Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1854-04-16
ediice. If the struggle has been painful and
protracted, it has not been without important
aIleyiatinp circumstances.

dIcfldliuR CICuuolShCco.
It has, by the spread of more correct infor-
nation upon the subject of slavery, removed
from the popular mind of the north a weight Of
prejudice which had been artfnlly and zealously
awakened against it it has opened the eyes
Of thousands to the base hypocrisy which has
been seeking for years to make political capi-
tai from the honest and uniformed prejudices
of the masses of that section; it has satisfied
the most incredulous that there will always be
found, in every portion of our country, an
amount of courage and resistance sufficient to
protect itself from injustice, and to defeat every
effort at sectional domination and oppression.
It has developed everywhere the true and tried
friends of the Constitution and of the States;
and above all, sir, it has enlightened the public
mind, in most extraordinary degree, as.to the
true character and Just limitations ofour federal
system. These are some of the lights which
mingle with the shadows of this painful con-
troversy. And now, after a struggle longer in
duration than the celebrated religious wars Of
Europe, we find ourselves, in the progress Of the
politicle cycle, at the very point at which this
unwise and unwarrantablea agitation commenced;
and when the first original departure was made
in 1920 from the true principles of our constr
tutional compact-the labor Of thirty years Of
anxious and restless agitation lost to the aboli-
ZIONIST his schemes of misdirected philanthro-
py frustrated; his wand broken his opinions
derided; his occupation gone, and the country
in condition to look calmly and approvingly
upon the obliteration of the last remaining trO-
ply of the disastrous power and influence which
he once welded in the nation. The restriction
incorporated into the law admitting the State
of Missouri into the Union, and which inter-
dicted slavery forever north of the parallel OF
500 30/, was the first occasion in our constitu-
tional history when Congress assumed, by vir-
tue of any power claimed to exist in in itself,
to forbid the extension Of slavery into Terri
tory belonging to the United States. From the
4th Of March, 1889, down to the period Of that
restriction-upwards of thirty years-no such
power had ever been exercised or asserted by
Congress. Its policy in those earlier and bet
ter days of the republic was non-intervention.
| If an instance can be found to the contrary
should be pleased to be referred to it. 1t looked
upon slavery as an institution to be determined
alone by the people who were to be affected BY
| it; as something not within its constitutional
competency to interdict or establish and such,
assert was its uniform course of legislation
from the formation of the government down to
the act of the 9th of March, 1920. lido not
mean to review the circumstances under which
that extraordinary enactment was passed. They
have been SO often presented as to be familiar
to all who take an interest in the subject. 1t
is we'll known that whatever agency southern
votes had in contributing to that result, and
must admit that they had some, it was with
them but a choice of eyils-an alternative to
prevent deeper and more irreparable wrong
upon the rights of the States and the Constitu-
| ton of the country. / say it was the first oc-
casion upon which Congress assumed to exer-
else an act of original jurisdiction in CONTROL.
/ ing the expansion Of slavery within the terri.
Il ~ va I'D n
! limit beyond which the planter of the south
should not emigrate with property, recognised
as such by the federal Constitution
The ordnance Of 1887, so often referred to,
was the act of the Congress of the old Con.
] federation-ushered into being in the closing
scenes Of that expiring government and its
motives and purposes greatly misconceived and
| misunderstood. 1t has over and over again
| been declared, in the other branch of the legis-
lature, that the ordinance of 1887, recognised
as it was by the first Congress which assembled
under the present Constitution, is to be regard
ed as the annunciaton of fixed and settled
policy by the early founders Of our govern
ment to restrict the institution of slavery within
the limits of the States in which it was at that
time held. This is historically untrue !; for its
only recognition by the FIRST Congress is as q
compact existing prior to the adoption of the
Constitution, and as such not proper to be dis
turbed; and the idea is further falsi6ed by the
fact that the same Congress organized the
territory southwest Of the Ohio with provisions
expressly disclaiming any interference with the
| subject of slavery. The men Of that day were
practical statesmen, not theorists or fanatics;
they legislated with an eye to the actual COR
dition and circumstances of the country before
them; and they did not, with the rampant and
reckless zeal Of modern agitators, seek to
mould every institution in the country to the
standard of a false and fanatical conception tf
human rights Whatever may have been their
own personal and individual opinions on the
subject of slavery, land ! am free to confess
they did not look upon it with much favor)
saw that it was not fit and proper subject fer
federal legislation, but that it could alone te
left with safety to the local and State authori-
ties. 1t is very possible that the ordinance
of 1887 may have derived some of its support
| from the anti-slavery feeling then existing in
the country and which was alluded to by the
| eloquent gentleman from South Carolina, Mr..
Brooks !; yet we have the high authority Of
Mr.. Madison for the opinion, that it had its
origin mainly in desire to arrest the evils of
the foreign slave trade; and viewed in that
aspect, we may comprehend how it received
the support which it did from the slaveholding
States Of the south, and which has been so
often made the subject Of remarks here.
In an extract from letter from Mr. Madi-
son to Mr.. Monroe, dated February 10, 1920,
he says:
al have observed, as yet, in none Of the views
taken Of the ordinance of l7s7, nterdiciing slavery
northwest OF Ohio, allusion 10 the circumstance
that when it passed, the Congress had no author
r ity TO prohibit the Importation OF slaves from
: abroad; that all the States had, and some were
. in the full exercise OF, the right to import them
Z and, consequently, that there was mode in
: which Congress could check the evil, but the in
direct one Of narrowing the space open for the re-
cepon of slaves, Had a federal authority then
existed 10 prohibit directly and totally, the mpor.
taton from abroad can it be doubted that it would
have been exerted, and that a regulation having
merely the effect Of preventing the interior dispo-
silion of slaves actually in the United States, and
creating distinction among the States in the de-
, grees Of their sovereignty, would not have been
adopted, or perhaps thought OFF,
/ 1t is, therefore, according to the opinion Of
II Al