Washington sentinel., 1854-03-04
NEBRAsKA-THE NORTH AND THE
SOJTH,


However people may differ in regard to the
expediency of bringing forward this measure
at this time, now that it is before Congress for
action, all will agree that it should be exam
ined and discussed with candor and with fairness.
One great difficulty in the way of fair decision,
is the extraordinary and wilful ignorance prevail
ing at the north on these subjects. Whilst the
sound State-rights, Constitution-loving men of
both sections agree in the main, there are yet
many persons at the north who read neither
southern speeches nor southern newspapers
Many northern editors read them, not to get
correct views and to form candid judgments,
but to select out and often garble them in order
to make material for their own purposes-to
poison the northern mind and to present the
south in distorted and untrue aspects. Several
gentlemen lately at the north in discussing the
Nebraska bill, with many Of its vehement and
virulent opponents, we're led to suspect, from
the gross ignorance manifested of the southern
views, that they were uninformed on the sub.
iect, and asked if they had read the southern
views as explained by the south itself. 1t
turned out upon inquiry, in most cases, that
they had confined their reading to the resume
of letter writers and editorials, all opposed to
the bill.
1t would seem impossible that men who
meant fairly, could by any possibility deal so
uniustly towards the SOUTH as such men have
continually done AT one time they assume,
for their own purposes, that slaves are property,
and nothing but property, and on that ground
wish to refuse to them any representation in
the federal government. In the Territories
they require that they shall not be considered
property, but persons; and shall not, therefore,
there be held as property. The first was yield
ed to the extent Of three-flths, as being indis-
pensable to secure the union of the States,
and it woSld appear in the latter case, that
nothing but the alternative of dissolution of
the Union can induce justice.
At the period Of the formation of the Con-
stitution, when the federal representation Of
three-Gfths of slaves was allowed it was urged as
injustice to the north, because the whites alone
voting, it gave the vote of q white man in the
south more than that of white man at the
north; and yet at that very moment, the cleo
tive franchise in every State was so restricted
that many thousands had no vote; while those
who did vote had the benefit of fve-ffths for
the disfranchised men, white or black, of the
north, and the south had but three-ffths. And
now there are, perhaps, million of negroes at
the north not entitled TO vote, yet the whites
who do vote, have representation of fve.ffths
for all the negroes in the free States.
Not only was this outrage perpetrated and
continued, but aggravated to the last degree
by direct taxation upon all the labor of the
south.* Every slave pable of labor was as
sessed by law, federal law, not once, but re-
pcatedly, at their full market value. The
houses, lands, tenements, and general property
of the north and south. were alike equally
taxed, but superadded to that was this tax
erclusirely upon southern labor. Now, accord
ing to all the rules Of right and law, the south
ern laborers being taxed to the full, should
have been represented to the full; and northern
speedy return to the Black sea. Netwithstand-