The Weekly Minnesotian

Personal Slander.

Those who have observed the course of certain parties during the past four months, must have come to the conclusion long since, that the chief means they had determined to employ to accomplish their ends, was the hurling of personal abuse and defamation at all who had the independence to differ with them. It is of this abuse, The editorial columns of the Times, especially, have teemed with the lowest and most scurrilous abuse of the rich market; and when the pen of the editor has fallen short, he has had recourse to certain anonymous correspondents, who, assassin-like, stab in the dark, and whose names the editor has repeatedly refused to divulge.

One of these magnanimous specimens of gentlemanly character and decency, is a scribbler for the Times, who writes from Minneapolis, and signs himself "Hennepin." He wrote and published a malicious falsehood against us before election: but when the editor of the Times was asked after the election, through a respectful communication written by a responsible friend of ours, to publish a denial of the allegation, the editor refused on the ground that he "did not wish to rake up old sores."

While feeling thankful to our friend for his disinterested act of kindness we did not care a straw whether his communication appeared in the Times or not, for the allegation, although conceived with the lowest and most cowardly feelings of malice, was too absurd for any one to believe whose opinion we regarded as worth a farthing. Our friend, however, succeeded in getting his communication, or one similar, into the St. Anthony Express, and this it appears has given "Hennepin" another chance to throw his filth at us. Among other characteristic falsehoods, we find in his communication of yesterday the following. He is speaking of the Shakopee Whig convention:

"Previous to election, and about the time the Whigs were in convention at Shakopee, Mr. Owens in an editorial said that probably the Convention would pass resolutions complimentary to, and sustaining the course of Mr. Rice."

The man who penned the above sentence must indeed be one deeply sunk in the depths of degradation and infamy, whoever he may be for he certainly is aware that he here writes and publishes as base a falsehood as any imp of Satan ever conceived. Nothing bearing the least semblance to such an editorial assertion ever appeared in the columns of the Minnesotian in reference to the action of the Shakopee Convention, or any other Convention.

But a bolder and more reckless promulgator of bare-faced falsehood through the public prints, is Isaac Atwater, one of the chiefs of the gang who have set out to rise in the world through defamation of private character. In his paper, the St. Anthony Express, of the 4th October, he makes this statement over his own signature:

"At the Legislative session of 1852, the contest for the public printing, as usual, lay between the Whig presses and Pioneer. The Express claimed a share with the Minnesotian and had many warm friends among the members who stood by its interests. Owens being unwilling to give any definite amount of the part he should receive to the Express, the Whigs refused to unite and give him the printing with the Pioneer. Things stood in this way for some time, without being able to elect a printer, until at length the matter was compromised by the agreement of the friends of the Express, to take $200, which was to be paid by Owens out of the avails of the printing which the Minnesotian should obtain. This arrangement was made in the evening at Farrington's store, and John P. Owens, expressly agreed and assented to it."

Now, if there is any sense of shame yet left in the composition of the utterer of the above libel, he will blush to his very ears when he sees it announced, as we now by authority announce, that the above assertions are false in every particular. There never was any such agreement; Mr. Atwater never attended a meeting of the Whig members of the Legislature at which we were present, and we never exchanged a word of the above purport with him about public printing during the session of 1852. The entire statement made by him above is one of the basest of falsehoods, manufactured entirely out of whole cloth. In that Legislature there were nine Whigs, who acted together on most occasions. Eight out of the nine we have referred the statement of Mr. Atwater to; seven out of the eight pronounce it unqualifiedly false; the eighth has no recollection of any such understanding, and the ninth we have not seen. All these gentlemen are yet alive and in the Territory, and Mr. Atwater can have the full benefit of their views of his statement, if he wishes to call upon them. Some of them have been anxious that we should use their names in refuting his base and malicious slander, but we deem such a course unnecessary. Their names will not be used unless he persists in his work of falsehood and defamation,

We trust our readers will excuse us for devoting this space to a matter in which they may feel little interest. But now that we have shown up the perfidy of the men who are continually assailing us, we trust to have no more occasion to allude to these matters.