The Arkansas advocate., 1835-10-23


 opinion of your committee, has clearly de fined right to demand admission into tht Union; and Congress, as the agent of th, people of the several States, is under con current obligation to fulfil their constitution al and treaty stipulations, and in justice bound to grant admission whenever 1t Is thus demanded. 1t IS also true, that, should the United States be unjust, they have the pow. CT to exclude us from the benefits of the Federal Constitution but the exercise ot arbitrary power, uncoupled with right. by a mighty people, to crush the native and ab- solute rights, insisted on in 2 respee.it.! and legitimate manner, of a younger aud kindred community, not yet attained to the bone and gristle ol manhood, would present spectacle of injustice not to be apprehend. ed from government whose faith has never been violated or pledged in vain. Your committee, after viewing every prominent aspect which the subject of admission seems to present, cannot but look upon the main point as clear and disrobed of the involving mists which sophistry, at the first glance, seems to have thrown around it--as mat. fer of right, under the constitution and laws, on the part of the Territory and as one of concurrent obligation, under the same, on tho part of the United States and as a matter of interest, according to the funda- mental principles of American liberty, equally desirable and important to both. Territories, as now understood, being un- known to the Federal Constitution, and in- nate sovereignty always residing in the peo- pie, il is believed that all acts of Congress, organizing Temporary" governments over them, have been predicated upon the request of the people therein, and benefcently ex- tended to them by Congress, from the ne- cessity of the case, for the protection of the people until they became fully prepared for a participation in the national benefits; and not for the purpose of curbing their rigbtful powers or divesting them of the inestimable inheritance of their fathers-the power to resume their entire sovereignty, at will.- The doctrine, that any direct action of the representatives of the people, to recommend or call convention of the people them- selves, preparatory 10 admission, would be an infringement upon the constituted author- ities of the country, and violation of duty, appears, In the opinion of your committee, 10 be founded in error and that according to the organic law itself, as representatives of the people, the object of the Territorial government being " temporary" to prepare us for higher destiny, they can take any preparatory step towards our final admis- sion; and under the instructions of the peo- pie, in their sovereign capacity, can legiti- mately do any act for the completion of an object so devoutly wished and universally desired. It is not in our present situation considered desirable that the Territorial government should be superseded by any act of the people, until the ratification of their acts in convention be obtained from Congress; but that the present institutions should remain in full force until the vital and all-absorbing question shall have been finally adjusted. Good order and the hap piness of society require it.
 That Congress must make a transfer or endowment of sovereignty to the people of this Territory, before they can advance a single step towards the perfection of this great object, your committee are by no means prepared to admit. Such an admis- sion, in their opinion, would make them not only dependents in name, but vassals in fact. Such a being as freedman cannot exist where there are no slaves. The citizens of Arkansas are free men, and most of them descendants of those who, sixty years since, battled for freedom against the assumed "divine right of sovereignty in kings The principle was then settled, that sove- ! reignty resides in the people-that there is its native seat-and that none shall take 1t away, or exercise it, but by their permis- sion. The positive exercise of sovereignty, by the people of this Territory, has, for a time, been voluntarily put in a state of abeyance or suspension by themselves, in order to preserve the harmonious action of the government and laws, under assurances, guarded by the National faith, that, at the time fixed by the constitution, they should resume 1t again, and exercise it as 1t be- longed to them in the states of their former residence or birth, without obstruction or hindrance from the authorities of Congress. That time, 1t is believed, by your commit tee, has arrived; and the people of Arkan- sas now have, subject to the Constitution of the United States, their own destiny in their own hands. Sovereignty by us is now un- derstood to be different thing from that which it was supposed to be under the feu- dat system, where the vassal was transfer red with the domain as fixture to the soil, or now said to be under the vain system ol European legitimacy" Opinions upon the exercise and transfer of sovereign pow.