Charles City intelligencer. [volume] (Charles City, Floyd County, Iowa) 1864-1866, 1865-05-04

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1t does indeed seem strange and un
accountable now af ter the revelations
of the past four years, that any man
North or South, with particle. OF
truth and honor and justice in his DO
som, should have ever been able to
look for a moment upon this monstrous
system of wrong, with any other feel
ings than those of unutterable abhor.
renee and fiery indignation Strange
that men not utterly destitute OF all
the noble attributes Of humanity could
have looked, with any kind of compla-
cency, upon a system of barbarlsm
which, thrusting itself forward with
shameless eff'rontery into the midst OF
the civilization and Christianity of the
nineteenth century, scourged four mil
lions of men, women and children to
unpaid tasks, reduced them to the con-
dition of chattels, abolished marriage
among them, abrogated the paternal
relation, shut the gates of knowledge
against them lest they should rise to
something better than brutes, reared
men and women for the auction block,
took gold from the hand of lust as the
price of beauty, extoled the money
value of honesty, fidelity and even re-
ligion, and took the price at which
they were appraised, branded men
who sought for freedom with red hot
iron, as if they had been guilty OF
crime pursued them with blood
hounds, shot them with pistols, stab.
bed them with knives, scourged them
till from head to foot they were one
mass of gore perpetrated upon them
all the crimes which belong to the
catalogue of the worst tyrants in the
dark ages of the world did all this,
not in defiance of law, but under the
shadow of slavery's own diabolical
code. I'm ., .2'a 81. '....'
But all this was not enough, strange
as it seems now, to arouse and concen-
trate the indignation of the people
against this accursed system. 1t was
not enough that freedom of speech
and of the press was denied wherever
the foul blot extended, that intelligent
men and women from the North were
driven from the Slave States, treated
with every indignity, or cast into filthy
prisons, not for the preparation OF
crime, but for the utterance of words
dictated by every sentiment of hui
mainly. 1t was not enough that the
slave masters of the South claimed a
right to. extend this shame and curse
all over the land that by violence and
fraud they sought to force it upon a
territory against the well known wish
es of the people trampling under
foot the sanctity Of the ballot box
and forcing upon free people styr
amy more detestable than words can
express. 1t was not enough that the
demon Of slavery stalked through the
halls Of Congress armed with bludgeoI
and bowie-knife and revolver, brand
ishing these weapons over the heads
of good and true men, and almost as
sassinating one of our purcst states
men and eloquent defenders of tn
rights of men, in his seat in the Senate
Chamber. 1t was not enough that tn,
perpetrators of these crimes claimed
for the system which inspired them
the protection of the constitution that
they Wanted this bloody and horrible
relic of the dark ages as the highes'
and best form of civilization, ennobline
to the master and elevating to thu
| slave. No! all this was not enough
There were men in the North VIII,
were fully awake to the enormities o
Slavery. But to great extent tn
consciences of men seemed drugget
to strange insensibility. Northern
men were not ashamed to echo tn
words of southern slave masters u
defence of their denominations. North
ern representatives and senators actet
in harmony with slave masters IN the
halls of Congress, in their efforts tt
extend and perpetuate the evil. North
ern men sat in the Presidential chair
and used their official influence ane
power in the interests of Slavery
Northern mobs sought to repress free
speech even here, when uttered in be
half of liberty and even Northern
pulpits sometimes spoke mildly of thu
monster crime or wrested the teach
ings of the Bible to defend it. ...,
Thinking of these shameful facts
.o-day-facts which no one can deny
for tn,v are matters Of personal recol
lection win, every one who has beer
:. IN .on...,, with the history oi
the past four years-wnU can IAN q
see and feel the justness and fitness OF
those terrible judgments with which
God has visited this nation during the
last four years, and by which he has
overcome this terrible insensibility and
pricked through the triple steel that
encased the national conscience, until
we are at last awake to the enormity
of .Slarerp! If nothing else could
arouse us from our moral lethargy II
nothing else could adequately reveal
the fend like spirit of this giant
wrong if nothing else could awaken
and concentrate the burning, blasting
indignation of this great people, till
they should rise in their might to
drive the demon from the earth, shall
we not say, it is all well |! Well that
the sons and brothers and husbands
whom we loved, have laid down their
lives by hundreds of thousands upon
the battle field well that the bones
of our slaughtered heroes should be
dug up and carved into ornaments for
the women, in whose breasts slavery
had changed the milk of human kind.
ness into gall and bitterness Well
that our troops have been mercilessly
shot and stabbed and murdered in cold
blood after they had surrendered F; well
that thousands of our brave and true
men have pinned and starved in loath
some prisons at the South well that
a crowd of miscreants should have
been sent to prowl through the streets
Of our great cities to bring murder and
conhagration to our homes !! AnC
shall not add, aoeu that. in the words
of another, staggering to death under
the stroke of Gods angry hand, thu
damon opnraasion should disnlay in th,