The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1856-12-04

Spects the North or the South, and so in eff
feet it was treated on the occasion of the adj
mission Of the State Of California, and the or
ganization 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 Kansas and Nebraska. In the
progress of constitutional inquiry and refec
ton, it had now at length come to be seen
clearly that Congress does not possess consti-
tutional power to impose restrictions Of this
character upon any present or future State of
the Union. In a long series of decisions, on the
fullest argument and after the must deliberate
consideration, the Supreme Court of the Uni
ted States had finally determined this point,
in every form under which the question could
arise, whether as affecting public or private
rights-in questions of the public domain, Of
religion, Of navigation and Of servtude.
The several States Of the Union are, by
force Of the Constitution, co-equal in domes-
tic legislative power. Congress cannot change
law of domestic relation in the State of
Maine; no more can it in the State of Mis-
souri,. Any statute which proposes to do this
is a mere nullity; it takes away no right, it
confers none. If it remains on the statute
book unrepealed, it remains there only as a
monument of error, and beacon of warning
to the legislator and the statesman. To re-
peal it will be only to remove imperection
from the statutes, without affecting, either in
the sense Of permission or of prohibition, the
action Of the States or of their citizens
/ Still, when the nominal restriction of this
nature, already dead letter in law, was in
terms repealed by the last Congress, in a
clause of the act organizing the Territories
! of Kansas and Nebraska, that repeal was
l. 81 - i I i
gerous agitation.
1t was alleged that the original enactment
| being compact of perpetual moral obligation,
its repeal constituted an odious breach of
j faith.
| An act of Congress. while it remains unre-
pealed more especially if it be constitutional
ly valued in tn. judgement of those functional
ries whose duty it is to pronounce on that
point, is undoubtedly binding on the con-
science of each good citizen of the Republic
But in what sense can it be asserted that the
enactment in question was invested with per-
petulty and entitled to the respect OF a SOL
emn compact? Between whom was the COM
pact? No distinct contending powers Of the
government, no separate sections of the Union,
treating as such, entered into treaty stipula-
tons on the subject. 1t was a mere clause of
an act of Congress- and like any ether contro-
verted matter Of legislation, received its final
shape and was passed by compromise OF the
conflicting opinion or sentiments of the mem
bers Of Congress. But ii it had moral author
lily 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 strven to
establish other and incompatible regulations
upon the subject And if, as it thus appears,
I tba haH oh TOW
as to to the North, Of course it could not have
had 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 oil
the law they give, or in the view of importing
to it peculiar strength, make it perpetual in
terms; but they cannot thus bind the consci-
encc, the judgment, and the will Of those who
may succeed them, invested with similar re-
sponsibiIities, and clothed with equal author
ity. More careful investigation may prove
the law to be unsound in principle. Expert
ence may show it to be imperfect in detail and
impractcabIe in execution. And then both
reason and right combine not merely to iusti-
fy, but to require its repeal.
4 The Constitution, supreme as it is over all
+ the departments of the government, legsla-
tive, executive, and judicial, is open to amend
ment by its very terms; and Congress or the
States may, in their discretion, propose
amendment to it, solemn compact though il
in truth is between the sovereign States of the
Union. In the present instance political en-
actment, which had ceased to have legal pow
err or authority Of an kind was repealed
The position assume, that Congress had nc
moral right to enact such repeal, was strange
enough, and singulaIly so in view of the fact
that the argument came from those who open
ly refused obedience to existing laws of the
land, having the same popular designation
E and quality as compromise acts--nay, more
r who unequivocally disregarded and condemn
ed the most positive and obligatory lniunc-
tons Of the Constitution ITSELF and sought, by
every means within their reach, to deprive q
portion of their fellow-citzens of the equa
enjoyment Of those rights and privileges
guaranteed to all by the fundamental compac
Of our Union.
This argument against the repeal of thu
statute line in question, was accompanied by
+ another of congcnial character, and equally
. with the former destitute OF foundation il
reason and truth 1t was imputed that the
measure originated in the conception of ex
tending the limits of slave labor beyond those
previously assigned to it, and that such was
its natural as well as intended effect; anC
: these baseless assumptions were made, in the
+ northern States the ground of unceasing as
. saults upon constitutional right.
/ The repeal in terms of a statute, which was
already obsolete, and also null for unconstitu
tionality, could have no influence to obstruct
OF to promote the propagation of confictin:
+ views of political or social institution. Whe1
= the act organizing the Territories of Kansas
2 and Nebraska was passed, the inherent effec
, upon that portion of the public domain thu.
opened to legal settlement, was to admit set