The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1857-09-24
LETTER OF THE PREsIDEET-A STRANGE,
REVELATION.

LETTER OF THE PREsIDENT-A STRANGE.
REVELATION.
The letter of the President in reply to the
New Haven memorialists, contains but singh
paragraph requiring comment. In all the res
ne simply reiterates opinions which everybody
knew that he entertained The Convention
that nominated, and the Party that elected him,
recognised the validity of the body of mer
! claiming to be the Legislature of Kansas. We
never understood Mr.. Buchanan as holding q
different opinion. The plain inference was,
that if elected, his Administration would uphol.
that body, and, if called upon, enforce it's act.
with all the Federal power at its disposal. The
letter to Professor Silliman, avowing this policy
is just what might have been expected could
anybody be simple enough to expect that Mr.
Buchanan, on his advent to power, would shrink
from doing precisely that thing which he had
been chosen to do?
But, there is one paragraph in this docu
ment, which may reasonably excite surprise Ii
announces opinions which he never before pre-
WHICH lis NCilUern SUD-
porters not only dared not countenance, but felt
constrained to repudiate. Referring to the pc
riod of the passage of the Nebraska act, he
says:
Slavery existed at that period, and still ex.
lists, in Kansas, under the Const tuition of the
United States. This point has at last been
finally settled by the highest tribunal known to
our laws. How it could ever have been seri
ously doubted, IS mystery. If confedera
ton OF sovereign States acquire new Terri
tory at the expense of their common blood and
treasure, surely one set of the partners car
have no right 10 exclude the other from its en-.
Joyment, by prohibiting them from taking into
1t whatever is recognised to be property by the
common Constitution. But when the people
the bona tide residents of such Territory-pro.
coed TO frame a State Constitution, then il is
their right to decide the important question for
themselves, whether they will continue, modify
or abolish Slavery. To them, and to them
alone, does this question belong, free from all
foreign interference"
No President of the United States has ever
given utterance 10 doctrines so monstrous as
these. Rocollect, it was the opinion of Henry
Clay, Thomas II. Benton, Daniel Webster, Gen
Cass, Mr.. Douglas, and the most distinguished
leaders of the Wing and Democratic Parties
that the Constitution of the United States
does not carry Slavery with it into Fed
eral Territory = that Slavery having been
legally abolished in Mexico, the law of Free
dom continued to exist IN all the Territory
we acquired from that Power-that Slavery
could exist in Territory only by positive
law-that the Territorial Legislature might
exclude or allow it, at its discretion. This
opinion prevailed throughout the Democrat,
&c Party in the free States, so that when
the Kansas Nebraska act was passed, leaving
the question CT Slavery to be settled by the
People of the Territories for themselves, it was
claimed by that Party as embodying a policy
which would finally result in the freedom of all
the Territories: for leave it to the People, said
they, and will not the free States always com
mand a ajority of the settlers2 Mr.. Buchan-
an was understood to coincide in opinion with
those distinguished men. No one dreamed
that be was Propaganda, in doctrine or pol.
icy. All that his Southern friends claimed for
him wss, that he was perfectly conservative in
relation to Southern nstitutions-pledged to
the policy initiated by General Pierce in re-.
gard to Kansas-committed to the recognition
and support of the so-called Legislature of
Kansas. Now, examine and analyze the para
graph above quoted:
The Constitution recognises and treats
slaves as property.
The Constitution, by its own force, carries
Slavery into United States Territories, and re.
CARDS slaves therein as property.
Slavery existed in Kansas, under the Consfi.
tuition Of the United States, when the Kansas.
Nebraska act was passed.
Neither the People of Territory. nor its
Legislature, so long as it shall remain a Terri.
tory, has the right to interdict Slavery.
This point, or rather these points. have
been finally settled by the highest tribunal
known to our laws"
From all this it follows that, in Mr.. Buchan.
ans opinion, the Mexican law prohibiting Sla-
very in New Mexico and Utah was annulled
by the Constitution of the United States, which
re-estabished Slavery therein that all the acts
hitherto passed by Congress, prohibiting Sla.
very in certain portions of the United States
Territory, were always null and void that
to-day the law Of Slavery exists in Oregon,
Washington, Utah, New Mexico, Nebraska,
and Kansas, and that it is not competen,
for the People or Legislature of any of them to
abrogate this constitutional law, until the mo.
ment arrives for the organization of the Terri
tory into State
And then, with hardihood almost unexam.
pied, Mr.. Buchanan remarks, How it could
ever have been seriously doubted, is mystic
ryl"
When such men as Clay, Webster, Benton
Cass, and Douglas, insisted that Slavery could
exist only BY positive law, and that the Consti
ton did not carry Slavery with it into United
States Territory, we think the mystery is, that
james Buchanan should now intimate for the
first time, that he did not then agree with them.
What! are we to believe that, while he was in
Washington, laboring to secure the extension
of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific
he believed that Slavery existed by and under
the Constitution in all United States Territory
and that Congress had no authority to run sucb
Iine2 Did he then deliberately seek to sub
vert constitutional right by act of Congress
If he held that Slavery exists in all the Terrific
ries of the United States under and in virtue
of the Constitution, and that therefore neither
Congress, nor the People, nor Legislature, of
Territory can prohibit it therein, why did ht
not proclaim the opinion in his letter accepting
the Cincinnati nomination? He knew the
great body of his supporters at the North held