Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1854-04-18
New YoRK, Apra IA, 1854
Tie Nebraska programme battle in the Empire

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The Nebraska bill is the all-absorbing public
question with the people of the Empire city
as it is in every part of the Union; and yet
strange to say not in ten accepts or discusse:
it on its true principles or bearings 1t is attack
ed as something that is to do terrible and miracu
lous things for the increase Of slavery, and its
friends are so thoughtless as to leave their true
and thrice-entrenched citadel of principle to 90
over to the quagmire positions of their enemies,
to contend with Mrs. Partington's hysterical
anxieties, or follow up Horace Greeley's subtle
digressions from the clear and solid highway.
If Congress would keep to the real issue of
giving to the inhabitants of new Territories the
fullest possible control of their own domestic
rights and interests, neither Mrs. Partington
nor the twenty-five clergymen of Chicago who
so kindly offered to dry-nurse our govern
ment would have the power to frighten the
babes and women of the country with these
awful phantoms of slavery extension.
The sovereignty Of the people is too well es-
tablisled to be DESTROYED in popular efferves-
cence of mistaken sympathy, ii the question OF
the peoples right to govern themselves is dis
tinctly presented to them; and no body of dry
nurses, however pleasant, plausible and rever-
end they may be, will divert them from it by a
painted rattle of negro brotherhood and su-
gar pills of no-slavery extension"
These Elusive toys were presented to the
masses by freesolism and the Wilmot-proviso,
and we're temporarily accepted by thousands OF
candid and confiding citizens as honest reali.
ties, because, reverend and most honorable
men, presented them in borrowed robes, and
soemnly vouched for them as genuine and
heavenly goods; but when the people handled
them, and discovered their hollowness, they
threw the miserable counterfeits of humanity
back on their makers hands.
This onslaught on the principle Of territorial
seltgovernment in the Nebraska bill is the
second act land let us hope the final one) OF
this drama of false pretences. The abolitionists.
those who for years have been working to
equalize and amalgamate the races in private
and public life, are the fathers Of the plan; for
the success Of this principle and the accepted re-
cord of non.intervention would end forever
their hopes of sectional divisions and servile
wars, and spoil at a.blow all their chances for
breaking up the Union.
They cannot and dare not meet the question
fairly and inanfuly, face to face, in tie En-
pre city; so they raise cloud of false issues
between it and the people, and call upon its
champions to quit their vantage-ground of inn
mutable principles and come upon baseless
platform of spurious humanity and imaginary
tenderness for the African race, and there figh,
out, not the real battle, but a set Of air-borr
wind.mills.
They hope by this fair seeming cry Of hu
manity and ro-brotherhood to win to thei
aid ali the tender.hearted Of the land, and, b,
adroitly putting the women and clergy in the
forefront of the battle, to gain an easy victor,
without suffering in their own persons tn,
pains and dangers Of q serious conflict.
This is the present order of battle in New
I ork on the Nebraska questions and, unless its
friends in Congress have the wisdom and firm
ness to keep the principle of territorial self
government paied to the mast in such pIair
characters tbatthe masses can read and under
stand them as they run, the result is doubtful
| consider it Of unspeakable advantage to pro
long the discussion until the tale is fully told
The abolitionists really aim at the life Of the
Union, the grand and bounteous nursing-mo
ther Of human freedom and republican pro.
gress and if they are compelled to meet the
issue on its true merits, they will eventually
be stripped Of their plausible wrappings, and
come out in their own naked deformity as dis
unionists. 1t is only necessary to avoid side
tissues and extraneous discussions, and press
home the vital and intrinsic principle as part