Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1857-03-13
TBe 9ailp spp,
FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 1851.
Progre.. Of sInvchaIding DespO,i.m.

Progress Of SInvehaIdfng DespOIism.
Looking at the vast strides which have been
made BY the slave power towards domination in
this republic, during the last few years, culmina-
ting in the decision of the Supreme Court, in the
bred Scott case, one can come at no other con-
cIusion than that great political and moral cri-
sis in the history Of the country must be close at
hand. unless the people can be sufficiently reused
to reverse. In some legal and constitutional mode,
the recent monsttous edict from the Supreme
Bench The Declaration of Independeneeis now
anullitv. Slavery is now the predominant ma
tional institution, and freedom is but mere
sectional affair, and hardly visible at that. Judg-
ing from late transactions, we think that inteli-
rent foreigners might we'll be pardoned for pro-
nouncng the experiment of a republican govern.
ment. as tried under our present Union and Con-
stitution, failure; not failure, by any means,
on account of the want Of capability in Amer
cans for self-government, but because of the sin
gular admixture of totally opposite elements free
dom and slavery, under the same jurisdiction, the
Consequence of which has been, that owing to the
extreme domineering qualities of the political
leaders in the slaveholding section of the confed-
efaey, united with Northern subseryiency, the
ofthe country, whether in its legislative, execu-
tive, or judicial department.
The successive steps in the progressive march
Of slayeholding despotsm well illustrated in
the change of sentiment made by leading states
men Of the country, on the slavery question, to
adapt themselves to the change of policy of the
time
A dozen years ago the uneonsttutionality of
the restriction of slavery from the territories by
Congress, had not been whispered in any quar-
ter. Leading Southern statesmen, including Mr..
Calhoun, himself. had repeatedly admitted its
constitutionslity. Even so lately as lS47, during
the discussion that year in the Senate the three
million appropriation bill for the Mexican war,
Lewis Cass, the Premier of the present admins
tration, and god father of "squatter sovereignty"
himself endorsed the Wilmot proviso, by avow-
ing his readest anxiety to vote for the bill with
that proyiso attached. The great Michigsnder
was much shagrined because the talking of 9th
ers prevented the taking Of the vote before the
close Of the session, that he might stand right,
as.he desired, before the country, not dreaming
of the great change" which was soon to go
on in his own mind, as well as the minds of
Others, in reference to that question, preparatory
to the next Presidential nomination. And
on his way homeward after the adjournment,
Gen. Cass was very emphatic in declaring his ad
herence TO the Proviso, and his disappointment
in not being able to have the opportunity to re-
cord his vote for it.
Before the commencement of the next session
of Congress, Gen. Cass, in order to accommodate
himself to the change of policy adopted by his
party, and to stand well at Baltimore the succeed
ing May, came out with his letter to A. o. P.
Nicholson Of Tennessee, fercely condemnlng the
Wilmot Proviso principle, as unconstitutional"
and an 'outrage" on Southern rights. 1t was in
this letter that he laid down the famous squat
ter sovereignty" doctrine, that the whole matter
of slavery in the territories ought to be left with
the territorial legislatures to settle it as they saw
fit. This, it was supposed, was the greatest de-
maud the slave power would ever require of its
yotaries. Gen. Cass got the Presidential nom
nation, accordingly in lS4S
But, in significant illustration of the rapid pro-
gress Of slaveholding despotism within the last
few years, the Supreme Court of the Union has
now gravely decided, that as Congress has no
power to exclude slavery from the territories, the
territorial legislature, which is the creature of
Congress, has no power to exclude it Thus is
slavery nationalized, and enabled to obtain
permanent fOothold in the territories, anterior to
the period when preparatory steps are to be taken
for coming into the Union as States.
When things have come to this pass, that
doctrine or policy which was deemed to be the
acme of ro-slavery demand in 1S48, is pronounc-
ed not to be sufficiently pro-slavery, by the su-
preme Court in 1857, on account of the rapid
strides toward complete dominion, which the slave
power has made in nine years-when such state
Of things exhibits ITSELF we may well pause and
consider whether there be left in Republic, as
now administered, enough of public liberty to
make the Union, as it now is, worth longer pre-
serving.