The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-05-01 00:00:00

pinching which "short crops" must severely
inflict. Our docks and warehouses would
present the appearance of a des"rted
Thousands of the working classes would be
thrown out of employment, merchants and
brokers would be idle and disengaged ;—mendi-
cancy 'would be the order of the day, and
increased taxation its result, with diminished
means to meet it. Poverty would be followed
by crime, and, in all probability, attempts at
outrage and sedition. These are not imaginary
results. Any one who will for a moment
consider the question, will at once perceive
their extreme probability. If, then, the men of
Manchester feel it their duty to take up the
matter, Liverpool should not fold her arms, and
look on with indifference. Her merchants, ship-
owners, and brokers should aid the good cause.

THE question of Slavery in the United States
is not yet settled. The Christian feelings and
philanthropic zeal for the freedom of the enslaved
population in the Southern States, have burst out
with renewed fervor in the North. The unholy
traffic is made the subject of newspaper leaders,
public discussions, and pulpit orations. Scath-
ing and indignant are the condemnations, and
protests against Slavery as an institution, and the
interpretation of the law in such a way as to aid
and abet, either directly or indirectly, any
entrenchment upon the rights and privileges of
the unhappy coloured race, which now forms so
large a portion of the population in the Southern
regions of the United States. In the papers
brought by the steam ship Asia, we read that the
recent decision of the Supreme Court of the
United States, in the celebrated Dred Scott case,
had been taken up by the legislature of the
State of New York. A Joint Committee of the
Senate and the Assembly was appointed to con-
sider the judgment delivered in the case alluded
to, and to report what measures, if any, should be
adopted to protect the constitutional rights of the
citizens of that State against the alarming
doctrines laid down in the judgment of the said
Supreme Court. This Committee met, and in
their investigation of the matter referred to them,
viewed it as one affecting the sovereignity of the
State, the constitutional rights of her citizens,
the protection of her free labour, her great com-
mercial and manufacturing interests, her exten-
sive educational system, and the morals of her
citizens. A decision pronounced from the
Judgment Seat of the Supreme Court, and affect-
ing intimately and directly all these interests,
was certainly one which required mature delibe-
ration. To oppose, it was what the pro-slavery
party stigmatise a contempt for the laws of the
United States, and to set " Law and Order" at

defiance. Nevertheless, the Select Committee
of the New York Legislature were not deterred
from the performance of the duty imposed upon
them, and the result of their labours they
embodied in the shape of a report, in which they
take up and reject in toto, the judges opinions
seriatim. What were these opinions ? Ist.
That no man of the African race, descended,
however, remotely from a slave, is a citizen of the
United States. 2nd. That the ordinance of
1787, is inoperative and voi 1. 3rd. That the
Missouri compromise was unconstitutional and
void. 4th. That Congress has not the power to
exclude slavery from new territories. sth. That
Slavery is not a local institution, nor confined to
the limits of the State by the laws of which it is
crewed, but may be carried beyond them
and into the territories of the United States.
Certainly these are startling doctrines ; and,consi-
dering the hatred with which the Northern States
regard slavery, it is not much wonder that the
the Legislature of New York sought to repudiate
them in the most public and emphatic manner.
No wonder that they took exception to the sen-
timents of Judge TANEY, Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States, when he
declared that the coloured race had no rights,
which white men are bound to respect, and
characterised the proposition as inhuman,
unchristian, atrocious, disgraceful to the Judge
who uttered it, and the tribunal which sanc-
tioned it.

In giving expression to the sentiments and
opinions noted above, the Judges of the
Supreme Court appear to have forgotten the
sacred place from which they spoke—the Temple
of Justice—and to have taken occasion to give
vent to their own political feelings as private
citizens, and thereby identified themselves with
the pro-slavery advocates. By such a proceed-
ing they contributed their aid to destroy the
confidence of the people in the Court, and
stamp it with the black and disgraceful mark of
sectionalism and partisanship, placing themselves
in the front rank of pro-slavery, propagandism,
and offensive aggression upon the rights of the
Free States. The Legislative Committee also re-
mark upon the time chosen for the delivery of the
extraordinary decision—namely, the inauguration
of a pro-slavery sectional Administration, who
had the whole patronage of the Federal Govern-
ment to aid in screening the partisan Judges
from merited punishment, and an acquiescence in
their ultra pro-slavery unconstitutional doctrines.

The Committee did not rest contented with
stigmatising the Judge's decision, as already
noticed. They went further, and recommended
that the Senate and Assembly of the State of
New York should adopt the proposition that
slavery shall never pollute the free soil of the Em-
ire State, let the consequences be what they may.
Affixed to the Committee's Roport are a series
of resolutions in accordance with the views we
have sketched, and to give general effect to all
in the rough draft of a Bill, the provisions of
which declare that the fact of being an African
or coloured man, or a slave, shall not debar
him from enjoying all the rights and privileges
of a citizen of the State of New York ; that
all slaves who shall go into the State with the
consent of his or her master or mistress, or
who shall go, be taken, or be involuntarily in
the State, shall be free. Any person found
and proved to have acted contrary to the afore.

said provisions of the Act is to be deemed
guilty of felony, and, on conviction,
shall be liable ' to be imprisoned with
hard labour in the State prison, for not less
than five nor more than ten years ! This, it will
be admitted, is pretty severe punishment for all
found guilty of aiding and abetting slavery.
Should the law pass, as it is expected it will, we
fear that it will cause no small amount of con-
fusion and annoyance, for it will be impossible
for slave-owners to follow their fugitives into any
part of the state of New York. The enraged
Southerner, foiled in his attempt to capture and
carry back his fugitive slave to bondage, will no
doubt have recourse to the Federal laws of the
Union, so that litigation, strife, and ill-feeling,
will be the ultimate result.

But, although this inconvenience may arise
from the proposed law in the state of New York,
we are, at the same time, glad to see that the
representatives of that important commonwealth
have taken such a determined stand, Not only
have they firmly vindicated the sovereignty of the
State, but set an example to all around them,
that they view with horror and reprobation the
system of trafficking in human blood; that every
man, be the colour of his skin what it may, is free,
and that no human institution can legitimately
throw around his neck the accursed chains of
slavery. Would that the sentiment was uni-
versal, and that America thoroughly and univer-
sally repudiated the doctrrine of one man hold-
ing another in bondage. Would that that foul
stain which clings to the American character was
obliterated, then might we hope to see her pro-
gress in all that tends to make a nation happy,
great, and prosperous, at an accelerated speed.
The considerations of expediency which prompt
the people of the Southern States to vindicate
the continuance and even extension of slavery,
are the result of selfishness, a desire to
acquire gain and get rich on the
blood of the coloured race. Humanity
justice, and every divine precept, lift up their
voice and protest against the system. They re-
pudiate the argument and disown their advocate.

SOME time since, we aoneancad the leading
features of the Water Engineer's Report, on the
Memorial of the Ratepayers, and the amount of
relief they might calculate upon from that quarter
Mae report itself, such as it is,warrants the conclu-
sion we arrived at, as to its utter worthlessness.
And we do not wonder if the Committee have felt
ashamed to give it publicity, for certainly, a more
unmeaning sophistical map of verbiage was
never probably strung together in the same space,
and dignified under the name of a "report." As the
Committee have not thought it worth while, as yet,
at tall events, to publish this precious morceeu ;
for the benefit (?) and information of the Council
and the Public, we, this day present in another
part of our paper, a copy of the original manuscript
in extenso. We believe that the Water Committee
have directed, that a certain number of copies shall
be transcribed and supplied to the members of that
Committee only, for their own private use.
Of course, the Council and the Public were kept in
the dark. True it is, that if secrecy is the bane
of public bodies, it has been the curse of the Water
Committee, and nothing less. Why do they render
it incumbent on others to do that which is clearly

their duty to perform? If this report is considered
by them of any value, why has its publication been
delay 3d to the last moment ? If they have looked
upon it as altogether worthless, why have they not
said so honestly, and not have kept the town in the
state of suspense they have doe for the last three
months? In fact, they are rtterly inexcusable,
and we trust that their vacillating conduct will meet
with no sympathy from the independent members
of the Council, who, even if formerly in favour of
the Pike, yet abhor the pettifogging, jobbing, and
jugglery, resorted to by its " thick and thin" sup
porters to delude the council and the public. We shall
have much to say on the subject between now and
next Wednesday, and in the meantime recommend
all who take an interest in the question to read
Mr. DUNCAN'S report, and judge for themselves.

FATAL ACClDENT.—Yesterday, a man named Duncan
M,Guinness, aged 28, who was a sailor on board the ship
Queen, bound for Nova Scotia, was killed by the anchor
accidentally falling on him.

aCLEVER CAPTURE OF AN ABSCONDING DEBTOR.—Yester-
day, one of the messengers of the Liverpool Court of
Bankruptcy, together with the water bailiff, succeeded in
capturing an absconding debtor on board the Thernis, for
Australia. After a long search, they found him secreted
in the storeroom, where he had been concealed from the
day previous.
CORONER'S INQuEsTs.—Yesterday, the coroner held the
following inquests :—.On the body of Peter Mouat, aged
23, who was an able seaman on board a ship, and who on
the passage home, on the 23rd March, had his: thigh
fractured. He was taken to the Royal Infirmary on the
arrival of the ship here, but died frorn the injuries he
received. Verdict accordingly.—On the body of John
Murtagh, aged 33, a lumper, who died in consequence of
a fall on board a ship. Verdict accordingly.
THE LIVERPOOL NEW LANDING STAGE.—The chain
cables for mooring the large Landing Stage which is to be
placed alongside the Prince's Pier, are being delivered.
They have been manufactured by Messrs. Wood of this
town, at their Chester Works. They were proved at one
of the testing machines there. under the inspection of Mr.
Cubitt, engineer. Not a single link of the whole, about 40
tons, broke in the testing, or was rendered defective—a
circumstance of rare occurrence, and demonstrative of the
excellence of the material, and of great care in the manu-
facture.

THE LATE RIOTS AT KIDDERMINSTER.—We recently
mentioned that a numerously signed memorial had been
presented to the Right Hon. Robert Lowe, expressing
sympathy with him in respect to the dastardly violeeoe
to which he had been subjected at the election. The
mayor has received a letter from Mr. Lowe, acknow-
ledging the receipt of the memorial. This reply was
immediately printed and circulated through the borough.
After cordially thanking the 214 persons who signed the
address, many of whom, he observed, had suffered in
person and property in endeavouring to protect him, Mr.
Lowe declares—l know not the motive of the late
attack upon me, but one effect, I beg to aesure you, it
will not have ; so losg as I retain the confidence hith-
erto extended to me by my constituents, no menaces of
physical violence will deter me from again soliciting
their suffrages, or induce me to change
my resolution to
st.ind by them co long as they are willing
—Worcester Chronicle.
LITCRARY ROGUERY OF THE ROYAL BRITISH BANK.—AII
who have watched the investigations in the affairs of this
bank will remember a n
rassage quo,ed from one of its
reports, in whi! h it was spoken of in
ft pretty sentence
as a river to which the branch banks in the metropolis
to support me."
were new rills, &c. We thought we had seen the sen-
tence before, and the other evening, turning over
" Anastasius"—published forty years ago—here we came
upon it word fir word. Alluding to Spridion, we are
told that his life " resembled the course of a msjes is
stream, whose deep but tranquil waters, winding their
ample way through fertile plains and fioweri meads, as
theyadvance still rec,ive from new rills fresh increase,
while at each step also they bestow more profusely all the
fruits of industry and all the bless-it gs of plenty.
Secretary
and marked off the passage as the very thing to gull the
Cameron no doubt had the book in his library,
cockneys and enhance his own literary reputation. The
roguery of the bank was consistent from beginning to end;
its very figures of speech were stolen, besides all its
figures of arithmetic being falsified.—Dundee Advertiser.