Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1856-08-07
Written for the Wheeling InteIlIgencer.
SECTIONAIISAI-

| Written Wheeling InteIlIgencer-
SECTIONALISNI.
Ma EDIToR:-Agreeable to promise will now
proceed to show, that according to your own
platform, slavery cannot go into any of the ter
ritories of the United States. am strictly
! C0nstitution0list and wish the country govern
ed in peace by the spirit and intention Of the
Constitution. wish no Infringement of the
Constitution, against Slavery, and viii admit
none in its favor. I stand upon the platform
laid down by yourself. and quoted in my first
article, and am willing to abide the issue of an
honest Interpretation of that platform. will
now state my positions as clearly rs language
will permit, with no other object than arriving
at truth.
/. The Territories are solely under the juris.
diction of the Constitution and Congress of the
United States. This is embraced in your plat
form, and need not be argued. No one would
pretend that any of the states have any right to
make or enforce laws upon Territory.
2. The Constitution confcrs OH Congress no
power to create slarsry, either in the Territories
or any where else.
8. The Constitution, if it recognises or tOler-
crates slavery at ali, does it only whereit exists
by municipal law under State Constitution.
4. Slavery being creature of municipal law,
cannot exist, consttutionally, in any of the ter
ritories of the United States.
8. a citizen of slave state, carrying his
slaves into any of the Territories of the United
States, for the purpose Of there ensIaving them,
BY virtue of that act sets his slaves free but the
citizens of all the states have an equal right to
90 into the territories of the United States, TAX
ling with them whatever property hey please
proriding their tile 10 their property does not
depend upon especiA municipal cnnetments.--
The Constitution and Legislature of a State co
not provide by especial acts that her citizens
may own, buy and sell horses, COWS, sheep, hogs,
&C., these having natural rights, and common
to all communities; but before her citizens can
own, buy and sell, even the negro as slave, the
Constitution and laws of the State must give
them permission and power This interprcta-
ton, you discover, does not as alledged by some,
seei, to exclude Southern men from the territo-
ries but only excludes that peculiar kind Of
property which they own by virtue of peculiar
state laws.
6. The citizens of State have perfect right
to "form their own government and regulate their
own institutions, just as the old States have
done heretofore"
Now, Mr.. Editor, are not these propositions
plain ones, and are they not true? have not
time in this article to argue or site authority in
their favor, but am ready, whenever they are
contradicted or called in question, to come for
ward with my lac and epiLeaco in their defence.
Admitting their sOundness, and your assertion
that the South does not ask that slavery be
LegisIatea into any territory" how, let me ask
you, can slavery ever enter any Of the terrific
ries, they must remain free, and slaves cannot
be held in free territory. After, however, the
territory becomes State, it passes from the
exclusive jurisdiction of the United States Gov
eminent, into the hands of sovereign people !;
her own citizens; and then being sovereign,
she has right to change, alter and amend her
constitution, and make such laws as becomes a
Republican or sovereign State, as long as she
does not contTavene the provisions of the Con-
stitution of the United States.
Ifslayery is prohibited from the Territories,
as believe it ought to be, and as it will be if
the Republican party succeed in getting control
Of the Government, there will be little danger
of any further difficulties. unless forced upon
the country by the Southern fire-eaters. You
NAV complain that this is unfair and unjust
but remember We are only asking now, is it
Constitutional?
Allow me, before closing this article, to say a
word in reply to your article of Monday. You
cannot see how the election of Buchanan will
give new impetus to the growth Of slavery,
because the platform on which he stands ''pro-
scribes sectionalism" Did not the platform on
which Mr. Pierce stood "proscribe sectional
ism" and did not he and his party pledge
themselves to the country that they would re-
sist the further agitation of the slavery question
in Congress, and out of it, and under whatever
shape the attempt might be made? And have
they not violated that pledge by opening up the
| question TO the iiercest agitation the country
ever experienced? Certainly, sir, if Buchanan
is elected President, his entire influence viii be
exerted in making Kansas slave State Ere
| mont will use his in making it a free Statc.-
Fillmore if elected, would likely sit on the fence
aud say to the two parties, eight it out, bows,
am President, and will see fair play" This
viii not do. Tho issue must be met sooner or
later, and the sooner the better, only let it be
done in 9 friendly and brotheFly name;
The foregoing, Mr. Editor, has been written
in graf haste, at intervals occurring in an ac-
tive business, and hope you will excuse its
want of artistic and literary finish. For the
present.
A