The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-07-06
people who inbabit chem NAV wish q decide h


their State constitutions. For this acknowiedg-
mentof the soutll's pre-exsting rights in the ter
ritories, the North exacis of her
LIST. That the South shall exempt and exoner-
ate Congress from exercising lis acknowledged
powers over the limits Of Californis, by now
stretching the line OF the Missouri Compromise
to the Pacific, to assert by statute that Congress
shall establish by ratification, the Wimof Proviso.
throughout California to the south Of $50 80 and
cede her the sovereignty without reservation of
either the eminent or useful domains, and leaving
all the lands and treasures Of the Union to the
laws Of inevitable escheat and irretrevable sacri
| fee. Now, the whole Territories of Utah and
New Mexico, from their climates, sterility, and
vast distance from the gulf and from. the sea,
when conioined with Southern CaIifornia, rate in
agricultural, commercial and political value, as
five 10 an hundred; while the latter in the same
association, from lis Southern exposure, its wild
climate, its soil, its products tsfertility its pros
poets Of mineral treasure, and above all, the out
let and the hold it gives the South upon the trade
of the Pacific, give it value agrculturally,
commercially and politically ,immeasurably greater
than all Of Utah and New Mexico. and reaching
fully to ninety-fve one-hundreths of the.whole.
Why, if the South had the choice she would sur
render tomorrow every acre of both, in exchange
for the privilege of sharing with the North in the
| products, commerce, and profits of Southern
California. This being the real state Of the case,
a fair measure Of the North s exactions of the
South Is sacrfces-is it to be expected, (when the
matter is fully understood and just it s) that in
\ Ill. l. o.
or out Of Congress, who would so abandon and
abuse her, to sacrifice ninety-fye one-hundreths
of the value Of acommon property, by accepting
! five one-hundreths of the whole, under either the
shallow misnomer of a compromise, or the more
\ CALLING menace of numbers and compulsion !?
When see it, shall believe it, and not one mo-
ment sooner. neither doubt nor complain that
there are Southeners Of the highest reputation,
and the first order of abilities who have been in
clined to support this measure, under some deu-
sive hopes Of tranquilizing the country--but once
unmask its tendencies and its sacrifices, and con-
sent to be ranked with gipsies and socialists, if it
/ shall not encounter their strenuous and victorious
resistance. With the whole of California given up
to Free-Soism, it will hardly be insisted that the
South would gain anything, even were she allotted
her full constitutional share in Utah and New
Mexico. But she is made to pay former own, and
| pay for it in the surrender Of Southern Califor-
MIA. Nor is that all she has to pay:
| 3D., She has to pay to the North, furthermore,
in adismemberment and the. divesture Of Texas
of 100 of her save-holding territory from the 32d
to the 42d degree Of North latitue, with dimensions
large enough for three sovereign States--and ce-
ding the whole, both of its eminent and useful do
main, to the grasping and chaneeless dominion of
political Free-Soilism and as Texas cannot sub
nit to such sacrifice without heavy recon-
pense, it is actually proposed that the South shall
pay out of her own pocket fully S6.OO0.0Oe as her
contribution towards the ascendency and domino
ton Of Free-Soilism within her own dominions !!
4 If Texas should gain any thing through this
ominous ACKNOWLEDGMENT of her territory, (Which
wholly contest and deny) it is very certain that
the South does not; and that she would lose far
more from the union, conpactness and strength
of the slave States by the operation, than unre-
stricted settlements, in fine, such States as Utah
and New Mexico would be worth to her. Yet
wesare asked to sacrifice Texas as well as Cali
] fornia, that we might have our own with impover-
shment and graves in the parching depths OF
these arid wales, or topmost among their bleak
4 and barren activities. Dear that for the phis-
de! - 7-t'>.t' 'r#s
/ Sd. As to the..Fugitive Slave bilI-if any South
erner hopes that any effective provisions will be
secured in that, to bring the North to her consti.
tutional duties, and spare the South her most an
noying and impoyerishing spoliations, he is far
] more sanguine than am. As to the two sections
reported fnpm the committee, they, with their en-
cumbrances Of record proofs and jury.trals, must
seriously obstruct the reclamations of saves--nor
aid them in the least, unless the proofs are made
conclusive, which they are not now. But wish
that this were the worst--which am far from
hopiug--but what are we to look for when Mr..
WEBSTER fully admitted in his great speech, that
the enticing away and emancipatins" of fugitive
slaves, was serious and important evil, that the
Constitution had devolved it as a high duty upon
the North, to. compensate, to repair and end it.
after declaring in the Committee of Thirteen,
that in the sixty years of the Government, he had
never heard Of an instance of fugative being
claimed as slave, who had not proven to be such;
and that the North therefore, needed safe guards
to protect the fugitive from service, from simulated
reclamation; and who declared to his Boston con-
stituency that he 'heads no step backwards, yet
soon after he returned to the Senate and laid
upon its table to be printed, an amendment to the
fugitive bill (tchc he said he had prepared in Febru-
airy, and before his first speec giving trial by jury to
fugitive slaves and IN the STATES ,cherein they should
be captured! When that passes-that win do
and it is confidently asserted, that no bill will be
passed without such clause in it. 1t is plain
Mr.. w. does not ask such change because he
thinks it is needed to protect the fugitives from
spurious caimants-for i'm admitting there were no
such claimants he admitted the suf1iciency quoad
hoe of the apcient remedies; and if this does not
unmask the purpose of an universal emancipation
of the fugitves from service through the South S
abandonment of such hopeless pursuits and such
i foreordained verdicts--where is the pith or the
efficacy which turks in this furtve and delusive
amendment If the South shall gain any thing