The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-12-04

its repeal constitutes an odious breach of
faith.
An act of Congress, while it remains unre-
pealed, more especially if it be constitutonaly
valid in the Judgment of those public function.
aries whose duty it is to pronounce on that
point, is undoubtedly binding on the conscience
Of each good citizen of the Republic. But in
what sense can it be asserted that the enact
ment in question was invested with perpetuity
and entitled to the respect of a solemn COM
pact? Between whom was the compact? No
distinct contending powers of the Government,
no separate sections of the Union, treating as
such, entered into treaty stipulations on the
subject. 1t was mere clause of an act of
Congress- and like any other controverted mat
ter of legislation, received its final shape, and
was passed by compromise of the conflict
ing opinions or sentiments of the members of
Congress. But if it had moral authority over
mems consciences, to whom did this authority
attach? Not to those of the North, who had
repeatedly refused to confirm it by extension,
and who had zealously striven to establish
subject. And if, as it thus appears, the sup
posed compact had no obligatory force as to
the North, of course it could not have any as to
the South, for all such compacts must be
mutual and of reciprocal obligation.
1t has not unfrequently happened that law
givers, with undue estimation of the value of
the law they give, or in the view of imparting
to it peculiar strength, make it perpetual in
terms; but they cannot thus bind the con.
science, the judgment, and the will of those
who may succeed them, invested with similar
responsibilities, and clothed with equal author
ity. More careful investigation may prove the
law to be unsound in principle. Experience
may show it to be imperfect in detail and
INN oftc ahl in nd thon
reason and right combine not merely to justify,
but to require its repeal.
/ The Constitution, supreme as it is over all
| the departments fthe Government, legislative,
executive, and judicial, is open to amendment
| by its very terms; and Congress or the States
may, in their discretion, propose amendment to
it, solemn compact though it in truth is between
| the sovereign States of the Union. In the
present instance, a political enactment, which
had ceased to have legal power or authority of
any kind, was repealed. The position assumed,
that Congress had no moral right to enact such
repeal, was strange enough, and singularly so
in view of the fact that the argument came
| from those who openly refused obedience to
existing laws of the land, having the same
popular designa ion and quality as compro-
mise acts-nay, more, who unequivocally dis
regarded and condemned the most positive and
obligatory niunctions of the Constitution itself,
| and sought, by every means within their reach,
| to deprive q portion of their fellow-citizens
| of the equal enjoyment of those rights and
privileges guaranteed alike to all by the funda-
mental compact of our Union.
| This argument against the repeal of the
statute line in question, was accompanied by
another of congenial character, and equally
| with the former destitute of foundation in rea.
| son and truth. 1t was imputed that the meas
| ure originated in the conception of extending
the limits of slave labor beyond those previous
| ly assigned to it, and that such was its natural
as we'll as intended effect; and these baseless
assumptions were made, in the Northern States,
the ground of unceasing assault upon constitu-
| tional right.
The repeal in terms of statute, which was
already obsolete and also null for unconstitu-
tionality, could have no influence to obstruct
or to promote the propagation of conflicting
views of political or social institution. When
the act organizing the Territories of Kansas
and Nebraska was passed, the inherent effect
upon that portion of the public domain thus
opened to legal settlement, was to admit set
tiers from all parts of the Union alike, each
with his convictions of public policy and private
interest," there to found in their discretion, sub
ject to such limitations as the Constitution and
acts of Congress might prescribe, new States,
| u6TeditcT w NC dUulltcu lntO the Union. III
was free field, open alike to all, whether the
statute line ofassumed restriction were repealed
or not. That repeal did not open to free com.
petition of the diverse opinions and domestic
institutions field, which, without such repeal,
would have been closed against them it found
that field of competition already opened, in
fact and in law. All the repeal did was to
relieve the statute book of an Objectionable
enactment, unconstitutional in effect and inju
rious in terms to large portion of the States
Is it the fact, that, in all the unsettled regions
of the United States, if emigration be left free
to act in this respect for itself, without legal
prohibitions on either side, slave labor will
spontaneously go everywhere in preference to
free labor? Is it the fact, that the peculiar
domestic institutions of the Southern States
possess relatively so much of vigor, that, where
soever an avenue is freely open to all the world,
they will penetrate, to the exclusion of those
of the Northern States? Is it the fact, that
the former enjoy, compared with the latter,
| such irresistibly superior vitality, independent
of climate, soil, and all other accidental circum-
stances, as to be able to produce the supposed
result in spite of the assumed moral and natu-
raj obstacles to its accomplishment, and of the
more numerous population of the Northern
| States?
The argument of those who advocate the
|
denim the repeal of old ones. in effect AYERS
that their particular views of government have
no selfextending or self sustaining power of
their own, and will 60 nowhere unless forced
by act of Congress. And if Congress do but
pause for moment in the policy of stern CO.
ercon (; If it venture to try the experiment of
leaving men to judge for themselves what in
stitutions will best suit them; if it be not
strained up to perpetual legislative exertion on
this point; if Congress proceed thus to act in
the very spirit of liberty, it is at once charged
with aiming to extend slave labor into all the
new Territories of the United States.
Of course, these imputations on the inten.
tons of Congress in this respect, conceived as
they were in prejudice, and disseminated in
passion, are utterly destitute of any justifca.
ton in the nature of things, and contrary to all
the fundamental doctrines and principles of
| civil liberty and sefgoverHment.
I While therefore, in general, the people of the
Z Northern States have never, at any time, AFRO
gated for the Federal Government the power to
interfere directly with the domestic condition OF
persons in the Southern States, but On the con-
trary have disavowed all such intentions, and
have shrunk from conspicuous utilization with
those few who pursue their fanatical objects
avowedly through the contemplated means OF
revolutionary change of the Government and
with acceptance of the necessary consequen.
ces-a civil and servile war-yet many citizens
have suffered themselves to be drawn into one
evanescent political issue of agitation after an.
other, appertaining to the same set of opinions
and which subsidized as rapidly as they arose
when it came to be seen, as it uniformly did,
that they were incompatible with the compacts
of the Constitution and the existence of the
Union. Thus, when the acts of some of the
States to nullify the existing extradition law