Weekly Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1853-1861, 1856-09-18
For the Indiana State Sentinel. l
Tha True Issue.

was wrong to beat SUMNER, or whether the
ouhages in Kansas have been committed by
Aboltionists or Democrats. The great party
which bears aloft, full high-advanced, the
banner of the Constitution and the Union, of
truth and virtue, of popular sovereignty and
respect for law will not stultify itself by con-
descending to debate such false and trivial IS
sues.
The great question submitted to the Amer
lean people in the coming election is this
shall the co equal sovereignty of the States,
and the compromises Of the Constitution be
maintained, or shall this beautiful fabric of
the Federal Union, the admiration and envy
Of all nations, reared by the wisdom of our
fathers and preserved up to this time by the
mutual love and forbearance of their chill
dren, be changed in its essential features and
finally leveled with the dust by the torch OF
the incendiary in the hand of the fanaticG
The attempt of the Abolition party to aftix
conditions aud stipulstions on the admission
of new States, is one which, if 1t could be
CdIIleu OuJt NOuil ANNUAUtiOhihN Wv
character of our government. The perfect
equality of aN the States, new as we'll as old
in political rights and privileges is truth
which should be emblazoued IN letters oil
living light on every American heart; and yet
this great cardinal principle, it is proposed to
blot from existence. The question OF slavery
or no slavery in Kansas is altogether subordi-
Dste, the mere form, the external gulse, the
accidental circumstance by which this great
issue is to be brought to trial. Shall this
Union continue to be, it has heretofore been,
a confederation of independent communities,
each possessing all the powers Of the others
"a band of loving sisteTs-or shall 1t be
conglomerstion of unequal yoke-fellows, some
sisters aud some slaves?
By attaching conditions to the admissions OF
State, you fix on her badge of colonial
servitude; she is in no proper sense OF the
word, State; she is not State as the word
is used in the Federal Constitution. She is
a dependency under the tutelage OF Congress,
and stands branded by the very terms oil her
admission as poor, imbecile creature, who
needed guardian to dictate her course OF
action. Shall we change in this most impor-
tant particular the fundamental plan of our
government? Undoubtedly the Black Re-
publicans mean what they say, when they
declare that another slave State shall never
exist in the Union; and be it remembered
that at least thirty new States must come
into the Union, and although the high hest ju-
dicial authority has decided that restrictions
which cannot be imposed on State after Its
admission cannot be imposed at the time Of
It's admission, these men, in their insane fanat-
icism would abolish that reasonable rule Of
construction. If they controlled the action
of our government, and the State OF Indiana
the sovereign State Of Indiana, clothed IN the
pleritude of her peoples majesty, should
choose to establish the, institution of slavery,
her Senators and Representatives would be
refused an entrance into the halls OF Congress,
or the Federal Judges would liberate every
black who might be brought into the State
These men contend that Indiana is still tram
elled BY the ordinance of1787 and by the
act of Congress of April 18th, 1876, which
made certain of its provisions, irrevocable.
1t is we'll that such doctrines are repudiated
by our courts law and by our people but
this party is moving heaven and earth-no,
not heaven. hell and earth-to bring about a
change of public sentiment and if they sue
coed, long farewell to sense and moderation.
Hence, the infinite importance Of insisting on
the co-equal sovereignty of all the States, as
one of the peculiar and essential features OF
government. A question more momentons
has never been presented since the time that
the different States Of the old confederacy
assembled in their respective conventions to
decide on the adoption OF the Federal Con-
stitution. 1t devolved on them to deter
MINE whether the little republics of the
Western World should form that compact
and league Of mutual amity which, under
kind Providence, has done so much for the
happiness and dignity OF man, or whether
they should continue in the broken and frag
mentary condition in which they were left by
the revolutionary war.
They decided to stand or fall together, and
to this hour they haze stood together, monu-
ments of the greatness of free institutions and
of the value of the Federal Union. But the
doctrine which gives that Union its Utmost
life, the o-equal sovereignty of ali the States,
is imperied in the present contest; and no
language is too strong to express the import
ance Of maintaining it in all It's amaranthlne
freshness as the most glorious contribution of
the Western hemisphere to the science of
government. IfCongrcss can refuse TO admit
a State because she tolerates slavery, they
may do it because she permits capital punish.
ment or prohibits paper money. In fact there
will be no limit to the absolute Czarism of the
General Government. 1t is against this GEN.
tralization of power that the Democratic party
is now and ever has been fighting.
But the leaders Of the opposition, without
- Al. It. ~ x,rhf oh
would degrade every new State by subject
ing it to the whims Of a partisan Congress,
have, for the moment, thrown it into the back
ground. Perceiving that the doctrine of
popular sovereignty, when properly under
stood, must meet the appreciation of the
American people, they have invented a
counterfeit Of il in the shape of their sham
Topeka Conventions and Constitutions-they
have stolen the livery of Heaven to serve
the Devil in. But we can easily strip them
of their disguise. Popular sovereignty does
not mean mobocracy it means law and or
der, and its voice is the harmony Of the
world. 1t is virtuous, reasonable and disin-
terested, the child Of truth, aud it, in the
opinions of such men as Lane and Reeder,
finds no likeness to itself. The advocates of
despotiEm have now become the promoters of
anarchy; in fact, they are the abetters at one
and the same time, Of both these direful ex-
tremes-it bit ominiOus conjunction. In
Congress and in the resolutions Of their Con-
ventions they demand that the General Gov
eminent should exercise an arbitrary power
over the free will of the people, and at the
same moment they would inaugurate the
rule Of a few misguided men, mere frag-
ment of the people, irregularly and illegally
brought together, and acting in plain viola
ton Of the laws and Constitution of their
They would have this fragment
dictate to the majority, and that too in the
formation of the fundamental law of the
future State. But the well-balanced intel
lect cannot be withdrawn from its respect for
law and order and the constituted suthori-
ties of Inc land by these reckless and un
happy attempts.
And why this agitation? There is neither
philanthropy nor justice in their motives and
purposes. They will not liberate a single
slave, nor will they ameliorate the condition
Of one. Why then this false and hollow APP
peal to the sympathies of our nature? Ii is