The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1851-03-22
rhs Ordinance or 81 ana the Hunting or
Free SolllsD.

rhe Ordinance OF ~ ana the Hunhug Of
Free soilisa.
When the disappointed ambition and per.
sonal magnity Of Martin Van Buren, finally
exploded in the Buffalo Convention, which flung
out the abolition flag, great deal of noise was
made about the ordinance of '67. The Buffalo
Convention paraded before the world platform,
which, they pretended, was founded on that ordi.
nance. A more wilful outrage on truth and his
tory never was perpetrated. The demagogues who
controlled that great abolition caucus either had
never read that ordinance, or they deliberately in.
tended to give it the lie. They gave out to the
world, that in 1877 the Congress of the Confedera-
ton, under the immediate guidance aad advice Of
Thcmas Jefferson, established an ordinance which
Internationally prohibited slavery in the North
west territory. Now, it 80 happens that the Ame-
rican Congress never did any such thing. They
never made any such law. They never conceived
anything like it. Let us now to the law and the
testimony, to see how far we can sustain our
position.
The ordinance Of 81 consists of a preamble and
six articles, the latter being the only which
ers to the subject of slavery at ill., and this article
is embraced within the following lines. viz
ARTICLE VI There shall be neither slavery or invo-
untary servttu1e In tho said territory other
In the punishment Of crimes whereof the party shall
have been duly convisted: Provided always That any
service 10 lawfully claimed In any ono OF the original
States such fugitive may be lawfully claimed and
v:ysd 70 the person claiming his or her labor or
Here is a proviso which the free soil men have
overlooked atogether and on the bare face of this
ordnance the meaning is simply this, that slavery
wa cd in he
diton that fugitives from labor should be given up
when they were demanded and what is the plain
inference Why, that whenever that territory, or
the States which might afterwards compose il,
should refuse to surrender such fugtves so claim
ed, then the ordinance was violated and the COM
pact broken. Slavery, of necessity, ceased to be
prohibited from that time, because the only con-
dition on which it was prohibited was, that the
authorities of that district should deliver up to the
slaveholding States their fugitive slaves.
Here is the whole question, in three paragraphs,
and no man can escape from it. Opposition to the
surrender of fugitive slaves from any portion of the
Northwest territory ever after that ordinance,
became treason; or it justified and legalized
slavery in that territory soon as the conditions of
the ordinance feiled to be complied with. Let the
free soil men take either horn of the dilemma they
please. BY fair construction of that ordinance,
the Virginia master, who should 60 into the State
of Ohio to reclaim fugitive slave, would have the
right, if the authorities refused 10 give him up, to
settle himself down in that State and hold his
slaves, nolens coisms, under the sanction and pro-
lection Of the ordinance of 81.
Again; the law of '9S, on the surrender of fugi-
tive slaves, applied the same principle to all the
other non slaveholding States; and New York,
New Jersey, and other Northern States, never re-
fused to comply with this law until slavery died
out among them, and abotonism was fomented
expressly TO disturb the domestic institutions of the
South, and rob them OF those rights which had
been guaranteed to them; FIRST in the ordinance of
81; secondly, in the constitution Of 80; and third
ly, in the statute of '9s.
Once more; the South feeling insecure in the
midst of the growth and rapid spread of aboltionsm,
which had ceased to be an Insignificant pseudo
religious movement, and become political organ
iza'ion with political objects in view, called for
new and fresh recognition, not only of the letter,
but of the spirit Of those three great guarantees,
viz, the ordinance OF 81, the constitution Of 80,
and the statute of 90. The South was alarmed,
and she had right to ask her sister States in the
confederacy whether they would adhere truthfuy
TO the terms of the original compact, and carry
them ont in good faith. Agitation arose. Free
coil, under the infammatory appeals of dema.
gogues Ike VIM. Ii. Seward, and abolition editors
like Garrison, Greeley, and Weed, attempted 10
rally the people Of the free States around the bal
lot box; and from certain districts in the Unite
States, abolition fanatics were returned to Con.
gress. Leaving no effort uninterrupted, no trick
untried, no inflammatory appeal unproclaimed,
these men fought, step by step, the compromise
measures, and enc by one battled against their
passage. The great glory OF these peace measures
consisted chiefly in the fact that they were an
honest and faithful construction Of the ordinance
the constitution, and the statute of which we have
spoken. They secured the rights of the South by
fresh guarantees. They offered new pledges to the
Southern States, and these pledges they had a
right TO expect. In that struggle the South gained
nothing. IL was only by desperate effort of the
friends of the constitution and of the Union, and OF
law, that the rights Of the South were recognized
by the ,hirty.frst Congress. The South has never
asked Of the North any more than the constitution
originally gave to her. That she has got by hard
hghuDg; and IT the President, his cabinet, his exc.
cutiye ofhcers, and Congress itsel' stand by, and
faithfully execute the peace measures, the republic
Will hold togeher-it will be invunerable to every
attack. DisuHion and secession at the South will
be confined to a small faction, and that faction will
be powerless, as fanaticism and aboIitionism are
confined Of the North to an equally small and con-
t.mp'ibie faction, whose demagoguism is alre ady
paraIyztd by the uprising spirit Of the great body
Of he people.
Such was the ordinance Of 81, such the cons,i.
tuition OF SO, such the statute of 9S and such the
peace measures, including the Fugitive Slave law,
81 lt.0. They are four great enactments, which
should be eternal in our history; and when they
are blotted out, the republic will go with them.
Few Publications.
The Art Journal, for March, ls5l George Viz
tue, 20 John street.
The Roman Republic of 1919; by Theodore
Dwight. *. Van DIeu, No. So Nassau street.