Washington sentinel., 1854-04-12

of Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, and Iowa
have been successively admitted into the Union,
aud the three existing Territories of Oregon,
Washington. and Minnesota have been organ
lied. The old Territories of Orleans; Missouri,
Arkansas, Wisconsin, and Iowa. which at former
periods have embraced within their jurisdiction
portions of the Territories Of Louisiana. have ex-
pired by the admission into the Union OF States
with limited and defined boundaries. Has not
the admission of these States aud Territories
counteracted the operation OF the municipal
laws within the limits Of their several jurisdic-
tons, and can it be truly said that any law now
exists in the proposed Territories of Nebraska
or Kansas? A Territory is either organized,
as when it is provided with q government and
laws, or unorganized, as when it has neither.
In point of fact, are not Nebraska and Kansas
unorganized Territories Their organization,
and the establishment Of territorial govern
ments to enact the requisite municipal laws, is
the very subject that now engages the attention
of Congress.
1t is true that the government OF the Indiana
Territory possessed jurisdiction over all OF the
Louisiana purchase north of the thirty-third
parallel Of latitude and it is true that those
laws were continued in force by the act OF Con-
gress organizing the Territory of Missouri in
1873; but when, afterwards, Missouri was ad.
mtted into the Union, in 1921, the Territory
of Missouri expired, and all of the territorial
laws expired with it. The law belongs to the
jurisdiction, and is not part of the soil it ex-
pands or contracts with the jurisdiction, and is
not n fixture that remains in existence after
the territorial government is itself dead. Can
municipal laws regulating the relations of mas
ter and servant, parent and child, or husband
and wife, be said to be in existence in Nebras
ka, when there is no court or tribunal, judge,
sheriff, or other officer to execute them? If
laws be rules of action, prescribed by superiors
to interiors, who are bound to obey and enforce
them, what laws exist in that Territory? To
whom has Congress spoken, commanding their
execution? Is it to the wolf and the eagle, or
the Indian hunter, as untamed as either, that
it has confded their execution? A law that
contemplates no mode of enforcement is as
mere nullity as law without penalty. We
have recent and important precedent to sup
port this view in the case of Texas. The
original boundary Of that State began at the
mouth of the Rio Grande, and continued with it
northwardly to its source, and thence to the ter
ritory ofthe United States and thence circing
with its boundary to the Gulf of Mexico. When
the compromise measures we're passed in 1850,
one of them was the Texas boundary act, in
which the United States gave $l0,0O0,0OO to
Texas to relinquish all claim to q large domain
lyingnorth of the Paso del Norte, embracing the
eastern side of the valley Of the Rio Grande,
and the valley of the Puerco. Texas accepted
this proposition, and the territory ceded, which
was larger than New England, was added to
the Territory of New Mexico at the same ses-
sion, and is now under its jurisdiction.
1t cannot be that the laws of Texas are yet
in force in the ceded territory, or that slavery
in that part of New Mexico is regulated by the
law of Texas. The laws of Texas we're, by tho
act, circumscribed in their operation, and are
now only in force to the extent Of her pres
ent boundary. So the successive admissions
of the States, and the organization of other
Territories from the Louisiana Territory, limit
ed the operation Of their municipal laws to the
extent of their several jurisdictions, and left
Nebraska and Kansas without any territorial
laws or organized government. Nebraska and
Kansas were once under the jurisdiction OF the
Indiana Territory, but they were not so after
1872, when the Missouri Territory was estab-
ished And they were once under the juris-
diction of the Missouri territorial law, but they
are no longer so; for when that territory ex-
pired by the admission of the State of Missouri
in 1921, oil the territorial law was either con-
tracted in its operation to the limits of the new
State, or it perished. No person could now be
indicted for crime in the proposed Terrific
ries for the violation Of law enacted by the
Territory of Indiana or the Territory Of Mis-
souri; neither the Indiana nor the Missouri
territorial statutes would regulate the solemn
ties of wills, the transmission of property, thu
rules of inheritance, or the punishment o
crimes in Nebraska. 1t would be as proper Il
base an indictment in New Mexico for a crime
committed in the Texas grant, upon law o.
Texas, as to find an Indictment in Nebrasks
under law of the Indiana Territory. The laws
necessary for the existence of civil society are
not now in existence in Nebraska or Kansas,
except so far as the citizen or emigrant may
bear his personal and constitutional rights with
him, and it is to supply this very deficiency
that we are now about to pass the bills to or.
ganize them. The regulation Of slavery is pc.
culiarly the province of the local law, and be-
longs to the local and not the federal sover.
eighty. Without local government there can
be Nd local law; and without doubt there is nc
local government at this time in Nebraska OF
Kansas.
The conclusion, therefore, Mr. Chairman, te
which have arrived is, that Mr.. BADGER has
shown conclusively that the proviso added by
him did not alter the tenor or effect of the bill
as reported by the chairman of the Committee
on Territories in the Senate, Mr.. DOUGLAS,
and that simple repeal of the eighth section
of the act of 1929. would not, as some imagine
revive or re-establish slavery in the Territor,
ofNebraska. The amendment of Mr.. BADGES
was introduced for the purpose of excluding
any conclusion that the southern members de
sired, by implication, to revive obsolete laws
dead by desuetude as well as legislation, fol
the purpose of fre-establishing slavery, or claim
ing that it was revived in those Territories
This was due to such Of our northern friends
as were supporting us, so as to enable them to
say, upon returning to their constituencies, that
while they were willing to grant free right to
all the people Of the United States to immigrate
thither, yet they had not, either expressly or by
implication, reordaned slavery. With this ]
am content, and conceive the amendment is
so immaterial, thatit was with surprise found
the Importance attached to it by southern rep
resentatives, and the denunciations it met with
from southern presses. For my own part,
am unwilling to relinquish the important prac-
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