The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1854-06-28


RsvIssr Of the slavery Agitation I'm Congress
The pfsuDion Question-yecss sfty OF .
Great rndspe" Aenr Union Party.
Mr.. Rockwell d the new free soil wing Senator
from Mas acf .asetts, in petition from citizens
of Boston, I or the repeal of the Fugitive Slave
law, has re .-opened the agitation Of the disunion
question in the United States Senate. The de-
bate W Jon that petition, the other day, between
Messrs Jones, of Tennessee, Rockwell, and
SurAner, of Massachusetts,, Butler, of South
CacOlina, and others, was pretty well up to
that pitch of sectional evaporation which cha
ractized the memorable Congressional agitation
of 1885,
1t was but few weeks ago that Mr.. Jones
ridiculed the idea that storm was brewing
among the anti-slavery elements of the North;
and now he has become the veritable Cassandra
of the Senate. The mantle of Gen. Foote,
date of Mississippi, but now in California;
appears to have fallen upon the shoulders OF
Mr. Jones' He tells us that /" the Union could
not be preserved one day after the repeal OF
the Fugitive Slave laws" but then we are con-
soled with the positive assurance that 1t never
will be repealed. The abolitionists, then, may
rave on; Mr. Charles Sumner, in the face OF
his oath to support the constitution OF the
United States, may daily repeat the cry that
he is not dog, that he should execute the flu
gitive law; the anti-slavery societies may over
whelm the Senate with their petitions for re-
peal: but, having the assurance of Mr. Jones
that there will be no repeal upon that point of
assault at least, the Union is secure.
But unfortunately the repeal of the Fugitive
Slave law is but an incidental item in the gene
raj account of this present agitation of the dis
union question. Causes behind the fugitive
law, and behind the Nebraska bill, lie OF the
bottom of the mischief. The demoralizing
spoils party of the administration affords the
key to this portentous excitement revived be-
tween the North and the South. The desperate
exigencies of the administration de manded
some such desperate expedient as the Nebraska
bill to restore the President and his cabinet
their policy and their party to the lost confidence
of the South and Of the constitutional Union men
| of the North But having in advance demo-
rallied and destroy ed the unity and the efficiency
Of the triumphant party OF 1852, the admins
tration is powerless to reunite its scattered
fragments, even upon the constitutional prin-
ciples of the Nebraska bill; and hence the dan
ger to the peace Of the country.
The danger is not in the Fugitive Slave law,
where Mr. Jones places it; but in the absence
Of any great national, homogeneous, conserva-
tive Union party, covering all sections OF the
republic. Mr.. Jones virtually confesses that
between the Southern and Northern wings
the rupture is complete. He admits the evil, as
far as his party is concerned. But we have
no corresponding confession from Mr.. Butler,
Mr.. Mason Mr. Petit, or any other Senator
Of the democratic side, in reference to the
broken backed condition of the late national
democracy. None of them, however, can put
in any valid claim as champions OF the consti-
tutional rights Of the South until their own
position is little more satisfactorily defined.
Do they belong to that pie bald dominant demo-
cratic party of which the Charleston Mercury
the organ in South Carolina, the Union the
organ at Washington, and Of which, too, the New
York Euening Post and the Albany .dtlas are
the leading organs in the great conservative
| State of New York? The contempt of Mr.. But
/ Ter for Charles Sumner smacks of waggery,
Il
| thodox communion table; and the wrath of Mr.
Petit against the free soil Senator from Mas
sachusetts is all moonshine, as long as the
party of the Buffalo platform are counted
among !. the Latter Day Saints " of the demo-
cratic church In the teeth Of an unholy, in
concruous spois coalition like this, all profess
sions of constitutional consistency, or Of devo-
| ton to State rights, or to the Union, are but
dross in the crucible Of public opinion. Neither
parties nor partisans can maintain their ground
| in the profession of Union and constitutional
principles, while they are parties to league
with traitors and dissension agitators, through
the corrupting agencies of the spoils.
| The debate in the Senate upon the Boston
pettion for the repeal of the fugitive law does
not touch the real merits Of the general issue.
1t may all be well enough for bold and fearless
Senators to seize upon every occasion for the
expression Of their adherence and disgust for
the reasonable principles of such men as Sum-
ner and Seward. They are fair game, aud
there is no peril incurred in assailing them.
This however, is but paltry business, when
| the blows, to be efficient, should be struck in
another quarter. Nothing is gained by these
| continued and violent Senatorial denunciations
| of Seward and Sumner, traitors to the Union
though they may be, when the real causes Of
the mischiefs in hand lie nearer home 1t is
| like man with O bundle of contraband goods
under his arm, crying "stop thief" in hot pur-
suit of poor devil with nothing in his posses
| sion but q bad name.
| The Senate of the United States, in the pre-
sentation of the Boston petition have discovered
that the anti-slavery agitation is revived in the
North. PROFESSIONALLY this agitation rests
upon the seditious principles Of Seward, Sum-
ner and their associates in the cause of free
soil and abolitionism. Yet little more than
one short year ago, the country was quiet, there