The weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1852-1858, 1856-01-26

faithfully executed.
Your Committe cannot see the justice o
permitting the people of Wisconsin, with
Representatives in both branches of Congress
to elect all their Executive and Judicial off.
GERS, while the people of Minnesota, without
voice in either branch of Congress, car
only have those officers through appointment
by the National Executive.
Your Committee, therefore, recommend
that the Congress of the United States be
memorialzed so as to amend the Organic
Act of this Territory, as to hereafter allow
the people thereof not only to make their
own laws, but also to elect their own officers
GEO. A. MCLEOD,
B. ": LOTT;
Committee.
AS specimen of acute lodging of the
question, the above must take high rank
among the productions of Rice literature
1t is only equalled by some of Rice's own
feats on the stump last fall. As SPECIMEN
of pettifogging, it is about equal to Flan-
dreau's report on the Howell and Tillotson
case, which leads us to think that that en-
thusiastic young limb of the law" must
have had hand in preparing it. AS a spec
linen of gross ignorance of the political his
tory of the country, in one respect at least,
it has no parallel in Minnesota or anywhere
else. The committee speak gravely of the
ordinance of 1887 having settled the ques-
ton of Slavery in Minnesota If the two
members who have signed this report are
hot laughed ut in the streets by every school
boy for this exposure of their unmitigated
ignorance, it will be strange to US.
We are reasonable in presuming that Mr..
Mcleod never saw the ordinance referred to.
But Mr.. Lott, who processes to be posted in
the history of his country, should have in
formed his colleague that the very district
which he Mcleod represents, and all that
portion of Minnesota lying west of the Mis-
sissippi river, belonged to France at the time
the ordinance was passed, and for sizteen gears
thereafter. Just think what Louis XVI would
have said, had he caught the Confederated
Congress of 1887 legislating for that portion
Of his empire now embraced within Mime
sofa, and abolishing Slavery therein-for
the peculiar institution" then really exist
ed here by law. Fie, gentlemen; you who
profess to be Jeffersonian Democrats, thus
to abuse old Tom. Jefferson--who really is
the author of the ordinance-by supposing
him guilty of such an absurdity as advising
legislation in the American Congress over a
portion of the Kingdom of France Minne-
sofa and her Legislature is disgraced by the
exposure of such consummate ignorance.
And this brings us to the real facts of the
case, as to the effect, in law, of the repeal of
the Missouri Compromise upon the Louisiana
portion of Minnesota. Negro Slavery exist
ed in Louisiana when that domain came into
the possession of the United States, and the
United States bound herself in the treaty to
guarantee the citizens of Louisiana in
their right to hold slaves. In short, slavery
was legalized institution upon the soil
whereon Mr.. Mcleod daily walks when he is
at home at Traverse des Sioux, and upon
which Mr.. Lott walks whenever he crosses
the Mississippi. 1t SO remained until 1920
when the Missouri Compromise was passed
by which the Slave power was inhibited
from bringing slaves north of a certain line
All of Minnesota is north of that line, and
of course became thereby free territory.
Now, the question rests here: Does the
repeal of the Missouri restriction restore the
Louisiana portion of Minnesota to that state
under which it existed prior to the passage
of that restriction, or does it not2 We con-
fess our inability to answer this point fully
although our convictions induce us to lean
strongly to the affirmative side. 1t is con-
tended, however, in the negative, that, Min
nesota having been organized while the re-
striction was in force, and organized under
an act which is silent upon the subject o.
Slavery, her citizens have settled here with
the distinct understanding that she is to be
forever free. They are thus protected from
Slavery by an implied compact with the Gen.
eral Government, which the courts would
be bound to respect if the question should
ever arise. But Southern legal gentlemen
argue in the opposite, and as it strikes us, the
more sensible direction. They hold that the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise restores
de tacto, all the Territories of the Louisiana
Purchase to their original position of legal
lied slave dominion. 1t cannot affect Iowa
she having become State before the repeal
but the organic act of Minnesota is mere
creature of Congress, and could not stand
in the way of the restoration of the old law
by any subsequent act of Congress, ever
were Slavery prohibited, in terms, by thai
organic act. Southern gentlemen of the high
est legal responsibility have informed us sine,
the repeal of the restriction, that they woult
not be afraid to bring slaves into Wester,
Minnesota, so far as any law could be fount
to stand in their way.
And yet this. puissant committee tell tn
people that the Legislature of Minnesotaha
nothing to do with the subject of Slavery
Mr.. Holland, from the minority of tn
committee, made the following report:
ResoIued, That the principles of the Kan
! sas-Nebraska act, giving the people OF thes
Territories the right to make their. own law