, 1854-08-26

capacity of the people for self government,
as also of the form thereof under which they
should exist. That party, from the foun-
dation of our constitutional history, has been
opposed by the democracy of the country
who believe that the federal government is
one of strictly limited powers, clearly de-
fined, and sufficient in themselves for the
welfare and safety Of the Union-who have
ever resisted an encroachment by the fed
eral government on the sovereignty of the
States-who are and ever have been op-
posed to latitudinous construction of the
Constitution, believing that it is better to
suffer at times seeming loss than to over
step the definite land marks that divides
constitutional rights from confusion-better
to keep within the pale of limited and de-
fined duty, than to eDter the wide, the
boundless, the illimitable field Of construc-
tive power.
Among the few steps that the federal
government has taken beyond this plain
line of policy, none has produced more ex-
citement-more fearful commotion than the
repeal Of the Missouri compromise that
single act by which the federal government
attempted to shape the political destiny of
future states-to give shape and form to
sovereignties yet in the womb of futurity.
Could the Congress of the United States
consistently do so? We think not.
The power Of the general government is
to admit or reject STATES into the federal
Union. No person who has his natural al
lOwance of common sense, is so blind as for
q moment to contend that Congress can
force slavery upon state asking admission
into the federal union, as the legitimate
terms of admission. The federal govern
ment cannot impose condition of admition,
except republican, eOnStitHhonal form
Of government on the part of state merg-
ing from its territorial embryo. If the
power cannot be exercised directly, can it
be done indirectly There is a law in
ethics where power cannet be properly OK
crcised 8TeOtiy to consummate given end j
it is forbidden to do so indirectly; that an
injury committed Indirectly is as henious an
offence in morals as he who does it in the
light Of day, before assembled thousands.
What then was this Missouri compromise
on the part Of the general government but
an attempt to impose conditions on future
state, indirectly, to be sure, but not the less
reprehensble for that?
The object and the end Of the law, was,
in its conception and practical workings,
to take the young, thrifty and vigorous ter
ritory, acquired by the blood and treasure
Of the ichOLe people-north, south, east and
west, and by nursing, doctoring and sweat
ing, reduce it down to less than sovereignty
on its admission into the Union as States.
To cut of limbs-to main and distort its
natural features, and then to take the
dwarfs-the mutilated abortions of state
sovereignties and place them beside the
large proportioned, symetrical outlines of
the old thirteen original states that formed
the confederacy. Such on object may be
consummated and the appellation of state
sovereignty appended to the admission Of
such states into the Union, but they could
not fail to acknowledge their own degreda-
ton and self-humiliation on taking their
seats alongside Of their towering and orig
inally untramelled companions.
The baneful influence of that compromise
line was simply an attempt on the part Of
the federal government to foist slavery per-
PctEdily on all that line south of it. Had
not that been the intention, the hardy sons
Of the New England states, of New York
and Pennsylvania, would have poured their
adventurous descendants of Holland and
our pilgrim fathers into the territory of
Arkansas in numbers sufficient to have con-
trolled the political tendencies Of the future
state for we have yet to learn that north
ern men are less inclined TO seek a residence
beneath a genial sun and fertile soil than
those Of more southern latitude but at
the adoption Of the compromise alluded to,
it was tacitly understood to be slave terri
tory by the operations of the restriction.
Hence, northern men would not go there !;
their hatred to the institution of slavery
was superior to their love of climnte-of
soil and productions. To them, the hyper
bOrian regions of the, north, with, their
granite hills, the sterile soil and icy glAziers