The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1855-12-25

SILVER SPRING, Maryland
Oecemher 10. 1855.

SILVER SPRING, Maryland
December -, 1855.
| To Messrs. Daniel d. Gcodoe and Lewis Clephane
Corresponding Committee of the Republican Asso-
ciaton of Washington City, ID. c.;
GENTLEMEN: Having relnquished political
employment, and, to avoid encountering a.
gain its anxieties addicted myself to country
life, l am constrained to decline your invita-
ton to join the Republican Association of
Washington city, although tempted by the
honor of becoming its presiding officer. Yet
concur in the arms of the Association. To
exclude slavery from the territories of the u.
S., and to rebuke the violation of the COM
promises which were made to stand as cove
nants between the Slave and Free States, to
effect that exclusion, are, in my opinion, the
most important movements which have cngag-
cd the public mind since the revolution.
The extension ofslavery over the new ter
ritorics 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
discord, which has so often threatened the
dissolution of the Union, increases the dang
er. Every surrender to the Free States in
vites invasion.
The cause which your organization is in
tended to promote may well draw to its sup
port men of all parties. Differences on ques-
tions of policy,o constitutional construction, of
modes Of administration, may well be merged
to unite men who believe that nothing but
concert 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 nullity of the clause in the
constitution which gives Congress the power
''to make regulations respecting the territories"
was meant to give it the power to exclude
slavery from them.
Mr.. Jefferson's resolutions Of 1884, dcclar-
ing shat there shall be neither slapery nor IN
voluntary servitudc.in any fMe states" laid
off in the Western territory, was subsequent
ly renewed in the Congress of 1885, which
added, "hat this regulation shall be an arti-
Gle of compact" and it was so voted unani-
mously by the delegations of eight states out
of twelve
1t was passed bv the unanimous votes of all
the states by the Congress of 1877, which say
contemporancously with the convention form
ing the constitution, and that constitution
gave Congress the power "to make regula-
tions respecting the territories" and more-o ov-
CIR affirmed the validity of ''thc engagements
entered into before the adoption Of the con-
stitution," by the coniedcration-one of which
engagements was that madeby the regulation
excluding slavery from the territories. Thus
the Congress of the confederation and the
constitution united in giving double sane
tion to the exclusion.
The first cxertcd the power of enacting Mr..
Jcfferson's interdict of slavery in the terrific
rics then held by the United States, to which
it has previously given an impressive sanction
by adding, "his regulation shall be an article
of compact" &C. and the convention glaran-
tccd this engagement" entered into under
the confederation, by declaring it ''yalidD and
employed tho same terms, "regulotion of the
territories" TO transmit the power here cxcr-
ted to furturc Congresses. In the face of
this history, and the letter of the constitution
granting the power to make whatever rcgu-
lations it deemed fit respecting the territories
of the United States, tho authors Of the Kan
sas and the Nebraska bill deny the constitu-
tionality of all the regulations which exclude.
slavery from their territories, and set at
naught all tho pr,cedcnts that confirm them,
which haye followed in uninterrupted success
sion, from the foundation Of the government.
The other clause in thc constitution, en-
powering Congress to pass laws TO prevent the
emigration or importation" of slaves after
1908, shows the fixed purpose of the found
ers of our Union to limit the increase of this
evil. The consequence was an inhibition,
which prevents South Carolina planter who
has slaves in Cuba from bringing them to his
home plantations and to remove this obstruc-
ton to the increase of slavery within the I'm
ion, and open Africa TO supply the demand
made by the new act, the Northern nuifers
are already called on by their Southern allies
to lend their aid; and certainly those who
embrace Mr.. Calhoun's doctrine, as stated by
Mr.. Douglas, that "cvery citizen has an ina
licnable right to move into any of the terrific
rics with his property, of whatever kind or
description" the constitution and compromis-
cs Notwithstanding, can hardly refuse. 1t
was On the annexation Of the Mexican terrific
ries that Mr. Calhoun asserted this principle,
to unsettle the fixed policy of the nation, be-
n ginning with the era of the Declaration of In
dependence; and he applied it alike to the
compromises Of 1920 and 1850. Mr.. Doug
las thus sums up the position taken, and the
result:
"Under this section, as az the case Of the
Mericon lao IN Ncw Merico and Utah, it
is disputed point whether slavery is prohib-
tied in the Nebraska country by valid enact
ment The decision of this question involves
the constitutional power Of Congress to pass
laws prescribing and regulating the domestic
institutions ofthe various territories of the I'm
ion. In the opinion. Of these eminent states
mon who hold chat Congress is invested with
no rightful authority to lcgislatc upon the
subject Of slavery in the territories the eighth
section ofthc act preparatory to the admission
Of Missouri, is null and void, while the pre-
vai!ing 'ntimcnt in a largo portion of the
Union sustains tho doctrine that the constitu-
tion Of tho United States secures to every cit
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