The State guard., 1848-07-04
mr. Yancey's Minority Report


 In publishing the proceedings of the De. mocratic National Convention, we omitted the minority report introduced before tha body by MT. Yancey, as matter of little importance, but now that the Wings arc making considerable capital of it, and as that gentlemen has thought proper to dis. sent from the nominees of that body, we think it necessary to give the report, and that part of the proceedings, after its in troducti n:
 Mir. Yancey, from the same committee cordially approved the resolutions, with a single exception, and would be willing tc go before the country on that platform with a slight modification of one resolu ton, which is stated in the following mi. nority report, which he presented and read:
 The undersigned, a minority of the committee upon resolutions, ask leave re- spectfully to submit minority report to this convention. Believing that the sue. cess of the democratic party will depend solely upon the truth or uDtruth of the principles avowed by the convention, and by the nominee thereof the undersigned cannot give their assent to the report of the majority. The nominee of this con- vcntion is understood to entertain the opinion that Congress has no right to in- terfere with the question of slavery in the States or territories, but that the people inhabiting territory have the exclusive right to exclude it therefrom. The ma. iority of your committee have only adop- ted this principle as far as applicable to the States and have thus refused, in the avowal of the cardinal principles of de- mocracy, to express any opinion upon what is really the most exciting and inn portant political topic now before the coun- try, leaving the people to find an exposi- ton of the views of the democratic party of the Union, and of the probable course of it's representatives in Congress, in the avowed opinions of their nominee for the office of President.
 This course we conceive tc be iundamen. tally wrong. It has ever been the pride of the democracy that it has dealt frankly and honestly with the people It has scorned to conceal its political opinions. It has made it a point of opposition to the whig party, that it frequently goes before the people with mask upon it's brow and has appealed to the masses to rebuke that for course so offensive to truth and so unfair to them. Our country's institu- tons, must find their surest support in an intelligent public opinion. That public opinion cannot be intelligently formed as to our views upon those institutions, if we refuse to avow them, and dare not adyo. cate them.
 It IS useless to deny that his questions does not press home upon us for our de. cision. Ten of the sovereign non-save- holding States have already expressed de. cided opinions upon it. It has been mel by counteracting opinions in the South first distinctly avowed by the State of Vir. ginia, and since followed up by nearly every State in that section of the Union It is idle to call the question an ab. stract one If abstract in any sense-i is one so to the section in which has ori. ginated the avowals of aggression upon the rights of large portion of the Union Ito wit the non-slave-holding States
 They own not doller to be affected by ascendency of the principle at issue.- They have not single political right te be curtailed by it. With them, opposition to the South on this point, is purely a f question of moral and political ethics.-- Far different is it with the South. They own the property which the success O this principle will prevent them from car. rying with them to the territories. They have common right in the territories from which they are to be excluded, un. less they choose to go there without this property. They have heretofore been considered as political equals in the Union with the same power of expansion ant of progress, which, have heretofore dis tinguished all classes in the Union, ant . which has given to us all the distinctive appellation, of the ''party of progress. , They own, in common with their brethren O: the North, these territories, which are to be held by the Federal Government, as | trustee, for common uses and common purposes.
 If, therefore, you refuse to meet the is sue made upon the slaveholding, by par of the non-slaveholding States, and per. init the heretofore expressed opinions O your nominee to stand implicitly as the op. inions of this convention against the righ, one half of the people of the union to extend those institutions, which the fathers of the constitution recognized as fundamental the framing of the articles of union and upon which rests the great and leading principles upon which taxa. tion and political power are based. . In order to obviate such construction ,, in order to give assurance to the public mind of our entire country that the demo, cracy of the Union will preserve the com , promises of the constitution not only ir , the States, but in the territories-that il l recognizes entire political equality to ex
 ist among the people, and their right tc people, unmolested in their rights of pro-
 perty, the vast territories which the Unior holds but as trust until sufficiently popu lated to be erected into States,-the under e. .u, hoxa ,r.ooJ t.1 ,N,o--.>t tls, loJ.,