The State guard., 1848-06-27
NO. 26.

l right and duty of the South to occupy. and an acknowledgements that Congress had 2 the power to sit injurisdiction upon the in.
 stitutions of a sovereign State. The South, before that unhappy evs4a, held equal rights in every portion of cur ex- tended domain; that Compromises drove f her from all of 1t north of 3Ga yU. while it did not deprive the North of particts of her joint interest in all south of that line. It was no compromise--it was an lnglorious and unwise concession by the l South to the North of great constitutional
 rights. When the Texas question arose
 the effect was seen at once an effect taught us as inevitable by the lessons of
 history--unmanly concessions begot arro.
 gant demands. The North demanded
 that Texas should be -sTayeholdinq
 State, but was willing to accept of ano.
 ther compromise And what was that
 that she would consent @ that one half of
 Texas, lying west of certain line of
 longitude, running from the Gulf to tho
 southern boundary of the United States.
 should have the privilege of deciding for
 itself whether it should ever hold slaves ].
 but that in the other half Congress should
 decide there should be no slavsl Texas
 was forced, however, to submit to the AID.
 plication of the Missouri Compromise
 line to her territorys.
 MT. Y. alluded also to the attempt to engratt this same compromise upon tbe
 Oregon territory-a territory in which,
 without Legislation, there would be no probability of a slave ever being held.
 But it was deemed desirable by our task. master that the statute should be put upon our books as q precedent-showin1 the power of Congress to sit in jurisdiction ] upon the question
 MT. Y.then spoke of the origin of the Wilmot Proviso, as legislation in advance of the acquisition of Mexican territory Its discussion had at last aroused the South to some slight show of opposition. Tho people met pretty generally in their prina. ry assemblages, and without any distinc. ton of party had resolved to unite in put. ting down this insolent attack upon our political rights. The effect was immedi. ately discernible, at least in the Demo. cratic ranks at the North. Why but little effect was produced on the Whg party at the North was owing to the fact. doubt. less, that it had little to hope or expect from the Southern Wings, and felt it to be better policy so to act as to increase and strengthen themselves in the Non.slaye. holding States, in which the great mass of their votes lay. The Democrats, on the contrary, were strongest in the Slavehol. ding States, and were bound, if by no higher motives than those of policy, to conciliate the South. Hence, doubtless. the difference of the effect and it's reasons which these primary Southern meetings produced on the Provisoists. Leading Democratic statesmen came out and disa. vowed the Wimot Proviso they denied to Congress any power over the lsaycry question. Two of them, Gen. Cass and Mir. Buchanan, however, contended that the power to exclude slavery from the Territories, and thus of preventing their settlement by slaveholde s, lay in the peo. pie of those Territories-thus giving to the first-comers in Territoryii the exclu. sive power of appropriating it to them. selves and such others only us they chose to tolerate---thus giving to them the power of destroying the rights of property in these Territories, which belong to the South as well as to the Noth.-thus piy. ing to these first-comers, no matter how few in number, the sole power of model. ing, far in advance of the proper period for doing so, the institutions of the new States to be carved out of these Territo. res!
 This antagonism to Southern rights had thus assumed, continued Mir, Y. a new shape--a much more dangerous atti. tude. It was hali-way ground apparently, between those who contend that Congress had the power to prevent slaves being in. troduced into these new Territories and those who constituted the ultra abolition wing; while in truth it was the strongest and surest method of accomplishing tho objects of both wings of the enemis of the South--the moral and political fana- tics on the one hand, and on the other those who desired, by meanes of this fla naticsm, to grasp the whole power of tho Union.
 As an evidence of the moral power tho South can wield when united, Mir. Yan- cey gave a brief history of the views of 1, Gen. Cass on the Proyiso. He alluded to certain developments made by Mir. Rath- bun, an ex-M. C., in the Utica Convention. which showed that Gen. Cess had been the originator of the Proviso--had indu. ced certain members of the House of Representatives to tack it on to another measure in that body, as the great princi- pie upon which the North could and would be allied and dcarried by the Provisoists-- had promised to suppor the move and had, in the United States Senate, actually endorsed it, in few remarks upon it, as correct in principle This was, of course, before the South no sooner had been d. reused to action but, continued MT. r., no sooner had we spoken in firm and uni ted tones, that the Northern Democracy became alarmed lest it should be deserted V by the South and Jeff in a minority, (and