Republican vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1857, 1857-02-07
sGgal:cr Sovereignty,

A&HE1tt@E AlSPER s&S 0s
We surrender cur editorial space to make
room fog the following able article fgom the
Richmond Examiner, upon subject which
has given rise to much comment, ana about
which there is much diversity of opinion.
4 great deal Of Misrepresentation prevails
among the masses and among the politicians
on the subject Of a'4S4uatter Sovereignty"
Editors, especially, have written great
deal Of nonsense, and let off vast quantity
Of gas and pathos on the eombastibly topic.
Few have taken the pains to examine the
origin and paternity of the doctrine, or to
probe, one eighth of an inch, through the
crust into the merits Of the subject
The supreme authority in the territories
where is it and whence does it originally
proceed Are the primary questions that
involve al the rest. There can be but one
Of two answers to these questions: the SUI
prome authority in a territory originates in
and flows from the Constitution-and Con-
greas--its agent; or it commences with and
continues permanently in the residents Of
the territory.
Those who entertain the latter view of the
origin of authority in the territories, derive
it from set Of very vicious notions about
personal freedom and personal sovereignty,
which are very prevalent among Northern
and European politicians. There are very
sound, philosophic and just doctrines con-
corning popular sovereignty, and also very
unsound, absurd end inoandiary doctrines.
The sovereignty which belongs to the peo-
PIE Of sn entire community or nationality in
the aggregate, has two opposite extremes,
which are equally in conflict With this con-
sentative idea Of popular sovereignty. On
one hand II is maintained taat because ma
ton possesses the attribute of sovereignty in
the aggregate, usage may, for convenience
sake, have concentrated all the sovereign
functions in single individual of specific
lineage, as king, monarch, Or the like. On
the ether extreme it ia eontended that, be-
cause the people are sovereign in the aggre-
gate, each particular individual member Of
the nationality is individually and seyerally
sovereign in bis own person and right as az
integef man and not as a member Of the
community. Each Of these extreme dogmas
il alike hostile TO the true idea, viz: that
severe ignty is an attribute of the nation and
not Of the individual and that each individ-
ual person IS an integral participant of that
sovereignty Only as member Of the nation
clity,-having no right on the one hand to
uspEp the entire sovereignty to himself, nor,
on the other, to seize to himself his integral
microscopic fraction of sovereignty and
march off with it but, in the latter case,
by his expatriation, loses his integral indl-
yidual Share Of sovereignty, and becomes
yagabond, an adyenturer a pirate, or coll
onist, as the case may be, until he joins
himself to some new nationality with its con-
sent.
The radical, red republican, squatter soye-
reignty idea, very prevalent at the North
and among libertine politicians elsewhere in
the world, is very different from the one
last stated. It is, that, as the people of each
nationality are sovereign, the individual
members of the nationality are each abso-
lutte sovereigns in their own persons in all
things affecting mere individuality, and may
remain in the nationality in which they are
born in full absolute possession of this indi-
yidual sovereignty, or may expatriate them
selves from it, carrying along with them in
absolute indefeasible right this inherent
sovereignty wherever they go. The corol-
larry Of this doctrine is, that if no more than
one single man go ont from State into I'M
occupied domain, he carries this inherent
sovereignty on his back and stamps it on
his new territorial abode--much more, that
if two or three Of such sovereign come-out-
ers gather together in any unoccupied do
main, or two on three thousand, or twenty
OK thirty thousand of them. they stamp their
aggregate sovereignty on that territory. -
This, then, is squotter soeereigaty, and its
source is found in the red republican doc
trine Of absolute individual sovereignty. in-
herent in the individual and not derivative
from his nationality. 1t has its origin in
the same set of doctrines, which give the
negro slave the right of running away, mar
ried women liberty to obey the allurements
Of passional attraction, aud which make all
government the mere creature and bauble of
the mob The dogma Of squatter sovereign
ty derives supreme authority in the new
territories from the few scattering adventu-
rers, yagabonds ana outlaws who have ned
there from fear Of punishment quilted gov
eminent from resliyeness under It's conser-
Yadva restraints, or sought that fortune be-
You'd the limits Of society, which their inn
prudence, improvidonee want Of thrift, or
want Of honesty had lost them within it
Thus the dogma is not only derived from
vicious source, but rests on vicious popu-