Washington sentinel., 1854-06-02

the uln anC Outcry Wnlcn now ulStract the |
north. Do the northern supporters of the Mis-
souri, line reflect upon the admission which
their position involves? They laud their free
institutions, they claim that they are every way
preferable TO and stronger than ours, and they
delight to sing praises to the virtue and intel
ligence OF the people. Yet when we say, well,
let the people who are to choose, have an OPP
portunity of seeing our institutions for them
selves alongside of yours, and after having
during their territorial pupilage, observed the
working of both, Just let them, when they come
to organize State for themselves and their chill
dren after them-just let them determine which
they prefer, you shrink back and call on Mis-
sour restriction to shield you from fair competi-
ton upon an open arena, even when you claim
and may have all the advantages ofsoil and eli
mate on your side. You cannot except to the
tribunal 1t is fair and honest, and has the
deepest stake in right decision. Why, then,
fear its determination Is it that you doubt
your cause? Is there the rub?
1t is not for me to counsel northern repre-
sentatives as to their duty to their own consti-
tuents, still as q citizen of common country
claim the right to say TO them that have much
mistaken that tacc-to-iace manliness which l
believe characterizes the masses of the whole
American people, if they get credit at home,
| for the back-out from a fair field and gener-
| Gus rivalry, which | submit they will make if
| they oppose this measure. In all respect and
kindness | venture to suggest that they will
find it difficult to explain to their constituents,
who quietly tilling their lands and working at
their trades, really believe in the virtue and
strength and superiority of their own insttu-
tons, how they refused those institutions an
honest, manly and fraternal competition with
| those of the south. Aye, there will be wonder
how true men can decline, not challenge for
battle, but the knightly gage, which invites to
| noble lists, and impartial umpirage. And there
will be more than wonder should the powerful
and dominant north shrink from such lists be-
hind the shelter of 36o so, and prefer the resort
of congressional restriction to a brotherly
encounter where the Constitution is the law,
and under it, the people the judges. | trust
the committee will remember the Catholic spirit
in which try to speak, and that my northern
friends will find no fault when tell them that
if they defeat this bill, shall in that benign
| spirit which seeks "good out of evil congratu-
late the south that in the year 1854 we have at
least gained the emphatic confession that north
ern Institutions are ofthat tender sort for which
our hardy Constitution does not answer, and
which, to thrive, must have congressional pro-
| tection.'
Passing from this subject, and taking up
summary in its disposition, it will be attributed
to no want of courtesy to those who make it,
but to the thoroughness of my conviction about
it, i can only construe the clamor as to plight.
ed iaith-sacred compact-Sd id om1ae genus'
of appeal, which has so abounded here, as
coerced concession OF the strength Of the prin-
cipIe which the bill asserts, and a new proof Of
| the old adage, drowning men catch at straws."
Can two things be more opposite than what is
claimed for the Missouri restriction by its
friends, and its true character rs presented by
the historical records of the country? That
character has been so often and so clearly
shown, during the debate on this bill, that it
would be folly in me, limited as | am to brief
hour, TO do more than allude to it.
What shall select to say about it? Every
body knows that it was but an act OF Congress
repealablc in its very nature. The idea that
members of Congress, who alone established the
line Of 360 so, (for observe that not even Mis-
souri was consulted about it,) have a right to
make unconstitutional sacred compacts, is
novelty which there is little dangcrwill supplant
| the oldiashioned notion that we are merely
| lawmakers, bonnd to vote on each PROPOSE.
| ton as our consciences dictate, and with no
| shadow of authority to barter votes with each
other or to make treaties for our respective sec
tons. The States have done that for them
selves in an instrument called the Constitution,
| which we offer as the law for both north and
south in Nebraska and Kansas. .. .
Everybody knows that the law by which Mis-.
souri, came into the Union as n slaveholdiny
State, was not the same with that which drew
the line of :}Go 3U, and dared declare an insti-
tuition Of half the States political leprosy
| which should shut its possessUrs within bounds
and limits. The knowledge is noac eoually'pen.
cral that not even Missouri (thc rights Of whose
people were specially invaded) conceded on
her admission anything which in any way affects
| Nebraska and Kansas. True she was made
| to yield as the condition Of that admission with
! her slaves, privilege rs to free negroes, which
is now exercised by Indiana and Illinois, if not
other free States. That was all. Besides all
| these facts, there are many more which make
| it as strange that the south can be invoked to
regard go 30< as line of compact and oblica-
| ton. as it is that American statesmen should
object to govern territories by the Constitution,
and permit the people to pronounce their own
| republican institutions in their State consttu.
| tons "
| The journals with their stubborn array of
names and numbers testify that the $50 30<
restriction was after those varying tides and
shifting results, which we all know characterize
a legislative struggle in these halls, forced up.
on an unwilling south.
They tell, too, Of the northern vote. the very
next year, viz: in 1921 against the admission
Of Missouri, as also Of the vote given by the
same section in 1896, on the admission Of Ar
kansas. The history Of the annexation of
Texas is pregnant with instructions rs 10 tho
estimation in which many of those who wonld
now dress 36o 30/ in sort of legislative ca.
noncals, then held it. When we come down TO
the date of our acquisitions from Mexico
scarce a hands breath Of time behind us-do
we find our northern friends doing homage to
this now consecratcd latitude? have strange
ly misread history if any were then so poor
as to do it reverence among those who are
now its worshippers. The south then offered
it in spirit of cancellation and concord, and
it was repudiatcd by the north. A Douglas
and others were then willing to accept it as
settlement of vexed and dangerous question,
while many of its present friends gave to its
proposal an emphatic negative, as from the
record will fully and at large appear. Then
came the adjustment of 80, out of which the
south got nothing that | can perceive, save
the organization of a territory which extends
north Of $50 3O>, without the application to it