Nashville daily patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1855-1857, 1856-07-30

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that the Kansas Legislation has declared
that the people of territory are as free
andHnrestricted ID their right to frame their
domestic institutions, as are the people Of
a free and Independent government to
frame their system of laws. He erects the
territorial government into free and indie
pendent condition, which is contrary to the
constitution, which holds the territories Of
the United States, as wards, dependencies
or provinces under the control of Congress
and the President. The constitution gives
to the Chief Executive the appointment of
the executive and judicial officers of terri
tories, and if we mistake not, either to
the President or Congress, a veto power.
upon the acts of the territorial legislature,
and to Congress the power ''to make all
needful rules and regulations" for the gov
eminent of the territory. The Constitution
recognizes no principle which permits the
the people Of territory or the territorial
authorities to act as free and independent
people 1t holds them, if the term be not
unrepublican as subjects; it speaks of them
as t'inha6itaats," it no where recognizes
them as a people with political rights.
1t is this fundamental principle, that the
inhabitants of territory are not people,
which invaldates all the pretensions of the
advocates of Squatter Sovereignty. Set
tiers or squatters upon the territories have
none Of the attributes of people clothed
with sovereign political rights. But Mr..
Buchanan says they have, aud that the
Kansas legislature gave to what he calls
the people" but who are in correct Ian
guage only the inhabitants of the territory
of Kansas, sovereignty over the formation
of their domestic institutions, and as a mat
ter of course, the right to exclude slavery
and shareholders. This is clearly Squatter
Sovereignty.
L But let us proceed. Mr.. Buchanan was
determined to leave no room to doubt his
position. After contending that the ,prin-
ciple upon which the Kansas squatters
could prohibit slavery was the same as that
upon which free people could frame their
institutions, doctrine which we have shown
is utterly repugnant to the constitution, he
contrasts this right which he claims for the
squatters, with the admitted right which a
sovereign State possesses over the question
of its domestic institutions. He says ''the
people Of a territory, LIKE THOSE OF STATE,
shall decide for themselves" &c. He uses
the term people of territory" unqualified
ly. He does not speak of the people of a
territory when they assemble in the capaci-
ty of trainers of State constitution, but
he pointedly and significantly contrasts the
right which he claims for the people of a
territory, as the people of a territory, with
that which admittedly belongs to "those of
State" In other words he arrays terri
torial rights, or Squatter Sovereignty, by
the side of, and claims equal authority for
it, with State Sovereignty. There is no
sentence or word in his letter of acceptance
to show that he would restrict this right OF
the people of territory" to the time
when they come to form State CouSti-
tuition. Had he omitted those fatal words
"like those of State" his defenders might
have with some plausibility contended that
such was his meaning. But he did not
intend ambiguity. That Interpretation of
the Kansas legislation was intended for
a region in which among democrats it is,
with all its odiousness, the accepted doc
trine
The true doctrine is, that the people of a
territory, when by census taken under au-
thority and by act of Congress they have
sufficient population to entitIe them to a
representative in Congress, have the right
to assemble and adopt for themselves a con-
stitution, republican in its character, and in
that constitution, or organic law of what is
to become sovereign member of this con-
federacy of States, they have the right to
frame their domestic institutions, and to de-
eide the question of slavery or no slavery.
This is State sovereignty, and is in direct
antagonism to Squatter sovereignty, which
holds with Mr.. Buchanan that the people
of a territory through their territorial leg
islature, have this right equally with the
people Of State. Buchanan's doctrine is
that of the entire Northern democracy. 1t
is that Of Cass, Douglas, Shields, Toucey,
Stuart, Richardson & Co., which the Union
and american has admitted, and further
more, it is that which the same paper has
denounced as we now do, as incompatible
NTH The Constitution" and "odious and unjust
10 The South"
We shall have something to say to the
charge of our changing position on the
Kansas bill W.
B6r The Union and american denies
the correctness of paragraph from the
Louisville Journal republished by us last
Monday, touching the number of States
in which the democracy have electoral
tickets. Whether the Journal was correct
or incorrect we did not know. We had
no means of testing its accuracy. But, as