The southern press., 1850-08-17


1--WE obedience, and that the government itself is
but chartered DEF otisml
In the year Dur Lord 1900, the "sLAoK
focKADE" administration Of the elder Adams, for
he assertion Of doctrines, not the Genuine of a
ythe latitudinarian and blasting TO popular free
om and the Constitution as this, went down with
crash and was extinct under the weight Of pub
DC Indignation and popular resistance, and should
y be once understood by the people of the South,
that yours is TO commence uncleansed and UNI
shryen Of that leaven of federalism which, under
the guise and auspices ola better name, masks the
principles and designs Of your Secretary of State
and should the peoples money be lavished upon
Federal soldiery, in military expeditions against
any Of these sovereign States, for asserting their
rights Of boundary or secession, las your recent
message TO the two Houses so ominously and
menacingly hints -have a care, Mr.. President,
that yours may not encounter yet sadder fate,
and fall, Il may be, in the providence Of God, a
warning TO rulers and mercy to the oppressed!
The cases ! put were hypothetical ones, yet
each Of them had "a considerable odor Of reality
about them. Congress has not, indeed, deprived
us, as yei.of our slave representation, but it has
taken away ffom us, and appropriated to the free
States. every acre Of the Federal territory out Of
which slave representation might have come,
and deprived the South by the same means and
for aye, Of any augmented representation in the
Senate. In doing this, another Fundamental con-
dition Of the Union has been broken, far more in
valuable 70 the South than that Of slave repre-
~ x.s,t ,las r. n.
tween the States, upon which the whole fabric of
the Union rests; and, indeed, deemed SO important
by Congress itself heretofore, that in receiving
INTO the Union each Of the seventeen States which
have entered il since the Constitution took effect,
a gave TO this vital principle fresh and impressive
recognition, by declaring each of these States to
lie "ADAIrrED INTO THE UNoE UPON AN EQUAL
SoorNG WITH THE ORIGINAL STATES IN ALL RE-
spEcrs WHATEVER"
LIS II not passing strange that any one should
doubt, that the admission of California with her
monsirous appropriation Of territory, stretching
from Oregon to Mexico, and shutting out the
South forever from the sea, was not palpable and
fragrant breech Of the Constitution, in contempt and
extinction Of those inalennble Rights Of Equality,
IN which the Constitution was founded Is it not
equally strange, that any one should doubt, that
what Congress sanctions TO be done, with full
power TO preventts being done is just as respon-
|sible for, as if Congress itself had done the act upon
the principle Of that well known maxim in law
and In morals: Qaod Jacit per alum tacit per Sc
AMI hence, that the counsel and sanction given to
the people of California by the Executive De-
|partment of the Government, to absorb the plole
of sea-girt California and exclude the South from
the same through the Wiimot Proviso, with the
ratification by Congress Of all California has done,
will afiix the agency and responsibility Of that
baleful measure where it justly belongs, upon the
action of this Government, and as much SO, as if
California herself had nothing to do with it!
Should the bill then become law, Congress
will have palpably broken that Fundamental con-
dition of equality between the States, upon which
the Union rests; and as the casts rderis will have
come, all the world will expect from that gallant
sonof noble sire, who has now charge of the
Executive Department of Virginia (Gov. Floyd
that he viii abide the patriotic counsels of her
Legislatures and call her public authorities together,
TO take counsel upon her Federal rights and priv
Hedges aDd to provide for their defence and their
safety! 30 much for one of the supposed cases,
and the odor of reality it bears along with it; and
now for the other
As to the fugitive slave question, the existing
realities of the present day are UNNECESSARILY
worse than the hypothesis raised, touching the
action of Congress in the past century. The
fundamental condition of the Constitution for the
restitution of fugitive slaves has been broken ten
thousand times; The act of Congress of 1893 hes
long ago been rendered dead letter and a mockery
by the hostile legislation of the free States, and the
active and turbulent interference and opposition
of their citizens: The slave States have again
and again been furtively invaded by the free
hooters, and their citizens, reaching TO immense
amounts; have been feloniously pundered of their
properties: Claimants, with the Constitution for
their passports, have every where been assailed
insuted, and failed Of their reclamations: Arrests
have been prevenied-the captured have been res
cued-and mobs, and even murders have followed
and frustrated the attempts Of owners, to recover
the property which the Constitution had assured
to them regret to add that the native State of
your Excellency has been shamelessly conspicu-
Gus, in her deliberate and repeated breaches Of
this fundamental clause Of the Constitution Not
many years ago, rather remarkable person, who
was then Governor Of your State, forgo, his cath
and shamed his duty, doubtless under some
"higher ia~. y by refusing to deliver up to the
Governor Of Virginia fugitive from justice (un-
der an adjoining clause OF the Constitution who
had fed from tina, State, after committing felony
IN q men Of slaves. His delivery up was demanded
fora felonious breach of ias Of Yryimia; his de-
livery was refused on the ground that he had COM
mitted no breach Of the ieSs Of .Nss York For this
and kindred exploits in stimulating the citizens Of
New York to the plumber Of slaves, and Of bring
ing the two great sections into open and danger
Gus collisions; thu, great State made him her SEN
stor; and then in your hearing. sir, and addressing
your Exceency, he shsmed the whole country,
in declaring, that the loo Of God had repealed the
clause in the Constitution providing for the es,i.
tuition Of fugitive slaves. and in the face Of the
solemn oath he had taken to support the cons,i-
tuition in all its clauses, openly boasts Of the un-
accomplished atrocities he meditstes, through the