Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1859 — An Exposure by a Democral-Who is Hurt? [ARTICLE]

An Exposure by a Democral-Who is Hurt?

Mr. A. P. Richardson, formerly Senator in our State Legislature, from St. Joseph county, now editor of the North lowa 'rimes, a Democratic paper, who is well known to many of the citizens of this State, sends the last issue of his paper to the Slate Journal, in which is found the following damaging and disgraceful ex posure: attempted subornation of the press. On Fridav Hist, Nov. 11, 1 lie clerk of the A'cy CiVy-on.the downward passage of the steamer,’handed us a letter of which we have decided to publish the substance. The publication of the letter, with an enclosure de-j signed as al! “editorial” for the columns of the North lowa Times would cause a sensation of no ordinary character. . ’ It is known to the reading’ public of the Union that Capt. Cook hue recently been convicted of murder and insurrection at. Harper’s Ferry, and that Gov. Wilml’d of Indiana, in obedience to the dictates of humanity and respect for the feelings of his wife, whose brother* Capt. Cook is, has attended the trial, provided able counsel, and' exerted every justifiable moral influence to avert the doom which probably awaits his unfortunate relative. It may not be known, however, that in the letter now before us,i addressed to the editor of this paper as an “Indianian and a Democrat:” writen by a gentleman formerly in the confidence of. a distinguished Senator from Indiana, there is a proposition to bring the political character and services of Gov. Willard, and the aid of the Democratic press of the West, to bear on Gov. Wise’s feelings or his vanity, for the commutation of Cook’s sentence to imprisonment for life. Yet such is the fact! In exposing a shemc, fraught with a violation of all right and eternal disgrace of the party with which they are associated, we' but follow a line of duty, which, in otir opinion, should characterize every conductor of a public journal. This publication is not a breach of any confidence reposed in us, because no man has a right to approach another with suggestions, which, if consummated, would burlesque justice or compromise self | respect; nor is that all. The writer of this | letter says: “I have se m the press of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and I am now on tn way to lowa, Mis ouri, Tennessee and Kentucky, to get them to join in also.” lie was | just returning from Minnesota, where sever-, al of the presses had engaged “to come out next week” in an editorial, similar, we sup-[ pose, to the one furnished us, a marked copy of which is to be forwarded to Gov. Wise at Richmond. A secret, if proper in itself, when committed to the hands of so many unpledged keepers, ceases to impose the obligation of silence, and hence we pay it no respect whatever; as it involves the monstrous, and till now unheard of principle of permitting an escape from liability for crime because of political services, we publish it to give it the weight, of our humble but most’ emphatic condemnation.

The editorial prepared for our paper is the I shallowest, and, so far as we can judge, the falsest bundle of flattery to Gov. Wise, and ill-tempered denunciation of “Black Republicanism,” we have read—the latter being charged mass with a blood-thirsty desire to see Cook hung, and all the rest saved, so that the influence of a Democratic Governor may appear to be disregarded and hostile feelings be promoted between the Northern and Southern Democracy! We employ no hand but our own to write leaders for this paper, but if we do so, some other per- ! son than the writer of the article referred to, would get them up. Its unwise appeal to party spirit, and the highly colored picture of Willard's battles in defense of “Southern institu'ions,” would render it ineffectual on Gov. Wise; and the party which it attempts to compromise in this great wrong, would rise as one man to curse the motive which prompts the sacrifice the holv principles of Justice on the-shrine of Political Ambition. But the subject is not a pleasant one. and we forbear to speak of ft in the terms which its criminality demands. We do not wish, nor do we believe the masses of our people desire to see any of these wretches executed, nor have we seen in any Republican paper an expression favoring the death of Cook and the release of Brown and the others. Notwithstanding their lives are all justly forfeited to the State, we have urged with what ability we possess that Virginia can afford to spare the easiest man of the insane band, Brown himself, as “a living monument of tiie fearlessness and magnanimity of the South.-and of the fanaticism of a portion ot the North.” We . sincerely t-ust that Gov. Wise,if it is in Ins power, will Jet all of these misguided men live. “The blood of the martyrs is tiie seed of the church,” and though we would by no means place either Brown of Cook on ’ho roll of martyrdom, yet a small portion of the country is already weak enough to honor them as.such, anil their deaths will but add to that sympathy which derives its strongest support Rom the instinctive tenderness and sorrow with which all mortals contemplate the helplessness of the dead.

[From the Loii'sville Journal