The Arkansas advocate., 1835-10-02

revolting pictures and ferWd appeals ad- dressed to the senses and the passions of the blacks, they are calculated to fill every family with assassins and produce at no distant day an eXterminating serple war; So aggravated is the character of those pa- pers, that the people of the southern states, with an unanit1lity never witnessed except in cases of extreme danger, have eyinced, in public meetings and by other demonstra- tions, determination to seek defence and safety in putting an end to their circulation by any means, and at any hazard. Law less power Is to be resisted bat power which is exerted in palpabe self defence, Is not lawless. That such IS the power whose elements are now agitatng the south the united people of that section religiousIy believe; and so long as that shall be their impression, 1t will require the array of ar mics to carry the mails in safety through their territories, if they continue 10 be used as the instrument of those who are supposed to seek their destruction.
 As a measure of great public necessity, therefore, you and the other postmasters who have assumed the responsibility of stopping those inhammatory papers, will, have no doubt, stand justified in that step before your country and all mankind.
 But perhaps the legal right of the aboli- tionists to make use of the public mails in distributing their insurrectionary papers through the southern states, Is not so clear as they seem to imagine. When those states became independent they acquired right to prohibit the circulation of such pa- pers within their territories and their power over the subject of slavery and all its inci- dents, was in no degree diminished by the adoption of the federal constitution. 1t Is still as undivided and as sovereign as t was when they were first emanci ipated from the dominion of the King and Parliament of Great Britain, In the exercise of that power, some of those states have made the circulation of such papers capital crime i; others have made it felony punishable by confinement in the Penitentiary and per- haps there IS not one among them which has not forbidden 1t under heavy penalties. If the abolitonists or their agents were caught distributing their tracts in Louisiana, they would be legally punishable with death; if they were apprehended in Georgia, they might be legally sent to the penitentiary ]; and in each of the slave holding states they wonld suffer the penalties of their respective laws.
 Now, have these people legal right to do by the mail carriers and Postmasters of the United States, acts, which if done by themselves or their agents, would lawfully subject them to the punishment due to fel- ons of the deepest dye Are the officers of the United States compelled by the con- stitution and laws, to become the instru- ments and accompiees of those who design to baffie and make nugatory the consttu- tional laws of the states-to fill them with sedition murder and insurrection-to over throw those institutions which are recog- nized and guarantied by the constitution itself?
 And is it entirely certain, that any exist ing law of the United States would protect mail carriers and Postmasters against the penalties of the state laws, if they shall knowingly carry, distribute or hand out any of these forbidden papers! If state, by a constitutional law, declare any specified act to be a crime how are officers of the United States who may be found guilty of that act, to escape the penalties of the state law? It might be in vain for them to plead that the post office law made 1t their duty 10 deliver all papers which came by mail. In reply to this argument it might be alleged, that the post office has imposed penalties on postmasters for "improperly" detaning pa pers which came by mail, and that the de- tention of the papers i'll question is not m- proper, because their circulation Is prohib- ited by valid State laws. Ascending to a higher principle, 1t might be plausibly al- legged, that no law of the United States can protect from punishment any man, whether a public officer or citizen in he commission of an act which the state, acting within the undoGbted sphere of her reserved rights, has declared to be a crime. Can the U. States furnish agents fer consprators against the states and clothe them with impunity! May individuals or combinations deliberately pro- ject the subverion of state laws and insti- tutions, and lighting their frebrands beyond the jurisdiction of those states, make the officers of the United States their irrespon- sible agents to apply the flames! Was 1t to give impunity to crime, that the several states came into the Union and conferred uponthe general government the power ''to establish post offices and post roads!"
 In these considerations there IS reason to doubt, whether the abolitionists have a right 10 make use of the mails of the United States to convey their publications into states where their circulation is forbidden by law and 1t is by no means certain, that