The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1854-05-24


republic Of Dominica; but objection was made by
laid over. bill was reported author
izing the coinage of gold pieces of the value respec
lively of ten and five eagles. The amendments to
the Indian Appropr at on bill reported by the Com
mittee the Whole were concurred in; but the pro-
posal to grant half million dol to the friendly
Creeks in payment for land taken during the war of
1872, was rejected by decisive vote.
In the House nothing of interest anspired.
There was debate on an appropriation or con-
tinuing the works for supplying the ca ital with
water. The House win adjourn on Wednesday next
to the following Monday in order 10 it up the hall
for the warm weather.
MISCELLANEOUS.
The politicians at Washington have hardly yet
recovered from the exhaustion consequent upon the
Nebraska excitement, when the administration
opens its batteries upon Gov. Brown for his course
upon the INDECENT Insane Land bill. The secret OF
this hostility is explained by our correspondent 1t
is announced that Judge Douglas, too, is to be de-
nounced by the minons Of the Cabinet. The tri-
umph of the Nebraska question does not please the
free soil and secession advisers of the President
its defeat was ardently desired and they are there
fore disappointed at the result. So Judge Douglas
must be denounced-he has made too much capital.
But this is only the beginning of the perpexites Of
the politicians. An entire humiliation and recon-
struction of parties will inevitably grow out Of this
state of things, and we await with patience the de-
velopements. The anti-Nebraska journals are rabid
at ther defeat but the Union loving portion of the
people will hail the settlement Of this question as
second Declaration Of Independence.
t. dua afU
with three days later news from Europe. The tee-
graph wires east of Sackville, N. b., were broken
last night; but it is probable they will be repaired
during to-day, and we will thus be enabled to lay
before our readers the news in our next issue.
Two flremen were killed, and another seriously
injured, at Philadelphia the falling of the walls OF
building destroyed by fire yesterday.
Passage of the Nebraska Biii--The Constitu-
ton Triumphant-The Great Revolution
nj Hand.
The passage of the Nebraska bill is one Of
those great events which, in a nations history,
inaugurate political revolution, and new
cycle in political affairs. 1t is the triumph Of
o great principle over temporizing expedients-
of the constitution over sectional fanatlcism,
and of popular sovereignty over the usurpa-
tions Of Congress. 1t settles the slavery ques-
tion in the Territories upon the broad and COM
prehensive basis of the organic law of the re-
public-it removes this vexed and harassing
sectional issue out of Congress, and delivers it
over to the people of the Territories, where
it properly belongs. 1t establishes precedent
of universal application to all future acquisi-
tons of territory, North or South without
further agitation or controversy. 1t is an ad-
justment of the trouble upon the only salts
factory foundation; simple, conclusive and
final adjustment. Hereafter, the question Of
slavery or free soil will be left to the people of
every Territory, and to their final judgment,
upon their application for admission as sove-
reign States into the Union. They will be as
free to decide upon the subject for themselves
as the sovereign State of New York.
Thus is the protracted and fearful struggle
upon the question Of slavery in the territories
of the last seventy years brought to pract-
cal conclusion. 1t was commenced with the
proj6t of the federal ordinance in 1884, and
the corner stone of all succeeding sectional
controversies upon the subject was laid down
in the establishment Of the ordinance OF 1887,
interdicting slavery forever in the terrific
res northwest of the Ohio river, ceded by Vir-
ginia to the United States. That ordinance
was the work of the rump Of the Old Contede-
ration, anterior to the adoption of the consti-
tuition. The great blunder, to which all the
succeeding laundering interference of Congress
in the slavery question is fairly attri hutable, is
the precedent Of that ordinance of 1881, not
withstanding the fact that with the adoption of
the constitution in 1889, the Old Confederation
and its loose and incoherent policy, were super
seeded by new order of things. Unfortunate
ly, too, for the peace of the country, after the
adoption of the constitution, in several ia
stances the ordinance of 1877 was re-aflirmed
and enforced in the territories to which it was
applied. In this way the precedents were fur
nished upon which the reasonable remains of
the old federal party, in the Hartford Conven-
ton, introduced the agitation of the slavery
question as an active element into tie party
politics of the country.
That movement of the Hartford Convention
scattered the seeds of aboltionism broadcast
over the Northern States, as was abundantly
developed in the fierce agitation of 1919 and 1920
which resulted in the adoption by Congress of the
Missouri compromise. This compromise was a
sectional bargain forced upon the South by the
pressure of the anti-slavery sentiment of the
North, and acquiesced in by Southern poll
ticians and statesmen as matter Of policy in
view of an approaching Presidential election.
1t was temporary armistice, and liable to be
broken at the discretion of either party, as any
other compact made in violation Of established
law.
The first step in the abandonment of such
temporizing bargains as the Missouri compro-
mise was taken by Congress in the acts Of 1850,
organizing the Territories of Utah and New
Mexico. And this recurrence to first principles
was mainly due to the example thrown in upon
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