Tar And Feathers Wanted

As old Davie Atchison and his ruffians are in the Secession army or under cow at home, and as the fanatical abolitionists are agitating the inevitable “nigger” question with a view to the “ABOLITION” of Slavery in Missouri, something ought to be done.  The Mahoney party in Iowa ought to send emissaries to Missouri with tar and feathers to stop this business at once.  If slavery should be abolished in Missouri, by the act of the people of that State, the Union never could be restored “just as it was.”  An emancipation meeting was held in Hannibal, Missouri, the other day.  What a dreadful thing!  Mayor Green presided – yes, and he made an abolition speech – another dreadful thing, a dreadful thing even for a Yankee, how much more for a slaveholder in a Slave State!  We invite the Valandigham-Jones-Dodge-Mahoney-Resurrectionists to read it and howl!  Here is an extract:

“In my deliberate judgment I am convinced, fellow-citizens, that the irrevocable destiny of our State is to be free – at no very distant day – that till then, the agitation of this question will be kept up and will be a blight upon the growth and prosperity of our State – that slave labor, as a system in Missouri has become unprofitable; that investments in slave property have become insecure; that the laws of the climate and of the soil, of geographical position and other causes over which, we, as a people, have no control, have conspired to produce these results; and it therefore becomes us as a free people, looking to our own welfare, to the welfare of our children, to the welfare of the people of the whole State, their posterity and the human race, to approach this subject, and consider and discuss it calmly, fairly, without passion or prejudice, and if the will of the majority of the people of the State is in favor of dispensing with slavery, on any basis consistent with law and the great principles of justice, then let us dispose of it.

That our State will be freed at some future day is a foregone conclusion, a fixed fact; and so soon as the work is fully accomplished the material wealth of the State will be greatly increased and her vast resources be more fully and successfully developed.  While slavery exists, there is not inducement to emigrants from slave States to come amongst us with their population, capital and enterprise, because of the insecurity of slave property here.  Nor is there any inducement to emigration from the free States, because the presence of slavery as a system of labor degrades the white man.  We have no other sources except from foreign countries and natural progress, to increase our population; yet, we must have population, capital and enterprise, in order to the proper development of the great natural resources of the State.   Why then not take up this vexed question and consider it as becomes freemen looking to their own best interest and welfare and that of our posterity.  Why put off and press away from our thoughts a great public question that is forced upon our consideration by the inevitable course of events?

We cannot avoid it if we would, and therefore we must take our ground, and meet the issue.  Let us enter upon the discussion of this long vexed question calmly and dispassionately.  Let us invite discussion and hear all the opposing views, and then determine, as a political community, what is for the public good, by a constitutionally expressed will of the majority of our people.  I, as in individual, am in favor of the proposition that the majority of the people shall rule, and control the legislation of the State, under constitutional forms.  This is but just, and as a principle it lies at the bottom of our free and representative form of Government.”

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 24, 1862, p. 1