The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-10-02


slaves nor land, enlist to put down President
who will exert all his constitutional power to
give them homesteads in the new Territories
reserved for their settlement by the Compro-
mise-by treaty stipulations A Homestead
bill, giving, without price, to every actual SET
tier on the public domain homestead of one
hundred aud sixty acres of land, on condition
of occupancy and cultivation for period of
five years, is the measure looked to by Colo
mel Fremont, to provide for those whom the
Nulli6ers would make slaves. The measure
has been passed in the House of Representa-
tives, and defeated in the Senate, and was re-
newed again by leading Republican member
from Pennsylvania, at the last session. If
Fremont is elected, it will, have no doubt, be
carried into law. Will the laboring class in
our country, having no lands, join with Messrs.
Wise and Brooks in putting down the Govern
ment that tenders happy homes in the public
domain?
Are the whites in the South so in love with
an institution which impoverishes them, and
leaves them not an inch of soil they can call
their own, that they would make war upon a
President and Government which INVITES
them to rich region set apart for them and
their posterity, that they may escape from the
oppressive power which leaves them nothing
but life? If they should enlist under Messrs
Wise and Brooks to destroy the Union and es-
tablish Slavery in the Territories, what would
they gain by it? Would the slave-owners divide
their slaves and their lasds with them, after
they had shed their blood to extend slave sway
over the free Territories? Or is it certain if
| the shareholders were so benevolently inclined,
that they would be able to retain the slaves
| throughout the civil war, or acq uire the lands
for which they fought? Who can doubt but
| that the mass of free men of the South would
prefer acquiring happy homes in the rich West
| without fighting for them, and holding them
under the shield of the Union, than enter upon
the hopeless task of conquering them for the
| shareholders, by war on the Government of
the Union, supported by twenty-six millions of
freemen in the North, by their wealth and by
all the wealth of the world, which the credit OF
the National Government could commando
l ask what the people of Maryland would
| reply to call on them to destroy the Govern
ment, and put Messrs. Wise and Brooks in pos
session of its remains? Would the non-save-
holders give up, for themselves and their pos
terity, their share in the rich public domain,
which they may have without price, and with
| the blessings of the Union accompanying and
securing it to them, for the glory of fighting
battles for multiplying gentry? Will the slave
holders of Maryland be found willing to make
| their State lefeld-break up the seat OF
| Government at Washington-the commerce OF
Baltimore-and bring down the frontier of a
| foreign Government to the State boundary
that the slaves may have only an ideal line to
pass, to be secure in their liberty? Neither the
| slaveowners nor non shareholders of MARYLAND
| will join the ranks of those who would make a
spoil of their blood and treasure to satiate the
partisan thirst for vengeance, felt by such men
as Wise and Brooks, or their eagerness for
notoriety, power, or plumber.
Whoever peruses, with careful eye, the pas
sage quoted from Fremont's address to his
countrymen, will see where the interests OF
peace lie, and the guaranty for its security.
The great body of our people, who own no slaves,
will see IN its promises happy homes, without
war, and free from the intrusion of an institu.
ton which undermines them. They will choose
whether they and their posterity will enjoy the
Territories of the Union, or surrender them to
Slavery.
1t is pretended that the alternative thus held
out, and on which the votes of the majority Of
free white men are to decide, is a violation oil
the equality of States; and on this ground the
dissolution of the Union is threatened. 1t is
pretended that, if Slavery is not admitted into
the Territories, it is wrong done to the citi
zens of the South, who are precluded from
taking their property with them, while the citi
zens of the North are not so precluded. This
is not true. The citizens of the South, as well
as the North, may take their property with
them, but cannot take also the peculiar laws Of
their section, and which converts this property
into an institution, to make it available. The
local laws of New York authorize every citizen
to convert his capital, consisting of stocks or
money, into bank, and issue paper upon it,
and lend 1t ont at seven per cent. but no citi.
zen of New York can carry his bank, with the
privileges to use it, as given by the State laws,
lsto Kansas. A citizen of Virginia may carry
all the people over whom he has control into
Kansas, but he cannot use there the power over
them he holds only in the virtue of the Virginia
law. Slavery is local institution. 1t is more
than domestic institution-it is q voting
Institution, and monopolizing institution, alb.
sorbing sovereignty over both the State Gov
eminent and the soil. 1t can exist nowhere
without law. There is no law for it in the Ter
rltories, and no State can send its laws with it,
to establish it as such. Atchison, the instru-
ment of the Nullifers, was taught this by his
employers. They knew that they could neither
hold the Indians in Kansas, nor the poor whites,
ifthey mastered them there, nor the poor negroes
whom they had nurtured in slavery as slaves,
in the Territory. There was no law for it. They
would have been liberated at once, on an appeal
to the Supreme Court The slave-owners, there
fore, would not take this property into Territory
where the institution Of Slavery was not estab.
lished by law, and where majority of the set
| tlers-the legal voters-were against it. The
NulliGers did not then take it into Territory,
but employed the power of the institution in
an adjoining State to embody military force
| to invade the Territory, to drive the bona tide
voters from the polls, and establish Legisla,
ture representing people not in the Territory,
to make laws creating the institution of Slave
ry, which is to absorb the sovereignty of the
country for the few asserting the character of
masters. This usurpation was set up by Atch-
ison, by fraud and force. And it has provided
that no one can have the rights of q citizen in
Kansas, especially the right of suffrage, who
does not swear to support the laws of Slavery
proclaimed by this usurpation. President Pierce
has recognised this horrible outrage upon all
law as the established authority in Kansas. If
sustained, it will establish Slavery there by the
right OF conquest. Buchanan stands pledged
to sustain it, as the President has DONE and
the issue now before the country is, Shall Bu-
chanan be elected to confirm the conquest
which the President, who designates him as his
successor, gives the sword of the Union to en-
force? Can any man believe that peace will
be restored by putting in power man who
sanctions such violence?
Another pretence for dissolution of the Union,
urged by Mr. Brooks and his compatriots, is
the assumption that the Republican party is an
Abolition party. This is an audacious libel
The Republican party put out its manifesto at
its Inauguration at Pittsburgh. 1t abjures the
idea of intermeddling with Slavery where it
exists, or interfering with it in any State which
may hereafter establish it. 1t insists only on