The Abbeville banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1847-1869, 1856-05-22
TERRITORIES, THEIR SOVEREIGNTY, &C.


For some time past, the Senate has been
discussing the Bill offered by Hon. S. A
DOUGLASS, providing for the admission o.
Kansas into the Union rs State, when
ever, by census taken, it shall bo asccr
tanned that she has sufficient number o
inhabitants to enttlc her to ono Rcprcscn
tative in Congress. Even if the principles o
this Bill cannot be applied generally to all
the new States which may hereafter apply fol
admission, and become preccdent-a fixed
rule-forever l,ushing the clamoring and
contention, incident to the admission o
new States, it is highly important that its
provisions should be extended to Kansas
The Kansas and Nebraska Bill is incom,
plete without it. This Bill, it is true, al.
lows the people Of the Territory to regulate
their domestic institutions as they may see
proper, and expressly declares that it is not
the purpose of Congress either to legislatc
slavery into or out of tho Territory. But
the Kansas Bill is deficient in not defining
the time when the people Of the Territory
shall exercise the right of sovereignty
There is no time fixed, at which the people
of a Territory may assume to act indcpend-
emily of Congrcss-to take on the func-
tions of a sovereign State. The powers of
squattcrs are not sufficiently defined; and
an insignificant number Of them, without
some rule upon this subject, might, by set
Ting upon small tracts of the public do
main, assume jurisdiction over millions of
acres, shape the destiny and mould the in
stitutions of the millions that are to come
after them.
The Bill now before the Senate, viewed
as an amendment of the Kansas Bill, makes
it complete. 1t fixes the time when the
Territory should apply for admission into
the Union, viz: when, by an actual census,
it has ninety-threc thousand inhabitants.
Had this provision been originally inscr-
ted in the Kansas Bill, we should have had
in that Territory no Topeka Convention, no
forged papers from REEDER, RopEnsox,
LANE & Co., praying admission as free
State; because if it had been law Of
Congress not to receive petitions from the
people Of the Territories, praying admission
until they had the requisite population, until
his fact was asccrtancd by census, the
mouths of these abolition demons would
be sealed. Sufficient light has been thrown
upon the oIious and sensclcss doctrines of
Territorial Sovereignty, by recent discus
sions and the very able report Of Mr.. DorG
LASS, Chairman Of the Committee on Ter
ritoiics, to satisfy any reasonable mind of
lllc justice Of the Bill.
There is nothing more absurd to our
mind than the idea Of popular, Territorial,
Squatter Sovereignty. Is it mot worse than
to say that Territory which re-
ceives its law, its judges, and nearly every
other functionary, by appointments from
Congress, is invested with the sovereign
powers Of State i! Where, you might say,
is this sovereignty lodgcd' We answer,
properly speaking, it is in the people of the
several States, but they have created Con-
gress their agent, and the government Of a
Territory, with other powers, have been en-
trusted to that body. But the powers of
Congress are limited by the Constitution,
and the Constitution forbids the exercise of
such a power as would destroy anything
recognized by the laws of South Carolina
or Vermont, as property. Hence, if Con-
gress should confer upon the people Of a
Territory the power to abolish or destroy
slavery, she would be granting power
which she did not possess herself. There
can be no such thing as sovereignty in n
Territory, during its territorial existence.
Every act passed by Territorial Lcgisla-
ture, is i'll pursuance of and in subordina-
ton to the laws OF Congress; and as the
laws of Congress are in subordination to
the Constitution, and rs tile Constitution
protects slavery, it follows that Congress
can neither pass or empower Territory to
pass law destroying or abolisling it,
But when the Territory becomes State
i'll the Union, she is then equal in power
with the other States; it is then she is in
vested with the power Of doing what she
ple"scs, passing any law pertaining to her
domestic policy, and making laws either to
regulate or prohibit slavery.
THE PREsDEHT PKRpLKxRD.