Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1856-04-09

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90 THE AllERlGAlf ia
IL necesssry IS ne rank and Hs of The A1psr
ican party consult together regard 90 the
1zA4goa1 adopted by the national council e its
called session, aud the candidates placed upon 4
the national convention.
b The 18th article of the platform Of june, 1850,
announced these four propositions as the deliberate
sense Of the American party
lst That the existing laws on the subject OF sia-
very ought to be abided by and maintained, as n
nal settlement ofthe whole NATTER in spirit and SUBJ
stance; and that there ought to be no further legs
lation by Congress on the subject
3D. That, whether it possesses the posoer or not,
Congress ought not to legsate on the subject OF sla
very in the Territories.
Sd. That it would be violation of the compact
between the United States and Maryland, and con-
trary good ith to abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia.
4th. That when new State presents herself for
admission into the Union she has right to come in
if her constitution is republican, and she has the re-
quiste population, whether that constitution recog-
nizes prohibits slavery.
1t was a very general feeling at the South that we
yielded something too much in "pretermitting an
expression of opinion as to the po0er of Congress
to eeisate in regard to slavery in the
In most of the Southern States the State councils
made platforms stronger on this point than the ma
tional one. None made them weaker. a..
But in framing that platform we were not making
one for the South alone, but that Northern con-
servative could safely stand on and it was right
that we should not ask them to declare one opinion
as to the power of Congress, while they entertained
another Numerically opposite, if they would agree
that Congress NOT to exercise the power even
if it has 1t.
The June platform does not declare that Congress
ought to do ANY affirmative act about slavery, but
only that 1t ought to do nothing.
No Southern American, once having planted his
feet upon that PLATFORM can step off from it to an
other without deserved risk of political ruin and
humiliation.
No Southern man ought to abandon, or can safely
abandon, any of the four propositions. If he does
the South ought to and will abandon him.
The national council meeting on the call of States
which had repudiated the June PLATFORM was assem-
bled in February for the purpose of repeating the
18th article. The Northern men took control of it
at the beginning, upon the wrong basis of represen.
tation, and kept that control.
The 18th article, with all the rest of the platform,
was struck out, and new one substituted.
That new platform declares that the people of a
territory have right to frame their own constitu-
ton and laws when ?? and regulate their own social
and domestic affairs; but the word stdrery is care
fully avoided; and it comedies them, not the right,
but the PRIVILEGE of admission into the Union when
they have the requisite population.
1t certainly gives up the three first propositions of
the 18th article and it soaters the fourth that it
amounts to little or nothing.
The LIST proposition was the chief one of the 18th
article. The South imperatively demands that the
agitation of the subject of slavery in Congress shall
cease and especially that it shall longer legslate
on that subject in the Territories.
The South demands, and has right to demand,
in every platform, democratic, wing or American,
specific language on the subject of slavery 1t does
nf nj tn hpt told hat
acted are to be obeycd until repealed decided
null by judicial authority. 1t does not want to be
told that new State shall have the priciece of ad-
mission 1t is tired Of antiquities, and sick of gen.
eralitics and, as the matter now stands, when q
recaims his slave at the risk of his life, and
at ten times the expense of the slave-when clergy
men preach scdition, and States pass PERSONAL---VERY.
ty acts-ambiguitics and generalities are q mere
transparent cheat and fraud on the South.
And such fraud is any platform that studiously
omits the wo,d Slavery. and uses roundabout phra-
ses crcumlocutious, to acod expressing plain ideas.
If the new platform is the same in substance the
old, why the change? If it is not, the South has
no use for it.
The new platform leaves the northern men who
stand upon perfectly free to agitate against the
fugitive slave law for the abolition of slavery in the
District for suppressng the trade in slaves between
different Statcs and for the restoration Of the Mis-
souri, Compromise; and it specially denounces the
repeal of that compromise by denouncing the Pres
ident for abetting it.
do not envy the Southern man who undertakes
to defend the new platform after once standing on
the old one.
l was member of the National Council both in
June and in February. In June desired at first to
exclude the question of slavery from the platform,
denouncing and not unless l could 6enounce, in
doing SO, the men of the party in Massachusetts,,
and elsewhere in the North, who had declared anti.
slavery to be part of the National American creed,
as having done without authority, and perver-
ted and prostituted the organization TO i'm proper
purposes.
Met by unanimous resolve on the part of the
Northern members to have declaration that tho
Missouri Compromise ought to be restored, aided
in establishing the 18th article. Once upon it, and
deelnng it cmincnty right in principle, it became
impossible for me to abandon it, consent to its
modification. When it was struck out, withdrew
from the Council, and destroyed my credentials as
delegate to the nominating Convention, in which
refused to take my seat
The American party South cannot stand on the
new platform. 1t must necessarily repudate it. On
it it would not carry single county anywhere.
1t is said that the men nominated platform
enough. That might be So if we had no platform !;
if they were on no platform; if we had never had
platform.
1t is said that the new platform is substantially
the same as the old one. Then how came it to be
offered by free soiler from Illinois, who declared,
after it adopted that he would vote for the ad
mission of no State permitting slavery? If this
suits him. it cannot suit me-
1t is not substantially the same 1t vas framed
in Washington, to get rid of the 18th article 1t
was offered and adopted for that purpose in Phila-