Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1855-12-29

SILVER SPRINGS, Maryland, }
December II, 1856. (

10 4ueSSTS. DQn1d f. TO0dL0e ana Le1rlS Gle
| phaen. Corresponding COMMITTEE of the Re
publican Association Of Washington d. Co.:
GESrLEMEs Having relinquished political
employment, and, TO avoid entering again into
IFS anxeties, addicted myself to country life,
am constrained to decline your invitation to
join the Republican Association of Washing
ton city, although tempted by the honor of
becoming its presiding officer Yet I feel it
my duty to say, that in the main concur in
the aims of the Association. To exclude sla-
very from the territories of the United States,
and to rebukc the violation of the compromises
which were made to stand as covenants between
the slave and free states to effect that exclusion
are, i'm my opinion, the most important move
ments which have engaged the public mind
since the revolution.
The extension Of slavery over the new ter
ritories would prove fatal to their prosperity :;
but the greatest calamity to be apprehended
from it is the destruction of the Confederacy
on which the welfare of the whole country re-
poses. Every conquest of this element of dis
cord, which has so often threatened the disso-
luton of the Union, increases the danger
Every surrender of the free states invites inva-
sion.
The cause which your organization is intend
ed to promote may well draw to its support
men of all parties. Differences on questions
of policy on constitutional construction, of
modes of administration, may we'll be merged
to unite men who believe that nothing but con-
cert of action on the part of those who would
arrest the spread of slavery, can resist the
power of the combination now embodied to
make it embrace the continent from ocean to
ocean.
The repeating clause of the Kansas bill is
predicated on the nulty of the clause in the
constitution which gives Congress the power
''to make regulations respecting the territories"
of the United States. Yet nothing is clearer
in the history of our government, than that
this phrase, giving power to Congress "to
make regulations respecting the territories"
was meant to give it the power to exclude
slavery from them.
Mr.. Jeffersons resolutions of 1884 declar-
ing that there shall be neather slarery nor IN
rotuntary serrttude IN any Of the states" laid off
In the Western territory, was subsequently re-
newed in the Congress of 1885, which added,
"Ahat this regulation shall be an article of COM
pact" and it was so voted unanimously by the
delegations of eight states out of twelve"
1t was passed by the unanimous votes of all
the states by the Congress of 1884, which sat
contemporaneously with the convention FORM
ing the constitution, and that constitution
gave Congress the power Ito make regulations
respecting the territories" and moreover af-
irmed the validity Of ''the engagements enter
ed into before the constitution" by the con-
! federation-one of which engagements was
that made by the regulation excluding slavery
/ from the territories. Thus the Congress of
the confederation and the constitution united
in giving double sanction to the exclusion.
! The first eXerted the power of enacting Mr.
Jefferson's nterdict of slavery in the terrific
ries then Acld by the United States, to which
it has previously given an impressive sanction
by adding "ths regulation shall be an article
of compact" &c. and the convention guaran-
teed this engagement" entered into by the
Confederation, by declaring it valid" and
employed the same terms ''regalation of the
territories" to transmit the power here exert
ed to future Congresses. In the face of this
history, and the letter of the Constitution
granting the power to make whatever regua-
tons it deemed fit respecting the territories of
the United States, the authors of the Kansas
and Nebraska bill deny the constitutionality
of oil the regulations which exclude slavery
from the territories, and set at naught all the
precedents that confirm them, which have
followed in uninterrupted succession, from the
foundation of the government
That other clause in the constitution, en-
powering Congress to pass laws to prevent the
migration or importation" of slaves after
| 1908, shows the fixed purpose of the founders
of our Union to limit the increase of this evil.
The consequence is an inhibition which pre-
vents South Carolina planter who has slaves
in Cuba, from bringing them to mis- home plan
tation and to remove the obstruction of the
| increase of slavery within the Union, and open
Africa to supply the demand made by the new
act, the Northern nullifers are already called
on by their Southern allies to lend their aid
and certainly those who embrace Mr. Calhouns
doctrine, as stated by Mr.. Douglas that every
citizen has an inalienable right 20 move into
any of the territories with his property of
whatever kind or description" the constitution
and the compromises to the contrary notwith-
standing, can hardly refuse it, 1t was on the
| annexation of the Mexican territories that
Mr. Calhoun asserted this principle, to unset
tie the fixed policy of the nation, beginning with
the era of the Declaration of Independence
he applied it alike to the compromises of 1920
and 1850. MIR. Douglas thus sums up the
position taken, and the result
| Under this section, as ia the cosc ofhf Mari
can Lae in NeU Merioo and Utah, it is a dis-
puted point whether slavery is prohibited in
the Nebraska country by valid enactment. -
The decision of this question involves the con-
stitutional right of Congress to pass laws pro-
scribing and regulating the domestic institu-
tions of the various territories of the Union
In the opinion of those eminent statesmen who
hold that Congress is invested with no right
full authority to lcgislate upon the subject of
slavery in the territories the eighth section of
the act preparatory to the admission of Mis-
souri, is null aud void while the prevailing SEN
timent in q large portion Of the Union sustains