Weekly Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1853-1861, 1855-07-05
Dough Faces at the South

1t is a very great mistake, in our opinion,
to suppose that Southern men regard the
fugitive slave law as a security TO their pro-
Perty; OF that they insist upon its observance
to save themselves from peeuniary loss. This
is delusion. They consider that law as a
sort of outside fortiicatiun to protect Southern
civilization. If its repeal would satisfy the
North and arrest a. further esscTOaehDleits,
they would consent to it to-morrow.-hldian-
Gpolis Sentinel
Southern men regard the fugitive slave
law as law intended to execute for their
benefit one Of the requirements Of the Ma
tional Constitution. The refusal to pass such
law would have been refusal to comply
with one Of the material requirements OF the
Constitution, and the refusal to execute it by
any Of the States is a refusal 10 comply with
the supreme law of the land, and IS viola
ton in fact of the spirit and compromises of
the Constitution. Although the people of the
South do not value the fugitive law as a
practical mode Of securing their slaves after
they have abscondsd, yet they cannot, nor
viii no., dispense with it, because it Is not
only a spractical Eeoognitiop Of their gights. sc
companied with definitely prescribed mode
Of procedure to enforce the reclamation OF
their slaves, but it also teaches to the free
States their duty to the slave States. The
people of the South could not surrender
that law and the principle it embodies with
out a virtual surrender of slavery ITSELF
Louisville Journal.
PRENTICE once wrote Life Of HENRY
Clay, with all the bombast but none of the
genius of WRTs Life of PATRICK HENRY.-
We have frequently thought that the sage Of
Ashland must have been very much ashamed
TO have his name paraded in that puerile pro-
duction: but il he was living now be would
not be merely ashamed his bold and honor
able spirit would be disguised at the mean
ness which could stoop to garbled extract
in order to make false impression.
The article from which the Journal makes
its quotation was thoroughly southern in its
waole tenor and spirit, and yet the idea is
conveyed, by the comments on it, that the
Democracy of Indiana, as represented by the
Sentinel, wers not sound on the Fugitive
Slave Law. Ii may suit the purposes of I
paper which is, and ever has been, traitor
to the South, which, like the Athenian con.
spirator of old, presents ths dagger to south.
en- institutions concealed in the nryrtl.
bough. to charge che unAinching Democracy
of Indiana with recreancy to the Constitution
and forgetfulness of their southern brsthrsn
But the charge rscoils on its maker. Tbs
dart which falls impotent at the feet of the
Northern Democracy, can be taken up by
them and hurled back, with unering aim
straight to the heart of the miserable dough
faces of the South.
The sympathies of the Journal, so far as j
darss to express them, are undoubtedly will
those men who would exclude the Soutl
from any further participation in the common
heritage. Its leading editor. coming from
New England with the ineradicable taint o
the abolition leprosy in him, has done al
that his sense of self-interest as an inhabitan
of the South would permit. to spread tn
poison among the people of Kentucky Tn
cold and hesitating manner in which he de
fsnds Southern rights ought to convinc
every one that he is not at heart friend c
the South or of the Union. The wor
dough face has often been misapplied
Northern Democrats, but its nghtful an
proper application is to the Louisville Jou'
nal The truth is, the Louisville Journal ha
from its position in a southern State, bee
compelled, in its ordinary utterances, to II
spect the rights and feelings of the Soutl
But ii is rotten at the core the spirit, II
asnssls of the paper is hostile to the South