Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1850-10-19
MASSACHUSETTS.

ceSter last week TO nominate CandI-
dates for State offices. Their pro-
ceedings were unanimous, and the
address and resolutions adopted
without dissenting voice. This
address reviews the proceedings of
the last Congress, touching point by
point the several measI.es of the
Clay compromise. 1t signalizes the
admission of California as great
northern and anti-slavery victory; it
maintains that, though the form of
the Territorial Governments of Utah
and New Mexico was not such as
Massachusetts, preferred, yet in effect
he North has now secure possession
Df those regions and urges the inn
,ortance Of securing their admission
INTO the Union with Wilmot Proviso
constitutions, at the earliest possible
day. IL exults in the majority which
the North has now effectually ac-
quired in both houses of Congress,
by which the equilibrium Of the two
sections is forever destroyed and all
possibility of the extension of slavery
is eXtinguished.
The address grumbles somewhat
over the settlement of the Texas
boundary, and intimates that much
better terms for the North would
have been insisted on, if it had not
been for the defiant attitude ofTexas,
and the reasonable certainty that to
get what they wanted they would
have to fight for it. The abolition
of the slave trade in the District of
Columbia is hailed as another tri-
umph, great in itself, and still greater
in the fact that the "ultimate doom of
slavery itself, within the limits Of the
District, is also involved III this un-
welcome enactment"
The fugitive slave law, the "com-
pensation" to the South for all the
enormous surrcnders Of right and
power and safety in the other bills, is
denounced by the Massachusetts adj
dress, and the trial of the fugitive by
a jury is demanded as an amendment
to it before It can meet the approval
ofthat State. In the same connec-
ton the laws of the Southern States
concerning colored seamen are held
up to reprobation, and continued
agitation of that matter is recomnen-
ded with view to compel their re-
peal.
lu concluding the review of these
TOPPER, The address says:
''if Massachusetts could have leg
islated for the whole country, some
further forms and provisos would
have been secured. But as whole,
we think the people of the North
have gained the substance. The adj
mission of California has turned the
scale of Empire. The dominion of
slavery has fled, and that of freedom
has returned. The Republic, as
whole, is free"
This is the language Of victory,
and it is moreover the language of
truth. The North has indeed gained
the substancc-the Government has
indeed become an anti-slavery engine
the sceptrc has indeed been sur
rendered to abolition Let us see
how long they mean to use it. We
quote two of the resolutions appen-
ded TO the address:
5. ReSolued, That Massachusetts
avow her unalterable determination
to maintain all the principles and
. purposes she has, in times past, affirm
ed and re-affirmed, in relation to the
extension of slavery; and the meas
IRE of success which has attended
her eXertions, is a new incentive to
continue and persevere in all consti-
tutional efforts, till the great and good
work shall be accomplished and per-
fected.
6. Resolued, That it is the duty of
all true friends of freedom, in and
out of Congress, to watch the pro-
gress of the present free Territories
of New Mexico and Utah, and to
favor the adoption of all practicable
measures to secure their early adj
mission as States into the Union,
with constitutions like that of their
elder and free sister, Balifornia.
Glorious measures of peace are
they, which offer "new incentives to
continue and persevere'' in the ag-
gresslons and injuries that constitu-
ted the original ground of dissention.
1t is precisely the effect which we
supposed and maintained would fol-
low the adoption of Clay's measure.
The author of those measures knew
that such would be their effect, but
he desired it. The Southern people,
we trow, neither desire nor will sub
init to be thus run over.
fChar. Mercuru.