The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1856-12-10


Piles of the Federal Constitution, to tt
enjoyment of all the rights. advantage
and immunities of citizens oft the Unite
States, and in the meantime they sha
be maintained aud protected in the fre
enjoyment of their liberty, property an
the religion which they rrofessed.
That is to say, while it remains in
territorial condition its inhabitants ar
! maintained and protected in free, enjoy
meht of their liberty and property, wit
| right then to pass into the condition
of States on footing of perfect equali
ty with the original States. The enact
ment which established the restrictiv,
geographical line was. .acquiesed in, rath
er than opposed by, the States of thu
Union. 1t stood on the statute book
however, for number of years, and th,
people of the respective States acquiesc
ed in the re enactment of the principle
as applied to the State of Texas, anc
it was proposed to acquiescc in its fur
ther application to the territory acquir
ed by the Uuited States from Mexico
but this proposition was successfully re-
sisted by the Representatives of the
Northern States, who, regardless of the
statute line, insisted on applying restrie-
ton of the new territory generally
whether lying nor.h OF south of it
thereby repeating it as legislative com.
promise, and on the part of the North
persistently violating the compact, il
compact there was.
Thereupon, this enactment ceased to
have binding virtue in any sense, wheth-
er as respects the North or the South,
and SO iu effect it was treated on the
occasion of the admission of the State of
California, and the organization of the
Territories of New Mexico, Utah and
Washington. Such was the state of this
question when the time arrived for the
organization of the Territories of Kan
sas and Nebraska. In The progress of
the constitutional inquiry and reflection,
it had now at length come to be clearly
seen that Congress do, not po sess con-
stutional power to impose restrictions of
this character upon any present or fu-
ture State oftbe Union.
IN long series of discussions on the
fullest argument and after the most de-
liberate copsiaera tions, the Supreme
Court of tie United States has fully
determined this point in every form un
der which the question should arise,
whether as affecting public or private
rights or questions of the public domain
of religion, navigation, Or of servitude.
The several States of the Union are BY
force of the Constitution Co equal in do
mestic legislative power. Congress can
-.lsasea=>-le-s-ifs sl...s4ee.ie- -re+atie..-
the State of Maine, no more can 1t in
the State of Missouri.
Any statute which proposes to do this
is mere nullity; it takes away 40 right
it confers none; if it remains on 'he
statute book unrepealed, it remains there
only as a monument of error, and
beacon of warning to the legislator and
the statesman; to repeal will he only to
remove imperfection from the statutes
without affecting either in the canse of
permission or of prohibition the action
of the states or of their citizens. Still
when the nominal restriction of this ma
ture, already dead letter in law, was
repealed by the last Congress, III
clause of the Act organizing the Terri
tories of Kansas and Nebraska, that re-
peal was to make the occasion of wide
spread and dangerous agitation.
1t was alleged that the original enact
ment being a compact of perpetual moral
obligation, its repeal constituted al
odious breach of faith. An act of Con-
gress while it is uurepealed, more es-
pecially if it be constitutionally valid
in the judgement of those public fuuc-
tionaries, 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 enactment in ques-
tion was invested with perpetuity, and
entitled to the respect of solemn COM
pact? between whom was the compact?
no distinct conteudiDg power of the
government-no seperate sections of the
Uuirn treating as sach entered in the
treaty stipulation on the subject.
1t was mere abuse of an act of Con-
gress, and like any other controverted
matter of legislation received final shape
and was passed by compromise of con-
ficting opinions or sentiment of the
members of Congress; but if it had
moral authority over mems conciencies
to whom did this authority attach? Not
to those of the numbe who had repeat
edly refused to confirm it by extension,
and who had sedulously striven to es-
tablish other aud incompatible regula-
tions upon the subject, and if, as it ap-
pears, the supposed compact had no OBJ
ligatory force as to the North, of course
1T could not ha had any as to the South.
for all such compacts must be mutual
and of reciprocal obligation.
1t has not unfrequently happened that
law gives 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 conscience, the
judgment aud the will of those who may
succeed them, invested with similar re-
sponsibilities and clothed with equal
authority. More careful investigation
may prove the law unsound in principle
-Aexperience may show it to be imper-
feet in detail aud impractable in execu
tioD, and then both reason and right
combine not merely to justify but to re-
quire its repeal. 81
The Constitution, supreme as it Is
over all the departments of the Govern
ment, legislative, executive and judicial
is open to amendment by its very terms,
and Congress or the States may in their
discretion propose amendments to it so
long a solemn compact, though it is be-
tween the sovereign States of the Union;
in the present instance political enact
meut which had ceased to have legal
power or authority of any kind was re.