favor of the Crit