The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-05-23
WEEKLY HAWK-EY

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lEEKLY. HAWK-EYE.
all American affairs. 1t was encountered
AZ foul bag on the very threshold of the
| republic by the trainers Ofthe Constitution
IL mas been the evil spirit that has ridden
upon the storm OF political strife ever since,
1t soon divided the Legislature and the
country into two great parties, and arraigned
them against one another with more than
even political animosity. It has entered
into and formed an element in all social
questions, whether they be secular or sa-
cred, literary Or economic. It has divided
the Church as well as the State, and infus-
ed INTO the odinna theologicuns the essential
OIL OF sectarian bitterness. It has origina-
TED new school in natural history, and in
augnrated new theories of the origin of the
races-assigning different one to the
black and to the white-pronouncing hui
mainly cut OF ebony a decidedly inferior
article to humanity carved from ivory
virtually declaring the negro to be not a
man but only three-ffths of a man. It has
influenced votes on mission boards and
municipal councils on tariff bills, and tract
societies. In short there is nothing in
America that has been left undisturbed,
unpoluted, unprofaned by the loathsome
touch of the hideous monster, Slavery
every element of social, sectarian and po-
ilt1cal bitterness. You rarely meetan Amer
lean who can talk for five minutes coolly
on the subject. There seems to be some
fatal fascination about the poor negro. Him
sell the most patient, pliable and easily
governed of the human family, and yet
klndling, unwittingly, in the breasts of
others the fiercest and most ungoyernable
passlons-passions that have now risen and
swelled to such heighth of diabolcal fury
that brother meets brother in the bloody
fray, whilst the whole land is filled with
mourning, lamentation and woe! 1t was
long ago predicted by the most sagacious
statesman that this was the rock on which
the vessel of the Republic would be ship
wrecked. The Abolitionists have been per
petually charged by pro-Slavery men,
North and South, as being the cause of ali
disturbance that has ever arisen on this
subject. But for them everything would
have gone on smoothly. This however, we
believe to be q mistake. The system has
within it the seeds of destruction. Slavery
is destined to end its days by suicide
Long ago, one of their own poets predicted
this. In ancient times the prophet and the
poet were the same. The following lines
would almost seem to indicate that the
poet still continues to wear the prophets
mantle:
Beware! the Israeite of old who tore
III
He saw the blessed light of Heaven no more!
Shorn OF his strength, and forced to grind
In prison, and at last led forth to be
A pander to Philistine revelry-
Upon the pillars of the temple laid
His desperate hands and in it's overthrow
Destroyed himself, and with him those who
made
cruel mockery of his sightless woe:
The poor blind sld,e, the scott and jest of all,
Expired, and thousands persisted in his fall!
There is poor, blind Samson in this land
Shorn OF his strength, and bound in bonds of
steel,
Who may, an some grin, rere1, raise his hand
And shake the pillars of the commonweal
Till the vast temple OF our liberties
A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies!"
But it may be asked, How do we connect
slavery with secession? How do we make
out this to be the cause of the war? Well,
it would be long and dreary business to
go through all the facts and reasonings
which establish this statement. To do so
would require us to puzzle over and try to
unravel the tangled skein of politics for
the last thirty years. A few observations
on this point must suffice. The slave pow
er in the United States has been always an
aggressive one. 1t was greedy of power
and influence, and, like the horseleech,
was continually crying, Give, give. Not
contented with having Slavery protected in
those States where it had been long
established, they demanded that it should
be extended into the Territories, and pro-
tected there by law. They succeeded in
passing the Fugitive Slave Law, to the ev-
erlasting disgrace of the free Northern
States, who thus consented to a law which
was believed to be unconstitutional
law which brought the whole Union
under the control of the Southern planter
from Texas to Maine, from Wisconsin to
New York, and which converted the en-
tire territory into preserve or hunting
ground, where the Southern planter might
lawfully pursue, take, and even kill his
game-that anthropoid animal called a ne
gro. Nay, by it the free-born Northerns
were required to be aiding, assisting, and
comforting the slave-hunters in the chase.
Still, not content with this law, the South
erners demanded that neither the Congress
nor the Territorial Legislatures shall have
the power to prohibit Slavery in any of the
Territories Of the United States, but that
a Southern planter shall have the same
right and liberty to carry his slaves into
any new region that the Northern farm,
err had to take with him his cows, his
horses, his pigs, or his asses; and that
Congress was bound to pass laws to pro-
tect mans human property as well as
his bovine, equine, porcine, or asinine.
Now, it was because this doctrine was
repudiated at the election of President
Lincoln that the secession took place. 1t
was because the North would not give
them leave to perpetuate and extend the
peculiar institution indefinitely. 1t was
because they felt that in order to per-
petuate Slavery it must be extended. It
was because they wanted room to carry
on the slave trade since Africa and the
ocean were closed against it. 1t was that
they might have pick and choice of fresh
and virgin soil, to which to transport their
human cattle after the old plantations had
been exhausted by the rude, thriftless and
wasteful cultivation Of slave labor. Here
we have the true cause of the whole mis-
chief which has ensued. The demands of
the South received decided and stern ne
gative in the election of Lincoln, and hence
the rebellion. People talk tlippantly of
the South as fighting for independence.
And that magic word has stirred up a
sympathy for them in this land Of free
dom to which they have little claim. We
are apt to be misled by their battle-cry of
independence, which has echoed to us
across the ocean; and as at this moment it
mingles in the breeze with the shouts of
downtrodden Poland, battling for freedom
against the cruel despotism Of Russia, we
are liable to confound, or rather identify
their sounds But never sure was there