Washington sentinel., 1854-02-07
From the Livingston Courier.
Nebraska.


We have never doubted the capacity of man
for selfgovernment. We have ever believed,
and we believe now, that the people of the Ter
ritories are as capable of governing themselves,
and of providing for their own present and fu-
ture interests, as the Congress of the United
States or the people OF the States are for doing
it for them. We have never lost our conf
dence in the truth of the maxim, that all
Just governments derive their powers from the
consent of the governed" So believing and SO
confiding, we were among the very first, during
the late stormy period of sectional agitation, to
take position in favor Of leaving the disposal
and final adjustment of the whole question of
slavery in the Territories to the people of the
territories, who alone are directly interested in
the result To that position we still adhere.
We thought then, and we still think, that the
doctrines embodied in the Nicholson letter."
and which were made the basis of the COM
promise measures of 1850, and afterwards went
to form one "material plank in the platform
of the national democracy of 1852, were, and
still are, the only sound, safe and reliable doc
trines upon the subject Of slavery in the Terri
tories. Frequently in our limited experience
and observation, we have had occasion to note
the fact that those who closely and assiduously
attend to and mind their own business have
about as much to do as their capacity to per-
form will admit of, while those who attempt to
go beyond, and interfere with the concerns of
Others must invariably neglect their own
This rule applies with equal force to States as
to individuals. The people of the States
of this Union, sovereign as they are, have
about as much governing to do, and as many
evils to remedy in their midst, as their ca
pacity for government and faculties for re-
form will afford; and there is no necessity for
tha~ - n
to find objects upon which to exercise their ca
pacity for selfgoyernment, or Of travelling to
the far-of region of Nebraska in search Of
evils that they know not Of We have plenty of
them at our doors. The people of the terrific.
tories are alone interested in the question as to
whether the States hereafter to be carved out
of those Territories shall be free or slave States
and to them must the determination of that
question ultimately be left. 1t is none of our
business; it is question entirely beyond the
limits of our selfgovernment" We of the
north have no right to interfere; they of the
south have no right The sum of the peoples
rights, north and south, is to gope,m themselves;
this is enough for them to do. The people Of
the Territories have the same right. Congress
has no right, none-no more right to say that
this or that Territory shall beafree Territory, or
free State .even than it has to say that this or
no right to decide the question in either way.
This right belongs to the self.gore,niag peo-
pie Of those Territories, and to them alone. If
Congress can interfere in the matter at all,
then it can 60 beyond it, and regulate the en-
tire domestic and internal polity Of the Terrific
RES and if so, it can reduce the people Of those
Territories to a state Of absolute vassalage, tax
them without their consent, and do all those
acts and things, the performing of which, once
upon time, lost to England the dominion of
half the world, and resulted in the establish
ment of our national independence. Wethink
no one, not even an abolitionist, will contend
that it has such power. We believe that it has
only such reasonable power over the Territories
as to authorize it to frame the outlines of gov
ernment, and leave the rest to the people, in
the exercise of their rights Of "selfgovern-
ment," to arrange in such manner as shall be
best calculated to promote their interests and
there it's power ends. These are our views;
and, having long and earnestly held to and ad-
vocated them, we are peculiarly happy to see
them embodied in the report of Senator Douglas
on the territorial organization of Nebraska.
We hope that they may be applied to all the
Territories unfortunately. We have no squea-
mish scruples in regard to the effect of such a
doctrine upon the Territories embraced in the
Missouri compromise; we don't care what may
be its effect in that direction. That compro-
mise has had its purpose and its day. 1t was ,
useful at an important crisis in quelling Sec
tional agitation and excitement, and for that
we commend it; but we believe now, and we
always have believed, that it was constitution
ally wrong in its inception-an assumption of
congressional power unwarranted by the letter
or spirit of the Constitution, and trenchingup
the peoples rights Of selfgovernment in the
Territories where it applied and, as such, we
care not how soon we are to see the error cor,
rected. We know that abolitionism will howl
at this doctrine, that freesoilers will scout at it.
but we ask not for their sympathy; we expect
it not. We are Numerically opposed to sec
tionalism, and SO of course expect that section
alism will be Numerically opposed to US. We
hate aboitionism, and so Of course aboltionism
will hate us. We have no sympathy with those
who make it the business Of their lives to prate
Of free SOIL free labor, and free speech, and so
don't expect their sympathy. To the people,
the great mass Of the intelligent and selfgov-
erning people, we look for the support of this
doctrine; and by them it will be sustained.